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Google recommends all North America employees work from home
- scrumbledober 7y agoDoes anyone know the largest employer to have recommended all employees work from home?
- unoti 7y agoMicrosoft has about 150k employees and recommended all work from home if they can. Google is around 100k. I don't know who's bigger than Microsoft that also did this.
- jacquesm 7y agoTough act to follow for Wallmart... The tech industry has a huge advantage here. But there are jobs where you'd have the possibility to do this in industries that will take some re-arranging to make it work. Legal and financial for instance, call centers (some technical issues), most design and creative work. The impossible ones are anything involving care, production and logistics. Even retail could in principle be done but it would require a massive shift on the part of the consumer. Going shopping is very much ingrained and retooling that industry for home delivery is neither fast nor simple when done on a massive scale.
- phreeza 7y agoMany production and logistics workplaces can probably implement distancing policies. Care, not so much...
- CydeWeys 7y agoThe problem is, Walmart can't shut down. They're the only grocery/drug store left in a lot of smaller towns. People depend on them for necessities. They can shut down most of their departments, the non-essential ones, but they're gonna need the grocery and pharmacy sections to remain open.
- dx034 7y agoThey don't need to. If office workers stay home and people can go shopping outside of rush hour, grocery workers should be mostly safe. Especially Walmarts tend to be rather large, it's certainly avoidable to be in close contact with customers there.
- w0m 7y agoMicrosoft only recommended WFH in SF/Seattle so far, other sites waiting for it.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoWFH is definitely in effect for Microsoft China...
- __s 7y agoI'm in Vancouver & have been supported in following the Seattle advice
- better_names 7y agoI guess we wait for IBM?
- TuringNYC 7y agoIt is hard to track IBM because they have so much change, but for many years IBM has already been a largely WFH culture. I know they recently tried to change that, but not sure how much of the culture they changed.
- war1025 7y agoI was going to say something similar to this. We did some work with IBM a few years ago and my boss said when he went for an on-site visit it was basically a giant office building that was mostly vacant.
- pmiller2 7y agoIBM is so large and geographically spread out, I doubt they'll be issuing a general WFH order/recommendation.
- solotronics 7y agoSo far no official wfh which is troublesome considering we had engineers going to Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Italy who are based out of my office the last month. No way I am going in to the office. Oh and we have a Korean embassy in our building as well.
- eigen 7y agoMSFT has 144k FTE (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT/profile?p=MSFT https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT/profile?p=MSFT) GOOG has 118k FTE (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOG/profile?p=GOOG https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOG/profile?p=GOOG) APPL has 137k FTE (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/profile?p=AAPL https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL/profile?p=AAPL) AMZN has 798k FTE (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/profile?p=AMZN https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/profile?p=AMZN) Note: this seems incorrect. INTC has 110k FTE (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/INTC/profile?p=INTC https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/INTC/profile?p=INTC) HPQ has 56k FTE (https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/HPQ/profile?p=HPQ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/HPQ/profile?p=HPQ)
- dbliss 7y agoThe AMZN number includes FT fulfillment center workers, so that number is in the ball park.
- usrusr 7y agoI predict that one of the mid term outcomes of the pandemic will be that all those people in (food) production, logistics (including retail), care and infrastructure that require personal presence will be far more aware of the non-bullshit nature of their jobs than before. Particularly in contrast to the mind workers who can switch to WFH and who, with few exceptions, could stop work for an entire year and society at large would hardly notice. Expect those still leaving their homes for work in two weeks to end the year far more aware of relative pie slice sizes than they were a year earlier.
- bnjms 7y agoThat would be wonderful. One of the reasons I liked recent UBI proposals is because it jury are nonwage replacing but would do a lot to balance out the understood value of low-training-&-skilled-physical jobs.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoHow do fulfillment center workers work from home?
- McTossOut 7y agoGoogle recommends all engineering projects take no more than 3 months to complete
- ineedasername 7y agoMy workplace had a ban on WFH. The virus is forcing them to reconsider that, at least temporarily.
