Google wants people in office, despite productivity gains at home

As Google deliberates which individual employees will get to continue working full time from home and who will need to come in, some staff are increasingly frustrated by the lack of clear direction and uneven enforcement of the policy. — Dreamstime/TNS

Google software engineers reported something in a recent survey that surprised higher-ups: they felt as productive working from home as they did before the pandemic.

Internal research at the Alphabet Inc unit also showed that employees want more “collaboration and social connections” at work, according to Brian Welle, a human resources vice president. Welle declined to provide exact figures but said “more than 75%” of surveyed employees answered this way. Most staff also specifically craved physical proximity when working on new projects.