Global Courant
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speaks at an event in New Delhi, December 19, 2022.
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Google plans to crack down on employees who have failed to consistently come to its offices, CNBC has found.
The company updated its hybrid work policy on Wednesday and includes tracking office badge attendance, confronting employees who don’t come in when they should and including attendance in employee performance reviews, according to internal memos. by CNBC. Most employees are expected to be in physical offices at least three days a week.
Google’s chief people officer, Fiona Cicconi, wrote an email to employees late Wednesday that included doubling office visits, reasoning that “there’s just no substitute for getting together in person.”
“Of course, not everyone believes in ‘magic hallway conversations,’ but there’s no doubt that working together in the same room makes a positive difference,” Cicconi’s email said. “Many of the products we unveiled last month at I/O and Google Marketing Live were conceived, developed and built by teams working side-by-side.”
Her note says the company will include their three days a week as part of their performance reviews and that teams will begin sending reminders to employees “who are consistently absent from the office.”
Cicconi even asked already-approved remote workers to reconsider. “For those who live remotely and live near a Google office, we hope you’ll consider moving to a hybrid work schedule. Our offices are where you’ll be most connected to the Google community.”
A separate internal document showed that already approved remote employees can be reassessed if the company identifies “material changes in business needs, role, team, structure or location.”
In the US, the company will periodically track whether employees adhere to office attendance policies using badge data, and executives are currently reviewing local requirements to implement in other countries, one of the documents said. If employees do not follow the policy after an extended period of time, Human Resources will contact about “next steps”.
Going forward, Cicconi said, new work that works entirely remotely will only be allowed “on an exceptional basis.”
In a statement to CNBC, Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont said: “Our hybrid approach is designed to combine the best of in-person gatherings with the benefits of working from home for part of the week. Now that we’ve been integrating this way of working for more than a year, We formalize this approach in all of our workplace policies.”
Lamont added that the badge data viewed by company executives is aggregated data and not individualized.
These policy updates represent the company’s strictest effort to return employees to brick-and-mortar offices.
In 2021, after facing backlash for returning to offices, the company relaxed its remote work plans and said it expects to have 20% of employees telecommute. However, most employees are expected to be in brick-and-mortar offices at least three days a week from April 2022, and at the time the company tried to court employees by hosting a private Lizzo concert, hiring marching bands and bringing in mayors to celebrate the return . .
In April, CNBC reported that Google dropped the required Covid vaccination to enter buildings.
The crackdown comes as the company is in the middle of an artificial intelligence arms race, at times calling on all hands on deck to quickly position itself against rivals such as Microsoft and its backed ChatGPT, whose success has grown in recent months. In recent weeks, the company has also made more attempts to address leaks that came from within the company.
However, the crackdown also comes as the company shrinks its real estate footprint amid wider cost-cutting efforts. In April, CNBC first reported that Google’s cloud unit told employees in March that it will move to a desk-sharing workplace in its five largest locations. CNBC also reported that the company has put construction on its massive campus in San Jose, California, on hold indefinitely.