- p2t2p 7y agoThen virus is "a small price to pay for salvation". May be the world will finally see that all occupations that can WFH should be free to WFH.
- reaperducer 7y agoYes, thousands of dead people is a small price to pay so that some people can push buttons in the pajamas. smh
- gizmo385 7y agoYou realize there are reasons beyond "wanting to push buttons in pajamas" for people to work from home, right?
- reaperducer 7y agoShow me one that's worth thousands of human lives.
- scrollaway 7y agoDecreased carbon emissions from commutes disappearing? GP's post is ridiculous but not acknowledging the positives of WFH is … I dunno, bone-headed to put it mildly.
- p2t2p 7y agoHave you thought about stopping the spread of the disease by not going out?
- Teever 7y agoWFH could potentially save thousands more from reduced car accidents / pollution from commuting.
- realityking 7y agoBeing based in Europe, Germany specifically, it seems like the reaction to this situation is much more intense in the US than in Europe. I haven’t heard of any employers going full WFH or universities closing outside of Italy. And theories why the reaction in the US is or seems to be more intense?
- martin_balsam 7y agoAll universities in Austria are closed
- tigershark 7y agoI and almost all my friends are WFH in UK.
- phreeza 7y agoReaction in Switzerland has been quite intense. All public events above 150 people require cantonal approval, above 1000 are banned outright. The government is recommending wfh for everyone who can, and many employers are following this.
- CalRobert 7y agoIreland has seen a pretty strong shift to wfh.
- balazsbela 7y agoRomania has closed all the schools and banned gatherings with more than 1000 participants.
- jakub_g 7y agoReaction in Poland has been radical AFAICT (22 cases so far): Major universities decided to close today. Public events called off. Football games without spectators for next few weeks. In France, events >5000 and then >1000 people were cancelled.
- notimetorelax 7y agoDoes one need to wait for it to spread? Other countries serve as a good examples of what will happen if nothing is done
- brianpgordon 7y agoI'm excited to be starting in Mountain View soon but I'm pretty apprehensive about having an effective orientation and getting up to speed if everyone's working from home. I've read that orientation is supposed to be a big event where you meet tons of people from around the world and learn together about internal Google tech and culture. I would hate to miss out on that experience because of the coronavirus fears.
- jeromegv 7y agoYou would miss on that experience because of the risk of contamination within your peers, not because of the "fear".
- brianpgordon 7y agoI didn't mean to imply that such precautions aren't prudent.
- freepor 7y agoYou mean you would hate to miss out on that experience to avoid spreading a deadly contagion?
- dang 7y ago"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- azakai 7y agoYes, it's not optimal, but based on my experience I think you'll be fine without the normal orientation. I would worry more about the actual crisis the world is going through (not that I'm saying you need to be overly worried, just that in context, that's the bigger issue).
- bschwindHN 7y agoI'm sure you'll get through this difficult time in your life somehow
- bitL 7y agoOne pandemics and FAANG learns about advantages of remote work. I can imagine FB's productivity goes way up as people wouldn't need to share the same huge open office. Maybe they'll even figure out some useful ideas in the end...
- jariel 7y agoSo the most profitable companies of all time will zillions of intelligent workers have thus far been unable to grasp a simple and easy way to jump their profitability substantially? Hmm ...
- bitL 7y agoWhat worked 10 years ago before their IPOs might not work now. Plenty of talented people won't even consider non-remote work these days and those are often the most driven ones that don't want to be stuck in offices/traffic all day long but have some life as well.
- jariel 7y agoNot that much has changed in 10 years and FAANGs had their IPOs 20 years ago.
- JDiculous 7y agoYou assume anything any big corporation does is the optimal way of doing things?
- jariel 7y agoNo, I'm saying that 'big corporations' universally do not have easy, low-hanging fruit sitting in front of them that would instantly improve productivity. If 'remote work' were some really expensive investment, then we could see that it would take some to make it's way into big corps. But it's relatively easy, and trivial to experiment with, and most companies don't do it in most cases.
