We forget how good we had it. Google is putting the last nails in the work-from-home coffin as it orders more remote employees to return to offices on a hybrid schedule or risk losing their jobs. The endless cubicle farms, which could have been repurposed for better use like housing or shopping, are not going anywhere just yet.
CNBC reports that teams in Google’s Technical Services and People Operations—or human services—divisions were told this week they must report to their closest office three days a week or take a voluntary exit package. Some in human resources approved for remote work and who live 50 miles or more away from an office can remain in their positions, but cannot take new roles in the company.
The news is hardly a shock. Google has been demanding employees return to offices since implementing mass layoffs in early 2023, and just about every major company has swung back jarringly from the early pandemic, when employees were allowed to work from anywhere. Some company leaders—including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey—had once proclaimed that remote work was here to stay forever.
Despite record profits and earnings, tech companies have said their companies became too bloated during the pandemic, and layoffs would give them more resources to invest in the burgeoning artificial intelligence space. Terminating workers under the guise of remote work could be an excuse to eliminate staff they did not want anyway. Some employees laid off by Meta, for instance, have reported being added to “do not rehire” lists despite performing above expectations during their tenure.
Critics of return-to-office mandates have pointed out the irony of the tech industry in particular eliminating remote work, since the entire idea of the internet was to decentralize communication and enable a flattened, global economy that does not rely on power centers like Silicon Valley. But alas, there is a network effect to being around like-minded individuals, and much of the tech sector is still concentrated in San Francisco. Sergey Brin, one of Google’s reclusive cofounders, told employees in a meeting early this year that 60 hours a week in-office is the sweet spot for employees working on developing cutting-edge AI products and keep up with the competition.
“As we’ve said before, in-person collaboration is an important part of how we innovate and solve complex problems,” Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini said in a statement to CNBC. “To support this, some teams have asked remote employees that live near an office to return to in-person work three days a week.”
Employees in tech do not have much of a choice in the matter. Recurring waves of mass layoffs have returned power to leadership after a decade in which tech workers could expect enormous compensation and benefits packages—as well as demand their employers abide by lofty mission statements and shun more ethically dubious work, like defense contracting.
CEOs have griped that remote workers are less productive, but the data to support that belief is mixed. There may be some decrease in productivity, but turnover is lower, and by working from home, employees save time commuting. Proponents argue that the remote work model is in fact more performance based than relying on butts-in-seats as a metric for measuring employee productivity.
A slew of surveys have found that Americans prefer employers who offer remote work for the added lifestyle benefits, and many would even take a pay cut of up to 20% in order to work remotely. Some employees in tech have been so resistant that they have gone out kicking and screaming, using techniques like “coffee badging” to show up at work for an hour to swipe their badge and go right back home. Meta and Amazon responded by requiring employees to continuously report their location throughout the day.
Demanding employees come back to the office is one big way to claw back power. Leaders at Google and others have reasserted themselves in other ways, like shutting down protests and open discussion over company policies that in previous years were encouraged. Leaders apparently now believe that protest and internal dissent harms productivity and that everyone should be laser-focused on the company’s mission. Plus, it’s no fun when your own employees are complaining about you publicly.
The national office vacancy rate remains elevated from 2019 levels, suggesting remote work is here to stay, just not to the same degree as during the early pandemic. Have fun taking Zoom meetings from your cold, sterile cubicle.
English (US) ·