Google tells employees to return to offices in US

San Francisco, March 3

Tech giant Google said it will end the voluntary work-from-home period and start having employees in the Bay Area and several other US locations return to the office starting the week of April 4.

“It’s been a long and challenging two years since the vast majority of our people started working from home,” wrote John Casey, Google’s vice president of global benefits in an email to employees that was viewed by CNBC.

“But the advances in prevention and treatment, the steady decline in cases that we continue to see, and the improved safety measures we have implemented across our Bay Area sites now mean we can officially begin the transition to the hybrid work week,” Casey added.

Casey said other offices in the US and elsewhere will begin to return based on local conditions, the report said. Google’s latest guidance comes a week after CNBC reported that the company had been relaxing some of its Covid-19 mandates in preparation for a return. At the time, the company had not determined a new date for the official return since it last pushed off its January 10 deadline amid the omicron surge.

Google said it expects most workers to come to the office three days a week and have two days of remote work.

The note from Casey included previously reported guidelines such as dropping the mask mandate and testing mandates for fully vaccinated employees as well as the reopening of amenities such as cafes, restaurants, massages and shuttles. Employees entering physical workspaces still must either be fully vaccinated or have an approved accommodation. Casey wrote that the company will be testing new ways of working and will “gather insights, data and feedback along the way”. IANS