- 7y ago
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoIn the US, if you catch the virus while at a mandatory work event, would that qualify you for workman's compensation during your recovery?
- CobrastanJorji 7y agoMaybe, if you can prove that you caught it at that event.
- gwright 7y agoAn interesting thought experiment but I would suspect that there needs to be some additional fact pattern there before you could show liability: knowledge that some employees had recently travelled to hot spots or were symptomatic, the meeting was in violation of official public health directives, etc.
- CapriciousCptl 7y agoDifferent states have different statues, many (maybe most?) exclude communicable diseases. Even in states without that restriction you’d be burdened by showing the disease came from someone at work. On the other hand if you could show negligence on behalf of an employer facilitating the spread of COVID19 massive lawsuits would mediate the shutdown of the U.S. economy.
- war1025 7y agoGiven that this is a pandemic, and Trump is very interested in winning re-election in the fall, I suspect money will become available to keep people solvent if they get sick. (Plus he said exactly that yesterday in his news conference)
- Cthulhu_ 7y agoHonestly, getting sick is out of your control and you should get paid as normal while staying at home and sickening it out; not offering this makes people go to work when sick, making other people sick, and causing much higher financial damage to the company. I mean sure, most people have no problems muscling through a cold, but there may be others who will be floored by it for longer, or spread it to their families, etc. Is you not missing a day of work worth more to your employer than someone else missing a week? Or their life in the case of corona.
- jumpinalake 7y agoCan people please stop posting paywall’d links? It’s annoying to only being able to read the headline. If this is just a thing because I’m in Canada then that’s different.
- mtmail 7y agoSee 'Are paywalls ok?' in the FAQ. Article text: https://outline.com/f9FLAD https://outline.com/f9FLAD
- sfj 7y agoI still think they suck. They should really change their policy on this.
- kps 7y agoI'm in Canada — and so is Raymond Hill, who is your friend. But in this case you're missing nothing; all the substance is in the title.
- miguelmota 7y agoIt's interesting that Google only recommends it but doesn't make it mandatory. I also wonder how many of those people that do want to work remote end up going to coffee shops and/or order food from postmates where the delivery guy is all around town and the employee still ends up getting contaminated with the virus and spreading it in their household.
- chipgap98 7y agoI think they're just not making it mandatory yet. It seems like more of a "when" not an "if"
- steelframe 7y agoI'm in the greater Seattle area. Anything getting delivered to my house gets immediately transferred to the garage (without direct skin contact), where it's sitting for about a week before I open it.
- cavisne 7y agoFood itself is meant to be safe. So as long as you wash your hands right before eating this doesn't seem any less safe. I'd like to understand how eating food prepared elsewhere is safe though as it seems like the perfect delivery mechanism from someones hands to your mouth.
- teirce 7y ago'Recommend' is pretty tame for the steps that are being taken. It is more like "if you can WFH, absolutely do so." To the extent that people are taking monitors etc. home with them. source: Googler
- bamboozled 7y agoReminds me of what happened in Japan. They closed schools, and now all the kids are playing together in the park.
- dlp211 7y agoThey are still likely coming into contact with fewer people than if they went to school.
- Jam-B 7y agoAccording to The Atlantic, 4384 people have been tested in the U.S. for Coronavirus, as of 4 p.m. Monday. Source : https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/607714/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article...
- beamatronic 7y agoWhy any tech company is resisting this, I don’t know.
- vlovich123 7y agoWhich ones are? I believe last week they quarantined their Seattle offices & this week they've done Bay Area (& it sounds like Google is taking this even further). I'm sure the reason it's "slow" is that it's logistically challenging to figure out policies for this as its totally unprecedented (policies here include figuring out how to handle all the special/unique cases they didn't think through originally because it's so rushed).
- meditativeape 7y agoNot just NA, all EMEA employees are recommended to WFH as well, with the exception of Italy, which is mandatory WFH. Anyone know how other companies in FAANG are handling EU offices? Situation there seems direr than the U.S...
- benkuykendall 7y agoWhat does EMEA stand for?
