Social media company Twitter on Tuesday said it will allow employees who can work from home to do so “forever”, as the coronavirus outbreak forces unprecedented changes in work culture across the world. The social media company said it will not open most offices before September and employees can choose whether or not to come to the facilities after that.

“We were uniquely positioned to respond quickly and allow folks to work from home given our emphasis on decentralization and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere,” the company said in a blog post. A spokesperson from Twitter told The Guardian the company was “one of the first companies to go to a work-from-home model” because of Covid-19, but does not anticipate being one of the first to return to its offices.

Twitter has “strongly encouraged” working from home since March 2 and has now informed all employees globally they “must” work from home, the company said. Employees who prefer to work remotely can now do so indefinitely. Those who want to return to the office will probably need to wait until at least September, it added. “When we do decide to open offices, it also won’t be a snap back to the way it was before,” the company said. “It will be careful, intentional, office by office and gradual.”

The microblogging website also announced that it will not have business travels before September, with very few exceptions, and no in-person company events for the rest of the year.

The change comes as strict lockdowns enforced to contain the pandemic around the world have changed the way businesses function, with companies weighing how to manage their offices in the near future. Google and Facebook have extended their work-from-home policies into 2021, while Amazon has extended it until at least early October.

Covid-19 has infected more than 42.59 lakh people globally and claimed 2.91 lakh lives, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.

Follow today’s updates on the pandemic here