Internet Giants To Staff: Plan To Work From Home For the Year (bloomberg.com) 49
Google and Facebook want their staff to stay home for all of 2020. From a report: Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive officer, told employees on Thursday to prepare to work remotely through October and possibly to the end of the year, according to people familiar with the decision. A spokeswoman confirmed that the majority of staff is expected to work from home until 2021. Two weeks ago, Pichai wrote an email to his workforce that said some offices would open as soon as June. This week, employees were told returns would vary by division and location but that most Google staff would not return until at least the end of October, according to the people who were not authorized to speak publicly. On Thursday, Facebook told employees that they can work remotely through 2020 if they like. The social media company doesn't expect to open most offices until July 6 at the earliest. The edicts from the internet giants come as states and corporations grapple with ways to reopen as the virus pandemic rages on. California, Google's home state, is letting some businesses open in limited ways, including some manufacturing.
I feel for you all in California (Score:3, Insightful)
My condolences to everyone working in California, who presumably put up with high cost of living because of the people you'll be around... that are now essentially all as remote as if you were living someplace cheap.
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Well this would be true for almost every city dweller across the world.
One of the big drivers for us to decide to Live in the City or the Suburbs is its proximity to our work. This increases demand for these areas, thus higher prices.
Now I live in a Rural area, so I have a larger home, and property at the same price as a small unit and no land, only 30 miles away. However there are times when I don't want to be a half an hour drive from a basic service, like grocery stores, auto garage (for car services),
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I agree with you http://outsidetheautisticasylum.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-new-modest-proposal.html [blogspot.com] and had the same idea, now that it is quite apparent that cities are vulnerable to pandemics.
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Given the population density of the Silicon Valley- 530/km^2- this decision actually makes sense.
An even smarter idea would be to take every worker currently on Work From Home, who have proven that they can do their jobs from anywhere, and pay them a relocation fee to move to permanent work from home in a location with a population density less than 4/km^2 to prevent pandemics from ever disrupting the industry again.
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That's tough though. You're kind of locked in to the company you're working for. I'm about 45 minutes from where I work and can work from home due to my location, however I'm on the north side of Denver and the Tech Center is on the south side. It's been pretty much impossible to find any company that does 100% or even 80% work from home. I've been looking for over a year (and off an on for several years before that).
I'm hoping more companies realize that folks can work from home successfully. We'll see tho
Re: I feel for you all in California (Score:2)
You're assuming that the only advantages to where someone lives are workplace related. I lived in LA for a while, and among other things, walking along the beach after a long day was worth the extra cost in rent for me. It's like you think you can get a place to live off Monoprice as long as th
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lived in LA for a while, and among other things, walking along the beach after a long day.... ...will get you arrested now.
So eventually the benefit will be there, but California in particular is locked down so hard you lose a lot of the climate and environmental benefits.
It's like you think you can get a place to live off Monoprice as long as the base specs are similar..
For what most people do, you really can though. Even if you just like beaches there is a LOT of coastline in the U.S., and a lot of that
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We get to enjoy great weather, nice diversity, and get to live in a state that values science.
Human life and well-being seems to also have more value here than in some other states.
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My condolences to everyone working in California, who presumably put up with high cost of living because of the people you'll be around... that are now essentially all as remote as if you were living someplace cheap.
You have that backwards... I put up with the people for the high wages (and the clean air, and the weather, and the ocean, and the mountains, and the rivers...)
It's an awesome place to live... except for people like you.
Why did it take a pandemic? (Score:1)
This should have been done a long time ago.
Better yet, ban "meetings". You know those things where people get together and argue over spelling mistakes in a document for three hours, just to prove they are important
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Yes a lot of this should had been done long ago. Then the economic impact of this probably would have been much more reduced. Perhaps greatly avoided, being that a lot of the white collar work environment would had already been socially distanced.
That said, having enough people with access to broadband only really happened in the past 15 years. Then the move to Cloud computing for many of the common work services, and people expecting to have work features from their phones now. Really had brought technol
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You forgot a period at the end of your last sentence.
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Good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
This way they can find out what roles can be done best remotely and then outsource those positions next year. The cost reduction from eliminating those positions should really help their stock prices recover.
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The cost reduction from eliminating those positions should really help their stock prices recover.
Recover? You haven't paid attention to tech stock prices. They're doing fine. Most of them did take a hit, but pretty much all of the big tech companies have already recovered most of what they lost... and some are nearing new all-time highs.
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The stock market is a leading indicator, so they've already priced in the outsourcing.
Lol. (Score:2)
Boom goes Kushner's massive over-investment in office space at 666...
