BOSTON — Fidelity Investments, which employs thousands of people in Massachusetts and across New England, is telling its workers to keep working from home, due to rising COVID cases.
In an email to its workforce, Fidelity says “voluntary re-entry is paused.”
“As a result of increasing risk signals in our New England regions, we are taking extra caution and temporarily asking all associates in Boston, Merrimack (NH) and Smithfield (RI) voluntary re-entry programs to resume working offsite, beginning Monday... our associates who are participating in voluntary re-entry or working onsite in one of our New England regional offices: Please resume working offsite beginning Monday, Dec. 13.”
The email cites rising case counts as a reason behind the move. “As we have shared throughout the pandemic, safety remains our top priority. In addition to posting weekly regional Risk Scores, we continually monitor conditions in our regions.”
Fidelity is also telling workers who were not yet scheduled to return to offices yet to sit tight, and work from home: “If you were scheduled to start on a future date, continue to work at home. We will notify you when we restart re-entry, so you may return to the office.”
A Fidelity spokesman tells Boston 25 that essential workers will still be in the offices, “security, facilities management, operations.”
“I want to be clear that we have not cancelled any return to office plans as we have not set a date for return to offices” said Michael Aalto who is Vice President Enterprise External Communications for Fidelity Investments
“Voluntary pilots representing thousands of employees are still taking place in other locations across the country. In terms of our general approach on return to offices, we are focused on the safety of associates and customers as a top priority. We will continue to let science and data drive our decision-making, and our return to offices is focused more on the ‘how’ as opposed to the ‘when,’” said Aalto.
Fidelity is a privately held company, with its headquarters in Boston. The company employs more than 52,0000 associates and has 40 million individual investors.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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