I would like to hear the story of how Google saved money from promotions due to covid
Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
181–190 of 355 posts
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#182Google 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…
WFH during a global health crisis != WFH
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#183Guessing Google leadership doesn't believe that, since: If employees want to work remotely after Sept. 1, for more than 14 additional days per year, they’ll have to formally apply for it, according to a separate note marked “Need to know.” They can apply for up to 12 months in “the most exceptional circumstances.” The company could, however, call employees back to their assigned office at any point, the note said. ht…
The 14 day policy cited in the article is wrong. It is more than 14 days of international remote work.
So Google recruiters are telling interviewees in the US that they do not need to move to an office location?
From what I understand, you still need to relocate if you get a job offer.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
With re-zoning this won't be a problem. Just rezone it to residential. or residential/commercial.
There's nothing Mountain View wants to do less than let anyone live there. Also, because of Prop 13 those people wouldn't be paying property tax in 10 years, much like how everyone living there now isn't paying any, so Google is paying for everyone's schools and sewer systems as is.
> 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.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#185Isn't the whole point of a company that spending money is more productive than keeping it in a savings account? Google didn't save $1bn, Google was unable to make use of $1bn in potential spending because of the pandemic.
If that counts as a win, they're doing something very wrong.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#186Isn't the whole point of a company that spending money is more productive than keeping it in a savings account? Google didn't save $1bn, Google was unable to make use of $1bn in potential spending because of the pandemic. If that counts as a win, they're doing something very wrong.
What makes you think they didn't find something else to spend that money on?
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing Mountain View wants to do less than let anyone live there. Also, because of Prop 13 those people wouldn't be paying property tax in 10 years, much like how everyone living there now isn't paying any, so Google is paying for everyone's schools and sewer systems as is.
> 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.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Objectives and Key Results. The things you choose to optimize for during any given planning period.
Which is arguably stupid as it makes you focus on improving specific numbers instead of your product/service. Crude example: OKR: Improve customer feedback ratings from 4.2 to 4.5+ stars Result: Customer support personnel start handing out free upgrades/bonuses/merchandise to complaining customers, resulting in many 5 stars reviews and while not solving any problems customers are facing, still achieving the OKR. Meas…
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Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Objectives and Key Results. The things you choose to optimize for during any given planning period.
Which is arguably stupid as it makes you focus on improving specific numbers instead of your product/service. Crude example: OKR: Improve customer feedback ratings from 4.2 to 4.5+ stars Result: Customer support personnel start handing out free upgrades/bonuses/merchandise to complaining customers, resulting in many 5 stars reviews and while not solving any problems customers are facing, still achieving the OKR. Meas…
Relying on personal judgement of a small set of managers is the fastest way to kill any product. Plus, your example isn't really using the process correctly.
Improved feedback rating is a result, not an objective on its own. It could be filed under, say, "improve customer experience with the app". That objective would have many (3-5) results that you track, with improving feedback being just one of them. Others could be improving page load times (as you mentioned), adding critical missing functionality, or whatever else. These results can also be based on subjective opinions, but need to be somewhat measurable (otherwise how do you know whether you made things better?) Ultimately if you made good enough progress in each of these KRs, you can consider the objective achieved.
Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home
#190Maybe now pay taxes?