Rumors of 11,000 Layoffs... Google Employees Demand "Company Clarification"

Letter Directly to the Vice President of HR Managing 5 Employees

As rumors spread that Google will conduct a large-scale restructuring early next year, employees are demanding direct explanations from the company.

According to documents obtained by The New York Times on the 28th (local time), five Google Switzerland employees recently sent a letter to the Vice President of Human Resources. The letter included statements such as "Some managers are being pressured to fire employees who received negative evaluations" and "Recent company management decisions are being interpreted as warnings of broader layoffs."

They particularly argued that the recently introduced performance evaluation system, "Google Employee Assessment and Development (GRAD)," is exacerbating confusion. GRAD is a new system introduced by Google in May, which categorizes employees based on their evaluations. According to CNBC on the 22nd, under the 2023 revised evaluation system, regular employees falling within the bottom 6% will be classified into lower tiers.

This expands the previous bottom range from 2% to 6%. Additionally, while 27% of employees previously belonged to the top two tiers, this proportion will decrease to 22%. A new highest tier called "Transformational Impact" has also been established, and employees claim that this category requires "achieving nearly impossible goals and contributing to the company beyond what we thought was possible."

Google states, "Through 'Support Check-in,' work performance can be improved within 60 days"

Google stated that GRAD "helps with employee development, coaching, learning, career advancement, and provides regular feedback to employees." They also mentioned a 'Support Check-in' process, which offers an opportunity to improve work performance before being classified into a lower tier.

However, employees have expressed dissatisfaction, saying that GRAD is not operating smoothly. Due to flaws in the system itself and the busy year-end period, accurate evaluations are not being conducted, and receiving poor results makes employees targets for layoffs. Furthermore, the 'Support Check-in' is effectively a voluntary resignation system, where refusing the program leads to a departure process.

The New York Times reported, "Sources familiar with Google's situation have heightened concerns that approximately 11,000 employees, corresponding to the bottom 6%, could be subject to layoffs." Currently, Google has not set a specific number of employees to undergo the 'Support Check-in.' However, Google Switzerland employees worry that with quotas in place and ambiguous criteria for selection, large-scale layoffs could occur.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.