, have said employees can work remotely "forever" or over the next decade, allowing employees to move to other regions if they wanted to.
The pilot won't apply to everyone. Pichai noted flexibility may not apply to employees in customer-facing roles "that spend lots of time with clients," those who need to be on-site in data centers or labs, or those who depend on specialized equipment to work. Pichai's note says the company will be creating in-office presentation booths "designed to send professional-quality broadcasts to large, distributed audiences." It will also be improving its Meet and Workspace products to "better bridge the gap between colleagues working from the office and those working from home."
First, we'll continue to face variability in many areas of the world before life returns to normal. Our goal is to give Googlers everywhere the option to return as soon as local conditions allow, and it's encouraging to see that in some parts of APAC and EMEA, Googlers are already returning to the office. Other regions are not as far along, so to help these Googlers deal with the uncertainty still ahead, we'll be extending our voluntary work-from-home option to September 1.