Google extends work from home policy till September 2021
Google has announced to extend its work from home policy till September 2021. Google had earlier planned to reopen offices by summer next. But it has now allowed those employees who don’t need to be in an office to work from home till September.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has sent an email to staff wherein he communicated that the company is mulling a fully hybrid workforce model. He said that the company is “testing a hypothesis that a flexible work model will lead to greater productivity, collaboration, and well-being”.
“According to Google, its employees may rejoin the workplace for three days a week and work from home on the rest of the days when offices reopen.”
Below is the copy of Sundar Pichai’s email sent to staff.
Hi Googlers,
When we closed most of our offices back in March, we didn’t know what course the pandemic would take. The last few months have been especially difficult with the virus surging in many parts of the world. I know some of us are experiencing personal hardships and missing loved ones who’d normally surround us at this time of year. And many of us are leaning on our fellow Googlers more than ever.
The good news is that over the last nine months we’ve learned how to work better virtually. We’ve adapted. We’ve kept innovating. And with new vaccines on the horizon, thanks to the incredible ingenuity of our medical and scientific community, a return to normal is now in sight. So the question that I know is on your minds is: what’s next?
First, we’ll continue to face variability in many areas of the world before life returns to normal. Our goal is to give Googlers everywhere the option to return as soon as local conditions allow, and it’s encouraging to see that in some parts of APAC and EMEA, Googlers are already returning to the office. Other regions are not as far along, so to help these Googlers deal with the uncertainty still ahead, we’ll be extending our voluntary work-from-home option to September 1. That means if your role allows you to work from home until July 2021, you can now do so until the beginning of September 2021.
Second, we believe that in-office collaboration will be just as important to Google’s future as it’s been to our past. The unpredictability still ahead for many regions creates some interesting challenges and opportunities for us as we start to bring Googlers back to the office. We’re going to lean into them and experiment with a series of pilots designs to improve productivity, collaboration, and overall well being. Here’s what you can expect to see in 2021:
- Flexible work week pilot: To remove the friction of five-day-a-week commutes, we will pilot a hybrid model in which teams come together for “collaboration days” in the office and spend the other days doing focused work for home or the office. In sites that have reached Level 2 on the risk assessment curve, we’ll offer a 3/2 work week — a minimum of three days in the office and two at home (or wherever you work best). This pilot won’t make sense for every role or every team — particularly Googlers in customer-facing roles spending lots of time with clients, employees who need to be on-site in data centers or labs, or those who. Depend on specialized equipment to do their work — so please read the full FAQ and expect further guidance in 2021 from your product or function lead.
- Flexible office design: In offices that have reached levels 2, 3 and 4 on the risk assessment curves, you’ll see new options, such as bookable collaboration spaces for up to a dozen people and outdoor spaces for large team gatherings. We’ll also have reservable desks for Googlers who want to dod individual work in a quiet space (which, as we’ve learned, is not always possible at home).
- New collaboration technology: We’ll keep iterating on our tools and spaces to ensure collaboration equity between Googlers who are working from home and Googlers who are sitting together in the office. For example, we’re creating in-office presentation booths designed to send professional-quality broadcasts to large, distributed audiences. We’re also improving products like Meet and workspace to better bridge the gap between colleagues working from the office and those working from home.
Ultimately, we are testing a hypothesis that a flexible work model will lead to greater productivity, collaboration and well being. Those goals have always been at the core of Google’s workplace philosophy and will stay front and center for us as we plan for the future. No company at our scale has ever created a fully hybrid workforce model — though a few are starting to test it — so it will be interesting to try. We’ll approach these pilots with a spirit of innovation and an open mind, and do rigorous measurement along the way to help us learn and adapt.
I’m excited about the opportunity to reimagine our workplace together and am sure you’ll have many questions. We’ll continue the discussion in future forums and follow up in early 2021 with more detail.
– Sundar