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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

#41

Post by reportingsjr »

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…

100% this. There are some loud people trying to say the opposite, but a lot of places have had productivity tank.

I was talking to someone at a large financial company (think 10s of thousands of employees). Their workplace productivity went through the floor when things went work from home. They were willing to allow work from home for now to keep people safe, but will not be continuing in the future due to the efficiency loss.

A lot of people don't want to hear this, but it's the truth.

Work from home where I work has been kind of awful from a communication and camaraderie standpoint, even though the company was already rather heavily invested in remote work, Google chat, etc.

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

#42

Post by brianwawok »

jaegerpicker wrote: post #8
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…

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

Live in an area with a better commute. Mine is 8 minutes.

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

#43

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

amscanne wrote: post #40
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.

“Essential” means your boss expects you to.

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

#44

Post by Bluecobra »

eli wrote: post #3
ggm wrote: 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.

I don’t give a rat’s behind about free food and entertainment. It’s nice, but being able to avoid the chaos of an open office and a long commute is nicer.

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

#45

Post by compiler-guy »

ketamine__ wrote: post #31
Cookingboy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not really binary though. I can be somewhat more or less effective depending on my work environment.

It's also possible that wfh was beneficial in the short term, with projects already mostly planned and the benefits of in-person collaboration continuing via inertia, but will be detrimental long term. Maybe. I don't know.

And that is the big kicker to me: too many unknowns to definitively say one way or the other.

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

#46

Post by baetylus »

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%?

What constitutes an excellent tech culture in your view? Just curious

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

#48

Post by jollybean »

They also 'save' money by jamming people into noisy open office formats.

This is the CFO's way of looking at it; it's a data point, but not the big one.

Overwhelmingly the issue will boil down to material productivity, not so much 'cost'.

Whichever mode of working is more productive is definitely the 'best' option, whether or not it saves or costs a few beans.

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

#49

Post by compiler-guy »

Bluecobra wrote: post #44
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.

I don’t give a rat’s behind about free food and entertainment. It’s nice, but being able to avoid the chaos of an open office and a long commute is nicer.

The value people find in the Google perks is definitely mixed and vary from person to person, and hard to know what the net-net result is. I personally hate to deal with lunch and breakfast (but cook dinner all the time). So the food was a great bonus for me.

I get that this isn't true for everyone.

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

#50

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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