Google Employees Left Scrambling After Layoffs

Google employees are scrambling for answers from leadership and from colleagues as the company undergoes a massive layoff. Many people are wondering why the company is making these cuts, and what it will mean for the future of the company. There is a lot of uncertainty and anxiety among the employees.

On Friday, Google announced it was cutting 12,000 employees, roughly 6% of the full-time workforce. While employees had been bracing for a potential layoff, they are questioning leadership about the criteria for layoffs which surprised some employees, who woke up to find their access to company properties cut off. Some of the laid-off employees had been long-tenured or recently promoted, raising questions about the criteria used to decide whose jobs were cut.

Shortly after CEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to employees Friday morning, Google’s search boss Prabhakar Raghavan also sent an email to employees. In his email, Raghavan said he understands the responsibility to reach out and communicate with employees during this time. He asked employees to save questions for next week’s town hall, and noted that there will be some bumps in the road as the organization moves forward with the layoffs.

The company has provided an FAQ for the layoffs, but employees have complained that it doesn’t give much detail on many answers. Employees have flooded Dory, the company’s question-asking platform, and set up virtual communities to figure out who’s been laid off and why. Directors have been telling employees to hold questions for the town hall taking place next week.

Google did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The recent scramble at Google highlights the challenges the company could face in maintaining a supportive and productive company culture for its restive workforce of more than 160,000 full-time employees. Further confrontations are possible, as the company said it plans to lay off international employees but has yet to determine which ones.

So far in the U.S., employees have been laid off across business units including Chrome, Cloud, and its experimental Area 120 unit. Some employees working on the company’s artificial intelligence programs have also been laid off, according to Bloomberg.

CNBC has compiled a list of top-rated employee inquiries, which contain some tough questions for executives.

"The layoffs were decided based on performance," one top-rated question read. "Some high performers were let go from our teams, which negatively impacts the remaining Googlers who see someone with high recognition, positive reviews, and promo still getting laid off."

What criteria were used to determine who was laid off? Was the decision based on performance, scope of work, or both, or something else?

Another person asked how much Google hoped to gain from the layoffs, and whether the company could explain what the layoffs would allow it to do that it couldn't have done without them.

One highly rated individual questioned CEO Sundar Pichai's statement, which said, "I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here." This individual noted that Pichai's statement seemed to imply that he was solely responsible for the situation, when in reality there were likely many factors at play.

"What does taking full responsibility entail?" one employee asked on Dory. "Responsibility without consequence seems like an empty platitude. Is leadership forgoing bonuses and pay raises this year? Will anyone be stepping down?"

Some employees came together on their own, organizing ad hoc groups to try and get answers. Employees created a Google doc spreadsheet as a way to keep track of people who were laid off and which part of the business they worked in. This helped them to communicate and share information more effectively.

More than 5,000 laid-off employees have started a Discord channel called Google post-layoffs. The channel covers a range of topics, from venting to labor organizing and visa immigration. Some employees have organized virtual Google meetings with people on video calls. Others have tried to organize physical meet-ups.

Some employees turned to the company's internal meme-generator as a means to connect with each other, for answers and for comfort.

One meme showed Mila Kunis from the film “Friends with Benefits.” Kunis spoke to the Google logo, saying the line: “The sad thing is, I actually thought you were different.” Another meme showed former President Bill Clinton gesturing the word “zero” with the title “Leadership paycut.”

"Alphabet's leadership is taking full responsibility for this decision, but that is little comfort to the 12,000 workers who are now without jobs," said Parul Koul, executive chair of Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, in a statement on Friday. "This is egregious and unacceptable behavior by a company that made $17 billion in profit last quarter alone."