Google CEO defends desk-sharing coverage, says workplaces like ‘ghost city’

Google CEO Sundar Pichai defended the cloud unit’s new desk-sharing coverage for workers, describing a few of the firm’s workplaces as virtually empty and reminding staffers that actual property is expensive.

“To me it’s apparent that they’re making an attempt to be environment friendly and get monetary savings however on the similar time additionally make the most of sources,” Pichai stated in a companywide assembly final week, in response to audio obtained by CNBC. “There are folks, by the best way, who routinely complain that they arrive in and there are large swaths of empty desks and it feels prefer it’s a ghost city — it’s simply not a pleasant expertise.”

Pichai’s feedback observe a CNBC report final month about Google’s plan to ask cloud workers and companions to share desks on the division’s 5 largest places, which embody New York and San Francisco. The corporate is looking the downsizing effort Cloud Workplace Evolution, or CLOE.

On Alphabet’s fourth-quarter earnings name in early February, executives stated they count on Google to incur prices of about $500 million within the present interval associated to lowered international workplace house, as the corporate reckons with slowing income progress and ongoing recession issues.

Pichai indicated there are numerous folks coming to the workplace “solely two days per week,” which he stated makes for an inefficient use of present house.

“We must be good stewards of economic sources,” Pichai stated. “Now we have costly actual property. And in the event that they’re solely utilized 30% of the time, we’ve to watch out in how we give it some thought.”

On the similar all-hands assembly, Anas Osman, Google Cloud’s technique and operations vp, stated about one-third of workers had been coming into the workplaces no less than 4 days per week, citing knowledge from a pilot the group carried out in regard to returning to bodily places.

As a part of the pilot, Osman stated, workers got the choice of getting a devoted or a shared desk.

“These 1-to-1 desks really had been utilized roughly 35% of the time at 4 days or extra,” Osman stated. “We predict it is a good stability of tips on how to each discover efficiencies and create a greater expertise.” 

In some methods, sharing additionally led to extra productiveness, he stated.

“The information from the pilot reveals that Googlers reported considerably higher collaboration once they had assigned days within the workplace even when that was in a rotational mannequin and a shared desk,” Osman stated.

Pichai stated that the brand new coverage is only for cloud workers in the intervening time, and added that the corporate is “giving groups freedom to experiment.” The cloud division makes up roughly 1 / 4 of the corporate’s general workforce.

In the course of the assembly, Pichai addressed worker issues relating to the rollout of the desk-sharing coverage and the way it was communicated to the workforce. CNBC beforehand reported that memes began exhibiting up within the inside Memegen system criticizing the messaging from management. One widespread meme stated, “Not each cost-cutting measure must be phrase mangled into sounding good for workers.”

In responding to questions and feedback submitted by workers, Pichai learn one which stated, “double converse is disrespectful and irritating,” and “dangerous issues occur, no must make each dangerous factor sound like a miracle.”

Pichai stated in response: “I agree with the sentiment right here. The suggestions is legitimate.”

“We should always all the time attempt to be as easy as attainable,” Pichai stated. “I believe it’s vital to grasp at our scale, just about all communication are public in nature. You’re talking to the world and there are numerous, many stakeholders and so at instances, nuance is vital and phrases can have a fabric affect and I believe generally you see that mirrored in a few of the communications.”

A Google spokesperson did not instantly reply to a request for remark.

WATCH: Google AI’s response to ChatGPT