To Cut Costs Google Asks Some Employees to Share a Desk, Work Alternate Days (cnbc.com) 109
More than a quarter of Google's full-time workforce is in its cloud unit, reports CNBC. And now Google is asking cloud employees and partners "to share their desks and alternate days with their desk mates starting next quarter, citing 'real estate efficiency.'"
The new desk-sharing model will apply to Google Cloud's five largest U.S. locations — Kirkland, Washington; New York City; San Francisco; Seattle; and Sunnyvale, California — and is happening so the company "can continue to invest in Cloud's growth," according to an internal FAQ recently shared with cloud employees and viewed by CNBC. Some buildings will be vacated as a result, the document noted.
"Most Googlers will now share a desk with one other Googler," the internal document stated, noting they expect employees to come in on alternate days so they're not at the same desk on the same day. "Through the matching process, they will agree on a basic desk setup and establish norms with their desk partner and teams to ensure a positive experience in the new shared environment." The FAQ says employees may come in on other days, but if they're in on an unassigned day, they will use "overflow drop-in space."
Internally, leadership has given the new seating arrangement a title: "Cloud Office Evolution" or "CLOE," which it describes as "combining the best of pre-pandemic collaboration with the flexibility" of hybrid work. The new workspace plan is not a temporary pilot, the document noted. "This will ultimately lead to more efficient use of our space," it said.
A Google spokesperson said they'd conducted pilot programs and surveys "to explore different hybrid work models," CNBC reports, with the results showing employees "value guaranteed in-person collaboration when they are in the office, as well as the option to work from home a few days each week." So they've devised their new system to combine "the best of pre-pandemic collaboration with the flexibility and focus we've all come to appreciate from remote work, while also allowing us to use our spaces more efficiently."
The article points out that Google Cloud is currently not profitable, and "is still losing hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter — $480 million in the fourth quarter, although that was nearly half of the loss a year prior."
An internal FAQ warns that affected employees are now expected to have "conversations about how they will or will not decorate the space, store personal items, and tidiness expectations."
Thanks to Slashdot reader RUs1729 for sharing the story.
"Most Googlers will now share a desk with one other Googler," the internal document stated, noting they expect employees to come in on alternate days so they're not at the same desk on the same day. "Through the matching process, they will agree on a basic desk setup and establish norms with their desk partner and teams to ensure a positive experience in the new shared environment." The FAQ says employees may come in on other days, but if they're in on an unassigned day, they will use "overflow drop-in space."
Internally, leadership has given the new seating arrangement a title: "Cloud Office Evolution" or "CLOE," which it describes as "combining the best of pre-pandemic collaboration with the flexibility" of hybrid work. The new workspace plan is not a temporary pilot, the document noted. "This will ultimately lead to more efficient use of our space," it said.
A Google spokesperson said they'd conducted pilot programs and surveys "to explore different hybrid work models," CNBC reports, with the results showing employees "value guaranteed in-person collaboration when they are in the office, as well as the option to work from home a few days each week." So they've devised their new system to combine "the best of pre-pandemic collaboration with the flexibility and focus we've all come to appreciate from remote work, while also allowing us to use our spaces more efficiently."
The article points out that Google Cloud is currently not profitable, and "is still losing hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter — $480 million in the fourth quarter, although that was nearly half of the loss a year prior."
An internal FAQ warns that affected employees are now expected to have "conversations about how they will or will not decorate the space, store personal items, and tidiness expectations."
Thanks to Slashdot reader RUs1729 for sharing the story.
Late stage corporititus (Score:5, Insightful)
where are the Investigators? (Score:2)
No more investigative reporters?
It seems rather unusual that the supposed recession that has yet to happen which lacks as many indicators of the past-- has such strong preemptive drastic measures being taken by the whole tech sector... and with high profits for many of them as well as ones with losses not being as massive as in the past which didn't trigger such big moves.
Something is different. It's as if a group of hedge funds is going around and threatening only tech companies to fire as many people as
Re: where are the Investigators? (Score:2)
hedge funds
You spelt black rock^W^W the fed wrong
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It seems rather unusual that the supposed recession that has yet to happen which lacks as many indicators of the past-- has such strong preemptive drastic measures being taken by the whole tech sector... and with high profits for many of them as well as ones with losses not being as massive as in the past which didn't trigger such big moves.
