Even tech companies want to get staff back into the office

Even the role model Google will tighten its grip on whether workers spend at least three days a week in the office.

Three years after Silicon Valley companies spearheaded the adoption of telecommuting in the early days of the pandemic, tech industry players are now becoming increasingly militant in their push to get employees back in the office. This is creating internal tensions, CNN reports.

Google, long considered a role model in the tech industry and beyond, recently announced that it will strictly enforce the internal operating principle that employees must spend at least three days a week in the office. CNBC reports that the tech giant is also preparing to track office attendance and even count it in performance reviews.

Amazon workers staged a walkout at the company's headquarters in Seattle, Washington, on May 31, 2023, to raise awareness of the consequences of returning to the office in the wake of recent layoffs and concerns about climate change.

However, Chris Schmidt, a software engineer at Google and a member of the grassroots union Alphabet Workers Union, says the practical application of this new policy will create unnecessary confusion among workers and ignores different life situations.

Ryan Lamont, a Google spokesman, however, told CNN that the company's three-day-a-week office work policy is working well. They want their employees to connect and work together in person on a regular basis, and telecommuting is limited to exceptional cases.

Now that the company has been using the hybrid model for more than a year, they are formally integrating this approach into all workplace policies - this is happening now

Other tech companies are also struggling with how to get workers to come back into the office after they've become accustomed to greater flexibility. To make matters worse, technology companies have laid off tens of thousands of employees in the past year, dealing a serious blow to employee morale.

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