Google CEO Sundar Pichai was questioned by staff members about cost-cutting during an all-hands meeting last week.
Google drastically reduced the budget allocated for employee travel and entertainment after reporting weaker-than-expected earnings for the second consecutive quarter. Employees have expressed dissatisfaction with the change by recently asking CEO Sundar Pichai for clarifications on managing productivity, the company's austerity measures regarding the leisure budget, as well as layoffs.
Employees have reportedly heard Pichai's message that money and perks aren't everything and that they should focus on having fun at work rather than worrying about having to cut back on employee benefits and the budget for the recession.
Pichai was questioned by staff members about cost-cutting during an all-hands meeting last week, according to a CNBC report. Google employees asked Pichai a highly-rated question about why the company was "nickel-and-diming" employees by cutting travel and other budgets when "Google has record profits and huge cash reserves" coming out of the Covid pandemic. Questions are submitted and then rated by fellow attendees in such meetings.
Responding to the question, Pichai asked employees to stay together to face such macroeconomic conditions. "How do I say it? 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," says Pichai in an audio clip accessed by CNBC.
"I remember when Google was small and scrappy. We shouldn't always equate fun with money. I think you can walk into a hard-working start-up and people may be having fun and it shouldn't always equate to money," he added.
Sundar Pichai sounded irritated occasionally during the intense all-hands meeting and even continued, "We don't always get to choose the macroeconomic conditions."
Pichai also made a comment about how hiring at Google is taking longer. He suggested once more that productivity doesn't match these numbers and that Google employs far too many people. "I think you could be a 20-person team or a 100-person team. We are going to be constrained in our growth on a looking-ahead basis. Maybe you were planning on hiring six more people but maybe you are going to have to deal with four and how are you going to make that happen? The answers are going to be different for different teams," insisted Pichai.
Recently, companies, including those in the technology industry, have been cutting costs due to the unfavourable macroeconomic environment. Interest rates are gradually rising around the world, and the easy money that has supported startup culture is no longer as readily available as it was a few years ago. Due to this, many tech firms, including Google and Facebook, have reduced some benefits and slowed down hiring.
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