Google was one of the first major companies to send its employees to work from home in the first days of the pandemic. Now the company wants to get employees back into the office. However, some of them said they had no intention of returning. While many tech companies like Microsoft and Twitter have announced plans to give employees the option to work from home permanently, Google has balked. The company does not want employees to work remotely on a permanent basis.
Frustrated employees have spoken out on social media. “I spoke to some of my colleagues at Google. They say they will quit if they are forced to return to offices in September," Chris Broadfoot tweeted. Broadfoot works as a cloud programmer for Google. Other employees joined the conversation and corroborated the statement.
Half a dozen Google employees spoke to Business Insider about this. They asked to remain anonymous as they were not authorized by Google to speak to the press. However, everyone shared a similar opinion in this regard. They said they also know colleagues who moved during the pandemic and can't come back to the office at all. "Many of my colleagues have moved away with no intention of coming back," said one of the employees. "Especially in the 30s and 40s age group." The same employee said he even resigned himself. He had expressed a desire to work at a location outside of the Bay Area, but his manager turned it down.
Google has released conflicting information
Another employee said at least two executives in his department had moved permanently during the pandemic. They didn't expect to return to the office, he said. Google had informed employees that they are expected back in the office by September 2021. Last December, however, the company announced that it would like to test a new flexible model in which employees should only work in the office three days a week.
Since then, however, Google has disclosed few details about the new rule. Now the employees are urging management to respond. Google has never confirmed offering remote work to anyone who wants it. But as the deadline for employees to return to offices has been repeatedly pushed back, some have moved anyway. They bet that Google would eventually follow other companies in their home office policy.
Facebook, for example, announced last year that it would allow employees to apply to work full-time from home. "There are already employees who are leaving the company because they don't want to wait until September," said a Google employee. "They want to get on with their lives." A Google spokesperson said the company will be experimenting with a number of projects related to remote work. However, he also explained that nothing had changed in the existing regulation.
Google wants to be flexible — employees want to know how flexible
According to some Google internal surveys, there are also employees who want to return to the office. In one such poll, conducted in 2020, 62 percent said they plan to return to the office. However, only eight percent stated that they wanted to return to the office full-time. In recent months, CEO Sundar Pichai has continued to hint that Google is considering a flexible design when employees return.
Since then, questions about remote work have been repeatedly asked of senior management. "Almost every meeting the question of remote work post-pandemic comes up," said one employee. At an all-hands meeting last October, Pichai said he still sees the majority of 'Googlers' clustered in one office. However, the company plans to expand the number of offices to give employees more flexibility. "And beyond that, we're also thinking about the question, 'What does hybrid flexible work mean in this context?'" he added.
Since that statement, employees have been urging management to clarify how flexible Google wants to be and whether the three-day office rule should be applied evenly across the company. However, employees said they have not received any replies so far. "Because there are no clear guidelines and communication is rather slow, we are all guessing what to do," said one employee.
Google has plenty of reasons to stick with office work, with its open office culture stocked with amenities like snacks and sleeping bags. One employee said splitting teams between office and remote work could create an uncomfortable dynamic. Google has continued to invest in physical workspaces during the pandemic. It has also expanded its Mountain View, California headquarters with plans for a new campus in San Jose.
"Right now I'm leading people in eight cities spread across five time zones. What reason do I have for being in an office?”
On this week's closing first-quarter conference call, Ruth Porat, who serves as CFO of subsidiary Alphabet, said the subsidiary plans to expand by 2021 5, 8 billion euros to invest in offices and data centers. "We value bringing people together in the office," she told an analyst during the earnings call. "And we're looking at a hybrid work-from-home/work-from-office model."
However, some of the employees have already taken the plunge and moved away from their offices while awaiting replies. They don't intend to go to the office for even three days. "I have no intention of driving to Seattle every day so I can hop from one tiny room to another on phone calls," tweeted Justin Beckwith, a Google engineering manager. “Right now I'm leading people in eight cities spread across five time zones. What reason do I have for being in an office?”
Forcing employees back into the office could also mean losing talent to employers with more flexible regulations. Three Google employees reported that they've been getting more messages from recruiters at other companies emphasizing their remote work policies. "I think if they recall all the employees in September, they will suffer a talent drain," said one of those employees. "If I don't have an opportunity to work remotely at Google by next spring, I'll look at other opportunities," said another, who was planning to move with his family.
At the moment, Google is still letting its employees voluntarily return to the reopened offices. However, employees must first pass a health screening and commit to following new health guidelines. For those who don't want to return just yet, it's a waiting game. "It divides a large part of the workforce," said one employee. “There are people who position themselves on the returnee side and people who are more in favor of remote work. And internally there are disputes because the management has not committed itself to a uniform plan and is sticking to it. People don't know what September will be like."
This article was translated from English and edited by Julia Knopf. You can read the original here.
