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Google employees who work from home could lose money

reuters.com

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Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#231

Post by nend »

Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #140
boplicity wrote: post #99

The cost of commuting on the environment is extremely high. We should be offering incentives to companies to switch to remote work. If 20% of jobs permanently switched to remote, the impact on carbon emissions would be immediate, and extremely positive.

I'm used to the conversation in here being extremely US-centric, but realize that this is much less true for European cities with good public transportation. I haven't ever used a car to go to work in my life. I'm also very concerned about this better world where people stay home to save the planet. The common level of social interactions in the modern world is already low enough in my opinion. EDIT: It rarely happen…

I agree with your overall point, but as a (nearly middle aged) American, I've almost never commuted by car or lived in a single family house as an adult.

And frankly I'm sick of being lumped in to large generalizations of America that simply don't apply to me or millions of other people living here.

The media (including social media, and the internet) largely consists of the most divisive and stereotyped parts of life. America doesn't consist solely of highways and single family communities. There isn't just one "American lifestyle."

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#232

Post by ashtonkem »

chitowneats wrote: post #221
ashtonkem wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also awful timing. After what, 18 months of productive WFH now they want to cut salary?

If Google felt that WFH had no negative effect on productivity, they could go the route of Twitter and others. The C-level clearly disagrees that this arrangement is ideal for the company, and are disincentivizing it with pay cuts.

I think that the c suite makes these decisions on a much more emotional basis than they let on.

Honestly, I think they’re sad seeing their big, expensive office spaces not being fully utilized, and want to be able around and physically see workers working.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#233

Post by haswell »

lelanthran wrote: post #143
peakaboo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone picks jobs based on top salary. I wouldn't work for Google even if they doubled my salary.

> Not everyone picks jobs based on top salary. I wouldn't work for Google even if they doubled my salary. So? I don't really like this kind of non-response response. It's like the guy who joins every conversation to point out that they don't, in fact, own a TV (Onion article, look it up). I mean, sure, there are people who have enough that they won't take a new job for double the money, but they are so few and far be…

> I mean, sure, there are people who have enough that they won't take a new job for double the money

You’re making a big leap (and judgement here) by assuming willingness to take lower pay is primarily based on already “having enough”. I know plenty of folks who find most of FANG highly distasteful and would never take a job there despite not “having enough”.

> When you say you won't even consider doubling your salary because you don't want to work for a perfectly legal company

“Perfectly legal” has little bearing on how ethically or morally a company behaves. Most folks don’t use legality as a measuring stick when evaluating the merits of say, a payday loan company, and that measuring stick shouldn’t be used here, either. Amazon is a “perfectly legal” company well known for poor working conditions and major work/life balance problems.

> You are NOT saying anything about your principles, even though you think you are.

What makes you believe this? OP made a salient point: many people do not in fact choose jobs purely based on salary. Anecdotally I know this to be true, and whether or not there are people willing to take those jobs has no bearing on a principled stance taken by someone that chooses to prioritize those principles.

I also can’t cast aspersions on someone willing to work there, but arguably it’s a good thing that at least some folks stick to their principles. Admittedly this is easier to do when you “have enough”, but it’s insulting to those who don’t to assume this is the only factor in making principled decisions.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#234

Post by [deleted] »

Necromant2005 wrote: post #181
dsr_ wrote: post #44

Class A office space in Manhattan is about $70/sqft, and the average office employee gets 150 sqft allocated (desk, hallway, conference room, supply closets...) Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space. No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange de…

Sounds funny. The real reason for google office is unlimited work, you have food, relax aka dance/yoga classes on site. It’s not necessary to have a home. Home is a rudimentary stuff for google workers. The whole your life is your work. It’s great for a company. But keep8ng employees on long distance force people to look around: on a local restoran, outside activities, local community. And in one moment person who wa…

[deleted]

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#235

Post by ajmurmann »

Despite the headlines, this has little to do with companies taking advantage of remote workers to safe cost and more with companies using pre-pandemic comp mechanisms in a post-pandemic. Comp in the vast majority of companies is based on cost of labor in the market the employee is located at. Software developers are cheaper in Alaska than in SF and even cheaper in Costa Rica, Ukraine or India. And yes, also cheaper in Sacramento than in Palo Alto, even though the difference is much much smaller. Companies are just sticking to that model because it requires little changes on their part and there are so many unknowns about how work will look in a few years.

