62% of Googlers Want to Be in Office but Not Every Day

A majority of Googlers, approximately 62%, want to return to office, but not every day simply because they don’t feel as productive at home as they were in office. The tech giant’s internal survey underscores why a hybrid model and not permanent WFH is the way forward for organizations.  

Almost two monthsOpens a new window after it formally announced extending remote work for its workforce until June 30, 2021, Google is now rethinking the decision. “I see the future as definitely being more flexible,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc in a recent interview with Time MagazineOpens a new window .

Pichai was interviewed as one of the TIME100 honorees in the list of 100 most influential people of 2020.

Pichai’s statement stems from the fact that a major chunk of Googlers want to return to the workplace. According to an internal July surveyOpens a new window by Mountain View tech giant, 62% of Googlers would like to return to their office for at least some days, if not all days of the week. The number jumped nine percentage points since May when 53% said they’d like to work from offices some days of the week.

Source: Google 

Pichai adds, “We firmly believe that in person being together, having that sense of community is super important for whenever, you know, you have to solve hard problems, you have to create something new.”

IT Pros Seek In-Person Collaboration  

At the same time, only 10% of Googlers do not think they need to be in an office at all versus 20% in May. 

Google said this shift in employee mindset arises from the following reasons:

1. To work face-to-face with teammates
2. To socialize with teammates
3. Collaboration

See Also: Remote Work Is Losing Its Sheen: IBM Study

15% said being in an office should be ad-hoc/for particular events versus 13% in May. It should be noted that only 8% want to get back to in-office life every day.

Urs HölzleOpens a new window , Senior Vice President for Technical Infrastructure at Google tweetedOpens a new window the reason why a majority of Googlers want to be in an office for a significant amount of the time could be due to: “Creating software very much is a team sport. It’s not unusual to collaborate with dozens of other engineers (and PMs, designers, etc) and even with dozens of other *teams*.”

Disclaimer: I’m not saying office-less work isn’t possible, or that permanent WfH can’t work (especially for smaller companies or companies where 100% are WfH so it’s 100% symmetric). Just that it’s probably not going to be the common case in the next 10 years.

— Urs Hölzle (@uhoelzle) September 23, 2020Opens a new window

Building a truly virtual work culture is hard because social interactions fuel innovation — a view seconded by former Intel AI leader Naveen Rao, who tweetedOpens a new window , “The very thing that makes Silicon Valley special, 5 smart people mind-melding in a room, doesn’t work remotely. Non collaborative work goes ok, until you really need to mind-meld and solve hard stuff.”

Subsequently, the tech behemoth is considering a hybrid work model where employees need to be present in the office, only for some days. In a hybrid work environment, offices are split between remote workers and in-office workers. This also gives knowledge workers a chance to collaborate with their peers and build trust, which is hard via a video-only approach. 

WFA Is Here to Stay, but It’s Not 100% Remote

A Salesforce study also indicated that hybrid work environments are the future. Around 64% of the respondents in the study preferred a hybrid work model.

Pichai goes on to say, “We don’t see that [having a sense of community] changing, so we don’t think the future is 100% remote or something, we definitely see, uh, we value our offices, we value the culture, but we do think we need to create more flexibility and some more hybrid models.”

Given how the end of the pandemic is nowhere in sight and health concerns swirl around reopening corporate headquarters, some of the tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Salesforce and Uber announced remote work until mid-2021. Meanwhile, others like Twitter and Atlassian switched to permanent remote work policy, although that can, in all likelihood, change.

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