CEO Sundar Pichai justifies the increasingly demanding working environment at Google

According to CEO Sundar Pichai, happiness does not have to be in money, thereby encouraging employees to actively work and unite in difficult times.

According to CNBC, Google is trying to justify an increasingly unfriendly work environment and slowing growth, the company has to cut costs and employees are increasingly stressed.

During a meeting with the company last week, CEO Sundar Pichai was faced with extremely harsh questions from employees regarding the policy of budget cuts for travel and entertainment. At the same time, new regulations related to productivity management and layoffs were also discussed.

“I hope you’ve seen the news. The fact is that we all understand companies need to be more responsible during the most difficult macroeconomic conditions of the last 10 years. I think for a company it’s important. The most important thing right now is to overcome this difficulty together,” CEO Pichai answered the question of why Google is cutting employee travel and entertainment budgets despite the company’s record profits and large reserves of cash. .

CNBC reported that the meeting of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, took place in the context of a series of technology giants, such as Facebook’s Meta, which are also facing many economic challenges. Risks such as recession, inflation, and rising interest rates have severely affected advertising spending.

Therefore, corporations in the past 10 years that have grown well and known for their comfortable working environment may face a more difficult reality than before.

In July 2022, Alphabet reported lower-than-expected second-quarter results, while third-quarter growth was warned to drop to single digits, much lower than the more than 40% growth of the year. before.

CEO Pichai said that it is not macroeconomic factors that are the only cause of Google’s challenges, but the size of the organizational apparatus also contributes to the company’s productivity.

Cut down the costs

After good growth during the Covid-19 pandemic, Google’s chief financial officer Ruth Porat warned earlier this year that a number of economic challenges were to come in the near future.

Indeed, Google has now had to cancel the next Pixelbook computer project as well as reduce the budget for the Area 120 project.

Also in July 2022, Google launched the “Simple Sprint” program, which brought together the ideas of more than 174,000 employees on how to be more productive and cut excess costs.

In early September 2022, CEO Pichai continued to claim that it would make the company increase labor productivity by 20%, while reducing recruitment and investment.

“Maybe you plan to hire 6 people but can only work with 4 people and are forced to ask yourself how to get the job done,” CEO Pichai answered a question related to how Google can increase labor productivity by 20%.

“Sometimes we have a product launch process that is more cumbersome than necessary and this becomes more and more complicated every year,” CEO Pichai continued to emphasize on restructuring the working method. by Google.

At the same time, CEO Pichai also said that he had noticed the employee surveys showing that the company is more and more pressured, not as free as before.

For questions related to layoffs, the director said he would try to keep everyone up to date with the latest information and explained that the cut was not to the extent people thought.

However, CNBC reported that CEO Pichai dodged questions from employees about the leadership’s salary cut to help the company in difficult times.

In 2021, CEO Pichai received $6.3 million in salary, while other senior Google executives received a total of more than $28 million.

Happiness is not measured in money

CNBC reported that CEO Pichai mentioned that Google’s culture is still quite interesting even when the “trivial” pleasures are removed.

“I still remember the days when Google was just a small company. Obviously, the joy of working is not, and should not always be measured in terms of money. You can walk into a small startup and people still have it. The joy of working hard is not measured in terms of money,” said CEO Pichai.

CEO Pichai’s affirmation comes after a series of questions from employees about Google’s working regime, which is increasingly stricter than before.

At the same time, CEO Pichai also affirmed that the company is not only focused on cutting investment. Google continues to pour money into the quantum computer segment and looks to the long-term future.

“We’re committed to taking care of our employees. But I think we’re going through a tough time in the macroeconomics and the most important thing right now is for everyone in the public sector to be united and working together,” CEO Pichai said.