It looks like the fourth try wasn't the charm for Google LLC's efforts to fully bring workers back into offices amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
In a companywide email on Thursday, vice president of global security Chris Rackow told employees at the Alphabet Inc.-owned company that it will not be requiring them to return to their offices by Jan. 10, according to CNBC, nor will U.S. offices adopt the planned three-days-in-the-office hybrid work mandate at that time.
Google's locations include a Madison office in The Constellation building near downtown.
No new date was mentioned, but Rackow wrote that individual offices can decide when it might be safe to bring workers back, based on local conditions and risks, and full-time employees will be allowed a 30-day period to make the hybrid transition.
“We’re going to wait until the new year to assess when our office locations are ready to transition out of voluntary work-from-home. We’ll continue to determine when offices reopen and start the hybrid work week based on local conditions, which are dynamic and vary greatly across locations,” a Google spokesperson told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Our goal is to provide greater choice and flexibility. We’re giving employees who welcome the chance to come into the office the option to do that wherever we can, while allowing those who aren’t ready to keep working from home.”
Rackow wrote that employees are still encouraged to come into the office when possible, "to reconnect with colleagues in person and start regaining the muscle memory of being in the office more regularly," per CNBC. According to Rackow, the company has so far opened 90% of its U.S. offices and brought back about 40% of its U.S. workforce.
This new delay comes after one announced in August by CEO Sundar Pichai, which pushed the return date to January. Prior to that, a July missive delayed returns to October and announced a vaccination mandate for employees. Google outlined its hybrid return-to-office plans in May, and first began bringing workers back on a limited basis in April, with the expectation of a September reopening.
The news also comes as a small group of employees urge the company to take back its vaccine mandate, circulating a manifesto that criticizes the policy as "deeply flawed," and argues that it runs counter to Google's ideals of inclusiveness and violates employee privacy.
With 36,603 local employees among a global headcount of 150,000, the Mountain View, California-based web search and advertising giant is the largest tech employer in Silicon Valley.
