As many of its corporate siblings leave open their deadlines to return to the office, or push things back to next year, T-Mobile is “highly encouraging” its workforce to get vaccinated and return to the office as soon as possible.
The Bellevue, Washington-based company is requiring vaccines at its “badge-controlled” offices and customer service locations until at least March 1, 2022. The policy does not apply to T-Mobile retail stores, where T-Mobile encourages vaccination and requires employees and customers to wear masks if they are not vaccinated.
T-Mobile has delayed a required return to office from September 20 to October 25. After that, employees will need special approval to continue working remotely.
The Seattle Times first reported the news. T-Mobile separately confirmed its plans.
“As we took the step of requiring vaccinations in our offices, we added additional time to our previously announced return-to-office deadline of September 20 and extended the date to October 25,” a T-Mobile spokesperson said. email in response to a GeekWire inquiry. “However, we are still encouraging vaccinated employees to return to the office from now on.”
The spokesperson said: “Employees, of course, make their own health decisions and can request to continue working remotely during this time period, which will be approved based on their role and circumstances.”
The company will require employees working in the office to provide proof of vaccination before October 25, and likely sooner, the spokesperson said.
Many companies previously planned to bring employees back to the office on a regular basis this fall, but the rise of the Delta COVID-19 variant thwarted their plans.
Companies like Amazon and Expedia have now delayed their returns to the office until January 2022. Microsoft, Redfin and others are leaving their timelines open, promising to give employees ample notice when they set new dates.
The policies apply to the broad workforce of those companies. In many cases, individual employees can go to the office if they get vaccinated.
