Tech giant Google’s return-to-office demand for staff

The federal election campaign has made it clear Aussies value working from home, but major companies in the US are continuing with a return-to-office push.

US outlet CNBC reports Google has told American staff who were previously approved for full-time remote work that they have to change to a hybrid schedule.

Under the new regime, staffers in certain teams would have to be in the office three days per week, per internal documents obtained by the news outlet.

It comes after Google co-founder Sergey Brin urged staff in February to come back into the office more regularly as the company seeks to lead the AI revolution.

“I recommend being in the office at least every weekday,” he wrote in a memo, seen by The New York Times.

Mr Brin added that “60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity” in the message to employees who work on AI arm Gemini.

Google spokesman Courtenay Mencini told CNBC the demands were based on individual teams and were not a company wide edict.

“As we’ve said before, in-person collaboration is an important part of how we innovate and solve complex problems,” she said.

“To support this, some teams have asked remote employees who live near an office to return to in-person work three days a week.”

According to recent notices, remote employees in Google’s technical services unit were told they must switch to a hybrid schedule or take a voluntary payout.

Remote employees in the unit were also being offered a paid relocation expense to move within about 80km of an office.

Another memo shows remote employees in Google’s people operations division who live within 80km of an office need to work on a hybrid basis by mid-April or their role will be eliminated.

Silicon Valley giants have been pushing for a return to the office after a boom in remote work during the pandemic years, which decimated San Francisco’s commercial property market.

US President Donald Trump has also been a proponent of ending remote work for government employees, a stance Australian Opposition Leader Peter Dutton took before backtracking during the election campaign.

Google and competitor Meta operate a hybrid schedule, with most employees expected to attend the office three days per week.

However, other major tech companies in Amazon and X, formerly known as Twitter, have mandated five-day in person work.

Data from a survey by the Australian HR Institute found the most common model for office attendance Down Under is about three days a week at 30 per cent.

The next most common was “no minimum requirement”, but with encouragement to attend, with the institute’s chief executive Sarah McCann-Bartlett saying there has been a “stabilisation” of in-office demands from employers.

“The data is very, very clear, and it reflects international research that says there are very strong benefits to hybrid working,” she told the ABC.

“They include employee work/life balance and wellbeing, and for the organisation there are productivity gains, better recruitment opportunities and better retention.”