Google employees ordered to work from home as Corona Virus on Peak. When the launch of Google Buzz was announced, many questions were raised as to how many employees were going to be effected by the testing. Since everyone was informed ahead of time, the announcements of the test seemed to have been given only to those employees that were truly important to the success of the program. Unfortunately, a significant number of employees became a little too excited at the time, and an accidental viral infection was spread across the staff. Several employees on staff lost access to email for a period of time as well as their ability to use Google accounts for browsing the web. If they had internet access, it would have taken them a few days to get back on track.
Even though the extent of the problem was not as grave as some people feared, the inconvenience caused to staff during the transition periods was considerable. The fact that all emails to the internet were being put through a specific email address meant that there was no option for people to retrieve emails that they had sent from home in the interim. The focus has been on how important these employees were for the success of the program in question. It was reported that most staff members were reluctant to switch to working at home, but when it became clear that a major part of their job was lost for a few days, it was too late to avoid it. Most staff members attempted to find another home based business opportunity, but were outbid in almost every case by competitors with greater experience.
A software vulnerability in one of the company’s systems, which resulted in the spread of the infection was identified and swiftly fixed. Despite this, there is still a fear that it could happen again and the staff member’s lack of access to the internet for an extended period of time will greatly hinder their ability to work. The staff member responsible for identifying the issue has been suspended without pay pending a full investigation. Even with the awareness of this issue, a spike in future testing of the system has been seen. While there are no concrete suggestions as to why it has happened, the general consensus is that the location of the bug may have caused it to be overlooked. It may also be due to the fact that the security aspects of the testing did not ensure that the problem would have been fully understood and fixed. While the company has not been attacked by the virus, it is possible that it will happen again in the future, and that this might further delay the introduction of a work from home scheme.
