Forbes: Mar 3, 2022,

How can you say we are sort of out of the pandemic without saying we’re out of the pandemic? During the Super Bowl, celebrities were out in force, flaunting that they weren’t wearing masks. Similarly, President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address showed that no one was wearing a facial covering. Another major sign is that Google is telling its San Francisco Bay Area workers to return to the office by April 4.

According to Reuters, a company email to employees said that with “advances in prevention and treatment, the steady decline in cases we continue to see and the improved safety measures we have implemented,” it now means that Google “can officially begin the transition to the hybrid workweek.”

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Sundar Pichai offered his thought process for asking people to leave the comfort of their homes to return to an office setting. Pichai said that he is most excited that the future of work will be flexible. He maintains that it’s important to get people together in an office environment for at least a few days a week.

Google will be open to all options. There will be some people who will completely work remotely; however, the vast majority of workers will be coming in about three days a week. Once they are in the office, it will be purposeful—and not just for facetime. This will include meetings, collaborating with colleagues in other divisions, conducting brainstorming sessions, meeting with clients and vendors and community building. The chief executive said he’s excited about the change and believes that as time goes on people and teams will figure out the best solutions.

According to the email from John Casey, Google vice president of global benefits, everyone coming to the office must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or have an approved exemption. Unvaccinated workers without an exemption will be given an option to seek one or apply for permanent remote work. Fully vaccinated workers will not have to wear masks in Bay Area offices.
Casey said, “We believe that most of our teams collaborating together in the office for part of the week, and having the flexibility to work from home for the rest, is what’s best for our products, customers, people and culture.”
The hybrid model isn’t surprising. While many companies touted their remote work options, Google acquired real estate. The search giant previously announced that it would purchase a London office building for $1 billion. The purchase is in addition to around $1 billion that Google is estimated to have spent on the construction of an “11-story, one-million-square-foot building less…that looks like a horizontal skyscraper and will have a rooftop garden and running track.” Back in September 2021, Forbes reported that the search giant bought the St. John’s Terminal building in Manhattan’s Hudson Square for $2.1 billion.

Previously, Google proposed constructing a large company-town type project in Mountain View, California. The tech behemoth will build a combination of houses, retail stores, parks and recreations and a corporate campus spanning 40 acres. Google’s vision, called the “Middlefield Park Master Plan,” is an updated version of the company town and offers roughly 1.33 million square feet of office space, along with residential housing, open-air recreational space, commercial buildings, retail shopping and a host of other amenities. The search-engine company will hold ownership of the campus.