It's hard to quantify the potential loss of productivity or collaboration caused by working from home, though. No way to find out either, unfortunately.
Can we not judge output?
Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
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Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#22Google 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.
I can assure you all these "assurances" are just based off personal preferences and anecdotal stories.
There are pros and cons with office work and WFH, and some people prefer one over the other. A full remote arrangement isn't for everyone, despite how the overwhelming number of introverts on HackerNews paint it as the objectively the best way going forward for all companies.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#23There's a lot of employee travel at big companies. Many times of the year you can hardly book a hotel room around Mountain View/Sunnyvale/Palo Alto. I think the pandemic has shown how non-essential a lot of that really was.
It will be interesting to see how much previously considered necessary patterns are restored.
On site employment, car loans and car payments, expensive rent in poorly managed or unsustainable counties—the potential for behavioral change is enormous.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#24savings 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.
Man, they forecasted that a *lot* of us wanted to eat kale.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#25Guessing 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. ht…
>Google leadership doesn't believe that
What do you mean. Obviously they believe the $1B in cost saving. But what they do also believe is that the value generated by people being in the office will exceed the obvious short term costs.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can assure you that a much larger cohort of employees are vastly more effective. No commute alone is a MASSIVE gain.
I can assure you all these "assurances" are just based off personal preferences and anecdotal stories. There are pros and cons with office work and WFH, and some people prefer one over the other. A full remote arrangement isn't for everyone, despite how the overwhelming number of introverts on HackerNews paint it as the objectively the best way going forward for all companies.
Please don't frame the community as being on one side of a divisive issue (invariably, the side the commenter disagrees with). It's a trope of lame discussion. You can make your case for the view you think is correct without that.
The community is divided on divisive issues. It's as simple as that.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#27I have worked from home for 15 years. I’m glad to see it is a serious option now.
I know it isn’t for everyone though.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#28Google 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 disagree. Also most projects are distributed across multiple sites and orgs. In person meetings were always team based and guess what they still are wfh. You lose serendipity and cross pollination but I don’t think companies actually optimize for that. I mean it’s not an OKR nor performance goal.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#29Always remember: numbers without context are meaningless. Google had 180bn revenue in 2020.
In normal circumstances , even with much more WFH, they'd still pay for regular company get togethers. They'd pay for more satellite offices. They'd pay for conferences because making cross industry connections and promotion is important.
These savings don't mean much. Even more so if they lead to a potential dip in efficiency (not arguing that's the case, mind you) or reduced employee retention. Less personal engagement leads to less attachment to the company.
The effects of that are barely visible after a year.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#30"Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home AND losing $1.4B because advertising is less due to COVID" - there, I fixed the title for you.
I am pretty sure Google would love to spend 1B to gain back 1.4B, they must be doing something right with those perks.