Possibility that Google is tightening its internal performance evaluation system in order to reduce the number of employees by more than 10,000 people

Half of the employees were laid off on Twitter, where Elon Musk is undergoing major reforms, and it became a hot topic. In addition, Meta, which operates Facebook, will also carry out large-scale layoffs of thousands of people . And it is reported that more than 10,000 employees may be reduced due to the stricter employee performance evaluation system at Google, a corner of Big Tech.

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Google introduced a performance evaluation system called `` Googler Reviews And Development (GRAD) '' in May 2022.

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Google has so far conducted employee performance evaluations and promotion processes twice a year, but GRAD aggregates this once a year. Also, until then, where individual performance was evaluated with reference to opinions from colleagues, etc., GRAD changed the form to entrust the responsibility of performance evaluation to the manager. Google commented, 'GRAD will result in the majority of Google employees working at higher wages, and is expected to increase the overall amount paid.'

Historically, 2% of all employees were expected to receive a bad grade in this GRAD. However, it is expected that 6% of all employees, that is, about 11,000 Google employees, will be evaluated as 'poor performance' as GRAD's evaluation becomes stricter. According to internal guidelines, not only the lowest evaluation but also the second lowest evaluation is considered to be 'expected level/consistently did not meet standards'.

If GRAD evaluates you as having 'bad performance', not only will your salary be lowered or your bonus will be lowered, but it can also be a reason for dismissal. The Information believes that Google is tightening its evaluation of GRAD for the purpose of reducing personnel.

Huge technology companies called `` Big Tech '' such as Twitter, Meta, and Amazon are trying to reduce labor costs by drastically reducing employees through large-scale layoffs. In Google's parent company Alphabet's financial results announcement for the third quarter of 2022 (July-September), CEO Sundar Pichai said, 'We plan to significantly slow down employment in the fourth quarter of 2022.'

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Hedge fund TCI Fund Management announced an open letter (PDF file) to CEO Pichai on November 15, 2022. Among them, 'Google has too many employees and the cost per employee is too high,' and urges them to take proactive actions to reduce costs.

Analyst Mark Shumlik also noted that Google has a 'unique culture that actively avoids vocal efforts to focus on cost cutting and discipline,' and has so far been slow to take decisive action. He said that it was delayed and became bloated and reached the present.