According to internal communications obtained by CNBC, more employees will be at risk for low ratings under a new performance review system that will start next year.
In a recent all-hands meeting, executives gave more information about the new performance review process. 9% of full-time employees will fall into a low-ranking category that puts them at higher risk for corrective action, compared to 2% before. 22% of employees will be rated with one of the two highest categories compared to 27% before.
An employee must have achieved the near-impossible in order to make the new, highest rated category, "Transformative Impact".
The new process for performance reviews is called GRAD.
CNBC reported that employees are worried they won't be accurately rated because of procedural and technical issues with GRAD. There are a lot of layoffs in the tech industry. Employees at other tech companies have grown anxious because of the job cuts that have hit them.
In an all-hands meeting in December, employees expressed their frustration with executives who are not providing answers to questions about their numbers. Some employees think that a new performance review system could be used to reduce the number of employees.
The subject of headcount has been raised by employees. The CEO was forced to explain the company's changed position after years of rapid growth. Executives did not rule out layoffs at the time.
In November, a number of employees in an all-hands meeting asked for clarification on executives' plans around headcount, and also asked if executives mismanaged their headcount when they grew their workforce by 24%.
186,779 full time employees were employed by the company. The amount of contractors is the same.
The company will be looking at bonuses, pay and equity, as well as spending more per capita on compensation overall, according to recent documents. The company still plans to pay between 5% and 10% of market rates.
A request for comment was not responded to by the search engine.
According to audio of the meeting obtained by CNBC, many of the top-rated questions describe stress around year-end performance reviews.
One of the employees asked why the support check-in quota was pushed to front line managers before the deadline. This is a new low for me, I've been through a lot in the past.
Many last-minute support check-ins were forced through part of Cloud in order to meet a quota, causing a lot of distress and anger. How is this helpful feedback helpful? What can we do to prevent this from occurring in the future?
According to a top-rated employee question, the support check-in process is becoming a cause of stress and anxiety due to the current economic situation.
CNBC reported earlier this month that employees were getting support check-ins in the final days before year-end. Executives changed parts of the process in the last days.
The issues with GRAD were acknowledged in a recent all-hands meeting.
"It's not ideal to have support check-ins occur so late in the review cycle and we know that people need time to absorb the feedback and take action on it."
Executives were asked by several employees if they had a quota for placing people in lower performance categories. Executives didn't seem to convince employees that they don't have a quota.
One question asked if the process of using quota to place employees in performance buckets was similar to that of Amazon.
A highly-rated question states that uncertainty around GRAD processes has put a lot of pressure on lower level managers to pass down information.
Layoffs across the industry has been a topic impacting people in the industry. There has been no official communication on this. The company will address this topic.
Executives didn't answer the questions directly. The CEO said he didn't know what the future would hold.
Pichai said that they were trying to prioritize where they could so that they could weather the storm. "We don't know what the future holds so unfortunately I cannot make forward looking commitments but everything we've been planning on as a company for the past six to seven months has been do all the hard work."
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