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Google Employees Bombard Execs With Questions About Pay at Recent All-Hands Meeting (cnbc.com) 75

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Google executives, facing a barrage of criticism from employees on issues related to compensation, defended the company's competitiveness at a recent all-hands meeting while acknowledging that the performance review process could change. From a report: The companywide virtual gathering earlier this month followed the release of internal survey results, which showed a growing number of staffers don't view their pay packages as fair or competitive with what they could make elsewhere. At all-hands meetings, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other senior executives regularly read top submissions from Dory, a site where employees write questions and give a thumbs up to those they want leadership to address.

The second highest-rated question ahead of the March meeting was about the annual "Googlegeist" survey. As CNBC reported, the lowest scores from the survey, which went out to employees in January, were in the areas of compensation and execution. "Compensation-related questions showed the biggest decrease from last year, what is your understanding of why that is?" Pichai read aloud from the employee submissions. According to the survey results, only 46% of respondents said their total compensation is competitive compared to similar jobs at other companies. Bret Hill was first to respond. Hill is Google's vice president of "Total Rewards," which refers to compensation and stock packages. "There's some macro economic trends at play," Hill said. "It's a very competitive market and you're probably hearing anecdotal stories of colleagues getting better offers at other companies."
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Google Employees Bombard Execs With Questions About Pay at Recent All-Hands Meeting More

Google Employees Bombard Execs With Questions About Pay at Recent All-Hands Meeting

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  • Performance review, in most of these companies, means, "Filter out the folks that have been here the longest."

    --
    Nine times out of 10, if you win the game, it starts with the turnover battle. - Lamar Jackson

    • I've worked at several corporations including United HealthCare. I can guarantee you that never happened anywhere I worked.

      Now if you are saying that those folks have reached the pay cap for their position, then that is a different matter.

      • Now if you are saying that those folks have reached the pay cap for their position, then that is a different matter.

        Many Silicon Valley companies have weird ideas. Like if you should always either give someone a raise or fire them and there should be no middle ground. Things will start heading towards a dismissal process if an employee has hit a salary cap but aren't ready for a promotion (added responsibilities). It's more common in performance review systems that emphasize team or group rankings.

    • That wouldn't be the case anywhere I've worked. But I will say that when it comes to major corporations, I have never seen one implement a valid system for rating the performance of engineering staff, though I have no personal experience with Google specifically.

      • Have you ever seen any company do a good job with performance reviews? We tried the six-sigma 360-degree review crap one year, which had some promise but was too complex and still not appreciated.

        From personal experience, most reviews are crap because it is one more thing that a supervisor needs to do that they don't have proper resources allocated to perform. Even for companies that do allocate time for the process, there isn't enough direction from above as to what we hope subordinates gain from it. Th

        • I have seen good reviews at many places. But this is unrelated to compensation in a lot of ways. The reviews decide who is doing well and who needs some extra effort paid at improvement. Ie, who's good and who's bad and who's in the middle. Who had problem areas that need addressing, who can be promoted to a more senior role, etc. That review works mostly. Occasionally the idiots get promoted, but that happens everywhere.

          Now compensastion is different, though it will be affected by the performance review.

    • Huh? Performance review means performance review, usually tied to bonuses and pay rises, nothing more. Most companies are not a stack ranking piece of shit priding itself on high turnover and low morale.

      • isn't stack ranking also a performance review, just relative instead of absolute?

        • Yes, and it's the shittest of the stack ranking systems, because it's incredibly, unbelievably stupid. It's based on a moronic understanding of statistics and of human nature. You don't get to avoid being fired by doing a good job. You only avoid it by having someone nearby doing a less good job.

          If you have no budget for hiring, you eventually run out of people entirely.

          It gives employees incentive to sabotage each other.

          Employees are penalised for working in a good team.

          It removes incentive for personal gr

          • Yeah, if I'm in that kind of situation, just fire me, because I'm already looking for a new job.

            Stack ranking messes with people's heads.

          • Agreed. I've personally watched stack ranking let go of good people on one team but fail to dump the dead weight on other teams.

            That company was kind of fucky anyways. The CEO announced in an all-hands that they would cut the "bottom 5%" of staff and in the same breath she said they were not going to have any kind of lay off. What? Seems to me firing indiscriminately is a "kind of" lay off. Those were the dot COM bubble days. It was a bubble just like the kind you find in a bathtub.

  • You don't make anti-poach pacts with other companies if that were true.

  • "It's a very competitive market and you're probably hearing anecdotal stories of colleagues getting better offers at other companies."

    Today's "anecdote" can very quickly become tomorrow's trend... especially when executives give passive-aggressive answers like this one, practically challenging their employees to find a better offer.

    • If they can get a better offer - they should.

      • Exactly. If you are happy with your job to the point where you stay despite the ability to get paid more, elsewhere, that is your choice.

        If you are too lazy or timid to job hunt when working at a place you feel underpaid and unhappy, that is your choice.

      • Any chance you have to make your bosses think they should pay you more, do it. They are trying to manipulate you into thinking that you should be paid less.

