Google and its parent company Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new project called “Simplicity Sprint” to solicit ideas from 174,000 employees and help them. Improve productivity and focus. Alphabet held an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that was a bit tense as many employees fear layoffs, according to internal documents. Pichai asked for input from employees. As a company, Google’s productivity doesn’t match its current workforce, he said.
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Pichai said of the company’s second-quarter earnings report: “I want to give more context after the earnings release, and I want your help. It’s clear that we’re facing a challenging macro environment. , there are more uncertainties ahead.”
He added: “What really worries us is that our overall productivity is not commensurate with our current workforce. I hope you help create a more mission-focused, more focused on our product, and more customer-centric culture. We should think about how we can minimize disruption and really raise the bar for product excellence and productivity.”
The move comes after Alphabet reported its second consecutive quarterly revenue and net profit that missed expectations. In the second quarter, Alphabet’s revenue growth slowed to 13% from 62% a year earlier. Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said she expected some challenges to continue in the near term, but the company gave no formal guidance.
Launch a new program to ask employees for help
At an all-hands meeting, Pichai said to his more than 170,000 full-time employees, “I would love to have your help.” To that end, he launched the Simple Sprint program, which uses crowdsourcing to speed up product development. . “Sprint,” which translates to “sprint,” is a term often used in software development and tech startups to refer to short-term efforts focused on a common goal.
Pichai said the company will give employees until Aug 15 to share their thoughts through an internal survey. He called it an attempt by the company to “get better results faster.” At the same time, this may also be used to cut spending in certain areas.
Questions in the survey included “What can help you serve our users and customers more clearly and efficiently?” “Where should we remove speed bumps to get better results faster?” “How can we eliminate waste, And maintain an entrepreneurial spirit and focus as you grow?”
Google’s request comes as the company tries to ease tensions between employees and executives. Previously, an annual survey called “Googlegeist” showed that many employees gave the company particularly poor scores for compensation, promotion, and execution.
That means we need to eliminate more bureaucracy, Google executive Prabhakar Raghavan wrote at the time. In May, the company announced it would overhaul its performance review process.
Layoffs not ruled out
At all-hands meetings, executives reassured staff concerns about possible layoffs. Top-ranked questions included: Given that Sundar has said that strengthening Google’s focus ‘means consolidating investments in overlapping areas and streamlining processes, does that mean layoffs?
Pichai put the question to Fiona Cicconi, Google’s chief people officer. While Ciccone said the company is continuing to hire and has no current layoffs, she did not rule out layoffs.
“We’re asking teams to become more focused and efficient, and we’re figuring out what that means for the company,” Cicconi said. “While we can’t be sure of future economic trends, we’re not currently planning to cut Google’s overall workforce. ”
But she added: “I’m really feeling a little anxious based on what we’ve heard from other companies and what they’ve done. As Sundar said, we’re still hiring for key positions.” She asked employees to remember, This year remains the largest hiring year in Alphabet’s history.
In the second quarter, Alphabet’s full-time workforce rose 21 percent to 174,014 from 144,056 a year earlier. However, the company said last month it would slow the pace of hiring and investment through 2023, with Pichai telling employees in a memo that “we are not immune to economic headwinds,” either.
