Anecdotally, as a Googler, I think I've talked to maybe one person on the teams I've been on in the past year who really wants to stay remote. Nobody else really likes it, and misses the office and being around people.
The new team I'm on is better, as we have a daily standup and more frequent interaction. But I still miss the face to face interaction, spontaneous brainstorming, and ability to just tap someone on a shoulder to ask for help, etc.
Remote works for some people, but it isn't working for me right now.
I agree 100% with the idea that not everyone enjoys remote work, and I think actually the majority of people won't.
But I'd like to point out that working from home this last year (with forced kids at home, no chance to travel, services closed etc) was not the common experience people had in non-pandemic times.
How many of those are quite aware that if they don't choose, they're on the chopping block? So far I've known exactly two people who actually want to return to the office more than just like once in a while for fun, regardless of what they tell their boss. And one shouldn't count much because she also is going to retire shortly. I'm pretty sure I'm an outlier but not a "no really it's 60%" outlier.
I would like to continue working from home, as I've found it allows me to better align my time with my priorities and to be more productive. Since I'm in a great relationship and keep up with friends, I don't feel isolated. I don't miss the 2 hours of commuting on the N each day. I didn't expect any of this to be the case - I thought WFH would make me depressed and lonely.
That said, I know many people who really miss being in the office, including many former colleagues at Google. Some of them have kids, while others need the social aspect of in office culture. I really believe that at least half the company wants to work from an office.
That makes me wonder what happens with the other half. Having part of a team work remotely isn't ideal for those people - they end up being left out of things. On the other hand, it doesn't really make sense to just forget everything we've learned from the last year of remote work and force a big percentage o people back to a situation where they're less productive.
I suspect though that the latter is exactly what will happen to some extent based on Google's own statement, which is a shame. But we all have to give things up for work and many Googlers would be very reluctant to leave.
The Google equivalent of a chipping block in most cases is not getting promoted. But Google has a very level-focused culture and many Googlers are highly motivated to keep getting promotions, so the incentives are there.
The Google equivalent of a chipping block in most cases is not getting promoted
Do tell, given what you know about the Google promotion process, how a choice to work remotely would translate to a decreased likelihood to be promoted (and, importantly, to an unfair degree)?
Realized I have a typo from relying too heavily on auto-correct. Sorry about that.
I worked at Google for four years. I've seen many people I know basically "play it safe" by making conservative decisions in order to minimize the likelihood of hurting one's promo chances. Despite all the talk about this, nobody really knows for sure what will affect their promo. For example, people will stay on a team they hate rather than risk "resetting the promo clock". There is also a general understanding that being outside the Bay Area hurts your career growth.
Given these tendencies and the fact that people who work remotely often find themselves more isolated than their in-office colleagues, I fully expect that people will hesitate to adopt remote work if they're not in the majority.
Got it. So when it was asked, "how many know they're on the chopping block if they work remotely" and it was redefined to ask "how many know their chances for promotion might be affected by working remotely?"... The answer is "almost everyone".
Many people will happily choose to work remotely, even if it makes promotion harder, because that's a good trade-off for them. Exactly like people will happily work from other offices.
Do you realize I am not the person who wrote the original "chopping block" comment? I'm just adding context here based on my experience. I don't understand why your tone in this thread is so hostile.
It's kind of strange to wander into a conversation, and then balk at the fact that people expect your contributions to be relevant to the conversation.
That's not entirely untrue. Even if you do get promoted, the four year cliff is real. I got promoted and still experienced a substantial loss in total comp at year 4, with good performance and what seemed to be typical refresh grants.
But that’s the opposite of what the post said. The cliff is real and happens regardless of promo because everybody gets refreshes every year regardless of promotions.
I think that 60% figure is misleading, it must represent people who have just come in to pick something up or drop something off. I'm working at another company in the valley, that is much more HW oriented, and its less than 10% of employees who are coming in with any regularity.
The actual quote is "In fact, in places where we’ve been able to reopen Google offices in a voluntary capacity, we’ve seen nearly 60% of Googlers choosing to come back to the office." That doesn't sound like surveys; I think the 60% of people came to the office once or twice interpretation is more likely.
(Also possible that the offices that were opened were more heavy on hardware / "lab" roles, so while maybe it was officially "voluntary", those people effectively had to choose between coming back to the office or doing fake / busy work at home.)
I think the thing you may be missing is that almost all of those offices are in Europe, Asia, or Oceania. I know my coworkers (I work at Google) in those locations are largely back in the office some, and excited by that.
Having worked from the Zurich office myself previously, most people are within walking/biking/a 5 minute train ride to the office, so commute concerns that we have in the US aren't relevant.
Similarly, most people in those locations live in apartments or condos and so may not have a space to make a home office. Returning to the office to make use of the (superior) workspace in the office. I can say that for example on my team, around half of my coworkers (whose offices are open) are consistently in the office.
