At an all-hands meeting last week, Google executives responded to employee questions about declining morale even with financial performance improving.

At an all-hands meeting last week, Google executives responded to employee questions about declining morale even with financial performance improving.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caEnglish
    276·
    7 months ago

    “Despite the company’s stellar performance and record earnings, many Googlers have not received meaningful compensation increases” a top-rated employee question read. “When will employee compensation fairly reflect the company’s success and is there a conscious decision to keep wages lower due to a cooling employment market?”

    With this leadership, when you unionize. It’s literally what they’re for.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caEnglish
      78·
      7 months ago

      Still, asking the question in this clear way that almost evokes the answer by itself is important. It puts it into the heads of people watching. Could be a union instigator. 😅

    • Hypx@fedia.io
      52·
      7 months ago

      It’s also why there’s no way Google can sustain these numbers. They pay workers like a random startup, just without any possibility of striking it rich on stock options. They are likely to be hemorrhaging talent at all engineering positions.

      • Lath@kbin.earth
        47·
        7 months ago

        They don’t care. They have monopoly over everything! They have your phones private data, they have your search history, they have your automatically uploaded pictures to Google drive of your butthole! They own you and you’ll do as they like, whenever they like! Now where’s that guy who knows how to operate all that stuff? Wait, he was fired to lower costs? Oh…

      • Omgpwnies@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14·
        7 months ago

        For as long as Google is part of FAANG, they will have a nearly unlimited supply of fresh grads to burn through, and fresh grads still line up to work there to get that name on their CV.

        • bitwaba@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          7 months ago

          Google will always be part of FAANG. It’s in the name.

          But if they fail in AI and their advertising business dries up (which if you listen to earnings calls, is pretty much all anyone is concerned about), then their name won’t be stapled to FAANG anymore. It’ll just be FAAN. When you run the gamble of having great talent but wasting it, eventually you reach the point where you’re no longer a desirable location for the talent in the first place.

      • ours@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        7 months ago

        And they’ll argue “you don’t need [all the things that make this company great]”. And then we’ll wonder how a once leading company is dying on their now crappy products/services.

        • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.worldEnglish
          7·
          7 months ago

          To be eventually bought up by a private equity firm that gives it the last squeeze before throwing the withered husk on the final Google Graveyard.

        • sunbeam60@lemmy.oneEnglish
          7·
          7 months ago

          And that’s how Microsoft moved into irrelevance under Ballmer until Satya Nadella started focussing on innovation again. When sales lead technology businesses they always decline.

    • EnderMB@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      7 months ago

      You would be mortified at how many people in big tech, including those that have directly experienced injustice or unfair treatment at work, simply want no part of a tech union.

      Frankly, some industries absolutely need it (e.g. games). If they’ll put up with what they put up with and still choose not to unionize I don’t really know how software engineers will…

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caEnglish
        7·
        7 months ago

        Oh I’m aware, am part of the industry. I think the disparately higher compensation relative to the rest of the economy has given us a false idea we’re paid fairly (perhaps even unfairly high) for what we produce. Which I have definitely felt myself. In fact I’ve felt very strange of the disparities within the industry itself. However that’s completely the wrong way to look at it. There’s no magical upper number that our labor deserves. Everything is determined by what people pay and how much they buy. (I’m not saying that’s the only way it should be) So if the revenues and profits are sky high, and we know labor makes most of it happen, then our labor is simply worth that much more. Given that someone will collect the difference, we may as well get a larger share of it. The sooner we recognize that, the sooner we’ll get even higher compensation which will be much more beneficial for people in the wider economy than a much smaller proportion of the exec class getting wealthier. But that can’t happen without unions. We mistake the temporary labor shortage for stable and strong negotiation leverage.

    • sum_yung_gai@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      7 months ago

      Am I dumb or does th article not mention the executive’s response to this question?

      • kat_angstrom@lemmy.worldEnglish
        32·
        7 months ago

        If it’s like a lot of other tech companies, likely this was posted in a questions thread during a large meeting, and while everyone can see the questions being posed, Execs pick and choose which questions they’re interested in answering, ignoring the ones they don’t like. It’s a good way of determining employee morale while avoiding all accountability.

      • anlumo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        7 months ago

        It’s not really a question anyways, just a statement rephrased to fit into the format.

        • Tryptaminev@lemm.eeEnglish
          11·
          7 months ago

          It is a fair and square question. “This is our position, what is your response to that?” And the answer is also clear “We care so little about you, that we don’t even recognize your position.”

  • lautan@lemmy.caOPEnglish
    181·
    7 months ago

    A decline in morale after record profits? I think a pizza party is an order.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.worldEnglish
    113·
    7 months ago

    Company-wide email: “We’ve had our best year EVER and it’s all thanks to YOU!”

    Me: “Great. Can I have a raise?”

    Company: “Oh, we can’t afford THAT.”

  • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
    80·
    7 months ago

    Google is using artificial intelligence to summarize employee comments and questions for the forum.

    Well, isn’t that a good start?

    Anyway, the TLDR “answer” from CFO Porat is “We were spending too much”, while Pichai’s answer is “We hired too much people”. Way to dodge the question, assholes.

    Alphabet’s full-time headcount climbed to over 190,000 at the end of 2022, up almost 22% from a year earlier and 40% higher than at the close of 2020.

    So they had around 135k employees in 2020. Why the fuck did you overhire, then? Just to lay off and show off to investors as someone who increased profits in the most asinine way?

    Pichai then joked that leadership should hold a “Finance 101” Ted Talk for employees.

    Yeah, nevermind me, Sundar Pichai, earning way more money year after year while you’re all begging for raises, it’s just finances, you guys!

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      7 months ago

      Ah yes, employees are only mad because they don’t understand the finances. Like, no, we’re disgruntled by layoffs no matter what. Layoffs trade morale and productivity for cash

    • bitwaba@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      7 months ago

      Yeah. Let’s let him teach a Finance 101 class.

      I’d be interested in the lessons a guy that approved a 40% headcount increase then did layoffs and said “I take full responsibility” can teach anyone.

      How’s the saying go? Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.. Go on professor. Schools us. The Investors are listening.

  • iAvicenna@lemmy.worldEnglish
    54·
    7 months ago

    Huh who would have seen that coming out of prioritising income over employees (and users)

    • jballs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      13·
      7 months ago

      Exactly, the CEO uses the word “expense” to refer to employees at least 4 times according to my count.

      “The problem is a couple of years ago — two years ago, to be precise — we actually got that upside down and expenses started growing faster than revenues,” said Porat

      They even joke that they need to give a Finance 101 Ted Talk, as if that will help. From their perspective, employees are not people. They’re not even resources to be nurtured. They’re expenses. And the company has a duty to keep expenses low.

      What a tone-deaf response.

    • JPSound@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      7 months ago

      That’s precisely what they do. But not only their souls but the souls of the employees just trying to provide for their families and live a normal and fulfilled life.

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.oneEnglish
      7·
      7 months ago

      After 20+ in software, my loyalty towards my current employer is as strong and unyielding as theirs is to me: Not at all.

  • nifty@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    7 months ago

    Knowledge workers need to get out of this ego-driven complex that they don’t need unions. You’re working class and chattle, believing anything else is delusional and pathetic.