Twitter Ireland MD: Real concerns for remote workers

Workers nearing 12 months of working from home

Covid-19 has accelerated many of the future-of-work trends, particularly remote working.

The head of Twitter in Ireland said there would be long-term consequences from the mental impact of people working from home due to Covid-19.

As many workers near the first anniversary of working from home, Sinéad McSweeney said she had real concerns over the isolation they face. 

Ms McSweeney is Twitter's vice-president for Public Policy and managing director of Twitter Ireland, where almost 200 people are employed, based in Dublin. The social media giant employs almost 5,000 people worldwide, all of whom were told to work from home at the end of February last year as it became clear the virus would spread across the globe.

"We were tracking the disease and it was clear it was going to work its way to Ireland," Ms McSweeney said. "Our CEO decided that our contribution would be to reduce the mobility of our workforce. That was before any government decisions on working from home."

"At Twitter, everyone is working from home. We have very, very few people outside of our data centres who are working in an office setting and that is likely to continue for a while, although we have started reopening offices in Asia," she said.

Ms McSweeney said there were clear concerns about the impact on mental health that the working arrangements is having on people.

Sinéad McSweeney: 'I am really concerned about the isolation as so many are living alone or living with people they may not know very well.'

"It hasn't changed the nature of the work we do but it has changed, to an extent, how we work. For me, as a leader, the biggest challenge is looking after the teams, not just my own public policy teams, but the wider Dublin team."

"Because I don't have the ability to see how people are. 

I am really concerned about the isolation as so many are living alone or living with people they may not know very well. 

"Then you have others worrying about their parents and others with children. There is an awful lot of those challenges and I think there will be medium and long-term consequences out of that.

Ms McSweeny made her remarks at UCC's annual Commerce Conference, which took place virtually on Thursday. The theme of the event was 'Transitioning with the Times'.

She was joined in a panel discussion with business consultant Laura Tynan and Emma Cahalane, chief of staff of HR tech firm Pyn.

Anne O’Leary CEO of Vodafone Ireland, also addressed the conference, speaking about the impact of Covid. 

The digital transformation that we had to make, that probably would have taken us five years as a business [before Covid]. We did it in a year, a month."

"I think Covid-19 has accelerated many of the future-of-work trends, particularly remote working. 

"Greater employee autonomy and flexibility on how and where they work. Increasingly important is the societal role of an employer in supporting people inside while at work, but also working remotely."

Ms O'Leary said they see a future hybrid model of working for Vodafone staff where some will be in the office and some will work remotely. "We will provide our own people with flexibility to manage their days as they wish, to manage how they work, our policies and activities will support a culture of flexibility.” 

John Goulding, the CEO and founder of Workvivo, which provides internal employee communication software, said he had seen benefits of working remotely. “We've ended up winning one of the largest sports brands in the world recently, we did it from Cork, we'd never met them physically in the sales process, contract process," he said.

"It presents a massive opportunity where we're competing with some of the biggest companies in the world, from Cork, without ever needing a major presence in the US and I think that's a spectacular opportunity.”

“Hard work can’t be underestimated. I don’t think there are any shortcuts. You out-prepare your competition," Mr Goulding said.