Google Employees Won’t Go Back to Work Until June at Earliest

(Bloomberg) -- Google employees won’t be back at their offices for at least two more months, and even then any return will be “staggered and incremental,” Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said in an email to his workforce.

The bulk of Google’s U.S. employees are based in California’s Bay Area, which just extended several stay-at-home orders through the end of May. But even then, the Alphabet Inc. unit will be cautious about returning to work, Pichai said.

“Just as we were one of the first companies to move to WFH, we will be equally careful about our transition back to the office,” he said. Business Insider reported on the memo earlier.

Google’s full-time employees, used to free meals and endless espresso, have had to adapt to working from home as lockdowns keep people from leaving their neighborhoods. The company has also committed to paying scores of contract workers during the crisis.

Even when employees do return to their offices, life after Covid will be different, Pichai said in the memo, a copy of which was seen by Bloomberg.

“This experience is giving us an opportunity to reimagine how we work,” he wrote. “As we look to the future, we’ll integrate what we’ve learned from this period of working from home.”

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