Notably, the word "mandate" is not in the actual communication sent to Googlers. That word was chosen by the author of this headline.
Googlers with assigned desk will be expected to show up to the office. Applications for remote transfers have been available for like six months and in the cases where engineers are unable to work remotely due to their role or their management disapproving, transfers within Google to other teams that are remote-friendly are nearly trivial.
It is mostly orgs like Sales that have hard rules against remote work where the word "mandate" with its connotation of a hard and unpleasant rule makes sense.
>It is mostly orgs like Sales that have hard rules against remote work
That seems weird for outside sales (i.e. large accounts) given you're often near your customers and (in normal times) should be in customer meetings rather than sitting in an office.
Googlers with assigned desk will be expected to show up to the office. Applications for remote transfers have been available for like six months and in the cases where engineers are unable to work remotely due to their role or their management disapproving, transfers within Google to other teams that are remote-friendly are nearly trivial.
It is mostly orgs like Sales that have hard rules against remote work where the word "mandate" with its connotation of a hard and unpleasant rule makes sense.