Google pushes its mandatory return to office date into 2022

In an email to employees today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that even though “we are welcoming back tens of thousands of Googlers on a voluntary basis,” the company will extend its voluntary return to work policy until at least January 10th, 2022. After that date, the current plan is to have countries and locations make mandatory return to work decisions depending on local conditions.

The most recent plan shared publicly would’ve pushed Google employees back to the office at some point in September, but that won’t happen. Whenever its offices expect to have employees there in-person, Pichai reiterated that there would be a 30-day heads up first.

The letter didn’t directly cite the Delta variant, but waves of infection have again wrangled plans of several Big Tech companies as they consider when and how to have employees in offices again. In May, Pichai outlined a new hybrid schedule of three in-office days per week, but it will be several months before that is in play for many of Google’s employees.