Google Workers Angered over 'Hypocritical' Remote Work Policies

Google employees are reportedly upset over the company’s policies related to remote working and what they deem to be special treatment for some workers. One worker claims: “Google doesn’t prioritize the needs of human beings.”

CNET reports that as Google employees worldwide make plans to return to work at the company’s various offices, one employee named Laura de Vesine will not be joining them. For months de Vesine, a site reliability engineer, negotiated with Google over a potential relocation and became angry over Google’s inflexible policies, eventually handing in her notice.

Last fall, de Vesine and her team were told they would need to relocate to North Carolina from the company’s Sunnyvale, California offices. Along with the move came a 15 percent salary cut, and in late March the team was told it would be a 25 percent cut. A month later, the team relocation plans were scrapped entirely.

“This feeling that I can’t realistically leave the Bay Area and work for Google is enough for me to have decided to leave,” de Vesine said. “It’s the fact that Google doesn’t prioritize the needs of human beings. The fact that we have lives outside of work, that people actually have families.”

In May, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed plans for a “hybrid” work environment for Google employees that would require most employees to work from their offices at least three days a week beginning in September. Under the new structure, 20 percent of the workforce would work remotely while another 20 percent could work from new locations.

Conflict over remote working intensified last week when Urs Hölzle, one of Google’s longest-tenured and most senior executives, announced plans to work remotely from New Zealand. Hölzle’s plans angered workers who consider the approval of Hölzle’s moves from management to be special treatment.

“After three decades in the US, my wife and I both felt it was time to consider a new location,” Hölzle wrote in an email to employees. “We’ve decided to spend a year in New Zealand and see how we like it. To be clear: I am not retiring, just changing my location!”

Two Google employees say that Hölzle’s situation was an example of Google’s “hypocritical” policies. Employees said that the announcement of Hölzle’s relocation particularly angered them due to his vocal disapproval of remote work. De Vesine, the Google employee currently resigning, said that Hölzle had a policy of not letting people work remotely unless they were assigned to an office and that he wouldn’t consider remote work for people who hadn’t reached a certain level of seniority.