Google Pushes its Return to Office Back to 2022

The Big tech companies don’t seem too keen to bring back their employees following a surge in Covid-19 cases. Google has joined the list of big tech companies to push back its return office date to January 2022.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai informed his employees in a letter that the company is extending its voluntary return to work policy until January 10, 2022. Earlier, Google employees were asked to resume work from the office by October 2021. However, the deadline has been pushed due to the rise in the Covid-19 delta variant.

Pichai said that even though the situation has eased in some locations, the pandemic continues to wreak havoc in some parts of the world. Considering such factors, Google will extend their global voluntary return-to-office policy through January 10, 2022, to give more Googlers flexibility and choice as they ramp back.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has been a humbling challenge for all of us and I continue to be impressed by the way our teams are navigating through it. In spite of these challenges, I’m happy to say that a large number of offices globally are already open for business, and we are welcoming back tens of thousands of Googlers on a voluntary basis.

Given that conditions around the world are still highly variable, I wanted to share how we’re planning to approach the next few months,” Pichai noted in the official letter.

Post the January 10 deadline, Google will end voluntary work-from-home based on local conditions. However, he said that return to the office may vary across the Google offices. Pichai said that it would give a 30-day heads-up before expecting the employees to return to the office.

Earlier, Facebook too delayed its return to office till January 2022 in the US following a spike in the COVID-19 cases because of the delta variant.

“Data, not dates, is what drives our approach for returning to the office. Given the recent health data showing rising Covid cases based on the delta variant, our teams in the U.S. will not be required to go back to the office until January 2022.

We expect this to be the case for some countries outside the US, as well. We continue to monitor the situation and work with experts to ensure our return to office plans prioritize everyone’s safety,” Facebook told CNBC in a statement.

Facebook had earlier planned to let in fully vaccinated employees with masks and covid-appropriate behaviour but that has been put on hold till January.

Facebook is not the only company to reconsider its decision of reopening the office, Amazon had also announced last week that it would not reopen office till January 2022 at least

September 01, 2021