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Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

fortune.com

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Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#141

Post by logicchains »

choeger wrote: post #85

This is just another form of layoffs, I think. The problem is that many other execs will follow. It's bizarre how this is purely about making life worse for the engineers without any rational reason.

>It's bizarre how this is purely about making life worse for the engineers without any rational reason

There's absolutely a rational reason: many people in management went into management because they enjoy having power over people, and they can have more power over employees who are physically in office.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#142

Post by badlucklottery »

batmaniam wrote: post #74

Well nothing can be done about that, Google's trying to force people back and it's gonna do what it's gonna do. Unless people get together an exert their voice. Though an interesting question is whether people who took a pay reduction for remote working "somewhere cheaper" will get an IMMEDIATE bump in salary due to now having to move back to SF? Like if Google is gonna uplift the entire lives of its workers, then it…

> Though an interesting question is whether people who took a pay reduction for remote working "somewhere cheaper" will get an IMMEDIATE bump in salary due to now having to move back to SF?

So Google really had two types of remote workers for the last couple years:

- Those who were "officially" remote: these people went through the process of converting their job title to "REMOTE" and took a pay cut in exchange for a different location (unless they were moving from a low cost to high cost location).

- Those who were "unofficially" remote: they just didn't show up in person often (or ever) but were paid like their local counterparts. Sometimes these people moved far away from their assigned site. Managers were often cool with people rarely showing up as long as they hit their KRs.

Right now Google is explicitly limiting new additions to the first "officially" remote group and trying to eliminate the second "unofficially" remote group.

So, until they start trying to eliminate the "officially" remote group, they won't have to adjust pay. But they will likely have to if/when they go after that group.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#143

Post by extr »

fendy3002 wrote: post #83
bart_spoon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think in-person is better if you don’t know what you need to build. I’ve experienced teams where people were totally without direction despite being in-person. I think in-person just makes it easier to look like you are busy when you have no direction, and remote lays the fact bare.

Agree that though it's better in person during brainstorm / discussion, it isn't decisive. When people are having zero ground during the meeting, it won't provide any meaningful result no matter what you do. And if it resulting in something, usually it'll be bad. What I found to be the best approach is one or two people already established a concept at what to make or at least the image of it, and the discussion can…

> What I found to be the best approach is one or two people already established a concept at what to make or at least the image of it, and the discussion can move to the details and implementation plan.

This is exactly what I was getting at by referencing a benevolent dictatorship. When remote, it's just easier if one person is providing direction by fiat rather than trying to collect everyone's input and communally make a decision.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#144

Post by bsimpson »

It's also being said that HR will get involved if you haven't badged into your designated office in the last 30-60 days. That's the real threat.

There are many people at Google who are splitting their time between their desk location and somewhere else. Some are supercommuters - moving their families to a home in another state and coming back periodically for face-to-face meetings. Others are digital nomads, working remotely part time and on-site part time.

It's unclear if there's a tenable solution for those people.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#145

Post by himinlomax »

caskstrength wrote: post #122
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #111

Sounds like Google is eliminating remote work. Has VP Urs Holzle returned from New Zealand? https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/google-exec-remote-work-wfh...

You misunderstood. Such rules never apply to _those_ people's performance reviews. They are only for peons.

Same with open office plans. Managers who implement them always seem to end up with a private office, for some weird reasons.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#146

Post by rightbyte »

ryandrake wrote: post #79
swellguy wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big companies are also ridiculously overstaffed, as Elon Musk proved empirically. And many of them have only one thing that works and ambitions of doing more than will never work out. So there's a lot of wasted talent, in other words, but this ability to waste talent necessitates in person communication, just to make sure everyone is stack ranked according to the current arbitrary and probably mindless goals.

Musk didn’t prove anything. All he showed so far is that if you turn off the airplane engine mid-flight, it will glide for a time on momentum.

Come on. I have been whining about Twitter et al. being bloated for years. There is no way all those engineers were needed.

I Twitter fails due to the mass layoffs it doesn't prove much either since it might be too hard to unwind a mess.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#147

Post by H8crilA »

somsak2 wrote: post #23
complex_exp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly in ruin, has more cash on the balance sheet than, for example, all the help sent to Ukraine, military and humanitarian. It's just that making a shit ton of money ain't actually that fun because your job is basically to constantly patch holes in this gargantuan ship that never stops.

On the same order of magnitude, but not quite. Plus, the second figure is from four months ago. https://companiesmarketcap.com/alphabet-google/cash-on-hand/... . https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2023-02-...

Pledged vs delivered :)

But yeah, the point stands either way.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#148

Post by rightbyte »

grepfru_it wrote: post #125
ryandrake wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk didn’t prove anything. All he showed so far is that if you turn off the airplane engine mid-flight, it will glide for a time on momentum.

Still waiting for all the major failures people have been clamoring about. I think the real talk is that you can run a lot of dotcoms on a skeleton crew and when money becomes tight you can trim a lot of fat. It’s not something people like to hear because they realize they are the fat

I don't like the "trim fat" methaphor. Layoffs are more or less random. There is no good, from the company perspective, selection.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#149

Post by DoingIsLearning »

I've mentioned this in another WSJ just five days ago:

"For context, Fortune, WSJ, FT, etc. have all been consistently over the past 2 quarters churning out several opinion articles on the topic of remote work."

It is an obvious concerted effort to shape public opinion in order to save commercial real estate investors who were caught with their pants down now that several companies are not renewing leases.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#150

Post by fallenasleep »

blitzar wrote: post #132
photonbucket wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 times a week in way worse than zero. Are we all going to just drive somewhere, sit at a desk and not talk to our co-workers cause they actually in some other office, then drive home?

Are we all going to just drive somewhere, sit at a desk and have a zoom call with our co-workers that are working from home that day, then drive home?

Yes? I did this at my last company and it ruled.

I could have been fully remote, but I wanted to be in the office most days because I liked the routine and liked talking to the people who did want to come in. And my commute was short.

I would have to zoom most people on my team for meetings anyway because they live all over the world. (This is, btw, a good thing: it means we had people working on the project 24/7, each with access to different resources. I was online with the video team and could ping them with any questions, my teammate +8 hours away was online with the majority of infra folks and could get extra support with deployments. etc)

If you have to zoom people anyway, why would it matter whether they live near you and decided to stay home, or live on another continent?

I got both benefits of: 1. Getting to be social in person with other likeminded people and 2. Having happier teammates who didn't have to sacrifice 3 hours every day commuting and were that much more alert and efficient for it.

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