Google Tightens Its Attendance Policies, Plans to Include ‘Office Attendance’ In Performance Reviews

Tech giant Google has tightened up its attendance policies as the Covid pandemic is almost over. As per Bloomberg’s reports, Google informed its employees that their office attendance would now be considered in “performance reviews.” According to the report, they looked at a mail that Google sent to its employees in which it mentioned the stricter office rules.

Employees who are willing to work remotely full-time will be taken into consideration “by exceptions only,” Google’s Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi informed staff in a memo. The Pandemic policy, which had previously permitted tens of thousands of employees to relocate from the company’s offices, has been reversed by Google.

Google informed its staff in April 2022 that they should expect to return to work at least three days per week. However, Google has recently implemented a new policy wherein office attendance will play a significant role in the company’s performance evaluations. Managers will notify employees who are “consistently absent from the office” via mail, according to the message. The Google Cloud team received instructions in February to begin desk sharing and attend work on different days.

In January, alphabet implemented the largest job cuts in company history, eliminating 12,000 employees, or more than 6% of its workforce. After announcing a plan to spend $7 billion on new offices and data centres in 2021, the company also made an effort to minimise its real estate footprint. Alphabet reported in April that it had spent $564 million on office space reductions in its first-quarter earnings report. Tech companies are calling back employees to offices in the wake of the pandemic. Meta informed employees last week that they should expect to work three days per week.

In addition, JPMorgan Chase also no longer adheres to its hybrid attendance policy. The e-commerce behemoth Amazon also instructed its staff to work at least three days a week. Additionally, Apple Inc. required staff members to come into the office thrice weekly. Disney, on the other hand, required employees to come to work four days a week. According to the Alphabet Workers Union, it has more than 1,400 members. At the end of the year, Google employed over 190,000 people, including contract workers.