Google Eases Pandemic Guidelines for U.S. Staff
As Google prepares to deliver staff again to its workplaces, the corporate is stress-free a few of its Covid-19 office insurance policies, together with a rule requiring U.S. workers to be vaccinated. However staff will nonetheless should be vaccinated in the event that they plan to make use of the corporate’s workplaces.
In an e mail to San Francisco Bay Space workers final week, Google stated it was easing a few of its pandemic restrictions. It is going to not require workers to be examined weekly to enter its U.S. workplaces. Additionally, it is not going to require workers to put on masks within the workplace, except Santa Clara County — house to Google’s important Mountain View headquarters.
Google additionally stated it deliberate to revive a lot of its famed workplace facilities, reminiscent of health facilities, cafeterias, therapeutic massage providers and commuter shuttles. CNBC reported the change in insurance policies earlier.
“Based mostly on present situations within the Bay Space, we’re happy that our workers who select to come back in now have the power to entry extra on-site areas and providers,” Google wrote in an announcement.
Individually, the corporate has dropped its requirement that U.S. workers present proof of vaccination standing or apply for a medical or non secular exemption, Lora Lee Erickson, a Google spokeswoman, stated.
Final yr, Google stated workers who failed to take action could be positioned on administrative depart and may very well be fired ultimately. Ms. Erickson didn’t clarify why the corporate had modified its place.
Like many corporations, Google has needed to adapt its insurance policies to the regularly altering situations of the pandemic. It has repeatedly pushed again plans for when it’ll ask workers to begin engaged on a hybrid schedule that mixes distant work and in-office time.
Google’s workplaces are a key part to its work tradition, and the corporate has resisted going totally distant like different know-how corporations.
As an alternative of a worldwide mandate, Google has repeatedly stated it’ll enable totally different areas to find out when to begin requiring staff to come back in a couple of instances every week. In the USA, Google stated, it’s nonetheless assessing the proper time to start its hybrid work schedule and hasn’t set a date for staff to return to the workplace.
Whereas returning to the workplace continues to be voluntary, Google stated about 30 % of its Bay Space workers got here into the workplace final week.