Google will move away from largely remote operations and return to campus-focused employment with most workers onsite for at least a few days a week, the company has announced.
Employees can apply to be fully remote, or move to other offices, but those who do may see their compensation cut, the blog post indicated. Google has said most employees could continue working from home until September, and the latest announcement did not change that timeline.
“For more than 20 years, our employees have been coming to the office to solve interesting problems — in a cafe, around a whiteboard, or during a pickup game of beach volleyball or cricket,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a company blog post. “Our campuses have been at the heart of our Google community and the majority of our employees still want to be on campus some of the time.”
Employees whose presence at company sites is not required daily will be put on a hybrid schedule, spending about three days in the office and two days “wherever they work best,” Pichai said in the Wednesday post. Office time will be focused on collaboration, he added. Employees’ product areas and job functions will guide when they come to the office to gather with their teams, he said.
The company’s workspace team has been creating new types of office spaces, Pichai said. One creation undergoing testing is “Camp Charleston,” named for the firm’s giant new tent-topped Charleston East campus beside the longstanding “Googleplex” headquarters complex. Pichai’s blog post shows a photo of the proposed Camp Charleston, with wooden tables, colorful benches, chairs and lush planting, covered by a tent-like roof to create an airy workspace resembling a luxury-camping lodge. Camp Charleston would be used for “larger team gatherings,” the blog post said.
The workspace team is also exploring development of advanced video-collaboration tools to promote effective work between employees on- and off-site, Pichai said.
Google will allow workers to apply for fully remote work, and grant requests if an employee can “support the goals of the team and business,” Pichai said. Employees can also apply to change offices, with requests granted if business goals can be met and the necessary infrastructure is present to support their work, he said.
“Whether you choose to transfer to a different office or opt for completely remote work, your compensation will be adjusted according to your new location,” Pichai said, adding that there will be some “all-remote sub teams.”
Altogether, about 60% of employees will come into the office “a few days a week,” Pichai said.
Pichai did not provide specific dates for when changes will take place, but said employees would get more information by the middle of next month.
Pichai also announced “work-from-anywhere weeks” that will let employees do their jobs from a location other than their main office for up to a month per year, subject to their manager’s approval. “The goal here is to give everyone more flexibility around summer and holiday travel,” Pichai said.
With COVID rates declining in the Bay Area and across much of the U.S., tech firms have been making public some of their reopening plans. Social media titan Facebook in March said it would start reopening Bay Area offices this month on a rolling basis depending on local COVID data, after giving employees world-wide until July 2 to continue working from home. The company is moving to a site-by-site approach to office re-openings, it said.
Office-software giant Salesforce last month said it was extending its remote-work option till December 31 from the end of July, but would start bringing workers back to its headquarters offices in San Francisco’s tallest building this month. A “phased reopening” process worldwide will see employees coming back to desks as local COVID-safety conditions allow, the company said.
Ride-hailing firm Uber opened its new San Francisco headquarters building March 29, after earlier extending its remote-work option until Sept. 13. Uber said it would open its new headquarters at 20% capacity on a voluntary basis.
Twitter has said many workers can choose to work remotely forever.