The coronavirus pandemic forced many businesses to shut their offices and adopt a work from home model. Work-from-home became the new normal, and tech giants like Apple, Google and Microsoft were among the first ones to implement this new system. Now a recent report by Bloomberg has revealed that Google has managed to save up around $1 billion because a large part of its workforce was working from home.
The report points out that Google parent Alphabet Inc. saved $268 million in expenses from company promotions, travel and entertainment, compared to same period a year earlier. The report says, Google employees were not travelling as much as they would normally on the company’s dime and that, in addition to expenses from company promotions and entertainment, led to savings of $268 million during the first quarter this year.
The amount is not surprising given the search engine giant had a workforce of 1.3 lakh employees worldwide at the end of 2020, as per a report by Statista. And since most of these employees were working remotely, the company saved up a huge amount in expenditure.
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In its annual report earlier this year, Alphabet said that advertising and promotional expenses dropped by a whopping $1.4 billion in 2020 as the company reduced spending, paused or rescheduled campaigns, and turned some events to digital-only formats due to the pandemic. The company also witnessed a drop of $371 million in Travel and entertainment expenses. Google used the savings to offset the costs incurred when hiring new talent, who were reported to be “thousands” in numbers.
Google has a reputation for taking good care of its employees when they’re at work. They are provided with all kinds of fun perks including massage tables, catered cuisine and fun corporate retreats. With most Google employees working from home since March last year, the company managed to keep a lot of money unspent.
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