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Google staff told to work harder as economic challenges loom

By Nithya Bose in US Employment News, posted August 4, 2022

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has informed employees that they need to enhance their focus and productivity as tough times loom.

The statement comes as the tech giant faces serious economic challenges that made employees concerned about losing their jobs.

Pichai also told his employees of an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, August 3, that he would be asking for suggestions on how to produce "better results faster."

He said: “I wanted to give some additional context following our earnings results, and ask for your help as well.

“It’s clear we are facing a challenging macro environment with more uncertainty ahead.”

“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the headcount we have.”

The boss wants to hear from employees about how the firm can “create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer-focused.”

“We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity.”

Google owner Alphabet announced its worst quarterly revenue increase in two years last week, as the digital advertising market feels the effects of an economic downturn.

Alphabet earned $69.7 billion in the three months that ended in June, a 13 percent rise over the same period the previous year.

However, it was the slowest rate of growth since the company's first year-over-year sales loss in its history in the second quarter of 2020.

Pichai announced the unveiling of "Simplicity Sprint," a new project wherein management asks workers to present ideas on how to improve productivity and accelerate product development.

He said to his workers that the initiative aims to get “better results faster.”

Management circulated an internal poll to workers who were encouraged to contribute thoughts.

Executives also attempted to allay workers' fears that layoffs were imminent.

Google’s CPO, Fiona Cicconi, assured staff that the business is still hiring and that there are no plans to lay anyone off at the present.

She did not rule out further layoffs, which could be an ominous warning for staff.

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Cicconi said: “We’re asking teams to be more focused and efficient and we’re working out what that means as a company as well.”

“Even though we can’t be sure of the economy in the future, we’re not currently looking to reduce Google’s overall workforce.”

She added: “I really get that there is some anxiety around this based on what we’re hearing from other companies and what they’re doing and as Sundar mentioned, we’re still hiring for critical roles.”

Source: New York Post

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