Nothing unusual here. Corporate actions are driven directly by stock price and only indirectly by profits. Stock prices need to be propped up. Innovation and competition is hard, so layoffs coupled with stock buybacks are the answer.
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Google: we need to lay off xyz thousands of people to manage our bottom line
Also google: $100B in stock buy-backs seem about right, good thing we freed up cash for this...erm, our bottom line. ... and google senior execs still make their stock targets, get their windfall grants or can exercise conditional options. In any sane world, it would be obvious how they fired thousands of people and used that money to effectively fund their multi-million dollar bonuses.
Remember when google's motto was 'don't be evi
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nah that was never their motto, only the part tha was released. the full motto is
don't be evil like us
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Something is different. It's as if a group of hedge funds is going around and threatening only tech companies to fire as many people as possible..
A lot of tech companies have management that was trained at Google, and they think Google is the ideal way to run a company, and they still keep in contact with the mothership.
So when Google does work from home, the do work from home. When Google calls people back to the office, they do the same. When Google does layoffs, they do layoffs.
It does create an appearance of a kind of mindless copying because that's what it is.
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Thanks for the ancient history lesson. I'll gladly round file all that bullshit in the Too Big To Fail bucket.
Like you need profit to run a tech business. Please.
Re: Late stage corporititus (Score:2)
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Lets just saddle all of us with more debt so the assholes continue to make bad choices.
The fact that we don't even have to guess at this action, says a lot.
Now go talk to the asshole who voted for those assholes. It's not hard to find root cause in a democracy.
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Google is heading into the final stage of corporatitus. The final stage is characterized by frequent CEO changes, speculative mergers and acquisitions, and the sale of longer-term investments such as R&D.
Note that this stage can last for a long time, think of HP.
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Or you could be IBM who (finally) moved off Lotus Notes Email to Office 365 ... in 2022.
Yes, Lotus Notes Email still exists - believe it or not.
No, that year is not a typo.
The old boys club props up these companies somehow, but their culture/work ethic/bureaucracy/politics is terrible on a good day. They aren't too big to fail, they're just too ingrained with the old boys club to not get their share of money handed over for projects.
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Pat in the back (Score:2)
We will require everyone back in the office now. (Score:2)
Re:We will require everyone back in the office now (Score:5, Funny)
Re: We will require everyone back in the office no (Score:2)
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People aren't robots and that's the 'issue'.
Looking from 10k feet it makes sense to have people back. Corporate culture is a Really Fucking Hard thing to implement/facilitate/grow into a healthy and positive thing. Sure, if you're a 50 person startup you can just get everyone drunk Fridays and pretend Gretta and Gretchen weren't making out on top of the company logo/sculpture/CEO e-peen with the rest of the office cheering them on when monday rolls around.
That aside, I understand why CEO's are terrified o
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No, Google just moved into a stretch of new buildings just this year. But some groups might be overcrowded. Their priorities change constantly.
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When Trillion dollar companies don't have the resources (desks ffs) to align with their own corporate mandates (RTO)...you really have to wonder what alternate reality their management exists in.
Just WFH (Score:2)
Allow people to come in only by choice. There will be plenty of space.
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I didn't take this very well, and had a lot of internal tension that I needed to talk out with my therapist.
Um, yeah, about that. Meet your new therapist. [openai.com]
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Step 1. Make cool trendy thing and give it away so everyone adopts it
Step 2. Artificially gimp trendy product unless $$
Step 3. Profit
The amusing part is all the people who got to FW all the "AI" bots for "free" gave them the training to make them worth money.
"If you aren't paying for a product, then you're the product"
p.s. why can't AI generated images count fingers? It's comical and seems like something trivial to fix.
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Allow people to come in only by choice. There will be plenty of space.
Yeah, OR you could just get rid of every reason to maintain a multi-million dollar commercial building and ACTUALLY embrace WFH.
You act as if Greed in real estate bill offers discounts based on the number of people who show up. If it's anything greater than one, you're maintaining commercial real estate, which ain't cheap.
