Google touts hybrid working model, with 20 per cent of staff permanently home-based

Staff working permanently of partially at home can expect salary adjustments

Google is relaxing its remote working rules as the company prepares for a return to office life in September following the pandemic.

In an email sent to Google employees, CEO Sundar Pichai said that he expects about 60 per cent of Google's staff to work in the office "a few days a week".

Another 20 per cent will be able to relocate to "new company locations" while the remaining 20 per cent can apply to permanently work from home, with both groups seeing salary adjustments.

Earlier in December, the company had announced a plan to have all employees spend at least three days a week in the office.

"For more than 20 years, our employees have been coming to the office to solve interesting problems — in a cafe, around a whiteboard, or during a pickup game of beach volleyball or cricket," Pichai said.

"Our campuses have been at the heart of our Google community and the majority of our employees still want to be on campus some of the time. Yet many of us would also enjoy the flexibility of working from home a couple of days a week, spending time in another city for part of the year, or even moving there permanently. Google's future workplace will have room for all of these possibilities."

According to Pichai, the company wants to move to a hybrid model where most employees will spend "approximately three days in the office and two days wherever they work best".

In locations where Google has already opened its offices, nearly 60 per cent of Googlers chose to return to offices, the Alphabet chief said.

Google workers can now temporarily work for four weeks per year from a location other than their assigned office.

Some workers might need to be at their office more than three days per week because of the nature of their work, Pichai said.

Google's ambitious plan includes 'Team Pods' with movable furniture and inflatable walls to provide privacy to employees. The company will also create 'Campfire' conference rooms to bring physical and virtual participants together. Google offices will also have open-air tents set up on parking lots and lawns.

Google was one of the first tech firms to close its offices in the US and other parts of the world last year when the Covid-19 virus struck. Initially, the company directed its employees to work from home until April 2020, before extending the deadline to July and eventually September 2021.

Twitter and Facebook also said last year that their employees can work from home "forever" or over the next decade, if they wish.

In March, British Airways (BA) announced that it would allow employees to split their working lives between their homes and office.

UK's biggest building society Nationwide has also told 13,000 of its staff that they can choose to work from anywhere in the country when the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions are lifted.