Tag Archives: Sundar Pichai

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Google employees scramble for answers after layoffs hit long-tenured

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Google employees are scrambling for answers from leadership and from colleagues as the company undergoes a massive layoff.

On Friday, Alphabet-owned Google announced it was cutting 12,000 employees, roughly 6% of the full-time workforce. While employees had been bracing for a potential layoff, they are questioning leadership about the criteria for layoffs which surprised some employees, who woke up to find their access to company properties cut off. Some of the laid-off employees had been long-tenured or recently promoted, raising questions about the criteria used to decide whose jobs were cut.

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Shortly after CEO Sundar Pichai’s initial email to employees Friday morning, Google’s search boss Prabhakar Raghavan sent an email to employees saying he “also feels the responsibility to reach out” and asking for them to save questions for next week’s town hall. There will be “bumps in the road” as the organization moves forward with the layoffs, Raghavan noted.

The company provided an FAQ for the layoffs, which CNBC has seen, but employees have complained that it doesn’t give much detail on many answers. Employees have flooded Dory, the company’s question-asking platform, and set up virtual communities to figure out who’s been laid off and why. Directors have been telling employees to hold questions for the town hall taking place next week.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The scramble highlights the challenges Google could face in maintaining a supportive and productive company culture for its restive workforce of more than 160,000 full-time employees. Further confrontations are possible, as the company said it plans to lay off international employees but has yet to determine which ones.

So far in the U.S., employees have been laid off across business units including Chrome, Cloud, and its experimental Area 120 unit. Some employees working on the company’s artificial intelligence programs were also laid off, according to Bloomberg.

A list of top-rated inquiries from employees, viewed by CNBC, contained pointed questions for executives.

“How were the layoffs decided? Some high performers were let go from our teams,” one top-rated question read. “This negatively impacts the remaining Googlers who see someone with high recognition, positive reviews, promo but still getting laid off.”

“What metrics were used to determine who was laid off?” another top-rated question read. “Was the decision based on their performance, scope of work, or both, or something else?”

Another asked: “How much runway are we hoping to gain with the layoffs?” and “Would you explain clearly what the layoff allows Google to do that Google could not have done without layoffs?”

Another highly rated one questioned CEO Sundar Pichai’s statement, which said, “I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.”

“What does taking full responsibility entail?,” one employee asked on Dory. “Responsibility without consequence seems like an empty platitude. Is leadership forgoing bonuses and pay raises this year? Will anyone be stepping down?”

Some employees came together on their own, organizing ad hoc groups to try and get answers. Employees created a Google doc spreadsheet as a way to keep track of people who were laid off and which part of the business they worked in.

More than 5,000 laid-off employees started a Discord channel called Google post-layoffs, ranging in topics from venting to labor organizing and visa immigration. Some employees organized virtual Google meetings with people on video calls. Others tried to organize physical meet-ups.

Some turned to the company’s internal meme-generator as a means to connect with each other, for answers and for comfort. 

One meme showed Mila Kunis from the film “Friends with Benefits.” Kunis spoke to the Google logo, saying the line: “The sad thing is, I actually thought you were different.” Another meme showed former President Bill Clinton gesturing the word “zero” with the title “Leadership paycut.”

“Alphabet leadership claims ‘full responsibility’ for this decision, but that is little comfort to the 12,000 workers who are now without jobs,” said Parul Koul, executive chair of Alphabet Workers Union-CWA in a statement Friday. “This is egregious and unacceptable behavior by a company that made $17 billion dollars in profit last quarter alone.”

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Business

Google axes 12,000 jobs, layoffs spread across tech sector

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LONDON (AP) — Google is laying off 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its workforce, becoming the latest tech company to trim staff as the economic boom that the industry rode during the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who also leads its parent company Alphabet, informed staff Friday at the Silicon Valley giant about the cuts in an email that was also posted on the company’s news blog.

It’s one of the company’s biggest-ever round of layoffs and adds to tens of thousands of other job losses recently announced by Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook parent Meta and other tech companies as they tighten their belts amid a darkening outlook for the industry. Just this month, there have been at least 48,000 job cuts announced by major companies in the sector.

“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” Pichai wrote. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”

He said the layoffs reflect a “rigorous review” carried out by Google of its operations.

The jobs being eliminated “cut across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions,” Pichai said. He said he was “deeply sorry” for the layoffs.

Regulatory filings illustrate how Google’s workforce swelled during the pandemic, ballooning to nearly 187,000 people by late last year from 119,000 at the end of 2019.