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Yeah, OR you could just get rid of every reason to maintain a multi-million dollar commercial building and ACTUALLY embrace WFH.
You act as if Greed in real estate bill offers discounts based on the number of people who show up. If it's anything greater than one, you're maintaining commercial real estate, which ain't cheap.
Dafuq? What a deranged comment. Nobody ever said there would be a rent discount for fewer people showing up. BUT - and try to follow along here - fewer people showing up means less space is needed to dedicate to employee workstations. Less space needed means less square footage can be leased or owned. You do know that commercial real estate is priced by the square foot, right?
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You had to respond as AC as if it would keep someone from realizing what a whiny delusional baby you are, geekmux.
Re: Just WFH (Score:2)
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Some jobs just need boots on the ground to varying degrees. Drilling rigs, 100%. IT break-fix type support ~50%. Project management ~10%.
CEO's worry about their culture though. That's probably 80% of what's driving the return to office...with the remaining 20% split between "we're paying for this fking space" and "I'm a bad manager who needs to be up everyone's ass to *manage* them".
Re: Just WFH (Score:2)
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Commercial real estate owners are shaking in their boots right now. For many, many, many decades, they've had a Sure Thing in their investments. Even blips along the way even out since commercial leases are usually a min of 5-10 years. Plenty run 20+
Now? Almost no one is expanding office space. Big players are almost universally downsizing and returning space when leases come up. If you're in the market for an office, you can sublet fully finished, modern, high-end space for the base lease cost ... at
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Allow people to come in only by choice. There will be plenty of space.
This is good for the rest of us. Google has long had a history of a lot of internal leaks about their culture and clashes, everyone can watch them go through every single idea except the obvious: just work from home.
This alternate workday approach I think makes sense at the investor level: optimize on real estate. It allows them to continue clinging to the misguided "collaboration" agenda required as a pretext, and maximize utilization
We had to share desks once ('98~'99) (Score:3)
But not as a cost sharing meassure, but rather due to space limitations at the time. Our "desks" were desk-sized benches, we woud sit in the oposing right corners of the desk, facing each other. We would work 40h weeks, presentially.
If the person in front of you was from your own team and you were in the same project, all was fine and dandy, otherwise, it was miserable...
Having said that, if people is/are working only 2~3 days at the office, and the rest is WFH, and the two ocupants of the desk (better be slightly oversized) can coordinate, it can be a nice way to save on Real State costs, by getting out of office leases and consolidateng all the people in GooglePlex campus (former Silicon Graphics Campus) instead of having some people/gropus scatered all over rented space in SanFran.
Is better to have a fixed desk, even if you have to share it with someone else, than to endure "hoteling desk/tops" , believe you me.
https://www.bizjournals.com/bi... [bizjournals.com]
Re:We had to share desks once ('98~'99) (Score:5, Interesting)
I work as a developer for a company that's a call center. It was my first office job. They set us up in long tables, 6 computers per table, 3 tables total. 18 people working next to each other in a room. At the time I didn't know any better, and thought that's how things were. Turns out it's not the norm. It is for this company, yes, because they're a call center and that's how they set up desks... except I went to HQ and ...everyone had an L-shaped desk and people were at least 2m apart from each other. Wow.
Years passed and they send us to WFH because of the pandemic. After that, I noticed I was no longer using antiacids at least once a week like before. I haven't used them in 3 years now.
I don't have plans to return to an office. If they make us return, I'll simply resign. I'm too old for this bullshit.
So they know you're planning to resign (Score:5, Interesting)
We have multiple studies showing that raising interest rates isn't going to do anything but cause layoffs it's precisely those layoffs that are the only thing the leadership at the Federal reserve is talking about. I haven't heard a single peep about any suggestions for increasing the supply of goods and services or of getting antitrust violations under control except for the pointless ones like Twitter and Facebook. No talk of how increasingly apartments and even trailer parks are owned by multinational corporations who can raise prices with impunity. No talk of the collusion in the egg industry that's actually driving up the prices. None of that.
When it comes time to tackle inflation it's always about you getting fired so that you have to take a lower wage and so that you have to work longer hours for less pay.
