Putting the Health and Safety of the Okta Community First

Kristina Johnson, March 5, 2020

*Updated March 12, 2020*

Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of the Okta community. That’s why we’ve assembled an internal Health & Safety team to monitor COVID-19, implement policies with an abundance of care and caution, and regularly communicate updates to our global community of employees, customers, and partners. In the spirit of transparency, trust and knowledge sharing, we will post our latest policies here.

About Okta’s Health & Safety Team

This preparedness task force has been in place since January, and we’re constantly reviewing the latest information on the spread of COVID-19. We meet frequently to best determine how to help protect our global community of employees, customers, and partners, and to keep the lines of communication and information flowing.

We monitor and carefully consider advice from the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Department of State, and government and health officials in local communities where our employees live and work.

General Employee Health & Safety Policy:

  • Health is personal, and as always, we encourage employees to take care of themselves. If an employee feels sick or unwell, we encourage them to seek medical advice.

Office Work from Home Policies:

  • To protect the health of our families and communities, as of March 4, we directed employees in our Bellevue office to work from home. We directed employees in our San Francisco, San Jose, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Munich offices to work from home starting March 9. Effective March 12, we directed employees at the remainder of our global offices — Chicago, Sydney, Toronto, and Washington DC — to work from home as well. No visitors will be admitted to our offices until further notice.
  • Thanks in part to our own technology (as well as tools like Zoom and Slack), Okta employees are already able to (and frequently do) work from anywhere, and have the resources and tools they need to do their jobs securely from any device and location.

Current Travel Policy:

  • We restricted all business travel — air and rail — starting March 12 through March 31. While we don't restrict personal travel decisions, we’ve asked all employees to check for applicable travel advisories before traveling.

Current Event Policy:

  • Effective March 12 and through April 30, we are postponing and/or moving all internal and external Okta events online. We are no longer sponsoring any in-person events, and all Okta employees attending or speaking in-person at external events on behalf of the company will cancel their appearance. All Okta-hosted events will move to a virtual format.
  • We are leading the industry on this front, and we feel confident we will create unique, digital experiences to engage our audiences.

Oktane Update:

  • Our annual customer conference, Oktane, is now a virtual event: Oktane20 Live.
  • Every year at Oktane, we look forward to bringing together thousands of IT professionals, product leaders, and developers to discuss the importance of identity. As we’ve followed the spread of the COVID-19, it became clear that, this year, the best way to safely engage with our community is through a unique digital conference experience.
  • Our vision is to enable any organization to use any technology, and we’re applying that focus to Oktane Live: we’ll leverage the best technology to deliver an innovative, virtual attendee experience.
    • Oktane Live will offer our keynotes, dozens of breakout sessions, and ancillary programs online, and will give attendees the opportunity to interact with sponsors virtually as well.
    • The virtual event will be available to anyone, free of charge. Current registered attendees will receive a full conference refund.
    • Pre-conference Training and Certification registrants will be contacted by our Education Services team about learning and testing enrollment options.
  • Replacing the in-person event with dynamic video content will enable us to bring our customers, partners, and employees together in a healthy and productive way. We look forward to sharing our vision, product innovations, and latest customer journeys with virtual attendees online the week of March 30.
  • For more details on Oktane20 Live, check out our frequently asked questions.

We will update this post regularly as we evolve our policies. Many thanks to our employees, partners and customers for their continued support, flexibility and understanding. We hope that you and your families stay healthy.