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Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

latimes.com

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Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#11
Guessing Google leadership doesn't believe that, since:

If employees want to work remotely after Sept. 1, for more than 14 additional days per year, they’ll have to formally apply for it, according to a separate note marked “Need to know.” They can apply for up to 12 months in “the most exceptional circumstances.” The company could, however, call employees back to their assigned office at any point, the note said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/31/google-speeds-partial-office...

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#12
post #2

savings of $268m from company promotions, travel and entertainment so.. thats a combination of unnecessary spend, and cost-shifting: some of this, the employees now "self fund" as well as avoid.

At least speaking to just cafeterias, if Google can forecast what their employees would've wanted to spend their money on, and then purchase that more efficiently than they could, then that is a way for Google to transfer increased value to their employees.

If the cafeterias were for the employer convenience, they can purchase it more efficiently by 1/(1 - Tm) where Tm is the marginal income tax rate, which for Googlers is generally over 40% (combined federal and state and Medicare).

If the lunch is worth $12 to the employee, Google would have had to otherwise pay them $20 to leave them with enough to buy lunch after tax if their marginal rate was 40% combined. Google can probably provide it for $10, which is likely at least 50% deductible to Google.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#13
post #4

Google may save $1B this year on the P&L, but I can assure you that a large cohort of employees are vastly less effective (especially parents!). Time will tell how wfh pans out in terms of long-term enterprise value creation, after confounding variables (i.e. COVID) are removed. Source: A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office -- whether parents or people whose social lives centered around…

Parents being less effective would be due to kids being at home, not due to wfh. It's not much of a distinction when it's all due to covid, but long-term the distinction matters for people who go back to out-of-home childcare/education but continue to wfh.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#14
post #4

Google may save $1B this year on the P&L, but I can assure you that a large cohort of employees are vastly less effective (especially parents!). Time will tell how wfh pans out in terms of long-term enterprise value creation, after confounding variables (i.e. COVID) are removed. Source: A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office -- whether parents or people whose social lives centered around…

The majority of employees and google as a whole is more productive. Their stock is up 80% in the last 12 months. Do you have a better indicator of productivity correlated to p&l?

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#16
post #4

Google may save $1B this year on the P&L, but I can assure you that a large cohort of employees are vastly less effective (especially parents!). Time will tell how wfh pans out in terms of long-term enterprise value creation, after confounding variables (i.e. COVID) are removed. Source: A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office -- whether parents or people whose social lives centered around…

I can assure you that a much larger cohort of employees are vastly more effective. No commute alone is a MASSIVE gain.

Eh, I'm not so sure. As the parent said, time will tell.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#17
post #4

Google may save $1B this year on the P&L, but I can assure you that a large cohort of employees are vastly less effective (especially parents!). Time will tell how wfh pans out in terms of long-term enterprise value creation, after confounding variables (i.e. COVID) are removed. Source: A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office -- whether parents or people whose social lives centered around…

I can assure you that a much larger cohort of employees are vastly more effective. No commute alone is a MASSIVE gain.

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Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#18
post #3
post #2

savings of $268m from company promotions, travel and entertainment so.. thats a combination of unnecessary spend, and cost-shifting: some of this, the employees now "self fund" as well as avoid.

At google in particular isn’t the on-site food and entertainment a big perk? Seems like even a slightly worse employee retention rate could really cut into this savings.

This is what I wonder about Dropbox. There wasn’t really any particular reason to work there except the food. The RSUs weren’t going anywhere, the technical culture wasn’t amazing, but the food was incredible. In a 100% remote Dropbox, did they bump everybody’s comp by 20%?

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#20
post #4

Google may save $1B this year on the P&L, but I can assure you that a large cohort of employees are vastly less effective (especially parents!). Time will tell how wfh pans out in terms of long-term enterprise value creation, after confounding variables (i.e. COVID) are removed. Source: A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office -- whether parents or people whose social lives centered around…

I can assure you that a much larger cohort of employees are vastly more effective. No commute alone is a MASSIVE gain.

[deleted]
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