Google hires new personnel head amid rising worker tensions

Google has hired a top executive from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to oversee its personnel policies amid ongoing tensions with many employees who are upset with the company's policies.

The hiring of Fiona Cicconi also comes while Google sets up plans to allow people to continue to work from home for at least eight more months.

The Mountain View, California, internet search giant announced late Tuesday that Cicconi is leaving AstraZeneca to become its head of people operations during a meeting with employees.

Cicconi will replace Eileen Naughton, who disclosed in February she would step down, just before Google told its workers to start working from home to help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

London-based AstraZeneca is one of several companies rolling out a vaccine to help put an end to the worst global pandemic in more than century, but it's expected to take many more months before the health crisis passes.

That's one reason Google has decided to allow its roughly 130,000 employees to continue to work from home until Sept. 1 if they want, extending a previous plan to allow people to stay away from the office until July.

Cicconi will face the challenge of making sure those workers have their needs met while remaining productive, and then oversee the eventual transition to their return to Google offices scattered throughout the world, in addition to its Silicon Valley hub.

The company currently envisions relying on a system that designates certain days that workers on the same teams will come into the office while remaining at home or other remote locations on other days.

“COVID has changed many aspects of how we work, and this is one of our highest priorities in 2021," said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who also runs its corporate...