Move to affect nearly 200,000 Employees
One of the tech giants, Google has recently announced it will keep its employees home until at-least next July, making the search engine giant the first major US Corporation to formalize such an extended timetable amid the coronavirus pandemic. The move will affect nearly 200,000 full-time and contract employees across Google parent Alphabet Inc. and add pressure to other technology giants that have slated staff to return until January.
Presently, businesses from factories to salons and restaurants are grappling with if and when to reopen amid the stubborn rise in COVID-19 cases around the country. The risk of outbreak among workers remains despite offices adding plexiglass barriers and other social distancing protections. The return has been slow even for those industries where work from home is relatively manageable. For an instance, in New York, fewer than one-tenth of Manhattan office workers are back to the workplaces, a full month after the city gave businesses the green lights to reoccupy buildings vacated in March.
Supporting the Staff through the Crisis
Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet made the decision last week after debate among Google leads, an internal group of top executives that he chairs. A small number of Google staff were notified later in the week. Mr. Pichai swayed in part by sympathy for employees with families to plan for uncertain school years that may involve at-home instruction. “I know it hasn’t been easy,” Mr. Pichai wrote in a note to staff Monday. “I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months,” he further added.
This extended timeline applies to company employees in most of its major offices, including the headquarters of Mountain View, California, and other offices in the US, UK, India, Brazil, and elsewhere. Until now, Google had told its employees to expect a return to the office beginning in January.
