THE Wall Street Journal reported that Google employees will be encouraged to work from home until at least next July in an attempt to keep the coronavirus risk among team members at bay.
Following in the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter, both of which will allow their employees to work from home indefinitely -- a temporary pandemic-induced change made permanent - Google will also be encouraging its workers to do their jobs remotely through to the summer of 2021.
This change is expected to affect "nearly all of the roughly 200,000 full-time and contract employees across Google parent Alphabet Inc." Those who don't need to be in the office will be working from the safety of their own homes officially until June 30, 2021 as authorised by CEO Sundar Pichai.
This follows Google's previous announcement in May which gave employees who wished to return to the office the chance to do so, in limited numbers.
As demonstrated during the pandemic, many companies have realized that there's no need for employees to come to the office at all. In fact, the pandemic resulted in both Twitter and Facebook workers being allowed to work from home forever.
Such decisions come as a relief to employees who work in areas like Silicon Valley where tech giants have set up their headquarters, as homes in such locations are top dollar. Also, given the uncertainty surrounding whether children will be returning to schools this fall, parents can be sure they will be present for their kids in the event that home schooling will have to continue.