Google Work From Home Plan For Staff Includes $1,000 Allowance

The allowance is more symbolic than impactful. $1,000 won't buy a top of the line laptop, let alone an Aeron desk chair.

But it does signal the company's seriousness about its commitment to employees to permit working from home for the rest of 2020. And it may help with employee retention by acknowledging the loss of free snacks, meals and the other perks of being a Google employee. JL

David Beasley reports in Forbes:

Google is giving employees who work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic  $1,000 allowances. A limited number of employees will be asked to return to office work this year and will be notified by June 10. “Because we still expect most Googlers will be 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, to expense equipment and office furniture.” The CEO believes working in offices has value. “Our campuses are designed to enable collaboration and community, something many of us don’t want to lose.”

Google is giving employees who work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic  $1,000 allowances to cover equipment costs, CEO Sundar Pichai announced Tuesday.

Yet the CEO still believes working in offices has value and is not willing to abandon the company “campuses.”

Beginning July 6, “Assuming external conditions allow, we’ll start to open more buildings in more cities,” Pichai wrote in a letter to employees. “This will give Googlers who need to come back to the office—or, capacity permitting, who want to come back—the opportunity to return on a limited, rotating basis (think: one day every couple of weeks, so roughly 10 percent building occupancy).”

A limited number of employees will be asked to return to office work this calendar year and they will be notified by June 10, the CEO said.

“For everyone else, returning to the office will be voluntary through the end of the year, and we encourage you to continue to work from home if you can,” he said. “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.” 

Although the company plans a more flexible policy on work in the future, Pichai emphasized the value of a Google offices.

“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,” he wrote.