More of this soft layoff bullshit. Tech workers need to unionize.
Google is run by a bunch of insecure managers who are incapable of accepting the fact that remote/hybrid works and works well without their overly hands-on approach, and possibly showcases that maybe they’re not that important (atleast compensation wise relative to the actual team they’re incharge of).
From my experience in another tech company it’s not even the direct managers that want people back, it’s all c-suite and up that are trying to force it. Makes it easy to poach talent for any companies offering full remote though
The C suite who are looking at the expensive leases they’re paying for buildings that aren’t being used, or their friends who own those buildings.
Another element of this is that businesses have less leverage in negotiations with local government to carve out tax breaks and other incentives if their employees don’t go to the office.
The argument for a long time was that they were bringing a ton of business to the area (employees going out to eat and patroning other businesses) so you should send some kickbacks our way.
This is probably an attempt to have people resign out of “their own will”, so Google won’t have to offer severance packages.
Nah, this is major investors and exec whipping each other up over employees gaining some amount of power over their lives. They’ve become paranoid that we’re working multiple jobs, or that we’re doing laundry, or watching porn, or doing housework, or whatever else when they “own” our time.
Investors like layoffs; they look like trimming the fat. They don’t like resignations; they look like people fleeing a sinking ship.
I think a lot of this boils down to extroverts’ dependence on external stimuli, especially human interaction, to make them happy and feel self-fulfilled. While not exclusive by any means, it’s extroverts who naturally seek and–arguably–who are good at starting and running businesses. So, there is a bias toward those who are making the call for a return to office–execs–being extroverted by nature. They are confusing consciously or subconsciously the drivers for why workers should return to the office being arguments around productivity rather than their needs and biases.
For those who are remote and who live near a Google office, we hope you’ll consider switching to a hybrid work schedule.
I wonder if/when/how they will recall employees that are no longer near a Google office, or were hired nowhere near a Google office. It may be an easy decision to soft-layoff a low level software engineer, but they’d probably make an exception for a principal ML researcher. They have to draw a line somewhere, right?
Can’t imagine applying to work for an ad company in the first place.
I work corporate - for 3 days a week in the office I get: breakfast, lunch, a Starbucks drink, and a metro rail/bus pass. Works for me!
Most downtown business office and commercial leases (in the US at least) START at 10 year terms. We’ll be back before the real estate market crashes.