Google has asked the employees and partners that are part of the Google Cloud department to share their desks and alternate office days with their colleagues, as announced by the CNBC.
The new policy, which internally receives the code name CLOE (acronym for Cloud Office Evolution, which can be translated as “Evolution of the Cloud office”), will affect the 5 largest Google Cloud headquarters in the US, which are Kirkland (Washington), New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Sunnyvale (California).
“Through the pairing process, they will agree on a basic desktop configuration and establish rules with their partner to ensure a positive experience in the new shared environment,” reads the internal document that explains the change that has been reviewed by the CNBC.
In the event that they need to come on a day that they have not been assigned, the workers may do so by occupying what the company calls “overflow space”. Google argues that the change will allow them to add “the best of post-pandemic flexibility” to the synergies that existed in their office before the pandemic.
Nobody escapes, however, that the change occurs precisely at a time when Google, like the rest of the big technology companies, is looking closely at every expense. It must be remembered that Google has slowed down the hiring of personnel after laying off 12,000 workers last January.
Employees are so aware of the origin of this new policy that, according to the CNBCon Memegen, a platform used internally by themselves to generate memes, lots of images have already appeared mocking the language with which the company has tried to explain the change.
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“Not all cost-cutting measures have to be manipulated to sound good in the eyes of employees. A simple ‘We are reducing office space to reduce costs’ would make leaders sound more credible,” says one of the most popular images.
A Google spokesperson explained to the CNBC: “Since we returned to the office, we have conducted pilots and surveys with Cloud employees to explore different models of hybrid work and help shape the best experience. Our data shows that employees googlers [manera que tiene Google de referirse a sus propios empleados] at Cloud value collaboration when they’re in the office, as well as the option to work from home a few days a week.”
And they add: “With this information, we have developed our new rotating model, which combines the best of pre-pandemic collaboration with the flexibility and approach that we have all come to appreciate from remote work, while allowing us to use our spaces more efficient.”
Now, explain the internal Google document seen by the CNBCDepending on which department the Google workers belong to, they will organize themselves into what the company calls “neighborhoods”, and these in turn into neighborhoods. Each neighborhood will have a vice president who will assign the spaces and establish the rules while the couples from each desk agree on issues such as how to decorate the work space.
In addition, among other measures, it will be prohibited to permanently occupy the conference rooms and each table will be cleaned every day to comply with covid protocols.
Although Sundar Pichai, CEO of the company, tried to sell at the end of last year that Google is in a very good position to develop AI technology, the truth is that the company closed the year earning 21% less than the previous year.
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Specifically, the profits of the multinational were 55,000 million euros after having entered 260,000 million throughout the year, 10% more than the previous year.
This means that, despite the fact that more money came in, the company ultimately obtained less benefit due, among other things, to some expenses that the company now wants to tackle, starting with the most basic: offices.
