Google Employees Are Due Back In The Office In September, And Many Are Not Happy About It. Some Are Even Threatening To Quit.
We’ve seen tech worker revolts about everything from toxic corporate cultures to sexual misconduct to workplace clampdowns on political speech. Now, some Google employees are up in arms about a new hot-button issue: remote work. Google Employees Are Due Back In The Office In September, And Many Are Not Happy About It. Some Are Even Threatening To Quit If They’re Not Allowed To Permanently Work From Home, As Hugh Langley Reports:
While tech firms such as Microsoft and Twitter have announced plans to allow employees to work from home permanently, Google has resisted going fully remote, and employees said there’s an increasing sense of frustration among a faction of the workforce. Over the past few months, CEO Sundar Pichai has made other hints that Google is considering a flexible setup when employees return. Since then, questions about remote work have been continually put to leadership, said employees and internal materials viewed by Insider.
“Almost every TGIF or area all-hands, the question gets asked,” one employee said. It’s an interesting turn of events for a company so instrumental in creating Silicon Valley’s cushy workplace trend, where campuses brim with free-to-eat restaurants, laundry service, volleyball courts and massage therapists. As we learned in Google’s blowout Q1 results, having employees work from home saves a lot of money. Google reduced its spending on travel, entertainment and other expenses by $268 million in Q1 as a result of COVID-19.
And while Google’s interactions with employees about the future workplace has been bumpy, the company is apparently on the ball when it comes to the technical aspects of a hybrid workforce. A special “hot desk” prototype created by Google will remember each user’s individual preferences, automatically adjusting things like desk height, monitor tilt, temperature — even the family photos displayed on the Nest Hub device will adjust to whoever the occupant is on any given day. Remote workers of the world, unite … or be shackled to Google’s customizable hot desk.
This news was originally published at Business Insider.