There really is a conspiracy against you and it's right out in the open. And it's disturbing to me how literally no one talks about this except me and a handful of left wing YouTubers who mention it in offhand comments about other videos
Re: So they know you're planning to resign (Score:2)
Thanks (Score:1)
Re: Thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
India's caste system is 3,000 years old (Score:2, Insightful)
That's because no one's going to tolerate giving anywhere a problem 60 to 80% of all the wealth to a few hundred people unless they're too busy fighting imaginary enemies
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And if not fighting among themselves, fighting an external enemy and having to pull together and make sacrifices. Expect the US to launch another war soon. African nations are getting uppity and signing deals with China. One of them must need a US invasion force soon...
Inflation could also be reduced by taxation (Score:4, Interesting)
... which would reduce the money supply if the government did not spend the taxes collected).
But which current political parties are seriously willing and able to tax those with a lot of excess wealth? One mostly unsuccessful attempt and a (dismissing the money supply reduction point) rebuttal:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/m... [wsj.com]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/h... [forbes.com]
"In a Monday Wall Street Journal column (paywall), President Biden urged Congress to help fight inflation by raising tax rates on the very wealthy and using the money to reduce the deficit. Does that strategy make sense in todayâ(TM)s economic environment?"
Indirect taxation by inflation through printing money is just politically easier in the USA than direct taxation of income or property or transactions or imports or other things. So it has been going on for decades (helped along by the US dollar being a defacto preferred global exchange medium and store of fiat wealth since WWII).
The good news is, there are various types of transactions (subsistence, gift, exchange, planned, and theft) and when one sort like exchange transactions become harder due to inequity and inflation sometimes others can take up some of the slack (like subsistence production via 3D printing and gardening robots, or gift economics via sharing info on the internet).
I agree that a focus on reducing the cost of goods and services through investment and innovation makes a lot of sense too (to essentially create deflation). And figuring out ways to build new communities on land, in the oceans, and in space also may reduce real estate inflation eventually.
Along those lines, in the long-term, Google could, say, build or regenerate areas of cities in the Rust Belt to have less expensive physical office space. But creating *virtual* real estate (like chat rooms and video conferencing) is likely cheaper. I've always found it ironic Google is so associated with the web but was always so insistent on everyone coming to an office every day.
The government can spend that tax money (Score:3)
So if the government took back some of the 50 trillion dollars to 1% pocketed in the last 40 years and then spent that building new cities and therefore new houses and homes the price of housing and homes would drop. If they spent more money on public transportation the price of transportation would drop. If they solved t
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I'd add that it would make sense to do a bit of column A and column of B to address inflation (especially given the velocity of money; the big players are always bailed out first and foremost).
That the onus is put mostly on a particular group speaks volumes.
Further, that having the government interfere directly with interest rates is being championed by free-market fundamentalist as the only possible solution just reeks of a con.
Nevermind hiring all those new auditors to investigate unconventional exchanges
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The mass layoffs are caused by irresponsible hiring by american companies that can fire people at the drop of a hat with no consequences. The rest of the world has sane labor laws so companies don't hire people on a whim and fire them when the quarter results aren't met.
Luckily, I don't live in the USA.
Re: So they know you're planning to resign (Score:3)
Itâ(TM)s not even a supply chain problem for most of the things implicated in inflation. These companies are making record profits, which means they have more than enough to sell through, theyâ(TM)re just taking advantage of the situation to pretend they need to charge more (or in some cases, just sell less in the package).
The rate hikes are indeed a scam, and theyâ(TM)ve led to inflation of their own here in Canadaâ"rent and mortgages are higher. My mortgage is 50% more than it was when
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You touch on an interesting point.
Inflation is Teh Suxor. Companies are being asked for substantial cost of living raises. If you fk up the job market, then the power to demand those raises goes away...and in the process you both make more poor, beholden, corporate drones AND tamp down inflation.
It's brilliant in the Dr. Evil kind of way.
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"open office seating" has been a thing for the past ~decade ... it serves primarily the bottom line and - in very, very specific situations - enhances team coordination.
