With millions of Americans already vaccinated, it’s like the lockdown might soon be coming to an end and even though there are still some parts of the world seriously stricken by the deadly COVID-19 illness, Google is said to be expecting about 60% of its workforce to go back to work.
The difference is that employees are expected to spend at least three days in the office each week while they can continue working remotely in the remaining two days.
The search engine giant which has about 160,000 employees across the globe made the announcement about the new policy in a series of tweets it sent out as well as a blog post it published on its website.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai made it known that majority of employees will start coming back to the office but just in a couple of days each week while there will be about 20% of the company’s workforce which will work permanently from home while another 20% will be working from new office locations.
Google is one of the other tech companies in the world looking to change the work condition of its employees and its corporate culture post-pandemic.
Microsoft, another giant tech company in the United States will allow about 50% of its workforce to completely work remotely based on their manager’s approval.
Others are Salesforce which also announced earlier this year that it will be operating the remote working style as well after declaring death to 9-to-5 workdays with majority of its employees working from home while few come to the office.
Twitter and Facebook have announced similar plans to let employees work from home or work remotely indefinitely.
…spending time in another city for part of the year, or even moving there permanently. Google’s future workplace will have room for all of these possibilities. We’re moving to a hybrid work week with most Googlers in the office approximately 3 days a week.— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) May 6, 2021
Still on Google’s decision, the company further added that it will make it easier for its employees to easily switch between offices or work remotely if they need to.
In order for that to happen, employees will have to seek approval from their managers in order to either work remotely or not.
Meanwhile, a “work-from-anywhere weeks” policy will let Googlers temporarily work from places outside their main office for up to four weeks a year. Pichai says Google will provide more details on the changes by mid-June, around the same time it’s introducing process to allow employees to request office moves.
In his memo, the company’s CEO also mentioned the company’s experiments with future hybrid workplaces which was reported by The New York Times that there have been some new design elements being explored and those includes inflatable robot walls which can be used to create temporary divides between open plan desks and a fabric-based overhead air duct system which can be unzipped and moved over a weekend to create a new seating arrangement.
The search engine giant announced to its employees across the globe back in March 2020 during the beginning of the pandemic that they should work from home.
However, the company’s US offices were opened on a limited basis with employees following strict safety guidelines such as wearing of face masks and practicing social distancing if need be.
In his memo, Pichai says that in places where Google has opened its offices almost 60 percent of employees have chosen to come back in.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed work cultures across the globe and different organizations are now embracing the new change which includes employees working from home.