[jefb]

Mandates?

"Since last June, Google has approved nearly 14,000 employees globally to transfer to a new location or go fully remote, Casey said. About 15% of applications have been denied, he added."

"Employees not prepared to return April 4 also can seek a remote-work extension, Google said."

[paxys]

A mandate which allows temporary exceptions is still a mandate.

[advisedwang]

If you apply to go fully remote, that's not temporary.

[paxys]

Only 20% of Google staff even has that option, and not all of them get approved. The vast majority will not be able to work remotely.

[ehsankia]

> Only 20% of Google staff even has that option

Around 15-20% have gone remote, are you claiming that 100% of the people who had the option have taken it?

Are you including TVCs?

[UncleMeat]

I'm not aware of any engineering org that bans it, except smaller groups within orgs that are working on hardware. Where is your 20% number coming from?

[Sebguer]

Well, you can probably start with the fact that the person you're replying to never said 20% of engineers.

[UncleMeat]

I know. But SWEs and SREs account for way more than 20% of employees, so even if you just look at them the "only 20%" figure is clearly wrong.

[joshuamorton]

Engineering is well over 20% of Google staff, so the point stands, and isn't the only org to allow remote work.

[hinkley]

Who approved that application? Your old manager?

[opportune]

Those aren’t temporary exceptions. Fully remote in this context means you don’t have an assigned desk in any Google office and thus aren’t subject to any mandate about returning to offices when a particular office opens back up

[qntty]

I guess like most companies, return to office means show your hand see if you have enough power to convince them otherwise.

[ramesh31]

Made my move to permanent remote last Fall, when it was becoming pretty clear that return to office was on the horizon. Sure enough, we're going back company wide starting this week. Really glad I did it while I could. I will never go back to a 9-5 daily commute ever again.

[d0gsg0w00f]

I would hesitate to make such sweeping statements. As work returns to the office my prediction is that you'll end up with pockets of high functioning teams that are physically colocated and distributed teams will inevitably be at a disadvantage which will lead to them being relegated to "tolerate" despite the talent on those teams.

It's not to say that distributed teams can't be high funtioning it just takes 3x the effort from a management perspective. Good management is in even higher demand than SWE skills. A good manager will gravitate towards teams that are colocated because they know they can be more effective for less effort.

To level the playing field it has to be all colocated or all remote. Talent currently holds the cards because of demand but talent+colocation will always win in a contest.

[somewhereoutth]

I think you are overstating the importance of 'management'. In the modern world (i.e. not a factory or otherwise rote work) real business (and indeed societal) value is created due to the web of relationships between people who have at least some idea of what they are doing.

[ramesh31]

>To level the playing field it has to be all colocated or all remote.

Completely agreed. The way I see my situation playing out is that all of the employees who went remote during COVID will be tolerated, but that the company culture will revert to in-office first. That will eventually lead to the remote cohort slowly being relegated to irrelevance and passed for promotion until they disappear (including myself) through attrition. When that happens I will start looking for 100% remote companies. But for now I really don't care though, as long as they are paying me a Bay Area salary to live in the midwest.

[weq]

My company was all in office culture until they could no longer hire or only hire really fresh/average workers in the local market. Ive been remotely for 4yrs (precovid), and promoted 3 times in that period. But im a SWE not a csuite or in hr or marketing.

Your job is what you make of it. I personally see WFH as the progression brought about by the internet; not covid. Covid just sped up the transition that was already happening. Covid brought about collective PSTD which forced peoples hand like any other trauma in ones life. It was the reason people stopped putting off there happiness, for the dream of success.

[Amasuriel]

I would like to point out that you also appear to be making sweeping statements.

I don’t agree with you that colocated teams have an inherent advantage, or that they require more management to be productive than a remote team on average.

[Wiseacre]

I imagine over time the permanent employees will be "managed out".

[shadowgovt]

And as far as Google is concerned, that's always been true.

I knew someone who worked and lived in a houseboat. She showed up to the office for meetings, but her job was sales so she didn't have much use for a desk anyway.

[penjelly]

i see your point but the language used actually suggests theyll be bringing people back in the future, even if they allow them to work remote now.

"employees not prepared to return"?

"remote work extension"?

and transfers?

[UncleMeat]

My job location literally says US-REMOTE-MY_STATE. I signed a new contract and everything. Yes, this could change if the CEO decides to ban remote work but there is no evidence that this would happen any time soon. "Big mean Google does mean thing" is an attractive headline for media outlets.

[w1nk]

You mean the language used by the website that gets paid for you to click on it?

[edm0nd]

That doesnt make for good clickbait tho

[klyrs]

Headlines lack nuance, news at 11. But, since the quote lumps relocations in with remote work, it's hard to say how applicable it is to the headline.

[johnnyo]

That’s 10% of the employee base.

If half of those transferred locations, that means 95% are coming back to the office.