Google’s unprofitable Cloud division is cutting back on office space and telling workers to come into the office only two days of the week, when they’ll alternate on shared desks, the New York Post reports.
Google is dubbing the shared office space “neighborhoods,” which will have standards on how workers can decorate their workstations.
The mandate takes effect in the second quarter in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Calif., and Kirkland, Wash.
“Most Googlers will now share a desk with one other Googler,” an internal memo said. “Through the matching process, they will agree on a basic desk setup and establish norms with their desk partner and teams to ensure a positive experience in the new shared environment.”
Anyone who shows up on an unassigned day when a desk is not available will be put in an “overflow drop-in space.”
Google had previously settled on a three-day-a-week post-COVID protocol.
On an earnings call earlier this month, the CEO of Google parent Alphabet, Ruth Porat, said the company would take a $500 million charge to exit leases.
The new work arrangement will enable Google to “continue to invest in Cloud’s growth,” the memo said.
Googlers are already grumbling on Memegen, one of Google’s internal forums, about the highly unusual new arrangement.
The desk-sharing plan comes only a few weeks after Google laid off 12,000 employees, 6% of its workforce, so that it can devote more resources to artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.
The moral of the story might be: In the work-from-home push, be careful what you wish for.
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