Google used to be a company that was admired for its many perks that it gave its employees. That was before January, when Google announced it was laying off 12,000 of its workers. Now some of its remaining employees are being asked to share their desk space with other workers in an additional effort to cut costs.
In an internal memo set to affected team members that was seen by CNBC, this new desk sharing initiative is beng put in place in Google"s top five locations: Kirkland, Washington; New York City; San Francisco; Seattle; and Sunnyvale, California. Google will also leave some of its current office buildings entirely, according to the report. Affected employees are asked to come to their office space on alternate days (Monday and Wednesday, or Tuesday and Thursday) so that two employees are not working at the same physical desk. If it"s not possible to come in on one of those days, employees will have to use what Google calls "overflow drop-in space" for work.
The memo added:
Through the matching process, they will agree on a basic desk setup and establish norms with their desk partner and teams to ensure a positive experience in the new shared environment.
This new desk sharing arrangement is specifically affecting Google Cloud employees, which makes up a quarter of the company"s total workforce. Apparently, the internal code name for this move is "Cloud Office Evolution” or “CLOE". While that division is experiencing larger revenue growth compared to other areas of Google, it"s still losing hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Google Cloud lost $480 million.