Google's Best Perk — Transport

Reverse Gear writes "The New York Times has an interesting article about how different kinds of fringe benefits are starting to count more in the fight for the best brains in Silicon Valley. The article mainly focuses on Google's high-tech shuttle-bus system, which is quite extensive, covering a majority of the San Fransisco Bay area. The article quotes a transportation expert opining that Google's may be the largest such private system anywhere. One-quarter of the headquarters employees are now using it. A Google software engineer said: 'They could either charge for the food or cut it altogether... If they cut the shuttle, it would be a disaster.'"

Can't beat the greeny angle

[aussie_a]

Google is quite good with this in how environmentally friendly it is. However company(s) in Australia not that long ago would pay for taxis to and from work that would go directly to your house. They were just normal taxis that were free for you. I don't know how wide-spread this practice was, I imagine it wasn't too widespread, but I do know of at least one Australian company that did it. So while its good that Google does it nowadays (as I believe the company has since stopped), its a shame services like this are unusual rather then the norm.

moo

[slothman32]

Here in Rochester, where Kodak is located, we have Kodak Park.
It's a huge area with it's own rail system.

Today with digital they have less a presence but it still does alot of stuff.

I don't know about the costs or perks of it though.

Re:Google is not the first to provide such perks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has shuttles for traveling between MS-owned buildings, but the shuttles will not take you home.

(The Microsoft campus spans Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland, and Issaquah. The shuttles are nessessary when you work with other teams.)

- A MS employee

Re:Smart move

[Anonymous Coward]

From the summary:

Google's may be the largest such private system anywhere

The author needs to get out more. In the poorer parts of Asia, many factories provide fleets of busses to haul workers to and from their villages. These people are often too poor to afford any sort of private transport. This is a very old idea that has been heavily embraced in many poorer parts of the world. Not everything at Google is the first/biggest/best/brightest.

However, I'm sure that Google's staff crap bigger than the rest of us.

Re:Why not Google Housing?

[Tablizer]

I dont' know how wild most people are living quite so close to work. That day you *cough* call in sick *cough* and run down to get a soda or something and bump into a peer or worse yet a superior . . .

Most companies are doing away with sick-only time and creating a hybrid sick/vacation day so that the employer doesn't have to verify or care whether it's an illness or the ski-bug. But, I supposse it is still an issue of you want to ditch for a ski trip during an important deadline.

Sanity? Don't need no stinkin' sanity!

[fm6]

... there is real mass transit so that companies don't have to invest money in doing this for themselves.

Amen to that. Alas, Americans think mass transit is evil.

How long before Google gets together with some of the other tech companies in the area to run a shared service?

Lots of SV companies sponsor shuttles, either jointly or on their own. Google's is the first one I've heard of that is so popular. The other shuttles are less ambitious; mostly they bridge the gap between the local train station and the workplace. Only a small percentage of the employees use them.

Why is Google's shuttle program so much more popular? Probably because they can afford to throw a lot of money at the problem. Providing decent transit in a sprawl [google.com] is expensive. It takes a lot of vehicles to cover all those little neighborhoods. Google can afford it, but most other companies cannot.

And even a company that's rolling in dough is not likely to spend that kind of money on perks. If they did, they'd take heat from their shareholders for not "controlling costs". Google is exempt from that problem because because they've managed to lock out their Class B shareholders from any effective voice in the company.

Sick/Vacation - The Good and the Bad

[SRA8]

I used to work for a company that had combination sick/vacation days. The downside was that when people were slightly to moderately sick, they still came to work, hoping not to lose a day of vacation. Their productivity wasnt great and they got other people sick. On the positive side, they usually ended up with 25 vacation days a year, which was great, esp if you can cash out some of it.

Re:In saner parts of the world...

[ucblockhead]

Oddly enough, the San Francisco Bay Area probably has one of the better mass transit systems in the country. It is far, far from perfect, though, and is designed primarily to shuttle people into San Francisco. It's easy for people like me, in the East Bay, to commute to downtown San Francisco by train. But it'd be near impossible for me to do that to Silicon Valley as it'd require changing from one train to another, with the stations being two miles apart.

The other interesting thing is that what Google is doing only differs by scale from what others in the area are doing. Lots of companies run shuttles in downtown San Francisco to and from the local mass transit points.

Re:In saner parts of the world...

[Blakey Rat]

I suppose it would be flamebait on Slashdot to point out that Microsoft does exactly this.

They have a simple shuttle system for employees to move around the campus (and servicing some off-campus business parks, as well), and they give FTEs passes to the local public transit system. Moreover, they've been doing this for longer than Google's even been around. Of course, Microsoft isn't as trendy, so they don't get breathless news stories pretending that it's something new.

Re:Trimming the verge

[Skreems]

The only source readily available through a search claims $35k for a sysadmin [wired.com]. Sounds pretty damn low to me.

Re:In saner parts of the world...

[Anonymous Coward]

As does Amazon (shuttles between its various locations in Seattle, FTEs get a FlexPass [metrokc.gov] to ride any of the local transit agencies for free, etc). It's great...I take the bus to work daily, and ever since I wrecked my car a couple months ago, I've been using the bus for everything else (and occasionally bumming rides off friends if I need to make a big trip somewhere), too.. so much so I'm not in a hurry to get my car replaced, and I'm even considering not replacing it at all. Seattle has a pretty good mass transit system.

Re:Why not Google Housing?

[mikael]

Toronto had those - an oversurplus of office space combined with a shortage of rental units led the city to relax the zoning laws. Most office blocks already had underground/ground floor shopping malls (supermarket, fitness centre, etc...) due to the extremes of hot and cold weather. Having rented apartments as well meant that anyone could just about live their entire weekly life without ever having to go outside..

I knew some people who had a 2 minute bus commute - they bitched about how long it took to get downstairs to the bus stop.