Google Executives Warn Employees About Layoffs: 'There Will Be Blood On Streets'

[DrBeer]

Let's analyze the situation globally, and not tear one event out of many other events surrounding it.
1. On the recruitment / reduction of staff. No offense - but the staff is the same resource as, for example ... let them be - "warehouse forklifts." Yes, yes. Most of the personnel in companies are PERFORMERS. And they do what they are told or described in the job description. And in good times, when companies have good profits, they can afford to keep an "excess" resource so that there is no overload, so that they can select and get the best hands or brains for business in the future. The same is true in IT. For example, in my development group there were from 3 to 10 excellent developers. As well as 1-3 young specialists. Their role is nothing more than a personnel reserve, which we ourselves have grown! They are always at your fingertips, in case of either an expansion or a change of player from the "big leagues". They are well motivated - by the prospects of moving to the "big league", they already understand the processes in the company well, are familiar with technologies and solutions. It is cheaper and better than looking for the right specialist on the market, adapting him, and not being sure that in 2-3 months it will not turn out that he is not the one you need ... In difficult times, companies remove the "extra" less effective employees and redistribute the workload to more productive ones. It does not look very good, but otherwise the business cannot survive.
2. About what TOP managers do. I have about 30 years of general experience in IT, of which up to 20 years, in the position of CIO. He has also worked in medium and large companies. The key word here is "manager" - the one who can organize the processes in the company as efficiently as possible. Including - both selection and optimization of personnel. TOP manager - can read letters 90% of the time, but the remaining 10% of his experience, knowledge, provide solutions that provide the company with either additional profit or cost reduction.
Remember the main rule - you need to evaluate the work not because of how much you endured, how much you went through, how many times you repeated the action, how much you were tired or how much you sweated. The result must be judged by the RESULT! To what extent the result corresponds to the given indicator, how finances, resources (including human resources), time, etc. were optimally used.
At the same time, the TOP manager is responsible - for the decisions made, for the chosen tools for solving problems, for organizing processes within his responsibility, for the optimality of the decision made, and for much more. If this, qualitatively, can be done by others - welcome to the TOP composition! But the problem is that many, if not all, WANT, but very few of those who can really DO it.

[el kaka22]

CEO's getting a high salary is not something that I would suggest neither, and I think it should be performance based. Like give them minimum wage 1%+ of that year's profits, and I do not mean revenue, I mean profits.

That way they will work hard to have high profits, but at the same time laying of 10k people all at once would make them profitable for that year, but have a terrible long term disaster, which means it would be hard to find a good way for CEO to get paid without hurting the company. In the end, the whole world economy is in shambles, it's normal for these type of tech companies to lay off people as well considering they must be losing some money too.

[TheNineClub]

This really isn't anything new in business, and tech is no exeption. Companies need to hit predicted marks promised to their shareholders (or else they are the ones to blame) and they will do it by any means. Remember kids, in capitalism, the one that exploits your work for his benefit without the consideration for your wellbeing, is not your friend.

[virasisog]

CEO's getting a high salary is not something that I would suggest neither, and I think it should be performance based. Like give them minimum wage 1%+ of that year's profits, and I do not mean revenue, I mean profits.

That way they will work hard to have high profits, but at the same time laying of 10k people all at once would make them profitable for that year, but have a terrible long term disaster, which means it would be hard to find a good way for CEO to get paid without hurting the company. In the end, the whole world economy is in shambles, it's normal for these type of tech companies to lay off people as well considering they must be losing some money too.

The salary should be performance-based but if they're struggling to manage their company's finances, I don't think cutting out the CEO's salary would be the only solution. Employees play a vital role in the success of the company and if they feel unvalued, it will affect the whole company negatively. Employees know their rights when it comes to their benefits and I think it's something that the company should focus on to solve this issue.

[South Park]

This really isn't anything new in business, and tech is no exeption. Companies need to hit predicted marks promised to their shareholders (or else they are the ones to blame) and they will do it by any means. Remember kids, in capitalism, the one that exploits your work for his benefit without the consideration for your wellbeing, is not your friend.

Even those that are at the top and decide how the company moves are still employees of those which own shares of the company, and if they want to keep their jobs then they better fulfill their goals or even surpass them, otherwise they will be replaced with someone that is willing to do anything to reach those goals, this creates an environment in which your average employer can be fired at any moment, but at the same time they are always making plans to leave the company and have a way out in the case that happens.

[Hydrogen]

For those who remember JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon's comments on BTC years back.

Was the credibility level of his crypto commentary, greater than what we might expect from a janitor sweeping floors?

Sorry. Couldn't resist asking this. Although I know its 100% an irrelevant point to most.

Think of all the CEOs who commented on crypto. Was there any intelligent content published by any of them. Aside from a scant few like apple co founder Steve Wozniak?

[TheGreatPython]

Sooner or later some employees at startups or factories will be laid off and will be replaced with robots or AI, and this has been predicted by many experts. But despite all that, I think these companies are laying off their employees because they don't want to pay too much for employees and want to increase work efficiency by forcing the remaining employees. So that way there will be more money going into their pockets and that is real American corporate capitalism.

Same with what I am thinking especially those high tech and modern companies like google because they can easily create robots or a.i as some termed it. The cost to create it is going to be expensive but they think it is worth it than continuously paying more fees from their human workers.

In some jobs or companies, some workers aren't really doing their work properly so it's better if we will just remove them but company owners are sure that a.i's will work at all times 24/7. This could make the job faster. Some human workers are still going to stay because there are specific fields which can't possibly be handled by these robot's.

[NotATether]

Insider report revealed that a company-wide message said that if the next quarterly earnings has not improved there will be "there will be blood on the streets".

It appears many silicon valley icons are resorting to layoffs in an effort to boost flagging profits:

Their layoffs are the companies' loss. If you lay off workers then how can you expect more growth in the company's productivity and hence profit with less hands on deck? Other smaller companies will poach their fired workers and reap a share of Google and Co's lost profits.

[Zlantann]

Their layoffs are the companies' loss. If you lay off workers then how can you expect more growth in the company's productivity and hence profit with less hands on deck? Other smaller companies will poach their fired workers and reap a share of Google and Co's lost profits.

The company has the right to hire and fire but it should be done appropriately. Only unproductive workers should be sacked. Sometimes instead of devising alternative strategies to cut cost companies would just go ahead and sack their skilled workers. The company has just lost the resources used in training these laid-off staff. Their functions would now be allocated to other staff making them to overwork. The company must also note that sacking workers also affects the reputation of the firm. It gives the public a perception that the firm is not well managed. Sacking of workers should be the last option in the course of trying to cut the operational cost of a firm. 

[South Park]

Insider report revealed that a company-wide message said that if the next quarterly earnings has not improved there will be "there will be blood on the streets".

It appears many silicon valley icons are resorting to layoffs in an effort to boost flagging profits:

Their layoffs are the companies' loss. If you lay off workers then how can you expect more growth in the company's productivity and hence profit with less hands on deck? Other smaller companies will poach their fired workers and reap a share of Google and Co's lost profits.

Exactly, many shareholders only look at the short term profits their investment generates but forget completely about the long term and what this means for the company, we need to wonder who hires those people after they are fired? The competition, whether it is a rival company or even a rival government like China, it is known that for a long time China has been hiring those fired from the top companies in an effort to get their corporate secrets, so I think firing so many employees at once only aids your rivals, but if that is what they want to do they can do so but then they have no right to complain when in a decade or two China gets at the same level as Silicon Valley or even surpass it.