Pichai said that Google, founded nearly a quarter of a century ago, was “bound to go through difficult economic cycles.”

“These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities,” he wrote. He called out the company’s investments in artificial intelligence as an area of opportunity.

There will be job cuts in the U.S. and in other unspecified countries, according to Pichai’s letter.

The tech industry has been forced to freeze hiring and cut jobs “as the clock has struck midnight on hyper growth and digital advertising headwinds are on the horizon,” Wedbush Securities analysts Dan Ives, Taz Koujalgi and John Katsingris wrote Friday.

Just this week, Microsoft announced 10,000 job cuts, or nearly 5% of its workforce. Amazon said this month it is cutting 18,000 jobs, although that’s a fraction of its 1.5 million strong workforce, while business software maker Salesforce is laying off about 8,000 employees, or 10% of the total. Last fall Facebook parent Meta announced it would shed 11,000 positions, or 13% of its workers. Elon Musk slashed jobs at Twitter after after he acquired the social media company last fall.

Those job cuts are hitting smaller players as well. U.K.-based cybersecurity firm Sophos laid off 450 employees, or 10% of its global workforce. Cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase cut 20% of its workforce, about 950 jobs, in its second round of layoffs in less than a year.

“The stage is being set: tech names across the board are cutting costs to preserve margins and get leaner” in the current economic climate, the Wedbush analysts said.

Employment in the U.S. has been resilient despite signs of a slowing economy, and there were another 223,000 jobs added in December. Yet the tech sector grew exceptionally fast over the last several years due to increased demand as employees began to work remotely.

CEOs of a number of companies have taken blame for growing too fast, yet those same companies, even after the latest round of job cuts, remain much larger than they were before the economic boom from the pandemic began.

In their layoff announcements, both Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized the importance of capitalizing on their advances in artificial intelligence technology, reflecting renewed competition between the tech giants sparked by Microsoft’s growing partnership with the San Francisco startup OpenAI.

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Alphabet Unit Verily to Trim More Than 200 Jobs

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Verily Life Sciences, a healthcare unit of

Alphabet Inc.,

GOOG 3.38%

is laying off more than 200 employees as part of a broader reorganization, the first major staff reductions to hit Google’s parent following a wave of layoffs at other technology companies.

The cuts will affect about 15% of roles at Verily, which will discontinue work on a medical software program called Verily Value Suite and several early-stage products, CEO Stephen Gillett said in an email to employees Wednesday. Verily has more than 1,600 employees.

Verily oversees a portfolio of healthcare projects largely focused on applying data and technology to patient treatments, including a virtual diabetes clinic and an online program for connecting research participants to clinical studies. 

“We are making changes that refine our strategy, prioritize our product portfolio and simplify our operating model,” Mr. Gillett wrote in the email. “We will advance fewer initiatives with greater resources.”

Originally known as Google Life Sciences, Verily is one of the largest businesses other than Google under the Alphabet umbrella, part of a group of companies known as “Other Bets.” Alphabet had 186,779 employees at the end of September last year, according to company filings.

The robotics software company Intrinsic, another unit in Alphabet’s Other Bets, also said on Wednesday it would let go of 40 employees. A spokesman said the “decision was made in light of shifts in prioritization and our longer-term strategic direction.”

Verily has recently looked to pare back a once-sprawling collection of projects spanning insurance to mosquito breeding. Last year, the company hired McKinsey & Co. and Innosight to do consulting work, The Wall Street Journal reported.

After a period of aggressive hiring to meet heightened demand for online services during the pandemic, tech companies are now laying off many of those workers. And tech bosses are saying “mea culpa” for the miscalculation. WSJ reporter Dana Mattioli joins host Zoe Thomas to talk through the shift and what it all means for the tech sector going forward.

The reorganization is a sign of the continued difficulties facing big tech companies trying to crack the healthcare industry.

David Feinberg,

the head of an ambitious health-focused group at Google, left the company in 2021 to become CEO of the healthcare technology company Cerner Corp.

In the email to employees, Mr. Gillett said Verily would largely focus on products related to research and care, while concentrating more decisions in a central leadership team rather than individual groups.

Mr. Gillett took over as Verily CEO this month, succeeding the well-known geneticist

Andy Conrad,

who moved to executive chairman.

“As we move into Verily’s next chapter, we are doubling down on our purpose, with the goal to ultimately be operating in all areas of precision health,” Mr. Gillett wrote to employees on Wednesday. “We will do this by building the data and evidence backbone that closes the gap between research and care.”

