Google Workspace announced a new tool that will allow organizations to encourage or even require employees to provide their work locations and hours.
A workplace setting that adds a customizable banner google calendar containing the user’s status was already available to the user online collaboration tools corporate users at their discretion.
In blog post (opens in a new tab) announcing the news, Google says that by giving IT admins the ability to increase work location utilization, teams will be better equipped to schedule meetings in virtual and in-person settings for increased security and convenience.
Hybrid working comfort
Like the recent announcement of Microsoft placesGoogle believes it is necessary to support hybrid workspaces as organizations experience the Covid-19 pandemic.
He also claims that allowing IT admins to control the use of the work location will allow users to be better informed about the improvements that have come to the banner over the last few months. These include additional location context for responding to Calendar events, and location support for specific buildings and rooms.
in July 2022 Google has enabled Work Locations by defaultwithout having to manually enable this feature in the Calendar settings.
Some employees may have trouble with Google essentially moving to dictate how the organization is run and invading their privacy at work.
The counterpoint, then, is that IT admins will still have the option to disable the work location banner, and the new admin tool will also disable this feature by default.
The admin tool for the Google Calendar workplace location banner will only be available on a select few pricing plans and will not be available to users with a personal Google Account.