According to the latest report, Google will require most employees to return to designated physical offices three days a week to work. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the company has always said that it hopes that people will eventually be able to return to the office.
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However, many employees have expressed concern and questioned whether a return to brick-and-mortar offices is really necessary. At a recent virtual all-hands meeting, Google CEO Sundar Pichai read out one of the top questions for employees at the company: “Google is making record profits during the pandemic, why do you ( Google management) want to implement an RTO (return to office) policy at this time?”.
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Tech companies, including Google, have done particularly well during the pandemic, thanks in part to a slew of cloud-based collaboration tools that employees have grown accustomed to with the flexibility and ability to spend more time with their families. Now, as many companies force their workers back to work and the labor market continues to tighten, those companies are facing new tests.
Moreover, two-thirds of employers say they expect employees to become “near-full-time employees” again. But half of the employees said they would look for new jobs if necessary. Clearly, there is a serious disconnect between employers and employees in terms of return to work.
Google, Microsoft, Amazon’s return to work policies have changed many times
Many companies have changed their policies several times before returning to the office. In June 2021, Amazon withdrew its original plan to return to work and notified regular employees that the company would allow them to return to the office three days a week without requiring a full-time presence.
Amazon said at the time that it was “continuously learning and evolving.” In October, Amazon said the decision would be left to individual teams.
Microsoft and Google have added a 30-day “transition period” to make it easier for employees to adjust to returning to brick-and-mortar offices. Google made its first attempt to bring employees back to the office last spring, before a resurgence of Covid-19 infections in the United States.
At the time, Google said employees could apply to work remotely for up to 12 months, but would only be approved in “the most exceptional circumstances.” They can also be called back to the designated office at any time.
Since then, though, the tone of Google’s management seems to have softened. Google said the company has approved 85 percent of employee requests to relocate or permanently telecommute.
In a recent memo to employees, Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s executive in charge of the search, advertising, and commerce, wrote: “You are all grown-ups, and we trust that you will do something to yourselves, Make the right decisions for your families and your lives while respecting the new baseline. We don’t expect to be 100 percent in the mix of three days a week back to the office, two days working remotely.”
In the plenary, Pichai said: “People really want to communicate and collaborate, so we’re trying to balance that. We’ll continue to monitor developments on those fronts very closely.”
Moreover, Pichai also said part of the reason for returning to the office is to let people get to know their colleagues. “In the past two years, we’ve hired more people, and many of them have no idea how the company works,” he said.
Even Twitter, which announced in 2020 that employees could telecommute “forever”, told employees last month that “distributed work is going to be very, very difficult.” New chief executive who took over from Jack Dorsey late last year Executive Parag Agrawal said he had hoped to see people in the office because working in person would be “a powerful way to bring this culture to life”.
Proceed with caution and wait for other companies to go first
Some companies are waiting, carefully watching what their peers will do before making any big decisions, said Robert Half executive Slabinski. Amazon, for example, has yet to announce a new return-to-office date.
Slabinski explained: “I think someone has to take the first step and successfully bring people back to the office. When Amazon started seeing employee turnover, they backed off. Now Google is asking people to come back to the office. Brick-and-mortar offices, and hopefully the rest of the tech industry joins in so that it’s no longer a reason for employees to quit.”
Another challenge for employers is synchronizing schedules. Apple has designated Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays as business days, while other tech companies have been vague about it.
Colin Yasukochi, executive director of real estate firm CBRE, said he expects competition in the U.S. commercial real estate market in San Francisco to become more intense in the second and third quarters because of demand at that time. Feel higher.
“They’re all playing it safe in a way because they don’t want to lose key employees,” Yasukozy said. “When some people experience an empty office, they end up not seeing the point of going back to the office.” Bon Reich’s San Francisco office is “slightly better” and is now about 20 to 30 percent full.
Redesign the office space to be more like a hotel or living room
With the number of Americans “quitting their jobs and looking for new opportunities” at an all-time high, it’s more important than ever for the tech industry to ensure employee retention and satisfaction. Forcing people to commute will bring additional risks.
“These companies are rolling the dice, and it’s a gamble, and I’m not sure I’d like to do it in this environment,” Slabinski said, adding that smaller companies may have a role in attracting talent. Get the upper hand. While they can’t offer compensation comparable to larger companies, they can offer flexibility and trust to their employees.
Google is reintroducing enviable employee perks. Before announcing new return-to-work dates, Google VP of real estate and workplace services David Radcliffe emailed Bay Area employees announcing fitness centers, free meals, lounges, games On-park amenities such as studios and massage areas will reopen.
There are many signs that other factors that are favorable for employees to return to work are also returning. Brandi Susewitz, founder and CEO of corporate furniture dealer Reset, said her business has more than doubled since December. Most of the firm’s clients are “cautiously optimistic” when it comes to office planning. Reset works with companies like Yelp, Uber, and Oracle.
Sosewitz said she has received a lot of very interesting home requests, such as people wanting “one-person phone booths.” “Companies are no longer assigning fixed seats to employees, but are renovating them into open seating, creating a hotel-like environment,” he said. At the same time, some companies are “redesigning office spaces to feel more like living rooms.”