Google’s peers have cut jobs recently in response to worsening economic conditions and a decline in online advertising. Last week,

Amazon.com Inc.

announced layoffs that will affect more than 18,000 employees, the most of any tech company in the past year.

Tech Layoffs Across the Industry: Amazon, Salesforce and More Cut Staff

At a companywide meeting in December, Google CEO

Sundar Pichai

said he couldn’t make any forward looking commitments in response to questions about layoffs. Google has tried to “rationalize where we can so that we are set up to better weather the storm regardless of what’s ahead,” he added.

Activist investor TCI Fund Management called on Alphabet in November to reduce losses in Other Bets such as Verily, writing in a letter to Mr. Pichai that the company had too many employees.

Alphabet’s Other Bets recorded $1.6 billion in operating losses from $209 million in revenue during the third quarter last year, mostly from the sale of health technology and internet services. 

Verily said in September it received $1 billion in funding from Alphabet and other investors, without naming the backers. The private-equity firm Silver Lake, Singaporean fund Temasek Holdings and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan previously invested in the company.

Write to Miles Kruppa at miles.kruppa@wsj.com

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Four-day workweek is new standard for 40% of companies, EY study finds

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A man walks on Wall St. during the morning commute, as the city deals with record temperatures and the excessive heat, in New York, July 20, 2022.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

A cooling economy, rising mortgage rates and mass layoffs have done little to dampen executive demand for expanded office presence and increased flexibility for office workers, a new report from Ernst and Young (EY) finds. 

The consulting firm released its second annual EY Future Workplace Index on Wednesday, which showed a growing appetite for hybrid work, and an increase in both the utilization of flexible working options and the presence of a four-day workweek.

40% of companies surveyed either have implemented or have begun to implement a four-day workweek, EY said in a press release, an approach that has gained popularity abroad but has seen little adoption in the U.S. until recently.

Hybrid work showed a marked uptick from 2021, the survey showed, with 70% of employers surveyed adopting a hybrid approach which has employees working from home two to three days a week.

The four-day workweek and the growth of a hybrid workforce are both parts of what EY claims is a shifting landscape in real estate management for corporate leaders. “The economic downturn will force leaders to make important decisions regarding their real estate portfolios — from investments, to space optimization, to workforce models,” EY partner Mark Grinis said in a press release.

According to the press release, executives continue to invest in improving employee quality of life. 46% of surveyed employers plan to introduce in-office baristas. A third of surveyed executives plan to implement or extend their childcare options for employees. These changes come after the Covid-19 pandemic bruised employees and drove an uptick in resignations across sectors. The EY survey found that surveyed companies have begun to invest in in-office amenities to boost return-to-office rates and employee retention.

The EY report comes amidst mass layoffs in all industries, but especially in tech, where skilled employees enjoyed expansive perks and office amenities. Meta, Amazon, and Twitter have all announced reducing headcount by the thousands. At Google parent company Alphabet, even with a hiring slowdown in place, an activist investor is demanding CEO Sundar Pichai cut the search giant’s headcount and employee expenses.

According to the EY survey, however, only a third of surveyed executives plan to reduce investment in commercial real estate. Over half of those surveyed plan to improve or expand their existing portfolios. 

Elon Musk, on the other hand, shows no sign of following the executives EY surveyed. Decrying Twitter’s catering expense — which he claimed was $13 million annually in San Francisco alone — the new Twitter chief has yanked free lunches and told employees that they must return to the office.



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Google CEO Tells Workers They Don’t Need Money to Have Fun

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It’s easy to tell workers that fun doesn’t have to cost money when you have lots of money, I dare say.
Photo: Jerod Harris (Getty Images)

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who leads one of the world’s richest companies, very likely does not want to talk about money to his employees while the Big Tech giant is in the midst of cutting costs and slowing hiring. But, since employees asked, he wants them to do one thing: stop equating “fun” with “money.”

Pichai’s comments, made during an all-hands meeting with the entire company earlier this week, came to light in a new report by CNBC, which obtained an audio recording of the meeting. At the meeting, which Pichai held in New York with a live audience of Googlers, employees asked the CEO why the company was “nickel-and-diming” them by restricting travel and cutting entertainment budgets and perks, especially at a time when the company had “record profits and huge cash reserves.”

In response, the Google chief said the company was simply “being a bit more responsible” amid one of the toughest macroeconomic situations of the past decade.

