Google Giving Employees $1,000 to Help Work From Home
Google has become the latest company to allow employees to work from home for the rest of the year, and promised to give them $1,000 to help.
In a blog post on Tuesday, CEO Sundar Pichai outlined the company’s policy, saying that the majority of Googlers will be able to work from home for the rest of the calendar year. For the small number of Googlers whose jobs require onsite work, they will be notified by June 10.
“Because we still expect that most Googlers will be largely working from home for the rest of this year, we’ll be giving each Googler an allowance of $1,000 USD, or the equivalent value in your country, to expense necessary equipment and office furniture,” writes Pichai.
In the meantime, the company expects long-term changes in how Googlers work, with more flexibility being the new status quo.
“Moving ahead, we are looking to develop more overall flexibility in how we work,” says Pichai. “Our campuses are designed to enable collaboration and community—in fact, some of our greatest innovations were the result of chance encounters in the office—and it’s clear this is something many of us don’t want to lose. At the same time, we are very familiar with distributed work as we have many offices around the world and open-minded about the lessons we’ll learn through this period. We continue to study all the data and feedback you’re sharing on your current experience. I believe that ultimately these insights will lead to more flexibility and choice for employees as they consider how to work in the future.”
This is likely welcome news on all fronts for Googlers, and hopefully the company will find new ways to meet its employees needs in a changed landscape.
