Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home • Hacker News Board

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by blaser-waffle » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

underdeserver wrote: post #303

squaredisk wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google saved that much money and the business didn't see a considerable negative impact (34% increase? Quite the opposite in fact.), then that news should be telling not just for Google, but for every company that previously catered to spoiled employees who jump on an airplane just to have lunch with the customer. Two lies COVID has forcibly flushed out and helped dispel: Lie #1: Remote work, cannot work. Lie #2:…

I've been working through VC across the atlantic during the pandemic. It's been horrible. There have been multiple projects that took months - and I know, from past experience, that if I could hop over the atlantic for a week they'd be solved in that timeframe. Why? Because of face-to-face experience and trust building and the ability to sit beside one another and grab someone quickly. It's 100% worth the ridiculousl…

Seconded. I did consulting for monitoring systems, and doing remote stuff (via email or weird late night calls) was just less effective and shitty.

We got on a plane to Spain, brought some Spanish speaking folks, and crushed the issue in 3 days. Left us with 3 days to chill, and our Spanish counterparts were keen to show us around Madrid; several were locals and actually took us to see their old neighborhoods and families.

Point is, fixed the issue quick AND had added benefits of travel. As an accountant I'd not be keen on it, but as someone who has to live and work, these things are the spice of life.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by agent008t » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #306

agent008t wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible they are not telling you the truth.

That's A) super arrogant, B) completely ignoring the fact that we're social animals and introverts are a minority in the overall population.

"All of the people on my team would prefer to be in the office 2 or 3 days a week" - I am just pointing out that if people feel like they are expected to be in the office at all, they are unlikely to say anything less than "2 or 3 days a week" regardless of how they feel.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC

beambot wrote: post #4

Google 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…

> vastly less effective (especially parents!) ... A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office

Well... are they really itching to get back into the office, or just itching for day cares to open back up?

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by agent008t » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #305

kalleboo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With non-pandemic WFH you can see and interact with other people, in person, regularly, outside of work. Hobbies, cafés, bars, etc.

What if you also want to interact with colleagues?

One can arrange to interact with them outside of work hours.

If anything, it would be more honest then to, say, arrange to work solid 3 hours in the morning, then have 2 hours off (where you can socialize with whoever you want), and then work solid 3 hours in the afternoon.

For all the talk about the difficulty of separating 'work' and 'normal' life when WFH, some people seem perfectly happy to mix 'work' and 'socializing' in the office.

I get that as is, some people miss being in the office. It just seems like the pandemic presents a unique opportunity for moving to a better structure, whatever it may be, than simply go back to the old one. So I think it is interesting to speculate what that new structure could be for knowledge workers.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by magwa101 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

The large companies rely on a steady firehose of new talent. Onboarding via video is a poor second to onsite. Eventually, these companies will fracture if they have to keep supporting WFH at this scale.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by oblio » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #314

oblio wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you also want to interact with colleagues?

One can arrange to interact with them outside of work hours. If anything, it would be more honest then to, say, arrange to work solid 3 hours in the morning, then have 2 hours off (where you can socialize with whoever you want), and then work solid 3 hours in the afternoon. For all the talk about the difficulty of separating 'work' and 'normal' life when WFH, some people seem perfectly happy to mix 'work' and 'social…

> If anything, it would be more honest then to, say, arrange to work solid 3 hours in the morning, then have 2 hours off (where you can socialize with whoever you want), and then work solid 3 hours in the afternoon.

I don't decide these things, just operate within the given framework. Which doesn't support your setup in general.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by massysett » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

mrisoli wrote: post #259

SilverRed wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds about right. The OP sounds like "Why does coke advertise their product so much when they are the most well known product in existence" Because that status will decline without advertising.

I always thought about this, but not about Coca-Cola, since people actually need to want to buy it to acquire it, but Visa and Mastercard have huge advertising budgets, notably for events like the World Cup and the Olympics, and I never met someone who actively pursued a specific card flag when getting a new card and instead just get whichever their bank has to offer.

But they're not getting Amex or Discover.

Plus, thanks to all the ads they might be pulling out that Visa or Mastercard when they pay for something, rather than using cash. Or they might use the Visa or Mastercard online rather than Paypal. etc etc...

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by selectodude » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

schnable wrote: post #295

bartc wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only true in an environment where nobody from any company travels. However in a world where one company travels for conferences, lunches, in-person events, then that company will clearly have an advantage over the company that did none of those things.

True, but visits to far away intra-company campuses I suspect to be highly curtailed across the board when remote communications has been shown to work well.

They work when everybody is on the same page. Once things return to normal, it causes a prisoners dilemma. If a company is too cheap to send somebody to speak to you face to face, what else are they going to cheap out on?

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by selectodude » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #242

bseidensticker wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If the annual increase is capped at 2% and inflation is >2% then the value reaped by property tax will eventually go to 0. Asymptotically at infinity, you're not wrong. I'm probably not living that long though. Meanwhile taxes do go up every year in real money.

Taxes go up in nominal money :)

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

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Post by ghaff » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

jsjohnst wrote: post #310

etripe wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your reasons for assuming business travel is a necessity outside a pandemic? Why do you think remote work is only feasible during a pandemic?

> Why do you think remote work is only feasible during a pandemic? Remote work was feasible in part during a pandemic because it had to be. When everyone is 100% remote, things aren’t bad. If companies don’t do anything to preserve that culture from during pandemic times, when folks start returning to the office again, remote work will very likely go back to sucking. Being remote you’ll very likely be the odd person…

A number of teams in my group have long had a rule that if anyone on a call is remote, everyone needs to do the call from their own computer.

I agree that the odd person out being remote is often a problem but distributed teams generally can adopt effective practices. If your company doesn't? Well, there are other companies that are going to be more effective.