Microsoft to Start Bringing Employees Back to the Office

Mr. Capossela said the company was ready to start reopening because of the high vaccination rates for Covid-19 in King County, where most of the company’s Washington-based employees live, as well as declining hospitalizations and deaths in the state.

In September, Microsoft said it would be indefinitely postponing reopening of its Redmond, Wash. headquarters. The company had months before anticipated reopening its U.S. offices in October but decided against it as the Delta variant surged.

The company’s Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, Calif., will fully open on Feb. 28, the blog post said.

Many large employers are beginning to call workers back to corporate campuses. Expedia Group Inc. EXPE 2.92% told employees Monday that it will expect staffers to work from its Seattle headquarters and other offices, on a hybrid basis, beginning April 4. Employees will be asked to work from an office at least 50% of the time, while working out scheduling details with their individual teams, an Expedia spokeswoman said.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. has said that it plans to fully reopen its U.S. campuses at the end of March, though it has also given many employees the option to do their jobs remotely, or to temporarily push back an office return by three to five months.

Other large tech companies have delayed recent plans for office reopening. In December, Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 0.52% Google delayed its scheduled return-to-office efforts that were supposed to start Jan. 10. Also that month, Apple Inc. AAPL -0.30% delayed its return to the office and closed several retail locations.

Write to Aaron Tilley at [email protected] and Chip Cutter at [email protected]