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The coronavirus pandemic took a toll on a lot of businesses from around the world. Some businesses were forced to let their employees work from home, while others were forced to shut down operations entirely. Google was among the companies that had a good chunk of their employees tuning in from home. However, after such a long time, Google is now looking to bring more employees back into the office environment.
This became even more evident when the company stated that they would be investing $1 billion USD into their office to increase its capacity by 50% and also make the work environment more enjoyable. After pumping in such a big amount of money, Google wants to increase the number of employees in the UK offices from 6000 to 10,000 people.
They are purchasing one of the sites known as Central Saint Giles, which is a good idea considering that Google has been renting the place for quite some time. According to Google UK’s boss Rona Harris, this investment goes to show that Google still believes that the office is supposed to be the preferred place of work.
The money will be used to increase the office capacity and make it an enjoyable place. It will incentivize the employees to return to the office workplace and return to normalcy after a couple of years of abnormality. Aside from just purchasing the new Central Saint Giles site, the company will also invest millions of pounds in refurbishing the office to bring it on par with their other sites.
With this new approach, the office space will be less densely populated and will feature inclusive meeting rooms for hybrid working. The United Kingdom is among the countries that were severely hit by the pandemic therefore the current advisory is that employees are encouraged to work from home wherever possible. However, the government is supposed to review the policies on the 26th of January.
Companies have noticed that a lot of their employees have become accustomed to working from home.
It saves them from a long commute to and from the office, it also saves a lot of money, so employees actually prefer working from home. However, companies like Google want their employees to come back to the office environment as they believe it is the best way to get the most productivity out of their employees.
Companies are also facing difficulty in hiring new people because one point that employees can’t stand is working full time at the office. Employees want to work a certain number of days from home and the rest at the office. The employer however doesn’t agree with this strategy. It remains to be seen whether this huge investment from Google will have any impact on the willingness of their employees to return to the office environment. Two years is a long time and because so many people have become used to working from home, it won’t be easy to bring them back to the office.