It's a scam. It hurts productivity for most people. Most people hate it, and now with shared, tiny, desks it's 10x worse. But it saves $$ and there you have it.
People adapted to the pandemic and kept companies going. Companies refuse to adapt to reality which is ... unfortunate.
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I'd honestly prefer a cubicle over that.
In 2018 they downsized and only 4 out of 18 were left. They moved us to a smaller office but at least we had one desk per person. It was one desk meant for 2 persons but because of layout it wasn't possible to sit 8 people in that office. Since they had those desks they just used them.
My mental health went up during that time, but not by much.
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Is better to have a fixed desk, even if you have to share it with someone else, than to endure "hoteling desk/tops" , believe you me. https://www.bizjournals.com/bi... [bizjournals.com]
Even if you have to share...uh, how confused do you have to be about the concept of "my desk" to compare it to a hotel?
Unless your last name happens to be Hilton, nothing is considered "my" in a hotel either. And when the morning "owner" of the shared space leaves it wrecked, you'll remember what "better" used to be.
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You missed the point, he is saying desk sharing is superior to "hoteling". Hoteling is when there are desks that are basically first come first serve each day, you unpack your stuff at the desk and pack up at the end of the day, like you would in a hotel. The Google plan is more like a timeshare, two people sharing the same desk but on different days. If each employee gets their own set of locked drawers it could probably even work.
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Because I have "stuff" on the desk. Projects I'm working on, tools, etc. A blank desk is the sign of someone maybe not too useful?
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If a company wants me to work in the office full time, I expect the to give me an office (cubicle for non-managers) like the Good Old Days.
Otherwise they can fk off. Unless your jobs *requires* a physical presence (e.g. you turn valves, lift things, move stuff) then it's just .. idk fake news? The whole open office seating, which coincidentally increased capacity by ~100%, was broadly hated by practically everyone but "according to studies" most employees love it. I've yet to find more than the rare edg
Now where ... (Score:5, Funny)
I like Newspeak (Score:3)
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It's no more the office, it's the Cloud Office. They should consider make employees pay according to the time spent at the cloud desk.
Work based on real effort? Oh, I can't wait to see what the CEO's paycheck will be reduced to. This should be rich.
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Re: I like Newspeak (Score:3)
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The bad ones don't stay CEO long.
Rather impossible to believe that nonsense when plenty of not-profitable companies losing millions create and sustain a valuation and stock price based on hype and bullshit rather than sales and profits.
You act like business math still makes sense.
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Yep, many CEOs (or other upper managers) are workaholics, and sadly, often don't understand why everyone else isn't as enthusiastic about working 72 hour weeks (e.g. Jack Ma). Their work tends to be their lives, and they can't understand people that prioritize other things, like family, friends, or even hobbies.
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'My' CEO is leading us to growth by revenue increases, not trickery but more effort to get more real customers and generate more real revenue. We're not a tech company, but tech is one area where we are winning the competitive fight. Customer Service is more important, and we are winning that also.
Effort? 'My' CEO could easily play the cost savings game and shed payroll. Nope, that is recognized here as a losing strategy. Leave that to the tech companies that until recently didn't even need measurable reven
Sharing a desk = No in-person collaboration (Score:1)
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I’ll share a desk (Score:5, Interesting)
When the executives and board members start. Lead by example.
Totally fine as long as it's not at the same time (Score:2)
I would be 100% opposed to sharing a desk (or cube) with someone working at the same time... but in these days where tech workers work from home a lot, it seems really reasonable as you want to provide some desk space for people coming in, but you are just not going to have everyone in at once. It sounds from the summary like that is what they are doing this for.
The only issue is it's a bit more of a pain to work out who is going in when, but if both people were just going into the office one day a week I
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But, you know, it's going to be, like, all sticky.
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Re: Bad enough the loss of offices (Score:2)
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Layoffs (Score:2)
Don't worry, one of you will be fired by the time 5 day per week return to office is in effect.
"Smart seating" is common now (Score:4, Interesting)
When I started many years ago we had offices
Then we had shared offices
Then we got cubicles
Then we got trading style desks
Now we have trading style desks where you just pick a spot in the morning. Bring your own headset and personal stuff, don't leave anything behind.
