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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

#301

Post by fy20 »

paxys wrote: post #30

I see two reasons to go back to the office: 1. You need a physical space to work from. 2. Your entire team is at the office as well and you can collaborate with them face to face. I imagine 1 is not a concern for most people who have adapted to the situation over the last two years. And 2 requires that most of your team is local and agrees to come in as well, which I can't see being too likely. For me personally goin…

I've been working remotely for most of the past 8 years, and this year switched to a new role where I am expected to be in the office most of the time. Most of my team is in the office, but the company is geographically distributed (across something like 7 timezones) so I do regularly need to collaborate with people working remotely, on a daily basis. It works for me, and although I have a longer commute (20 minutes vs 20 seconds) I don't see it being an issue.

Although I have no issues motivating myself to get work done on my own (of course I have off days when I struggle - in the office it actually seems easier to get away with that without feeling guilty), one thing I always found hard was work life balance. You see it's 5pm but you are knee deep fixing a bug, so you power on with it, and before you know it, it's 6:30pm. In an office when you see everyone else leave you know it's time for you to as well - the bug can wait, no big deal.

I think what doesn't help is that I've never had a dedicated office room at home, I've had a cramped office corner of my bedroom, but it's not quite the same. I'm guessing Google's employees in SF, NYC and London are also in a similar position, so I don't really see there being much push back.

If someone moved from NYC to some remote part of PA they can apply to work remotely, and if Google says no, there are plenty of other companies who will take them. At the same time, there will be plenty of people who want to live in NYC and work for Google. There may be a higher turnover this year, but long term I don't see it being an issue.

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

#302

Post by Godel_unicode »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #262
skybrian wrote: post #201

I've worked at a startup where everyone being there was essential in how we worked. (We were all pair programming.) It was great. It beats code reviews any day. I learned a lot. But when I was at Google, we would schedule VC meetings with people in a different part of campus just to avoid the walk. Also, I worked on teams that had people worked out in many offices, mostly not Mountain View. I was surrounded by Google…

> I think Google having a company-wide policy on this is nuts. Teams vary a lot. They should probably be left to make their own decisions. This seems rational until you are actually responsible for managing a large organization. First off, the article itself states that Google is giving a lot of flexibility ("Employees not prepared to return April 4 also can seek a remote-work extension, Google said. Since last June,…

> it get's very difficult to manage a large company without at least some sort of consistent policy.

Why would that be true? Trust your staff to behave like adults, and trust your team leadership. This feels like a cop out from leaders who don't understand how to manage uncertainty, as opposed to an actual requirement.

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

#303

Post by vl »

skybrian wrote: post #201

I've worked at a startup where everyone being there was essential in how we worked. (We were all pair programming.) It was great. It beats code reviews any day. I learned a lot. But when I was at Google, we would schedule VC meetings with people in a different part of campus just to avoid the walk. Also, I worked on teams that had people worked out in many offices, mostly not Mountain View. I was surrounded by Google…

The irony, of course, that working conditions at Google, of all places, are truly atrocious. For years our desks were in hallways (KIR-C, KIR-D). When I left big G, there were desks literally in staircases (KIR-D). I have no idea how they passed fire inspections.

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

#304

Post by bduerst »

icedistilled wrote: post #206
kbos87 wrote: post #110

I work for a large tech company based on the east coast. My partner works for another large tech company. We are both mid-level managers at companies that seem to be taking a pretty dramatically different approach. My company: - Started with a strong in-office culture - Communicated to managers that all employees now have a choice between being fully remote, hybrid, or in-office; there’s never a mandate to be in pers…

>Mandated return to work date 3 days/week minimum unless you’ve transitioned to remote This is what bugs me about the hybrid set up. If the company onboarded a lot of permanent remotes and also doesn't have people sync up the in office days, then there is no point of going into the office. It's the worst of both worlds.

Eh, it's really not that hard. It basically means for most weeks you work remote Mon and Fri, while just about everyone is in the office Tues-Thurs. Bay area already feels like most people work remote on Fridays anyways.

Yes there's variance but it's being left intentionally vague for teams to set their own cadences.

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

#305

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

Here come the never ending posts on how they(whoever they are) will quit rather than go back to the office. Yes, you can quit but there will be another body that will replace you in no time.

People, keep in mind that 100% at home is both bad for your mental health and career, long term.

I think a compromise of a few days at the office and a few at home is both good for employees and employers.

We should all unite to make this happen.

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

#306

Post by taeric »

munificent wrote: post #174
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…

> We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Agreed. We've proven that big tech companies can continue to be productive for up to two years going remote. I suspect that that doesn't generalize very well to being completely remote over the long term. It works well when you already have a bunch of personal relationships between teammates that were es…

I'm not sure there is good evidence that tech was that productive the past couple of years by any work they were doing. Rather, they were the only game left in town.

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

#307

Post by erosenbe0 »

ghaff wrote: post #146
VBprogrammer wrote: post #116

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…

That seems like a high number. Different external surveys I've seen tend to show about 20% wanting to come in five days with a permanent desk, about the same (or a bit more) fully remote, and the rest 2 or 3 days. That's not just developers though.

That 20% slips to 5% in major urban downtowns where average commute is 1 hour and you have to wait for trains in uncomfortable weather.

Cost of extra hour or 90 minutes of child care is also stratospheric.

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

#308

Post by electriclizard »

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…

Survival is enough. I think living is more important than working. Working exists so that you don't die. We should do the work necessary that everyone thrives, otherwise our choices should maximize living.

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

#309

Post by contingencies »

skybrian wrote: post #201

I've worked at a startup where everyone being there was essential in how we worked. (We were all pair programming.) It was great. It beats code reviews any day. I learned a lot. But when I was at Google, we would schedule VC meetings with people in a different part of campus just to avoid the walk. Also, I worked on teams that had people worked out in many offices, mostly not Mountain View. I was surrounded by Google…

When you work at a startup, VC means venture capital: the lifeblood ever-requisite next-stage of your constant struggle to survive and grow as an early business.

When you work at Google, it means technology for avoiding a walk.

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

#310

Post by UncleMeat »

penjelly wrote: post #21
jefb wrote: post #5

Mandates? "Since last June, Google has approved nearly 14,000 employees globally to transfer to a new location or go fully remote, Casey said. About 15% of applications have been denied, he added." "Employees not prepared to return April 4 also can seek a remote-work extension, Google said."

i see your point but the language used actually suggests theyll be bringing people back in the future, even if they allow them to work remote now. "employees not prepared to return"? "remote work extension"? and transfers?

My job location literally says US-REMOTE-MY_STATE. I signed a new contract and everything. Yes, this could change if the CEO decides to ban remote work but there is no evidence that this would happen any time soon. "Big mean Google does mean thing" is an attractive headline for media outlets.
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