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Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
211–220 of 355 posts
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#212Google 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…
If Google saved that much money and the business didn't see a considerable negative impact (34% increase? Quite the opposite in fact.), then that news should be telling not just for Google, but for every company that previously catered to spoiled employees who jump on an airplane just to have lunch with the customer.
Two lies COVID has forcibly flushed out and helped dispel:
Lie #1: Remote work, cannot work.
Lie #2: Business travel, is a necessity.
It will be interesting to see how the corporate travel whores, spin this post-COVID in order to keep their Triple Diamond Medallion Platinum status.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#213Google 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…
If Google saved that much money and the business didn't see a considerable negative impact (34% increase? Quite the opposite in fact.), then that news should be telling not just for Google, but for every company that previously catered to spoiled employees who jump on an airplane just to have lunch with the customer. Two lies COVID has forcibly flushed out and helped dispel: Lie #1: Remote work, cannot work. Lie #2:…
Your "lies" are missing the "outside of a pandemic" qualifier.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#214Google 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…
If Google saved that much money and the business didn't see a considerable negative impact (34% increase? Quite the opposite in fact.), then that news should be telling not just for Google, but for every company that previously catered to spoiled employees who jump on an airplane just to have lunch with the customer. Two lies COVID has forcibly flushed out and helped dispel: Lie #1: Remote work, cannot work. Lie #2:…
Cigarette companies spent a lot of money on advertising [in Europe]. When cigarette ads were banned, they continued to sell cigarettes, but saved on the marketing budget. Still, it would not have been wise not to advertise beforehand: The level playing field is all that matters. For some reasons, e-cigarettes are allowed to advertise, and the shift to these products is substantial.
So for sales/consulting, it might be fine not to travel to your customer when nobody can. Afterwards, you might want to reevaluate.
(And I am speaking as an ex-consultant that hated corporate travel).
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unsolicited resumes are the most noisy channel of all. TBF I'm somewhat surprised it is even cost effective to keep reading them. But, send an engineer to spend an hour talking at a university and you get a bunch of very promising leads every time. Source: I've been an interviewer in Google for a number of years and talked at a university at some point.
How do you determine promising leads among hundreds? Let’s say for example you send someone to UMinnesota or UMD. What’s the process here to get leads for internships or new grad roles?
The folk hanging around to ask follow-up questions are my bet. Some of the questions really show the person is sharp enough to suggest you can put them into the system.
Obviously this misses the good leads that simply don't care about your today's topic. That's in line with Google's approach being fine with a lot of false negatives.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#216Google 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…
How old are your kids and what are they doing all day?
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#217Google 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.
I agree. I find the claims about WfH being inefficient very amusing.
I work for an international American SW company in Czechia. We have a big office there, but for the first ~8 years there (since 2006), I was the only person working with a team of Americans, or only with a teammate, because they "outsourced" work to us. It was more annoying than WfH today, I remember all the really incomprehensible phone calls (no reliable video, only screensharing), making sure I get everything I need done in the morning so I could batch the questions for afternoon due to time zones, etc. And yet, my bosses were happy about my performance (more than they are today).
(It's interesting when I think about it now, IMHO constant communication can have downsides, too. There is something about having a half day where it's only you who has to solve a problem, and no one can help, you will learn a lot.)
OTOH, I was never a big fan of work from home, but I tried it now and I found it more pleasant with almost no downside. It's very similar to how I used to work in the era of "outsourcing", actually it's much easier.
To sum up, outsourcing was efficient but individual WfH isn't? Gimme a break, of course it's propaganda.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#218I can bet that $1B won't get distributed through salaries, but rather some managers get hefty bonuses and the rest will be reinvested into perfecting manipulation techniques to make us buy products we don't need or want.
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Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#219You 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 thought so myself. But after having spent > 1 year at home I don’t think it’s sustainable. Separating work and home becomes increasingly difficult.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because of Prop 13 those people wouldn't be paying property tax in 10 years I'm not sure what you mean. Prop 13 just caps the annual increase at 2%. I've lived in California and owned property here for 30 years. I pay property taxes.
If the annual increase is capped at 2% and inflation is >2% then the value reaped by property tax will eventually go to 0. Similar to how if you rent the same place for long enough and it's rent controlled your rent effectively gets cheaper even though it's going up.
Can't they game their way around that though by just increasing the assessed the value of the property? That's how my town effectively raises property taxes beyond the statutory limits. Sure you can appeal the assessed valuation but most people don't. It is expensive and time-consuming.