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Actually, it will turn out that that location is ideal for use as a PPE distribution center, middle east peace process control center, FEMA and CDC social distance office extensions, and the Trump 2020 NYS campaign headquarters. The government entities will outbid each other for the space not occupied by the "Kush-Star," which will be subject to a special family discount.
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Actually, it will turn out that that location is ideal for use as a PPE distribution center, middle east peace process control center, FEMA and CDC social distance office extensions, and the Trump 2020 NYS campaign headquarters. The government entities will outbid each other for the space not occupied by the "Kush-Star," which will be subject to a special family discount.
But., but, but... that would be CORRUPTION! Trump will drain the swamp, not make more of it! I mean, he's going to start draining it any day now, I'm sure of it.
Re: Lol. (Score:2)
Didn't he sell that off 2 years ago for $500 million less than he purchased it for?(And after it lost millions of dollars almost every year?)
Will they even go back? (Score:4, Insightful)
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This. I work for a major that is in the top 20 on the Fortune 500 list. We're getting weekly discussion emails talking about "the new normal," and talking to line managers about how we are coping at home, and how departments are functioning with people at home.
I fully suspect to be working from home for the foreseeable future, covid be damned.
Re: Will they even go back? (Score:2)
Managerial headcount pissing contests?
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Managerial headcount pissing contests?
You can still have those with everyone working from home. The org chart is still the org chart.
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Depends on the job. If the job is 100% at a terminal, then it can work. I do more than that though, I need lab equipment.
As far as wanting to work from home... My commute in the last 4 years has been fine now that the company moved, I can take surface roads to get there, and only occasionally is there a major clog (due to literally everyone at Cisco wanting to take the same left turn). At work I have a cube but it's next to a big window and I can see green trees all day most of the year. Right now I ha
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Once a business has adapted to working from home, will there even be a business reason to go back to working in offices?
A lot of people prefer working in an office.
Anecdotally, looking at my team of six, only one (me) really likes WFH and wants to do it full-time and long-term (and I have been doing it for years). One likes to WFH 60% of the time -- and has been doing that for a couple of years, going to the office Tuesdays and Thursdays. The other four like the flexibility of being able to WFH occasionally, but would really prefer to work in the office -- though at least one of them really, really hates open plan office
Governors should order this (Score:2)
It's insane to think some folks might be dragged back into the office in the next few weeks. That's going to get people killed.
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When our company opens up, its mostly going to be the same. Stay at home if you can stay at home. Keep the masks on at work. Factories are as they are now, still running with concessions about masks and extra space. When in the office try to avoid large groups, do conferences remotely from your desk, etc.
I hope this changes things (Score:4, Insightful)
I've already heard from my clients that cramming everyone into cramped noisy open office spaces isn't going to be safe anymore. At the same time, we're all working from home, and it's... working. Commuting three hours a day so we can Slack with the person in the next hoteling space is pointless.
When this is over, I hope I can live somewhere with a better quality of life and lower cost of living, and make the trip for face to face time a couple days a week. Corporate PHB's have been resisting this for years but this if forcing them to see that it really does work.
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Change that to "a couple days a month" and you're ready to really work from home. Ask to do in-person meetings on fridays, so that you can do some shopping after work.
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Ask to do in-person meetings on fridays, so that you can do some shopping after work.
Ok, I know this is off topic, but I have to ask because I'm completely baffled. What possible relationship does meetings on Fridays have to do with whether or not you can do shopping after work? Is this like a sabbath thing or do you live someplace where the stores are only open late on Fridays?
Prior to Covid19 I often stopped off at a grocery store on the way home from work but I never once gave any consideration to what day of the week it was. Where I live all the stores are open 7 days a week and even th
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The scenario they are describing is living in one town while the physical office is a significant distance away in a larger town or city. Presumably they are not working on Saturday, thus there is less of a rush to get back their home town.
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If you can do your job from home for cheaper, a foreigner can do your job from his country even cheaper. If physical presence isn't needed, why bother hiring locally?
Exactly. That's why I'd never push for anything more than 3 days work from home per week. And, honestly, 2 work from home days is wonderful if your commute is long.
and the racist, populist western voters
Dafuq?
What about Yahoo? (Score:5, Funny)
Remember not too long ago (2011?) when the CEO of Yahoo revoked employees authorization to work from home? I wonder how the company's treating things now.
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Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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Given that you don't know the real reason, I'll call your post an assumption.
I've heard manager complain that they couldn't monitor employees at home. Which, while that's just a dumb manager, could be one of many reasons. I had a director last year that required all of our admins to work in the office, even though they supported us all over the country just fine from home....another stupid manager.
Lost irony (Score:1)
It's sad that premature "opening for business" is what is causing these companies to have to plan for longer closures. But half the nation doesn't understand that.