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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

#31

Post by ketamine__ »

Cookingboy wrote: post #22
jaegerpicker wrote: post #8

Earlier 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.

Most employers don't give workers a choice when it comes to open floor plan. And yet everyone sucked it up and did it to pay the bills.

My point is this: If you have to be effective working remotely you will be effective working remotely.

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

#32

Post by northerdome »

That is some very, very back of the envelope math that ignores a lot of factors. For example, the idea that Google will indefinitely suspend promotions is preposterous. And the idea that taking exceptional financial numbers from the beginning of the pandemic and multiply by 4 to get a meaningful "annualized" figure only makes sense in a 4th grade math textbook. I hate click bait headlines that use exceptionally exaggerated facts.

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

#33

Post by bpodgursky »

guyzero wrote: post #10

There'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.

I think a big question is not how essential it is in a vacuum, but how important sales travel is in a competitive landscape.

ie, sales would work equally well if everyone did it via Zoom calls. But if one competitor is willing to send reps in-house for in-person meetings, and the rest are just scheduling Zooms... I can see the industry quickly collapsing back into constant sales travel, if there's even a small marginal gain from face-to-face meetings

(or dinners, or drinks, or whatever else sales reps do to close a deal)

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

#34

Post by dougbarrett »

jedberg wrote: post #7
beambot wrote: 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…

Those parents may be a lot more productive once their kids go back to in person school and after school activities that keep them away from 8-5.

Maybe for older kids that are involved in extracurricular activities, but for younger kids that won't be the case. With a 4 year old starting pre-k this fall, I'll be lucky to have a distraction free work environment from 9-2 daily.

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

#35

Post by tdeck »

jeffbee wrote: post #18
eli wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%?

They gave them a debit card that covers $1.75k in expenses (groceries, meals, exercise equipment, etc...) every 3 months. Or at least that's what I heard from my brother who works at Dropbox.

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

#36

Post by tdeck »

sokoloff wrote: post #12
threatofrain wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Although in an odd twist Google catering charged teams $40+/head for a so-so buffet dinner. I assume the ordinary culinary is much more cost effective.

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

#37

Post by guyzero »

bpodgursky wrote: post #33
guyzero wrote: post #10

There'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.

I think a big question is not how essential it is in a vacuum, but how important sales travel is in a competitive landscape. ie, sales would work equally well if everyone did it via Zoom calls. But if one competitor is willing to send reps in-house for in-person meetings, and the rest are just scheduling Zooms... I can see the industry quickly collapsing back into constant sales travel, if there's even a small margin…

I'm sure there's a lot of sales travel at places like G but I feel like G in particular doesn't have a lot of sales travel. A lot of the travel is just employees working together for whatever internal tasks.

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

#40

Post by amscanne »

guyzero wrote: post #10

There'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.

What does “essential” mean? I don’t think anyone viewed travel as essential — they just viewed it as “worth it” to facilitate collaboration/communication, build relationships, etc. This is still easier in person.
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