Google Employees to Work from Home till September 2021

The employees of American tech giant Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) have been given the go-ahead to continue their work from home style till September 2021. The continuation of the work from home strategy as reported by CNBC comes following the email sent by Google’s Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai to the company’s employees.

“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,” Pichai said in the email. “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,” added he.

The CEO noted that despite the vaccines, the next several months will still come with so many uncertainties and as such, any employees whose role allows to work from home “can now do so until the beginning of September 2021.”

With this in place, however, Pichai noted that upon resumption in September 2021, Google will require its employees to test out a hybrid working model in which some days will be spent at work and the other part at home. In this new model, Google employees will be required to report to the office 3 days out of the week and work can be done in any remote location for the remaining two days of the week.

“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,” Pichai added.

Google Employees May Need to Embrace New Realities

With an estimated workforce of 130,000 according to CNBC, the tech giant and its team will have to embrace new realities in the wake of the company’s hybrid work model. Besides the need to make a presence at designated work stations, employees will also have to live within commuting distances from the office according to an FAQ posted on the firm’s website about the new work models and what the employees are expected to do.

When other top tech giants are compared, Google staffers appear to have a much more limited amount of flexibility as the likes of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) and Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) have asked their workers to continue working from home forever or at least until the next decade to come.

Nonetheless, the current work model from Google does not apply to frontline employees particularly those with high customer engagements and those who are required to work with specialized equipment amongst others.