Google will begin reopening its offices starting July 6 with limited capacity

Google will begin reopening its offices starting July 6 with limited capacity, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on Tuesday.

Pichai, in an official blog post, said that the tech giant will begin opening its offices from July if external conditions permit with limited capacity and all safety protocols in place.

“Beginning July 6, assuming external conditions allow, we’ll start to open more buildings in more cities. This will give Googlers who need to come back to the office — or, capacity permitting, who want to come back—the opportunity to return on a limited, rotating basis (think: one day every couple of weeks, so roughly 10 percent building occupancy),” Pichai wrote. “We’ll have rigorous health and safety measures in place to ensure social distancing and sanitization guidelines are followed, so the office will look and feel different than when you left.,” he further added.

The search giant is planning to expand its office capacity to 30 per cent by September.

“In the September timeframe (again, assuming conditions allow), we will further scale the rotation program, building over time to 30 percent capacity (which would mean most people who want to come in could do so on a limited basis, while still prioritizing those who need to come in),” he said.

Google had previously allowed its employees who wish to work remotely to do so through 2020. Pichai has advised his employees who wish to work remotely to consult their managers for the same and evaluate factors such as taxation and health filing based on the place that they will be working from.

Furthermore, the company is also investing in employees’ work from home set-up and will be given a fixed allowance for them to set up office equipment at home.

“Because we still expect that most Googlers will be largely working from home for the rest of this year, we’ll be giving each Googler an allowance of $1,000 USD, or the equivalent value in your country, to expense necessary equipment and office furniture,” Pichai wrote.

Previously, Facebook had also said that it will begin reopening its global offices starting July 6 with 25 per cent of its workforce working at a time.