Following the lead of Facebook and Google, Swedish music streaming giant Spotify has now let its employees work from home through the end of the year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic to ensure the safety of its employees.
“Earlier today, we announced the extension of our work-from-home arrangement for all Spotify employees globally. We will continue to track local government guidelines city-by-city and take a phased approach of opening our offices when we deem it safe to do so.”, a Spotify spokesperson told Music Business Worldwide.“Our employees’ health and safety is our top priority. No employee will be required to come into the office and can choose to work from home through the end of the year.”
Just like Spotify, other tech giants are also bringing in work from home policies. Twitter, Facebook, and e-commerce platform Shopify have gone a step further to offer permanent work from home option to their employees. However, employees have the option to choose if they’d rather work from the office.
As a step to increase user engagement in the platform amid the coronavirus pandemic, Spotify has introduced a group session feature that lets multiple Spotify Premium users listen to tracks together and control the session.
As MBW points out, the company has almost 4,500 employees as of 2019, with active operations across 79 countries. Spotify recently signed an exclusive multiyear deal with Joe Rogan to bring ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast to the platform. Meanwhile, Apple is currently planning to acquire original podcasts to attract new users to Apple Podcasts.