That's assuming you go in at all, which I rarely do.
Used to need boxes when we relocated from desk to desk. Now I have all my needs in my backpack.
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IBM has been like that for at least a decade already. Globally.
No idea why they don't do more virtual offices (Score:3)
No idea why these big tech companies cling to outdated practices like massive physical office facilities -
I've been working from home full time since 2013 - subdivision went fully virtual and closed their office a few years later - we've been able to save $30,000 a month rent/utilities alone not to mention a generally happier workforce - I've talked to co workers who have said they've turned down other job offers that might have paid more simply because they were happy with being able to work remote full time - the quality of work life balance is so much better
and for companies like Google with offices in super expensive areas... seriously - remote employees making good money can afford much nicer places... and end up spending their money in local communities that are not just soaking it up with inflated prices..
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How much of that $30,000 per month got shared with the employees?
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No idea why these big tech companies cling to outdated practices like massive physical office facilities -
Because their management are control freaks or micromanagers who become extremely dissatisfied and anxious when they cannot control their employees by seeing them physically buzzing in the office like a beehive.
Any manager that actually looks at the output (assuming they actually understands what the team under them do) would have no issue with the whole team working remotely.
The lack of morning commute (which is mentally draining) let everyone working with a fresh mind everyday, avoiding the evening commut
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Because their management are control freaks or micromanagers who become extremely dissatisfied and anxious when they cannot control their employees by seeing them physically buzzing in the office like a beehive.
Any manager that actually looks at the output (assuming they actually understands what the team under them do) would have no issue with the whole team working remotely.
There's no need to adopt super extreme views on this. I'm a manager. My team is never going to fully return to the office except in t
why not just go remote full time? (Score:1)
wouldn't closing the office and having everyone work from home again save them tons more money, and improve morale in the workforce?
Not to mention the loss in productivity when you have to setup your desk every morning and then reset everything at the end.. For companies that strive to juice productivity out of every second.. wouldn't wasting 20 minutes of every day and for every employee count as a huge cost when they add it all up?
Sorry to say, not coming in early to set it up and staying after unless bei
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wouldn't closing the office and having everyone work from home again save them tons more money, and improve morale in the workforce?
It's weird. There's a feedback loop going on. We used to have all sorts of amenities at work (gym, hallway conversations, snacks, coffee). Then COVID lockdowns hit and we all worked from home. Now no one seems in a hurry to go back to commuting. As a reaction, we've gone to hoteling, closed the gym, stopped coffee services, and so forth, making the office much less appealing, which reduces incentive to ever go back.
Seems like there's two stable equilibria: we all either always go to an office or no one ever
Space, not Desks (Score:2)
This seems like an idea destined for failure. One of the nice things with a desk is it's "your space", having to share completely undercuts that feeling.
I think the better idea is to double the number of desks, but optimize the space under the assumption that only half will be used at a time.
For instance, shared cubicles with the assumption that 95% of the time only one half of the cubicle is used. You can even have some common desk area between the terminals (just make sure that bit is empty at the end of
Believe this? (Score:2)
employees "value guaranteed in-person collaboration when they are in the office, as well as the option to work from home a few days each week."
Do you believe that? I don't. Especially not if the employees were told they would be sharing desks. What I do believe, is that there was a survey that asked very different questions.
As in the old joke: The employees call the idea" a pile of shit", which the survey organizer passes on as "a container of excrement", which their manager passes on as "powerful fertilizer", which the executives hear as "great idea for growth".
Be glad they allow you to sit at all (Score:2)
I'm sure Google can create a document and some history for it proving that standing around and holding your laptop with one hand while typing with the other is way more efficient.
Hey, wait a minute... (Score:2)
They had extreme cost cutting when they let everyone work from home.
Then they decided that was no good, everyone had to come back to the office.
And now they're going back to yeah it was cheaper when we let folks work from home.
Anyone else suffering from whiplash?
I don't get it? - WFH? (Score:2)
Not sure what's happening over the pond (I'm in the UK), or what's happening at Google, but I believe most tech companies in the UK are still very much embracing the Work From Home concept - big time.
