Corporations Changing their Minds on Remote Work
I can not tell you I worked remotely. It was always required I be in the building governing the operations of the facility. One of those 7AM to 7PM positions which also entailed calls from the other side of the globe at night. And then a trip back to the facility. The fun part were the trips globally to check out our associate facilities. I can understand the reasoning for working remotely. More gets done with less interruption.
Google has officially changed its mind about remote work, qz.com, Gabriela Riccardi
Google Chief people officer Fiona Cicconi in an internal memo obtained by news outlets this week.
“For those who are remote and who live near an office, we hope you’ll consider switching to a hybrid work schedule. Our offices are where you’ll be most connected to Google’s community. Going forward, we’ll consider new remote work requests by exception only.”
According to the note, employees not already designated as remote will now have their badge swipes tracked to ensure they’re appearing in the office three days per week; managers can factor their absences into performance reviews.
But then, absences were always a feature of reviews.
Big tech is the one sector with all the resources and tools to make remote work effective. Instead, it is now giving in to the inertia of conventional in-person policy. What is striking is the same companies taking back fully remote staffs are also the ones who create the core tools for remote workers across all industries. The companies enabled efficient remote work around the globe. It now seems, they no longer believe in it themselves.
Google began mandating its workers return to the office in April of last year. It is unclear how much the policy was enforced among its rank and file. By cracking down on in-person attendance now, Google joins other major tech companies recently taking firm stances on formerly soft hybrid policies. and reversing policy on remote work.
At home work came after the cushy in-office perks such as catered cafeterias and campus commuter shuttles. In-house pluses were put in place so as to compete with other companies and attract talent. These companies were also some of the first to close down in favor of work-from-home when the pandemic hit in the US. During the pandemic, tech companies became aggressive recruiters of remote workers. Over the last year or so, this changed and major companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Meta began to roll back their remote policies.
Google’s memo calls to mind a similar missive issued by Meta, which last week told workers that they’ll need to return to the office three days per week starting this September. And Salesforce—a particularly early adopter of remote work—is now aiming to bribe employees back into the office by pledging to donate to nonprofits for each day they work in-person during a two-week window this month.
These same companies support remote work and distributed teams around the world, offering up the software allowing employees to jump on a remote video call, leave comments on a working draft, or send off a quick group DM. Between its docs, sheets, and slides, Google pioneered cloud-based tools that allowed teammates to work side-by-side from anywhere. (And beyond revolutionizing our office work, the products have also catalyzed all kinds of cloud-centric collaboration, from social note-passing to grassroots organizing).
Those tools power our professional lives, whether it’s in person or apart. And they didn’t just support the remote-work revolution: They made it possible. When the pandemic sent waves of workers home in 2020, Google Meet became a leading space for virtual meetings. Gmail dominates the internet’s email, with more than 1.5 billion global active users. And in 2019, the company marked a milestone of 5 million businesses paying to work on G Suite, Google’s full collection of work tools for productivity and collaboration.
Meanwhile, Salesforce owns Slack, which next to Microsoft Teams, it is one of the most widely-adopted messaging and managing tools for work. And Meta rebranded itself on a big bet people would rather gather—and work—in virtual spaces over IRL ones. While the promise of the metaverse has declined, the appellation still stands (although maybe not on legs).
So why then, are wide-ranging reversals on remote work, brought to you by these teams enabling it? Perhaps even big tech doesn’t believe in its own vision or, at the least, its own products.
If memos are to be believed, tech companies are calling workers back because they think more in-office time is key for relationships on the job. According to recent reporting from the Pew Research Center, more than half of Americans who work from home at least some of the time say it hinders their ability to feel connected with co-workers. At least Google and Meta notes lean on thit sentiment.
Google’s Fiona Cicconi in a memo . . .
“We’ve heard from Googlers that those who spend at least three days a week in the office feel more connected to other Googlers, and the effect is magnified when teammates work from the same location. Of course, not everyone believes in ‘magical hallway conversations,’ but there’s no question that working together in the same room makes a positive difference.”
Meta’s memo also points to connection as one of the core reasons the company is compelling its staff to come back to the office, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying that IRL time is key to cross-team connection. Zuckerberg wrote in a March blog post . . .
“[O]ur hypothesis is that it is still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively. I encourage all of you to find more opportunities to work with your colleagues in person.”
Do those theories square with what their workers actually want? Most hybrid employees, according to Pew, would prefer to spend even more time working from home than they do now. It begs the question, then, what do the bosses actually believe in?
Our relationship of work, technology and life, Angry Bear, angry bear blog
Maybe they are influenced by the potential that a commercial real estate depression could have huge negative repercussions which might feedback into their operations. They are firms that seem most set up to go remote to a very high degree, but also are firms that pre-pandemic leased 80,000 sq. feet here and 90,000 elsewhere. If not them, who? It’s like they polled their workers who strongly preferred some other place, but an idea is to convert a lot of space to residences for many of the same kind of folks who just said the did not want to be there 40 hours a week? I guess this goes beyond their own business. Why they would feel any pressure or obligation is hard to figure though. But if you had employees willing to help you massively reduce one of your operations huge costs, most people would even accept some inefficiency.
It’s Google’s way of winnowing out their more productive employees. If you are working from home and can get a good job with another company that cares more about getting the work done than participating in a social club, then you will get a job with another company. If you are less productive, you will be unable to get a similar job elsewhere, so you will start coming in to the office to keep your premium pay. Google has made its priorities clear, attendance over production, and Google will reap what it sows.
P.S. I think this return to the office push has a sociological up side. Google has brought back the punch clock for people who long thought themselves high level professionals. Who would have thunk it? You may be making six figures at Google, but you are just Johnny Paycheck at the factory gate waiting to punch the clock, and do not forget that. Think twice before bitching about the inconvenience of the next strike or picket line.
It begs the question, then, what do the bosses actually believe in?
They believe in shitting on their workers to show them who’s boss — same as always.
Infidel:
Good to see you. Been awfully busy with Dan being out. Lost my creativity moments. I always thought it was to keep an eye on you. Indeed, one of my first bosses told me, he expects t see me working later hours. And of course, he was always there. So, I did. Just to keep a job. During the early eighties when the recession hit, the GM told us all to start earlier and work till the last hour. So, you had to fake working as needed work had decreased.
What do you do when you get your work done quicker than anyone else? Look busy. Take walk-abouts in the plant.
I always liked when they screwed thing up with a supplier and I had to go there to convince them I was real. Or a German plant manager screaming at a Chinese Director. She did not understand their mentality toward others and especially Chinese. Took 5-minutes to get him to direct his anger at me. Just a manager-worker. It never paid off for me in money. That company had no idea of what they were doing.
Having people in the office means you can keep an eye on them and give them more.
We always knew the pandemic disruptions would have lasting effects. Like the Great Depression, it may take generations to move on from this.