We forgot how good we are. Google puts the last nails in a coffin at work as it orders more remote employees to return to the office with a mixed schedule, or risk losing their jobs. The endless cubicle farm would have been better off using housing or shopping (such as housing or shopping).
The CNBC report said that this week will be told the teams in their technical services and personnel operations (or public services) that they must report to their closest office or conduct a voluntary exit program three days a week. Some people in HR have approved remote work and can retain their positions 50 miles or more from the office, but cannot play a new role in the company.
The news is not shocking. Since the mass layoffs were implemented in early 2023, Google has been asking employees to return to the office, with nearly every major company moving from the early pandemic when employees were allowed to work from anywhere. Some company leaders — including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jack Dorsey of Twitter — once claimed that remote work will stay here forever.
Despite record profits and earnings, tech companies say their companies have become too bloated during the pandemic and layoffs will provide them with more resources to invest in emerging AI fields. Terminating workers under the guise of remote work can be an excuse to eliminate employees they don’t want. For example, while expectations for execution during the term exceed expectations, some employees reportedly reportedly added to the “No Rehire” list.
Critics criticizing the return authorization point to the irony of the technology industry, especially the elimination of remote work, as the entire idea of the internet is to distract communication and make a candid global economy that does not rely on power centers such as Silicon Valley. But, unfortunately, there is a network effect with like-minded people, and many technology areas are still concentrated in San Francisco. Sergey Brin, one of Google Retreat co-founders, told employees at a meeting earlier this year that 60 hours a week in the office is a great place for employees to develop cutting-edge AI products and keep up with the competition.
“As we said before, face-to-face collaboration is an important part of how we innovate and solve complex problems,” Google spokesman Courtenay Mencini said in a statement to CNBC. “To support this, some teams require remote employees living near offices to return to face-to-face work three days a week.”
The technician has no choice on this issue. After a decade, tech workers can expect huge pay and benefit packages, the frequent wave of massive layoffs restores power to leadership and ask their employers to abide by lofty mission statements and avoid more ethically questionable jobs, such as defense contracts.
The CEO caught the remote workers with less productivity, but the data that supported that belief was mixed together. Productivity may drop, but turnover is lower, and by working from home, employees save time on commuting. Proponents believe that the remote working model is actually more than relying on seats as an indicator of employee productivity.
A series of surveys found that Americans prefer employers who provide remote work for increased lifestyle benefits, and many will even cut their salaries by up to 20% to work remotely. Some tech workers are so resistant that they use tricks like “coffee badges” to appear at work for an hour to slide the badges and go home immediately. Meta and Amazon responded by asking employees to report their locations all day long.
Asking employees to return to the office is an important way to seize power. Google leaders and others have reestablished themselves in other ways, such as closing protests and openly discussing discussions about company policies in previous years. Leaders now clearly believe that protests and internal dissent can harm productivity and that everyone should focus on the company’s mission. Also, it's not fun when your own employees publicly complain about you.
The country office vacancy rate has increased from 2019 levels, suggesting remote work will remain here, the same level as during the pandemic. Have fun attending a zoom meeting from the cold sterile compartment.
