But keep8ng employees on long distance force people to look around: on a local restoran, outside activities, local community. And in one moment person who wasn’t involved at to the life, started to wake up - finding interest outside of work, so the work is not a top priority any more. And it’s bad for a company, because independent people has a decision power in comparison to dependent one
If you knew how little many google workers work, you wouldn't say this lol. Barely anyone is doing all the extras. Google shuttle and google food is the most of it. Some might gym too.
Since Google already pays the most, where do you threaten to leave to while bargaining?
But since Google pays so much it’d be both really hard to convince people to take the risk, and really easy for the company to replace them. Having employees partake of the money machine via stock is also a factor.
I don’t think Google would unionize unless the vast majority of coders worldwide were already active members of the International Brotherhood of Logicians and had already won some big concessions from other FAANGs.
The problem with threats is the company might call your bluff. You have to be prepared to actually walk away to have real leverage and Google pays well enough that most engineers would probably take reduced pay over walking away.
The reason strike tactics worked historically is that the work conditions were actually *that* bad and there was also the component of striking workers threatening scabs.
So? I don't really like this kind of non-response response. It's like the guy who joins every conversation to point out that they don't, in fact, own a TV (Onion article, look it up).
I mean, sure, there are people who have enough that they won't take a new job for double the money, but they are so few and far between that it doesn't make sense to structure the argument around them.
You may not want double your salary, but for every one of you there are a few thousand others who want a nicer house, or better schools for their kids, or nice vacations, or an earlier retirement.
When you say you won't even consider doubling your salary because you don't want to work for a perfectly legal company, in reality you are saying that a) you have no one who depends on you and your income for success, and b) you don't care to retire early to do your own thing.
You are NOT saying anything about your principles, even though you think you are.
You’re making a big leap (and judgement here) by assuming willingness to take lower pay is primarily based on already “having enough”. I know plenty of folks who find most of FANG highly distasteful and would never take a job there despite not “having enough”.
> When you say you won't even consider doubling your salary because you don't want to work for a perfectly legal company
“Perfectly legal” has little bearing on how ethically or morally a company behaves. Most folks don’t use legality as a measuring stick when evaluating the merits of say, a payday loan company, and that measuring stick shouldn’t be used here, either. Amazon is a “perfectly legal” company well known for poor working conditions and major work/life balance problems.
> You are NOT saying anything about your principles, even though you think you are.
What makes you believe this? OP made a salient point: many people do not in fact choose jobs purely based on salary. Anecdotally I know this to be true, and whether or not there are people willing to take those jobs has no bearing on a principled stance taken by someone that chooses to prioritize those principles.
I also can’t cast aspersions on someone willing to work there, but arguably it’s a good thing that at least some folks stick to their principles. Admittedly this is easier to do when you “have enough”, but it’s insulting to those who don’t to assume this is the only factor in making principled decisions.
The point here is whether there are a large number of people who would refuse a job Google for 2x their salary. On that specific point, I agree with the parent post, that there aren't that many.
Basically, people have concerns other than money. And on the margin, those concerns make differences. (Just like on the margin, extra dollars also add up. Even if the impact of any one extra dollar is very _marginal_.)
(Ok, probably still per hour. But hours can be quite long.)
So it's hard to say anything general about their compensation.
I'd say I'm at best a regular ole' genius, and I can confirm that you can negotiate quite a lot.
Especially when taking a new job, and especially if you arrange for having multiple offers. Negotiating while already on the job faces quite a lot more headwind.
Source: https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Google,Facebook,Microsoft&tr...
Left for Google because I was tired of proposing changes, having someone else in the org disagree, and then having someone high up say "I talked to my friend at Google and he likes my way better so it's better than yours". Now I'm going to be the Googler and never have to worry about that again.
On the way to launching my first large internal service in the next few weeks.
With all the secrets going around your average FAANG office, no way would any company sublease a partial floor. Maybe an entire floor, but that creates more issues with the complicated separate lobby and elevator systems they previously built
These companies could maybe cut the costs in a few years, maybe in 10-15. Most of these employees working from home probably won't work there by that time
I really doubt we see headlines such as 'Google leaves 2 floors in Chelsea office' anytime soon, with or without workers in office. They'll just keep paying for empty office space. maybe convert empty cubicles into another smoothie or burrito bar
Google doesn't really want to be a landlord though -- other than the retail first floor of Chelsea Market, I think the long-term goal is to get the rest of the tenants out. The landlording is already contracted out anyway.
Just started procurement activity targeting a buildout to be done Q2/Q3 2022.
Why not? Turn it into a co-working space. Lease it to a start-up and put up a divider.
[1]https://www.wired.com/2010/12/google-nyc/
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/20/google-bought-manhattans-c...
[3] https://therealdeal.com/2019/05/22/google-scoops-up-another-...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/nyregion/manhattan-vacant...
There are plenty of people in smaller tech markets that would work remotely at Google at the reduced rates because it would still result in pay bumps
Who to if everybody is working from home?
Not that they are but there also aren't an infinite supply of companies that want to rent office space when many workers are now either WFH or hybrid working and only going in a couple of days each week.
Probably depends on how companies do hybrid although the ones I've heard plans from seem to be looking at hoteling arrangements which will cut total space.
They are locked into leases and/or have purchased the buildings outright. So the cost is sunk. This is why google is upset and will take salary away from remote workers.
If they can slow down the growing of office space without slowing down hiring, that's a win.
Yes, they are locked in to some leases and have bought some buildings. But at any one time, some leases will run out, and some buildings will be transacted.
If the mass of employess is 30% less productive from home, it is way more expensive than the buildings.
You'll have people who are more productive working from home and some of them will even do more work for the company [as opposed to quietly working half as many hours while getting just as much done]. You'll have others who are less productive. Some of them will also work more hours to make up for at least some of their lost productivity.
Given that companies are now open to it, I think we can infer that WFH productivity is no lower than 80-90% of WFO productivity, averaged across the workforce. Whether WFH = 90%, 100% or 110% WFO productivity, I couldn't guess.
It must be something like 50 or 60% of productivity, and at 70% of the speed.
No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange desks and sublet that 17000 sqft.
Google has other famous in-office benefits that cost per-person, so $12K per remote is a baseline savings. If Googlers had any collective bargaining power, they wouldn't be getting salary reductions: they would be getting extra expense money for desks, chairs, and ISP upgrades.