    • To be competitive means you are at least as good as your competitors. If employees of company X are leaving for better pay at company Y, then company X is not competitive

      • People leave Google to work at Facebook, and others leave Facebook to work at Google. The Valley has a lot of churn. It is nothing new and is good because churn helps ideas to spread.

        If Google has excessive attrition, they may need to look at compensation, or perhaps they should be hiring more outside the Valley. But they should base their decision on real attrition numbers and not on how many people whine at a meeting. 99% of employees at every company want to be paid more, so that doesn't mean anythin

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Companies are looking to steal people away right now. They are offering not just cash, but better conditions like full WFH.

          • Is that better though?

            The company I work has decided it's going to be hybrid from now on. And people are coming in completely voluntarily. A lot of people don't actually like never seeing anyone. And a lot of people are actually not as productive 100% at home and they know this. Certain kinds of productivity are better: you can quietly bash code without distraction. But other kinds are much much less good. There's no substitute for a few hours in front of a whiteboard for design and discussion. And some tri

            • Haha, same in our company - Mondays and Fridays ... crickets. I am converging towards 3 days in the office per week. I need to see people to re-motivate myself. Emotionally I am not so smart when alone.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Hybrid can be very good if it is flexible enough to allow you to avoid the peak travel times.

    • They should be looking for better offers and taking jobs that will pay them more. If you're really worth more than your current job is paying you, someone else will pay you more. It's not even necessarily a knock against your current employer, because there's probably someone else that can make more valuable use of your labor and in turn pay you more because of that.

      Companies look for better deals from suppliers all the time and no one calls them stupid for doing so. Labor is no different in that respect

    • I can't speak for the Googlers, but inflation has a real effect on living situations unless you're independently wealthy or have some form of passive income that automatically scales itself with inflation. Regardless of your wage, an 8% annual inflation still means you have to find a way to fill that pay gap, either by annual pay bump, adding a side hustle, or giving up 8% worth of stuff in your annual life.

  • For what these people make, and the little they really do, they should happy for what they get.

    As for their leader, his salary should definitely be reduced. It's not like he's in the trenches writing code, maintaining a database or keeping the hardware running. Once you get to that level it's fairly easy to make decisions since there's no one to correct you.

    • Once you get to that level it's fairly easy to make decisions since there's no one to correct you.

      Once you get to his level the people correcting you are the United States Congress, the European Union, and your trenches are shareholders with billions of dollars at stake pouring over every decision, disgruntled whistleblowers, fortune 500 enterprise clients, and the press.

      You're judging his pay by whether he's responsible for writing code?

    • Yeah, let's throw middle management under the bus, they earn too much money! Better to go with centralised planning like the Soviet block, they don't waste money on management shit. Let there be just one decider.
  • I suspect a number of people who feel undercompensated (total overall compensation) feel so because they heard or know of other people who claim to be better compensated, which may or may not be a true story. It could be someone boasting by inflating what they make, or it could be someone with skills which are hard to come by, therefore making the comparison invalid.

    The tech job market is hot right now. All those people who say they can get substantially more compensation (money, benefits, schedule, expe

  • Does "There's some macro economic trends at play," refer to the out of control inflation? If so, I would say it's global. One of my favorite salad places charged $12 for a salad 2 years ago, now its $18. Everyone needs to up their prices and compensation to account for the increases, otherwise someone or everyone is getting screwed.

  • If only 46% of respondents said their total compensation is competitive compared to similar jobs at other companies, why haven't the other 54% left the company for one of the "more competitive" companies? And, if compensation isn't competitive, how does Google manage to hire new staff?

    "Compensation" can be considered to include such obvious perks as gyms, food, and even just accepting personal deliveries. However in reality individuals also include intangibles such as "do I get to work on what I want?", "is

    • There's a ton of risk and hassle involved in changing jobs.

      The job market is not like a market for an easily substitutable commodity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by uncqual ( 836337 )

        True. But unless Google is paying new hires significantly more than existing employees with known track records, similar skills and job, that very fact suggests that Google is NOT under compensating employees as new hires (ignoring fresh outs) are taking that risk and hassle and still finding it preferable tradeoff to accept Google's compensation while still incurring those risks and hassles.

  • You will never make as much staying in a company as you would job-hopping.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hodr ( 219920 )

      COO of my company started as a line worker 25 years ago. He is paid very well and does well at his job precisely because he understands every facet of the business. He likely would not be as effective at a different company even if it produced a similar product, and he surely wouldn't get paid as well.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

        He'd better watch it. Anytime he hits that magic 54 years old he's at risk. For me it was on my 54th birthday. On my birthday. No kidding. I went from saving millions of dollars and awards galore to I can't walk down the hall right. No kidding.
        I know, I know... EEOC, right? I did that route. They said - did they put age was the reason in anything written? Did anyone hear that? No? Have a nice day.
        Then not one, Two registered letters arrived saying - Tough.

  • Hill said. "It's a very competitive market and you're probably hearing anecdotal stories of colleagues getting better offers at other companies." While thinking to himself that these employees instinctively know those higher pay stories are BS and why they are still at Google.

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