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Because there were hardly any Covid-19 cases in Santa Clara County (where Google is based) before March https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard.as

• JJMcJ 6y ago
  I meant, why can Google run now with WFH, but they didn't allow it before. That is, what was the motivation for forbidding WFH?
  • toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Cultural inertia.
  • acituan 6y ago
    Wild but fun speculation: WFH decreases housing prices because people can disperse further. The higher the tenure & seniority within a company, the higher the likelihood of real estate ownership (both primary and rental properties). There is a conflict of interest in having more control on WFH policies and seeing your house not appreciating as much in value or not bringing as much rent. I wasn’t able to find data on this but it is hard to imagine any Bay Area exec not having real estate positions in the area. More realistic reason: Middle management struggles with perceived lack of control and justifying their existence through wider WFH. Their business is their reports, and there is simply less control surface exposed through WFH to them. It is harder to carry out impression management from home. It is simply a higher friction, higher anxiety scenario. Ultimately they influence WFH adoption, whether at team-local levels or upward influence in company-wide decision making.
  • Gibbon1 6y ago
    I can't speak for google but social herd psychology is a thing. And face to face communication is very effective for certain things. As an aside, every type of communication has it's uses. I think bosses in general feel much more in control when using face to face communication because it allows for fine levels of real time back and forth.