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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

#51

Post by zem »

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…

on the other hand i feel vastly more productive with not spending 2-3 hours every day commuting. i will miss wfh, even though being around my teammates is nice for other reasons.

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

#52

Post by sdenton4 »

threatofrain wrote: post #5
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 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.

The less obvious nicety of company cafeterias is that employees can talk about confidential things without worrying about being overheard... It's very good for encouraging collaboration.

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

#53

Post by lukeschlather »

sjg007 wrote: post #28
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 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.

My company has OKRs directly focused around improving serendipity and cross pollination lost due to Covid WFH.

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

#54

Post by aerosmile »

newsclues wrote: post #21
marmshallow wrote: post #6

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?

In all disciplines? No. Take someone who works in branding and is a part of a 20 member team. How long does it really take to come up with a new copy? 20 minutes? 2 hours? 20 hours? And is it really better to incentivize people to spend only 20 mins, or is there value in giving them 20 hours? Finally, how would you measure which option is better when most copy is not A/B tested. I am just using one random example, there are so many out there where performance evaluation is as much about your day to day observations as it is about measurable output.

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

#55

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#56

Post by amscanne »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #43
amscanne wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Interesting. I work at Google and never saw such an expectation (though it’s just my experience). I suspect most travel at large companies is dominated by individuals making decisions about what allows them to be most effective in accomplishing their goals (as long as it’s aligned with company travel policies).

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

#57

Post by pomian »

sjg007 wrote: post #28
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 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.

What's OKR?

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

#58

Post by erhk »

Cookingboy wrote: post #25
tyingq wrote: post #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. 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.

I think any google leader who read the original post would not believe it, especially given the purely speculative nature

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

#59

Post by adamesque »

pomian wrote: post #57
sjg007 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's OKR?

Objectives and Key Results. The things you choose to optimize for during any given planning period.

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

#60

Post by flukus »

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.

> No commute alone is a MASSIVE gain.

This is a huge one for me and anyone more productive in the morning, I'm no longer wasting an hour of my most productive time just getting to work. Then you've got the extra 2 hours a day to relax and get various things done that also make me more productive.

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