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Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

reuters.com

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Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#111

Post by ejb999 »

I have been fully remote my entire career (several decades), in fact in 30+ years have never been on site anywhere for more than 2 weeks total. Wouldn't have it any other way.

But as a counter-point, seeing a whole bunch of people who were never remote before, how little work they are actually doing, it is no surprise to me that a lot of employers are going to start forcing - to the extent possible - employees back into the office.

I think a small percentage of people are self-motivated, and more productively at home, but watching this all play out for the last 2 years makes me realize that an awful lot of people are going to try to get away with absolutely anything they can - including working as little as possible - when allowed to be on their own. I have had coworkers literally disappear for days at a time, miss meetings for weeks at a time, constantly miss deadlines etc - and as a manager, that is very hard to manage underperformers with a remote work force.

Remote work isn't for everyone, and unfortunately there is a non-trivial percentage of the workforce that actual does need someone watching over them to make sure they do what they are supposed to be doing each day.

Let's hope they don't ruin it for the rest of us.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#112

Post by anothernewdude »

Use your time with temporary remote work to find permanent remote work. Avoid places that pay based on where you live.

And frankly, given what people I know say about working at google, I don't think they could pay enough to put up with their organisational issues.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#113

Post by 908B64B197 »

itsangaris wrote: post #29
bubblicious wrote: post #14

this is only for those who have opted to not be fully remote. those folks have a reserved physical desk / office space at which they will be required to go 3 days per week starting apr 4th. They may switch to fully remote but cannot keep a dedicated physical spot if they do so. source: googler

does going remote impact one's salary?

From what I’ve been told it’s been pretty easy for some to negotiate no salary adjustment when going remote. It’s against HR “policy” but I know deals happened when someone was deemed a crucial contributor.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#114

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

ramesh31 wrote: post #76
qntty wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess like most companies, return to office means show your hand see if you have enough power to convince them otherwise.

Made my move to permanent remote last Fall, when it was becoming pretty clear that return to office was on the horizon. Sure enough, we're going back company wide starting this week. Really glad I did it while I could. I will never go back to a 9-5 daily commute ever again.

I would hesitate to make such sweeping statements. As work returns to the office my prediction is that you'll end up with pockets of high functioning teams that are physically colocated and distributed teams will inevitably be at a disadvantage which will lead to them being relegated to "tolerate" despite the talent on those teams.

It's not to say that distributed teams can't be high funtioning it just takes 3x the effort from a management perspective. Good management is in even higher demand than SWE skills. A good manager will gravitate towards teams that are colocated because they know they can be more effective for less effort.

To level the playing field it has to be all colocated or all remote. Talent currently holds the cards because of demand but talent+colocation will always win in a contest.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#115

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

msoad wrote: post #89
librish wrote: post #84

I think anyone who's claiming that remote work has been "proven" to be better or worse is wrong. There are some studies but they use estimations and proxies, carrying the same flaws as doing performance reviews based on lines of code. We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, s…

Have you ever walked between buildings to catch a meeting? I remember this from my Google days and I hated it. Ironically at some point they were cool with video calling in from another building!!

It sucks in the Norcal office but if you're in any of the other offices the max distance is not too bad.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#116

Post by VBprogrammer »

We've just done a survey at work to talk about about attitudes to returning to work. The results were basically that 95% of people are happy with work from home but want more social gatherings. Most people would be happy with visiting the office once every two weeks.

I expected a small fraction to be extremely pro return to office but actually these didn't appear at all in our survey. What we did have is a couple of people who said they'd resign before returning to the office on a regular basis.

I wonder how different attitudes are at Google or if this is more of a top down push?

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#117

Post by Rebelgecko »

itsangaris wrote: post #29
bubblicious wrote: post #14

this is only for those who have opted to not be fully remote. those folks have a reserved physical desk / office space at which they will be required to go 3 days per week starting apr 4th. They may switch to fully remote but cannot keep a dedicated physical spot if they do so. source: googler

does going remote impact one's salary?

Depends. If you live near the office and still live near the office, no. If you've moved to a different area, potentially.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#118

Post by ryanSrich »

whiplash451 wrote: post #67
dmitrygr wrote: post #55

A gift to Meta recruiters, brought to you by Sundar.

Meh. It is unclear to me that so many people will want to work fully remote when their company offers a (real) office to work in 3 days a week. The mental benefits of in-person working can be significant.

> The mental benefits of in-person working can be significant

Just remember there are just as many, if not more, mental detriments to working in-person.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#119

Post by RandallBrown »

floren wrote: post #71

A few months back I was talking to a manager at [huge established software company]. He was making the case that obviously anyone who has moved away from the Bay Area should have their pay cut. He personally has not been in the office for a single day since spring 2020, but since he telecommutes from Berkeley rather than Omaha, he sees no reason to cut his own pay. Later that same day I spoke to someone who's managin…

If anything people that work from home should get a raise since the company doesn't need to pay for their space in an office.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#120

Post by Ancalagon »

jonas21 wrote: post #77
onychomys wrote: post #43

I work for an extremely famous hospital in a small city in Minnesota, and we've gone 100% remote forever in large part because then the hospital doesn't have to pay for heating/lighting/internet/etc for all of the buildings that used to be full of us. Eventually they'll probably sell the offices entirely. I'm not sure why Google thinks it's economically worth it to have people come back in, I'd imagine the savings mu…

I hope you don't mean the entire hospital has gone remote. I'd not be happy if my surgeon was working from home.

actually this is a significant probability in the near future with surgery robots
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