At another point in the meeting, Pichai spoke about how cost-cutting affected fun at work. He referenced the days when Google was “small and scrappy” in his attempt to justify changes to the company’s culture and perks.

“I remember when Google was small and scrappy,” Pichai said at the meeting, as reported by CNBC. “Fun didn’t always — we shouldn’t always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working startup and people may be having fun and it shouldn’t always equate to money.”

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The question about company perks is not without basis. For years, Big Tech employees at Google and elsewhere have benefited from mind-boggling perks, at least to us peasants. These include onsite massage therapists, cooking classes, at-home fitness, and art programs, according to the “Benefits” page on Google Careers.

It’s not clear whether any of these perks will go away, although some swag is going bye-bye. Google officials who spoke at the all-hands meeting did tell employees to expect smaller and more informal holiday and New Year celebrations, instructing them specifically to “try not to go over the top.”

Regarding the restrictions on travel, some Google employees pointed out that it was contradicting to tell workers they had to follow the company’s return-to-office policy but then also stress there was “no need to travel” or “connect in-person.” Back in April, Google announced that workers would have to be in its physical offices at least three days a week.

Pichai said that he understood that the new travel policy was not ideal. He explained that if seeing each other in person would help employees work better, they could do that at times.

“If you haven’t seen your team in a while and it’ll help your work by getting together in person, I think you can do that,” the Google chief stated. “I think that’s why we are not saying no to travel, we are giving discretion to teams.”

Notably, Google officials said that the company did not plan to make any changes when it came to employee raises, equity, and bonuses, pointing out that they would continue to pay employees at “the top end of the market so we can be competitive.”

Pichai echoed the sentiment and said the company was “committed” to taking care of employees. That likely includes its highest earning executives, which in 2021 earned a total compensation of between at least $14 million and more than $28 million, according to parent company Alphabet’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Pichai’s total compensation was $6.3 million last year.

The Google chief did not respond to employee questions about whether the company would cut executive compensation.

Gizmodo reached out to Google for comment on Saturday but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

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Google CEO Pichai fields questions on cost cuts at all-hands meeting

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Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gestures during a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, on January 22, 2020.

Fabrice COFFRINI | AFP | Getty Images

As Google tries to navigate an unfamiliar environment of slowing growth, cost cutting and employee dissent over cultural changes, CEO Sundar Pichai is finding himself on the defensive.

At a companywide all-hands meeting this week, Pichai was faced with tough questions from employees related to cuts to travel and entertainment budgets, managing productivity and potential layoffs, according to audio obtained by CNBC.

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Pichai was asked, in a question that was highly rated by staffers on Google’s internal Dory system, why the company is “nickel-and-diming employees” by slashing travel and swag budgets at a time when “Google has record profits and huge cash reserves,” as it did coming out of the pandemic.

“How do I say it?” Pichai began his measured response. “Look, I hope all of you are reading the news, externally. The fact that you know, we are being a bit more responsible through one of the toughest macroeconomic conditions underway in the past decade, I think it’s important that as a company, we pull together to get through moments like this.”

The most recent all-hands meeting comes as Google parent Alphabet, Meta and other tech companies are staring into a slew of economic challenges, including a potential recession, soaring inflation, rising interest rates and tempered ad spending. Companies that, for the past decade-plus, have been known for high growth and an abundance of fun perks, are seeing what it’s like on the other side.

In July, Alphabet reported its second consecutive quarter of weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue, and third-quarter sales growth is expected to dip into the single digits, down from over 40% a year earlier. Pichai admitted that it’s not just the economy that’s caused challenges at Google but also an expanding bureaucracy at Google.

Still, he at times sounded annoyed in the meeting, and reminded staffers that, “We don’t get to choose the macroeconomic conditions always.”

After the company’s headcount ballooned during the pandemic, CFO Ruth Porat said earlier this year that she expects some economic issues to persist in the near term. Google has canceled the next generation of its Pixelbook laptop and cut funding to its Area 120 in-house incubator.

Google launched an effort in July called “Simplicity Sprint,” which aimed to solicit ideas from its more than 174,000 employees on where to “get to better results faster” and “eliminate waste.” Earlier this month, Pichai said he hoped to make the company 20% more productive while slowing hiring and investments.

How to be more productive

One of the top-rated questions posed by employees at this week’s meeting asked Pichai to elaborate on his commentary regarding improved productivity and the 20% goal.

