It's become a sort of predictable thing by now. Google holds an all-hands meeting, and its CEO, Sundar Pichai, gets questions from employees who are upset about one thing or another. It's one of the reasons the company stopped holding its regular town-hall style meetings back in 2019.
In hindsight, that was probably a mistake. Actually, a lot of people suggested it was probably a mistake at the time. It's true that the meetings had taken on a different tone in the past few years. I'm sure they had become uncomfortable for the company's top leaders--no one wants to have to take questions about the things employees are unhappy about.
The thing is, just because you don't have to face your employee's complaints, does not mean they do not have them. And, Google employees seem to have a lot, especially as the company is trying to navigate everything from returning to the office after a pandemic to a a very uncertain global economy.
Last month, Pichai faced questions about the company's decision to pause hiring and spending on some perks, while also expecting employees to increase productivity. In July, Google's CEO said he had "concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have." Basically, he was asking Google employees to figure out ways to do more with less. That, it appears, hasn't gone over well.
It's a fair complaint. If you're asking your team to do more, you should-at a minimum-be sure they have the resources they need. Expecting them to cut back or slow hiring is one thing. Expecting them to then make up the difference by working more themselves is a big ask. It's even bigger when you tell them you're taking away the food in the cafeteria or that they need to now pay to check their own bags when they travel.
I'm not suggesting those are the specific changes Google is making, but it illustrates my point: Google's employees aren't happy that they're being asked to work more, while the company takes away some of the fun.
In response, Pichai addressed questions from employees during its most recent all-hands meeting. The perception, among employees, at least, is that Google is "nickling and diming" employees while Google reports record profits.
"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."
Pichai went on to address specific concerns around employee perks and how Google can keep its culture, even as it looks for ways to cut costs.
"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."
Those two sentences are pretty smart leadership, when you think about it. There is a lot of value in remembering where you started. That's when your DNA is knit together. That DNA is the building block for your company's culture, something that grows over time.
To be fair, it's hard not to hear Pichai's statement as a sort of a rationalization for cutting back. It's hard not to hear what he's saying as "sure, you should definitely have fun as long as it doesn't cost us anything." That's probably how a lot of employees at Google heard it.
I do think there's a valuable point, however. Google is not a startup. Sure, it might like to think it operates as a startup in some ways, but it just isn't. It has more than 150,000 employees. It's one of the largest, most profitable companies on earth.
Part of the reason it became so successful is because people enjoyed coming to work. One of the reasons is that the office had perks like free food, games, fitness centers, dry cleaning, and whatever else it is that Google spent money on to attract and keep talent.
But, I think the point Pichai is trying to make is that the company's culture shouldn't depend entirely on free perks, but on its DNA. The things that make your company a place people want to work should not be exclusively based on money alone. Yes, perks are nice, and they cost you money. But, not all perks are the same.
That isn't to say leaders shouldn't be as generous as they can be with their teams. I think company's should do everything they can to show employees that they are valued. I just think some of those things don't have to cost a lot of money. In fact, if your team is only coming to work for the perks, they're missing the mission. That's not a financial problem, it's a leadership failure.
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October 11, 2022 at 02:59PM
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Google's CEO Faced Intense Pushback from Employees at a Town Hall. His 2-Sentence Response was Smart Leadership - Inc.
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