RALEIGH – All Red Hat employees received an email from the company’s senior vice president and chief people officer Jennifer Dudeck today that stated that the company is “extending its global default to remote guidance” and stating that starting on Monday, August 9, any staff working or gathering in a company office in the United States must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
The company published the full text of the email on its blog.
“Increasingly, proof of vaccination has also become a requirement for customer and partner interactions, and we are working to understand how these requirements will impact Red Hatters,” the email stated.
The default option for employee location will be remote, the email stated, until the first business day of 2022.
“We ask that anyone who can work remotely please continue to do so. We will continue to make available access to offices, customers, gatherings and events where country-level conditions allow, enabling associates to make individual decisions about their best working environment,” the email stated.
The email stated that U.S. employees who have previously returned to a company office in the United States will be contacted next week “with details on how to affirm your vaccination.”
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The company will also continue a mask mandate for workers, noting in the email masks are required to be worn “when engaged in in-person work interactions with others, whether in the office, with customers, when gathering with other Red Hatters, and when attending events.”
Arvind Krishna, the CEO of Red Hat parent company IBM, said in April that the vast majority of workers wouldn’t return full-time to in-person offices. IBM updated policies in June to note that vaccinated workers could return to work, without wearing masks, in September. IBM has not commented to WRAL TechWire about whether they would change their plan or their policies.