“I think you could be a 20-person team or a 100-person team, we are going to be constrained in our growth in a looking-ahead basis,” Pichai said. “Maybe you were planning on hiring six more people but maybe you are going to have to do with four and how are you going to make that happen? The answers are going to be different with different teams.”

Pichai said leadership is combing through over 7,000 responses it’s received from employees regarding suggestions from the Simplicity Sprint effort.

“Sometimes we have a product launch process, which has probably, over many years, grown more complicated than maybe it needs to be,” Pichai said. “Can we look at that process and maybe remove two steps and that’ll be an example of making something 20% more efficient? I think all of us chipping in and doing that across all levels, I think can help the company. At our scale, there is no way we can solve that unless units of teams of all sizes do better.”

Pichai also briefly acknowledged the recent employee survey, in which employees criticized the company’s growing bureaucracy.

Another employee question concerned how the company will share its plans for potential job cuts, after news leaked about the Pixelbook pullback and the cuts at Area 120, which affected workers’ “ability to focus on work.”

Pichai responded by saying that telling the entire workforce of cuts is “not a scaleable way to do it,” but he said he will “try and notify the company of the more important updates.”

The all-hands, known as TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday) took place in New York, where Pichai took questions in front of a live audience of employees.

“It’s an interesting choice for Sundar to be in New York for TGIF the week after travel for employees is cut to only the most business critical,” the employee wrote on Dory. “I’m sure Sundar has business-critical meetings in New York.”

Pichai responded, “I think so. I think it qualified.” Some in the audience erupted in laughter.

Pichai dodged employee questions asking about cost-cutting executive compensation. Pichai brought in total pay last year of $6.3 million, while other top executives made over $28 million.

‘We shouldn’t always equate fun with money’ 

He did address the bigger theme of cost cuts, and indicated that Google’s culture can still be enjoyable even if some things, like certain swag items, are getting taken away.

“I remember when Google was small and scrappy,” he said. “Fun didn’t always — we shouldn’t always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working startup and people may be having fun and it shouldn’t always equate to money.” 

Employees wanted to know why management is asking employees to adhere to the return-to-office policy “while also saying no need to travel/connect in-person.”

“I do understand some of the travel restrictions at a time like this and RTO and people wanting to see each other, definitely is not ideal,” Pichai responded. “If you haven’t seen your team in a while and it’ll help your work by getting together in person, I think you can do that. I think that’s why we are not saying no to travel, we are giving discretion to teams.”  

Kristin Reinke, the head of Google finance, said at the meeting that sales teams will have more leeway to travel since their jobs require meeting with customers.

“We know there’s a lot of value in being next to your team but we’re just asking simply to be thoughtful and limit your travel and expenses where you can,” Reinke said. For example, she asked that employees temper their expectations for holiday parties.

“Where you have summits and big meetings, please try to do them in the office,” she said. “We definitely want people to still have fun. We know there’s holiday parties coming up, there’s year-end celebrations, we still want people to do that. But we’re just asking them to keep them small, keep them informal — try not to go over the top.”

Towards the end of the meeting, Pichai addressed a question about why the company has shifted from “rapidly hiring and spending to equally aggressive cost saving.”

Pichai disagreed with the characterization.

“I’m a bit concerned that you think what we’ve done is what you would define as aggressive cost saving,” he said. “I think it’s important we don’t get disconnected. You need to take a long-term view through conditions like this.”

He added that the company is “still investing in long-term projects like quantum computing,” and said that at times of uncertainty, it’s important “to be smart, to be frugal, to be scrappy, to be more efficient.”

Bret Hill, Google’s vice president of “total rewards,” fielded a question about raises, equity and bonuses and how they will be affected by the changes. He said the company doesn’t plan to deviate from paying workers “at the top end of the market so we can be competitive.”

Pichai reiterated that sentiment.

“We’re committed to taking care of our employees,” he said. “I think we’re just working through a tough moment macroeconomically and I think it’s important we as a company align and work together.”

A Google spokesperson said, “Sundar has been speaking to the company consistently over the last few months about ways we can be more focused.” The spokesperson added Pichai reinforced that company “leaders are working to be responsible and efficient in all that their teams do” in a moment of uncertainty, and that they’re “ensuring that our people are working on the highest impact / highest priority work.”

WATCH: Time to trim? Meta and Google reducing costs

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Google CEO Calls for ‘Simplicity Sprint’ Workers Fear Layoffs

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Photo: Staff (Getty Images)

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is reportedly calling on his staff to implement a “Simplicity Sprint” initiative meant to crowdsource employee ideas around product development, drive up efficiency and, “get better results faster.” The proposal comes on the heels of a hiring freeze and a series of worrying emails that has some Googlers concerned over the potential for layoffs.

