Google to deduct wage of employees who opt to work from home: Report

Google is reportedly implementing pay cuts for employees who will not return to work in the office and prefer the work-from-home set-up. Before the COVID-19 pandemic started, workers were coming to offices to work, but the pandemic changed this as it forced people to stay at home.

Now that it has been more than a year since work shifted from the office to homes, many workers want to permanently do their jobs remotely. This is especially true for those who commute long distances just to get to their workplace.

For Google employees who would like to keep working at home, the company will allow them, but there will be pay cuts. According to Reuters, other tech firms such as Facebook and Twitter also deducted the wages of their remote employees who moved to less expensive territories.

Alphabet’s Google is offering its employees a calculator so they can know how their move will affect their pay. But it was pointed out that the company may still impose the wage deduction even if they stay at the same address.

This is because regardless of the location, they are still not working in the office but at home. It should be noted that the pay will differ from one employee to another as it will be based on where the worker is moving.

"Our compensation packages have always been determined by location, and we always pay at the top of the local market based on where an employee works from," the company spokesman said.

An employee said that Google’s Work Location Tool app estimated that those who work in the Seattle office and live in a nearby county may have a 10% pay cut for a full-time work-at-home set-up. Because of this, the unnamed worker said that he decided to just continue working at the office despite the daily 2-hour commute.

"It is as high of a pay cut as I got for my most recent promotion,” he said. “I did not do all that hard work to get promoted and then take a pay cut."

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that Google approved the request of its employees who requested to work remotely. Almost 85% of the workers sent in a request, and the tech company was said to have decided to accept them all. This means that only 15% may return to the actual office once it fully opens again soon.