"Google has always had a very strong cultural tendency to prefer being on premise," they added. One current employee said they thought the new mandate was "pretty soft" compared to some other companies. Not everyone thinks the new rules are a big deal. The union also said that the way teams are distributed means that some staff will still not be collaborating in-person under the new guidance. "The practical application of this new policy will be needless confusion amongst workers and a disregard for our various life circumstances." "Overnight, workers' professionalism has been disregarded in favor of ambiguous attendance tracking practices tied to our performance evaluations," Chris Schmidt, a Google software engineer and member of the Alphabet Workers Union, told Insider in a statement. Google has told staff that their work badges will be tracked, but the company told Insider it will only be used to identify consistent absences over multiple weeks.įollowing the announcement of the new rules, which were sent to staff by Google's Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi last week, the Alphabet Workers Union also pushed back. But I worked from the office, and apparently, that's the most important thing," read one of the more popular memes.Īnother showed an empty office with the text "Time for some 'magical hallway conversations'," a reference to wording in the email sent to employees last week. Lacking more official channels to air their grievances, some staff have turned to Memegen – Google's internal meme generator – over the past few days to vent. "Now that we're more than a year into this way of working, we're formally integrating this approach into all of our workplace policies." "Our hybrid approach is designed to incorporate the best of being together in person with the benefits of working from home for part of the week," Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont told Insider in a statement. "We don't like being micromanaged like school kids," they said. "I know people complain that Googlers have life easy, but one of the main draws of joining is the flexibility and openness and they're just crushing that at every turn," one current employee told Insider.Īnother said there was a "lot of frustration" among staff over the new rules. Some employees said tying attendance to performance reviews felt unnecessary, others pointed out the new guidance as frustratingly vague, especially for teams that were largely distributed across territories. The news has not gone over well with staff, according to discussions with several current employees and internal materials viewed by Insider. Applications to work fully remote will now be considered "by exception only." While staff had previously been told they would be expected in the office three days a week, Google has now said that those not meeting that minimum could see their performance reviews hurt as a result. Google employees are having strong reactions to the company's biggest push yet to bring staff back to the office. A lot of employees are unhappy about it.If they don't, it may be held against them during performance reviews.Google has told staff they must show up in the office at least three days a week. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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