The so-called Simplicity Sprint, first reported on by CNBC, reportedly came up during a company all-hands meeting last week. Pichai reportedly told employees they could share ideas for the sprint up until August 15 through an internal survey. The survey reportedly includes questions that probe areas where the company could potentially make cuts, according to a copy viewed by CNBC.

Pichai reportedly made it clear that efficiency at the company isn’t where executives want it, particularly in light of disappointing Q2 results. Google’s overall revenue was slightly below analysts’ predictions while revenue growth slowed to 13%, down from 62% during the same period the previous year.

“I wanted to give some additional context following our earnings results, and ask for your help as well,” Pichai reportedly told staff. “It’s clear we are facing a challenging macro environment with more uncertainty ahead.”

On the question of layoffs, Google’s Chief People Officer, Fiona Cicconi, said the company is still hiring for some critical roles and has no current layoff plans, but did not entirely rule out layoffs down the line.

“We’re asking teams to be more focused and efficient and we’re working out what that means as a company as well,” Cicconi reportedly said. “Even though we can’t be sure of the economy in the future, we’re not currently looking to reduce Google’s overall workforce.”

Google did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

Last week’s meeting marks the latest in a series of alarming, at times cryptic communications between Google executives and staff alluding to potential tougher times ahead. Early last month, Pichai reportedly sent an email to staff urging employees to be “more entrepreneurial,” and said the company would shift its focus to hiring for “critical roles” moving forward. Just weeks later, Google reportedly sent a follow up email where it announced the company would implement a two week hiring freeze. That freeze came after the company reportedly brought on around 10,000 new workers in Q2.

“We’ll use this time to review our headcount needs and align on a new set of prioritized Staffing Requests for the next three months,” Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan reportedly said in the email obtained by The Information.

Google’s warning to its staff reflects a broader sense of unease across the tech industry. A recent Crunchbass analysis found the tech industry has lost more than 30,000 jobs this year as of late July. Those have come from nearly every corner of the sector, from electric vehicle giants like Tesla to cryptocurrency heavyweight Coinbase.

There’s signs that pressure could be coming for the Big Tech giants as well. Last month, a senior Meta executive advised managers to “move to exit,” poor-performing employees. A month prior to that, CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly considered slashing the hiring of its engineers by 30% for the remainder of the year, according to a leaked Q&A. Zuckerberg reiterated that glum sentiment during an all hands meeting last week where he reportedly said the company had hired too aggressively during the pandemic, Reuters notes.

While the recent tech industry downturns mark the clearest explanation for Google’s recent cautionary language, Pichai has faced criticism from some who’ve said his leadership at the company is linked to a decline in performance. 15 current and former Google executives speaking to the New York Times last year blamed Pichai for not moving quickly enough on business decisions and creating an environment paralyzed by bureaucracy. Some former Google executives, like Noam Bardin, accused Pichai of lacking the appetite for risk so symbolic of tech industry executives.

“The innovation challenges,” Bardin wrote in a blog post , “will only get worse as the risk tolerance will go down.”

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Productivity and focus must improve

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks on stage during the annual Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, May 8, 2018.

Stephen Lam | Reuters

Google is launching a new effort called “Simplicity Sprint” in an effort to improve efficiency and improve employee focus during an uncertain economic environment.

The Alphabet company had its regular all-hands last Wednesday, and the tone was somewhat urgent as employees expressed concern over layoffs and CEO Sundar Pichai asked employees for input, according to attendees and related internal documentation viewed by CNBC. Google’s productivity as a company isn’t where it needs to be even with the headcount it has, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in the meeting.

“I wanted to give some additional context following our earnings results, and ask for your help as well,” Pichai opened, referring to the company’s Q2 earnings report on Tuesday. “It’s clear we are facing a challenging macro environment with more uncertainty ahead.”

He added, “There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the headcount we have.” He asked employees to help “create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer focused. We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity.”

It comes after the company reported its second consecutive quarter of weaker-than-expected earnings and revenue on Tuesday. Revenue growth slowed to 13% in the quarter from 62% a year earlier, when the company was benefiting from the post-pandemic reopening and consumer spending was on the rise. CFO Ruth Porat said she expected some of the challenges to continue in the near-term but the company doesn’t give formal guidance.

