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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

#91

Post by paxys »

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.

These perks are mostly targeted towards younger employees, who don't want to spend time cooking their own food, want to live in the city and use company shuttles to commute, don't care about getting out of the office early to get back to their kids, want to have more options to socialize.

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

#92

Post by paxys »

seedless-sensat wrote: post #82
Bluecobra wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly, I (childishly) felt dependant on the Google office perks. I didn't want to work anywhere else. It was only after the office closed, I reevaluated my priorities, and subsequently quit Google. WFH will impact Google's retention. It is no longer a differentiated company.

On the other hand "Google perks" which were once revolutionary are now standard at every tech company in silicon valley. They stopped being the differentiator a long time ago.

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

#93

Post by spurgu »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #66
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.

Back of the envelope calculation: 100k employees, each spending 10k/year on business travel... $1B. The company could choose not to spend this money even without COVID, but it normally chooses to spend it, presumably because it considers the benefits worth it. Personally, the difference in working atmosphere before and after I visited coworkers from a different country was massive, and likely well worth the travel ex…

That, combined with the change in overall productivity. I don't know what the net is, for me personally it's a neutral since I was working remotely before COVID, but my hunch is that it's an overall negative due to how many people seem to crave the social aspect.

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

#94

Post by gtaylor »

bradlys wrote: post #67
dcolkitt wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a parent, who does WFH, and definitely disagree about the preferability of office work. Sure my kids will occasionally pop their heads in the door to say hello. I guess that's an occasional distraction, which has some small productivity cost. You know what hurts productivity more? The soul-crushing experience of missing out on watching your kids grow up because you're spending all day in an office or commuting. I…

> If you work from 9-6, and commute an hour each way, that basically means you hardly see your kids at all five days out of the week. So live closer to work. Google pays enough for people to do that. The schools are usually better too.

Someone want to tell this commenter how expensive daycare is?

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

#95

Post by jly »

dcolkitt wrote: post #61
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'm a parent, who does WFH, and definitely disagree about the preferability of office work. Sure my kids will occasionally pop their heads in the door to say hello. I guess that's an occasional distraction, which has some small productivity cost. You know what hurts productivity more? The soul-crushing experience of missing out on watching your kids grow up because you're spending all day in an office or commuting. I…

This is exactly the way I feel.

After working at home for ~13 months now, it will be very hard for me to go back to the office. I have young kids at home and getting to spend extra time with them every day is a huge gift, on top of having no commute. There are some negatives, but I feel just as productive and more engaged.

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

#96

Post by rovr138 »

compiler-guy wrote: post #45
ketamine__ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 othe…

>It's not really binary though.

Might be. Depends on the company too.

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

#97

Post by mohuddle »

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…

Working from home has actually increased productivity for the two teams I manage. Far less waisted time with "drive by" coworkers. We're also more flexible with time off when needed.

Add to that my ability to help around the house. Before I was basically absent from the house for 9-10 hours a day M-F. Now I can make my kids lunch, go on a walk with them, or sign off a little early and go to a park.

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

#98

Post by aabhay »

paxys wrote: post #81

Google is saving $1 billion per year because of COVID-19, not because employees are working from home. This is literally mentioned in the article, but the headline is twisted (for clicks no doubt): > During the first quarter, Google parent Alphabet Inc. saved $268 million in expenses from company promotions, travel and entertainment, compared with the same period a year earlier, “primarily as a result of COVID-19,” a…

What about office perks, maintenance of space, renovation, staff, commuter credits, office events, snacks, lunches, dinner, equipment, secretaries, and security?

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

cbozeman wrote: post #84
bradlys wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you work from 9-6, and commute an hour each way, that basically means you hardly see your kids at all five days out of the week. So live closer to work. Google pays enough for people to do that. The schools are usually better too.

> Google pays enough for people to do that. No they don't. Go look up house prices right around campus on Trulia. I would say it's shocking, but disgusting is a more apt feeling.

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by [deleted] »

mohuddle wrote: post #97
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…

Working from home has actually increased productivity for the two teams I manage. Far less waisted time with "drive by" coworkers. We're also more flexible with time off when needed. Add to that my ability to help around the house. Before I was basically absent from the house for 9-10 hours a day M-F. Now I can make my kids lunch, go on a walk with them, or sign off a little early and go to a park.

[deleted]
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