Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes that you can only get promoted if you work from the office — while remote workers do not have this prospect.Schmidt, who headed Google from 2001 to 2011, actively defends the company’s policy of returning to the office and believes that working from the office is primarily beneficial for employees themselves, as only on-site can you gain decent experience — and in the long run, a promotion
«When I was a young manager, I didn’t know anything about what I was doing. But I was lucky enough to be in the office — and I learned everything sitting by the water cooler, hanging out in the hallway, and in meetings,» Schmidt said in a recent episode of the podcast «The CEO Diary» (via Business Insider).
Schmidt emphasizes that it was the knowledge gained in the office that played a «leading role» in his further promotion.
«If you’re in your 20s, you should be in the office because that’s how you get promoted».
In fact, Schmidt’s words are confirmed by some statistical data. Thus, the analysis of Live Data Technologies states that remote workers were 31% less likely to be promoted than their office-based or hybrid work peers (based on a survey of 2 million office workers)At the same time, Schmidt acknowledged that in some industries, working from home can increase productivity.
«There are industries that have been studied and have evidence that flexibility to work from home increases productivity,» he said. «I don’t like it, but I want to recognize that the data is out there».
The results of studies comparing productivity in different working conditions are mostly contradictory, which is, likely, related to differences in the methods of measuring productivity. A study by Stanford University, for example, showed that remote work reduces employee productivity by 10% compared to office work, while hybrid — «does not affect productivity».
In April, Schmidt also said that Google was losing out to competitors in the field of artificial intelligence, in part because of its remote work policy.
«Google decided that work-life balance, i.e. working from home, is more important than winning», Schmidt said at the time. «And the reason why startups are superior is that people there work like oxen»
He added that if the tech giant wants to remain competitive with other startups, then «it will not allow people to work from home and come to the office only once a week». (After the lecture was published, Schmidt retracted his words, and his spokesperson said that «Eric misrepresented Google’s mode of operation and regrets his mistake»).
In 2022, Google told employees that they had to report to the office at least three days a week, and later announced that attendance would be taken into account in performance evaluations. However, in October, the company assured employees that it would not duplicate Amazon’s actions regarding the requirement to visit the office five days a week.