These days, looking for a new tech job, the most you'll see is that you are asked to work one day a week from the office - and it can be any day you want, even Fridays.
That means companies can massively downsize office space.
Sure, the downsized office space does mean you never get your own workstation.
There is
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Onboarding new employees remotely - it's still a nightmare. Those who joined companies during the pandemic often have never physically met their colleagues.
Yep.
These issues can all be overcome as we learn how to remote work
How?
So...come in for "collaboration" with...who? (Score:2)
When COVID demonstrated we can be just as or more productive at home than at the office, corporations suddenly were on the hunt for "good reasons" to bring everyone back to the office other than "productivity."
Lately, I've been hearing folks should come back for those "unexpected opportunities of in-person collaboration" which can "only happen" when everyone is back in the office most days of the week. Ok, fine. I'll buy that, I guess. But if a company cannot provide enough desks for EVERYONE in the company
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Residential Real Estate isn't free (Score:2)
It seems reasonable that if an employee wants to WFH on any sort of regular basis (one or more days a week) to require them to "hot desk" at the office. With those who WFH four out of five days most likely to be required to hot desk vs. those that WFH only one out of five days being least likely to be required to do so.
If the company requires an employee to work from home some but not all days of the week an additional stipend is appropriate to cover the fact that the employee will be devoting space in thei
Re: (Score:2)
It seems reasonable that if an employee wants to WFH on any sort of regular basis (one or more days a week) to require them to "hot desk" at the office. With those who WFH four out of five days most likely to be required to hot desk vs. those that WFH only one out of five days being least likely to be required to do so.
The consulting firm I worked for, at one time, did this. You came in, logged in and picked a desk. Enter a code in phone and calls were routed to you. Worked fine.
If the company requires an employee to work from home some but not all days of the week an additional stipend is appropriate to cover the fact that the employee will be devoting space in their home and likely have increased utility bills.
If the job for everyone with that job description is "mandatory WFH" and was at time of hire then no such stipend is needed -- candidates can factor that into their job offer acceptance decision.
Which is why work from home will be optional - no need to pay. For jobs advertised as remote, as you say, you need to factor the cost benefits ratio. Me, the savings in gas, time, car mileage, etc more than out weigh any marginal costs of using a spare room as an office, utilities, etc. and ensuring reliable internet speeds; although speeds f
It's called shift-work (Score:2)
Has been going on since Greek times.
Those were the days (Score:2)
No more foosball tables? (Score:2)
I thought Google was all about beanbags and free lunches and time on Friday to work on your own projects. They had all these perks to attract the best and brightest workers. Now it turns out they don't even want to give workers their own desks. Yuck, "hot desking" even sounds unhygienic. Did the pandemic teach us nothing?
Waste of time (Score:2)
Worked well for us, surprisingly (Score:2)
I worked at a company that did this and it worked much better and easier than I would have expected. You mentioned expensive engineer time. We didn't spend any time on arranging it. We were all what the IRS calls "highly compensated employees".
Some people worked in the office M-W-F, some on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Everyone has a laptop, and every desk has a USB3 docking station. When you get hired, you just choose a desk that is available. Every desk has pens, a pad of paper, etc - ready to work. Sit down,
Hotdesking (Score:2)
sounds reasonable (Score:2)
The real estate thing is why work from home isn't going anywhere
Down to their last billion... (Score:2)
Google's nickel and dime model doesn't work? (Score:1)
Well bust my britches!
Never mind that, despite all the glowing "In The Cloud" (see "ON THE INTERNET" buzzwording), I've been noticing MASSIVE disentanglement from cloud offerings in the last 6-12 months as the terror porn of COVID fades and as the real costs of hosting your shit on other servers are realized.
Monopoly (Score:2)
Because corporations are monopolizing their markets, they donâ(TM)t have to worry about competitors.
A few giant corporations can easily coordinate price hikes and enjoy bigger profits.
Just four firms control 85% of beef, 66% of pork, and 54% of poultry production.
https://twitter.com/RBReich/st... [twitter.com]
Companies ruined or almost ruined by Indians (Score:2)
Companies ruined or almost ruined by Indians;
https://www.quora.com/Do-India... [quora.com]