I'd argue that a reasonable model divides roles into ones that benefit from being local and ones that don't. Only ones that need to be local and in person should be subject to local labor costs. Unfortunately, this also might mean that salaries for remote folks will adjust across geographies and could probably roughly align by something like time zones, resulting in lower pay for your average Bay Area developer who's salary is high because they are in the Bay Area and not because they are world class (I expect comp for world class developers to go up regardless of location)

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#236

Post by dqpb »

dqpb wrote: post #196
throwaway_qcjal wrote: post #10

I think this is making a whole lot of out nothing, or at least not much. Google would determine your pay based on your work location, regardless of whether that's your home or the office. As a result people that lived far from the office in a typically less expensive area could see their pay drop.

Do you think they should reduce salary for people who have paid off their mortgage? Those people also have lower cost of living.

I try to avoid commenting on downvotes, but I’m really curious to know. For those downvoting me, what is your job?

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#237

Post by maweki »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #176
Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm used to the conversation in here being extremely US-centric, but realize that this is much less true for European cities with good public transportation. I haven't ever used a car to go to work in my life. I'm also very concerned about this better world where people stay home to save the planet. The common level of social interactions in the modern world is already low enough in my opinion. EDIT: It rarely happen…

Lots of people in Europe also take the car to work. At my work I would say definitely more than 50%.

As other people pointed out: this varies wildly by city or region. In urban areas cars are really not incredibly common. In Berlin you'll find that only 1/3 of people even own a car. Of course, even fewer go to work by car.

In Munich, you'll find 1/2 of people owning a car.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#238

Post by rexreed »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #82
rexreed wrote: post #71

Does this mean employee agreements are up for renegotiating? Salary / compensation for work is the key element to an employee agreement. If employers can change compensation at will without employee consent then the employee agreement is truly meaningless and simply a tool for the employer to wield against the employee. I'd imagine a few employee lawsuits on breach of contract that will test that.

I'd say the logic is "We entered this agreement with the understanding that you would be in the office x% of the time. We would like you to return to the office at that original capacity. If you would not like to do so, we need to renegotiate our agreement." Not that I agree with any of this, nor am I sure that any of this is even written, but that's probably what it is. All of these gigs being at will employment cer…

"With the understanding that" is not a legal framework. Anything that's key to the understanding of a contract needs to be in a contract. Implicit "I always thought that" doesn't hold water.

If I entered into an employee contract with the understanding that I would be given responsibility of a team or project, even though such an understanding was not in the contract, and then the management decides to take away that responsibility, can I say that they are in breach because it was "my understanding" that I would be given responsibility? It would be just as much of an "understanding" as saying that there was an implicit agreement about location of work when that's not in the contract either.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#239

Post by norov »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #216
dsr_ wrote: post #44

Class A office space in Manhattan is about $70/sqft, and the average office employee gets 150 sqft allocated (desk, hallway, conference room, supply closets...) Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space. No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange de…

I think you're vastly overestimating the amount of power employees at Google have. It's one of the most desirable places to work in the world and they routinely turn down quality candidates (similar to ivy league schools). There are plenty of people in smaller tech markets that would work remotely at Google at the reduced rates because it would still result in pay bumps

This is the reason the pay cuts are happening. That is the current market for a remote Google job.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#240

Post by 52-6F-62 »

chitowneats wrote: post #221
ashtonkem wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also awful timing. After what, 18 months of productive WFH now they want to cut salary?

If Google felt that WFH had no negative effect on productivity, they could go the route of Twitter and others. The C-level clearly disagrees that this arrangement is ideal for the company, and are disincentivizing it with pay cuts.

Are you sure it's that simple?

Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing".

It wasn't about extracting productivity, it was about imposing culture.

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