The CEO of the company is Sundar Pichai.
The challenge for leadership is growing as it approaches key deadlines for returning workers to offices in person, as hundreds of employees signed and distributed a manifesto opposing the company's vaccine mandate.
The Biden administration has ordered US companies with 100 or more workers to have their employees tested for Covid-19 by January 4. According to internal documents viewed by CNBC, employees have been told to upload their vaccination status to the internal systems by the end of the year. The company has said that all employees who work from home must be protected against tetanus.
In an email sent at the end of October, Chris Rackow, a VP of security at the internet giant, wrote that vaccines are key to a safe return to office for everyone and minimize the spread of Covid-19 in our communities.
The company was already implementing requirements, so the changes from Biden's executive order were minimal. His email said that cases would be decided on a case-by-case basis, and gave a deadline of Nov. 12 for employees to request exemptions for reasons such as religious beliefs or medical conditions.
The company leaders are being asked to scrap the vaccine mandate and create a new one that is inclusive of all the employees in the company. If employees have already decided not to receive the Covid-19 shot, they should not allow the policy to change their minds.
The deadline to return to physical offices three days a week is approaching and the manifesto comes as a result. The company has debated everything from government contracts to cafeteria food changes.
The company's policy is behind it. One of the most important ways we can keep our workforce safe and keep our services running is through our vaccination requirements. We are behind our vaccine policy.
Vaccination is a dilemma for many corporations in America. The Covid-19 virus has contributed to over 770,000 deaths in the US. Despite proven effectiveness in providing a high level of protection against hospitalization and death, the country is struggling to persuade millions of people to get their first dose.
The company would require vaccinations for employees returning to work. In October, Pichai said that the San Francisco Bay Area offices are up to 30% filled, while New York is seeing half of its employees return. Employees who don't want to get vaccine will be able to work remotely.
The company is trying to get employees to get vaccinations as well. Joe Kava, vice president of data centers at Google, announced a $5,000 vaccine incentive spot bonus for U.S. data center employees.
In an email that was cited in the manifesto, Chris Rackow, VP of global security, said that all employees working directly or indirectly with the government are covered by the company's products and services. He said that frequent testing was not a valid alternative.
The authors disagree.
The manifesto states that the Vaccine Mandate is flawed and that company leadership isercive.
The authors write that the mandate of barring unvaccinated Googlers from the office publicly and possibly embarrassingly exposes a private choice as it would be difficult for the Googler not to reveal why they cannot return.
The author believes the mandate violates the company's principles of inclusiveness.
Such people may never feel comfortable expressing their true feelings about sensitive topics. This results in silenced perspective and increases the internal ideological echo chamber which people inside and outside of the company have observed for years.
The manifesto doesn't like the idea of a record of employees' vaccination status.
I don't believe that the health and medical history of people who work for the company should be made public, even if they already uploaded it to One Medical.
The author tries to argue that the vaccine mandate may be the beginning of a slippery slope, which is a common argument against the mandates.
It increases medical intervention compulsion for future vaccines and possibly even non-vaccine interventions. The principle of division and equal treatment of people based on their beliefs and decisions is justified. The implications are frightening. Due to its position as an industry leader, companies around the world will consider these tradeoffs as acceptable.
The group sent a letter to Karen DeSalvo, the chief health officer of the company.
An internal email chain seen by CNBC shows that some employees tried to bring more attention to the vaccine question by getting fellow employees to vote down other questions in an internal system called Dory. The goal was to get enough votes to get executives to address them.
At a time when it is trying to target the healthcare industry with its cloud unit, the challenge of the vaccine mandates is a new one for the leadership of the company.
In August, the health unit was dissolved by the search giant as a business unit for the health-care sector. The healthcare sector is a key focus area for the tech giant, according to DeSalvo, who was hired as the first health chief in 2019.
The company tried to take advantage of the fight against Covid. In the first half of the year, the company spent nearly $30 million on at- home Covid tests for employees from Cue Health, which went public in September at a $3 billion valuation. The company announced a separate partnership with the cloud unit of the internet giant to collect and analyze Covid-19 data with hopes of predicting future variant. The two companies collaborated on an opt-in contract tracing software that would be used to track Covid-19.
