My company (a 100,000+ employees bank) also announced they would introduce a new flexible working program, and every employee would receive around US$500 for their workspace at home. Two days after that I read a news article how my company was giving up 3 floors in their HQ, which equals a monthly rent of US$3 million. Guess it all evens out in the end.
Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
161–170 of 355 posts
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#162Google 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…
Like one expense they saved on is sending out recruiters and engineers to likely thousands of career fairs, recruiting sessions, etc. Nobody would reasonably argue that skipping all of them is a sustainable strategy long term even if it hasn't hurt them much so far.
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Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like one expense they saved on is sending out recruiters and engineers to likely thousands of career fairs, recruiting sessions, etc. Nobody would reasonably argue that skipping all of them is a sustainable strategy long term even if it hasn't hurt them much so far.
With the amount of resumes they get, I'd question how important it is for tier 1 companies. I have gone to career fairs and learned a great deal about companies I had never heard of, but it seems as though Google would just receive thousands of applications per opening and approach it algorithmically anyways. Although I've had contacts get poached via LinkedIn or given challenges from Googling certain tech topics.
Google is one of the most sought after companies, but this is due to them actively advertising Google as a great place to work. Actually talking to someone who works at Google makes it more real and attainable in candidates minds and reinforces Google as a desirable place to work
If Google were to stop attending, they risk newer generations of engineers shifting their perspective on Google, especially these days when most portrayals of Google in the media are negative.
The point of Google attending these events isn't for recruiting. It's to advertise their brand to job seekers. Seeing a bunch of candidates flocking to the Google recruiters triggers FOMO is candidates who might not have been as enthusiastic
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#164Google 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…
Yea commute + kid is the key motivation for WFH for me. My Bay Area commute is 4+ hours per day, depending on traffic. This means in order to guarantee I can be at work for my first 8AM meeting, I need to wake up around 5AM and leave the house at 5:30. My day is over at around 5PM (thankfully I don't work for a workaholic culture start-up), but this still means I'm home by 7:30-8PM most days. I'm basically driving 50% of the time I spend at work, and don't get to see my kid at all besides weekends. It really sucks.
COVID-19 has been a huge quality of life boost for me.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even without a commute, the point still stands. Young kids are usually in bed by around 7, that’s enough time to eat and take a bath, maybe read a story and that’s it.
So what? That's the standard work environment and the reality for most Americans. This has nothing to do with Google or SFBA then.
Maybe the standard work environment has been wrong and should be changed and WFH is the way to do it.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#166You know what WFH is way WAY more for efficient and good for? A employees health, wellbeing and happiness! which imho is more important than profits or the company.
I was the biggest advocate for WFH in the last year but recently I feel pretty down. Life feels so repetitive. Part of it is possibly lockdown, but a bigger part I think is that I have way more free time to think about things. All the shitty things about open office and commuting seemed to serve as a distraction that kept me more occupied. It's weird. I'm not saying WFH is bad, but there are definitely some effects t…
then go drown your tears in triple distilled vodka you big baby.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#167Earlier 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…
We could just let people do whatever they wanted. It is unclear why, having complained about being forced to work from the office, the set of employees happy to work from now think imposing their preferences on everybody else is supposed to be better for everyone.
it isn't the employees imposing their preferences, it's the managers.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#168Earlier 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…
Even when talking about the negative effects of commuting on you and your kids, you frame it in terms of the productivity impact on your employer. Man, talk about Stockholm syndrome. Productivity is not the end all be all. It's ok to look out for yourself.
> 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.
this is truly a fucked up mindset. This is a person who is missing the trees for the forest a long time ago.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#169Google 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…
> (especially parents!) Riiiiight... Kids are often not as big a distraction as the immature coworker(s) who can't be bothered to, you know, shut up and actually work.
My desk was near the ping pong table for a while. shudders
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Senior eng makes $400k+ TC. You're rarely buying a house alone. Most eng at FAANG end up marrying others who are similar. Easy to see $600k+ TC. You can buy a home nearby. Sunnyvale has homes for $2m or less and you can afford it at $600K household. Very reasonable commute. If you want 3000+ sqft and 5-bath homes then yeah, you're out of luck. Hit executive level or startup riches for that one. To act like Google doe…
You're living in a dream world if you think $600K household is the norm in Silicon valley, even for FAANG employees. We are talking about a small percentage of employees (1. those with FAANG spouses) out of a small percentage of employees (2. top leveled, say Google L6+) out of a small percentage of employees (3. engineers) out of a small percentage of companies (4. FAANG). The rest of us, who are not 1 AND 2 AND 3 A…
> You're living in a dream world if you think $600K household is the norm in Silicon valley, even for FAANG employees.
For married couples above 30 with one high TC earner - it's extremely common. You're not marrying a barista in SF if you work at FAANG. I haven't met anyone who is married, above 30, who also works at FAANG, the spouse can legally work in the country, and the household income is below $500K. I know that seems like a lot of qualifiers but basically a married couple that both have working abilities - if one is at FAANG, the other is likely at FAANG or similar (or a doctor or a lawyer or an executive or whatever - very common).
I'd have to really stretch to find anyone who I've met with high TC that isn't also married to another with high TC (besides SAHM/SAHD - where the one earner is usually an exec, so homes are still not too expensive for them).
I'm not talking about non-FAANG employees btw. If you work somewhere that doesn't pay well - then ok. You have to suffer like every other American does. I'm saying that if you work at FAANG - it's a bullshit excuse to commute an hour each way. (I mean - FFS - a lot of them have shuttles where you can clock in on even if you do live further away) It's a choice at that point. They pay you a lot so you can be close to their campus. High earners typically marry high earners. It's financial suicide to do otherwise. (Bye-bye 1/3 of your income for 18 years when you inevitably get divorced)