It also comes after Pichai recently announced that it would slow the pace of hiring and investments through 2023, asking employees to work “with greater urgency” and “more hunger” than shown “on sunnier days.”

‘Simplicity Sprint’

“I would love to get all your help,” Pichai said in Wednesday’s all-hands meeting, speaking to its more than 170,000 full-time employees.

To that end, Pichai introduced a “Simplicity Sprint” initiative to crowdsource ideas for quicker product development. “Sprint” is a term often used in software development and by tech startups to denote short, focused pushes toward a common goal.

Pichai said the company is opening the floor for employees to share their ideas through August 15th through an internal survey that asks if management can reach out if they have follow-up questions.

It’s an attempt for the company to “get better results faster,” Pichai said during the meeting. The survey, which was viewed by CNBC, shows it may also be used to cut back in certain areas.

Questions in the survey include “What would help you work with greater clarity and efficiency to serve our users and customers? Where should we remove speed bumps to get to better results faster? How do we eliminate waste and stay entrepreneurial and focused as we grow?”

The request also comes as the company tries to ease tensions between employees and executives after an annual “Googlegeist” survey showed staffers gave the company particularly poor marks on pay, promotions and execution.

Highlighting a 7% dip in views about Google’s execution, executive Prabhakar Raghavan at the time wrote “that means we need to bring more attention to busting bureaucracy.” Raghavan is among the most important and influential execs at the company, overseeing search, ads, mapping, and other areas.

In May, the company announced it would overhaul its performance evaluation process that will result in increased salaries while hoping to reduce the bureaucracy around compensation and raises.

‘Some anxiety’

In Wednesday’s all-hands meeting, executives addressed employees concern about potential layoffs. One of the top-rated questions was “In light of Sundar’s statement that sharpening Google’s focus ‘means consolidating where investments overlap and streamlining processes,’ should we expect layoffs?”

Pichai handed the question off to Google’s chief people officer, Fiona Cicconi.

While Cicconi said the company is still hiring and doesn’t have plans for layoffs right now, she didn’t rule it out.

“We’re asking teams to be more focused and efficient and we’re working out what that means as a company as well. Even though we can’t be sure of the economy in the future, we’re not currently looking to reduce Google’s overall workforce.”

She also said, “I really get that there is some anxiety around this based on what we’re hearing from other companies and what they’re doing and as Sundar mentioned, we’re still hiring for critical roles,” Cicconi said. She asked employees to remember that it’s still the biggest hiring year in the company’s history.

In the second quarter, Alphabet said its headcount rose 21% to 174,014 full-time employees from 144,056 the year prior. However, the company said last month it will slow the pace of hiring and investments through 2023, and CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in a memo, “we’re not immune to economic headwinds.”

Pichai noted the broader economic headwinds multiple times. “If you’re looking to what’s happening externally — I’m sure you’re all reading the news— the people in businesses who uses Google products are facing their own challenges right now.”

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Google employees growing unhappy with pay and promotions, survey shows

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Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gestures during a session at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.

Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images

As Google prepares to bring most employees back to the office, the company is facing a workforce that’s increasingly unhappy when it comes to key issues such as compensation and an ability to meet career goals.

Google’s annual employee surveys, internally called “Googlegeist,” show that a growing number of staffers don’t view their pay packages as fair or competitive with what they could make in a similar role elsewhere. They are also questioning their employer’s ability to execute.

The surveys were taken in January and released to employees last week. CNBC viewed results from the company overall as well as individual groups such as cloud, search and ads. The lowest scores across the board were in compensation and execution. The highest scores were in Google’s mission and values.

CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in a brief email announcing the results that the survey is “one of the most important ways” the company measures how much people like working at the company.

Retention and employee satisfaction are more critical than ever to Google and others in the tech sector as record numbers of people in the U.S. are quitting their jobs and exploring new opportunities. Google is also about to begin bringing most of its employees back to physical offices at least three days a week. After two years of remote work because of the pandemic, Google’s reopening is scheduled for April 4.

Unsatisfied with promotions

Only 46% of survey respondents said their total compensation is competitive compared to similar jobs at other companies. That’s down 12 points from a year earlier. A modestly higher number, 56%, say their pay is “fair and equitable,” a drop of eight points from the prior year. Some 64% of employees said their performance is reflected in their pay, down three points.

A Google spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment. Business Insider previously reported some of the compensation survey results.