- theDoug 7y agoGenerally "Europe, the Middle East and Africa"
- nandsigeur 7y agoThey are throwing Europe in with those sand-figures? Curious.
- a_imho 7y agoEMEA is a second thought and unless you are requesting remote you are supposed to turn up in the office.
- tome 7y agoDo you have a reference for that? I can only find articles saying it apples to North America.
- bobobob420 7y agoWhy are comments saying no more paywall links getting downvoted. Some of the top comments are always hating on sources not to post from and no one mentions paywall linked.
- htrp 7y agoDoes anyone at google actually have food in their fridge?
- Xorlev 7y agoI'm sure this is tongue in cheek, but Googlers are just people who also go grocery shopping and have families to feed.
- ehsankia 7y agoObviously with a company that large you can't generalize either way, but many are fresh out of school living either alone or with other Googlers, and most definitely don't have much in their fridges. Freezers though are probably packed.
- cbhl 7y agoI usually go grocery shopping regularly, but this past weekend included me helping some friends stock up on the basics (driving them to and from the store, walking them through the aisles). Buying food at restaurants is still an option for now, although not every Googler budgets for that. In my opinion, it feels like a lot more food service workers are wearing gloves, too.
- p1mrx 7y agoI was fresh out of school >10 years ago, and until last week never kept more than a day or two of food at home, aside from a container of emergency rations. Walking for every meal is good way to stay healthy in general (just not during a pandemic.)
- CydeWeys 7y agoAbsolutely. I have to feed myself on weekends. And I'm not gonna be one of those people who eats out for every meal.
- cellar_door 7y agoBy the looks of the empty premade food section at the Mountain View Trader Joe's earlier today, no.
- pico303 7y agoI honestly don't understand why people think hiding out at home is the solution. How can we possibly hunker down and hide in our four walls for the 6-12 months it would take for this to maybe fade?
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoIf the disease is only communicable for a few weeks after a person gets the virus, and everyone hunkers down for a month, then it should seriously impede an exponential rise in infections.
- crazygringo 7y agoSerious question: how does it impede it at all, rather than simply delay it for a month? How is the situation a month from now going to be any better than the situation right now?
- gundmc 7y agoThe idea is that by reducing density (and thus community transmission), you flatten the curve and minimize the number of people concurrently infected. This reduces strain on a fixed healthcare resource pool and avoids situations like we saw in Wuhan.
- lutorm 7y agoLike the other post said, reducing the overall number of people infected is good, but spreading out the curve is absolutely essential to avoid completely overloading the health care system. Given the nature of an unmitigated exponential and the fact that there is an incubation time, by the time hospitals start filling up you are bound for chaos a few weeks later with nothing you can do about it.
- rsynnott 7y agoThe intent isn't to avoid the virus; it's to slow down the progress of the virus. If everyone gets it at the same time, it will be very, very bad.
- pfdietz 7y agoSo, how many Google employees (especially on the west cost) will now move to low living cost places?
- tempestn 7y agoWhy would they move due to a temporary WFH measure?
- justlexi93 7y agoThis is for the health safety of their workers, a lot of companies have implemented the same working set-up due to Covid-19.
- tempestn 7y agoYes, obviously.
- adreamingsoul 7y agoMy employer here in Norway is encouraging people to WFH.
- cosmodisk 7y agoIt's interesting how suddenly remote work becomes so attractive.Just yesterday I sat in the management meeting, where calls for remote work were getting much louder from the side of the company that'd previously refuse to even entertain such an idea.
- colordrops 7y agoIf we are able to contain the coronavirus this way, can we take advantage of the quarantines around the world and eradicate the flu and cold at the same time?
- skybrian 7y agoThat's very unlikely, but it did end flu season early in Hong Kong. https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4 https://www.ft.com/content/ad7ae6b4-5eab-11ea-b0ab-339c2307b...
- OscarTheGrinch 7y agoNice thought, but we would also have to quarantine all other mammals. Maybe birds and reptiles too just to be on the safe side.