Sundar Pichai, chief government officer of Alphabet Inc., in the course of the Bloomberg Tech convention in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Google is continuous to put restrictions on distant work, this time with a well-liked policy referred to as “Work from Anywhere” that was established in the course of the Covid pandemic.
The policy has allowed staff to work from a location exterior of their principal workplace for up to 4 weeks per calendar yr. According to inside paperwork seen by CNBC, working remotely for even a single day will now rely for a full week.
“Whether you log 1 WFA day or 5 WFA days in a given standard work week, 1 WFA week will be deducted from your WFA weekly balance,” in accordance to a doc that was circulated over the summer time, shortly earlier than the change went into impact.
Google is not altering its present hybrid schedule, which was additionally put in place in the course of the pandemic, permitting staff to work from dwelling two days every week. WFA days are distinct from that policy, giving staffers the flexibleness to work remotely, however not at dwelling.
“WFA weeks cannot be used to work from home or nearby,” the doc says.
Google did not instantly reply to request for remark.
Tech firms are more and more forcing staff to spend extra time in the workplace, with the height of Covid now about 5 years in the previous. Microsoft mentioned final month that staff will likely be anticipated to work in an workplace three days every week beginning subsequent yr, switching from a policy that allowed most of them to work from dwelling 50% of the time or extra with supervisor approval. Amazon went additional, instructing company staffers to spend 5 days every week in the workplace.
Google began providing some U.S. full-time staff voluntary buyouts at the start of 2025, and has notified distant employees from a number of models their jobs can be thought of for layoffs in the event that they did not return to places of work to work a hybrid schedule.
According to the newest adjustments, staff cannot work from a Google workplace in a separate state or nation throughout their WFA time due to “legal and financial implications of cross border work.” If in a distinct location, staff could also be required to work in the course of the enterprise hours that align with that time zone, the principles state.
The WFA replace would not apply to all Google staffers and should exclude knowledge middle employees, and people who are required to be in bodily places of work. Violations of the policy will consequence in disciplinary motion or termination, the doc says.
The challenge got here up at a latest all-hands assembly.
A top-rated query that was submitted on Google’s inside system described the replace as “confusing.”
“Why does even one day of WFA count as a whole week, and can we reconsider the restriction on using WFA weeks to work from home?” the query mentioned.
John Casey, Google’s vice chairman of efficiency and rewards, mentioned on the assembly that WFA “was meant to meet Googlers where they were during the pandemic,” in accordance to audio obtained by CNBC.
“The policy was always intended to be taken in increments of a week and not be used as a substitute for working from home in a regular hybrid work week,” Casey mentioned.
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