Pay is a matter that Google executives have been forced to address of late. At an all-hands meeting in December, Frank Wagner, Google’s vice president of compensation, responded to concerns about rising inflation and whether the company would provide any sort of increase. Wagner said Google would not implement a blanket raise to match inflation.

Meanwhile, revenue has continued to surge, executives have received pay bumps and the stock price hit a record in November before falling with the rest of the market.

Pichai still received a favorable rating of 86% from employees in the survey. But some of the more specific questions about Pichai resulted in less-flattering responses. For his vision of what the company can be, 74% said Pichai inspires them, while the same number said his “decisions and strategies enable Google to do excellent work.”

Prabhakar Raghavan, who oversees key businesses including search, ads and commerce, noted in an internal email that 61% of employees see themselves as able to meet career goals at the company and said, “there’s work to be done.”

“We need to make sure that you succeed to your full abilities and keep learning and growing in your careers here,” he wrote.

Highlighting a 7% dip in views about Google’s execution, Raghavan said “that means we need to bring more attention to busting bureaucracy and ensuring we can act quickly when needed.”

Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of cloud services at Google LLC, speaks during the Google Cloud Next ’19 event in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 9, 2019. The conference brings together industry experts to discuss the future of cloud computing.

Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images

In the cloud division, CEO Thomas Kurian also noted a decline in execution, and said in an email that there still remains “barriers to decision-making.”

Kurian’s unit faces issues similar to the parent company’s. Only 54% of employees in the cloud group say the promotional process is fair, a decline of two points from a year ago. Kurian said there’s “a lack of criteria for promotions” and “lack of transparency.”

Raghavan and Pichai each received favorability ratings of 84%.

Employees happy with products, mission

Survey results showed employees are pleased with Google’s ability to deliver on the mission “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” 

Google’s mission received a 90% rating, while values came in at 85%.

“It’s heartening to see that our org takes a lot of pride in our mission, managers and helpfulness of our products,” Raghavan wrote. “These continue to be foundational to our work and our culture.”

Additionally, 96% of employees under Raghavan’s agreed that Google’s products are helpful to people in their everyday lives.

Diversity and inclusion ratings were mixed. The company received favorable marks between 82% and 90% when it came to “belonging” and employees feeling their opinions are valued. 

Pichai said the company progressed in areas including employee “well-being” and “culture of respect.”

WATCH: Google a good stock to have for 2022 as recovery continues

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Google Scraps Return to Office Plans Amid Spread of Omicron

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Photo: Robyn Beck / AFP (Getty Images)

Google has delayed its return to office mandate for workers in the U.S. again as concerns over the new coronavirus omicron variant raise alarm worldwide and prompt new restrictions.

In an email to full-time staffers sent on Thursday, obtained by CNBC, the tech company said it would scrap its planned Jan. 10 mandate and wait until 2022 to determine when its U.S. workers could safely return to the office in the long-term. The email to U.S. workers did not mention the omicron variant. However, Google leadership in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa explicitly pointed to “the uncertainty around COVID-19 and the new travel restrictions,” as being the reason why next month’s return was delayed for employees in those countries, according to Insider.

Google had previously announced that employees would be required to return to the office three days a week on Jan. 10 and be fully vaccinated to do so. In recent weeks, Google has opened 90% of its offices in the U.S. Close to 40% of its employees have come in physically to work, the company said.

Although no clear timeline has been set yet, Chris Rackow, Google’s vice president of global security, reiterated in the email that the company will allow specific locations to determine when to bring their employees back to the office. The policy had previously been disclosed by CEO Sundar Pichai, who added that teams would be given a 30-day “heads-up” before they’re expected to go in.

Locations will be assisted by Google’s local incident response teams, which will help assess each office’s “risk level.”

Nonetheless, Rackow said that Google encourages employees to come into the office “where conditions allow, to reconnect with colleagues in person and start regaining the muscle memory of being in the office more regularly.”

“We will be re-learning our working rhythms together in 2022, which brings new opportunities and new challenges as we experiment with more flexible ways of working,” Rackow wrote.

A Google spokesperson told CNBC that the delay was in line with the plan previously set by the company, which considered Jan. 10 the earliest possible return date. At this point, though, big tech’s return to office dates are as uncertain as the end of the pandemic. It remains to be seen whether other companies, such as Apple, which is set to start a hybrid work pilot on Feb. 1, Facebook, and Amazon will push back their plans as well.

“We’ll continue to determine when offices reopen and start the hybrid work week based on local conditions, which are dynamic and vary greatly across locations,” the Google spokesperson said.

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