Google employees growing unhappy with pay and promotions, survey shows

As Google prepares to bring most employees back to the office, the company is facing a workforce that’s increasingly unhappy when it comes to key issues such as compensation and an ability to meet career goals.

Google‘s annual employee surveys, internally called “Googlegeist,” show that a growing number of staffers don’t view their pay packages as fair or competitive with what they could make in a similar role elsewhere. They are also questioning their employer’s ability to execute.

The surveys were taken in January and released to employees last week. CNBC viewed results from the company overall as well as individual groups such as cloud, search and ads. The lowest scores across the board were in compensation and execution. The highest scores were in Google’s mission and values.

CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in a brief email announcing the results that the survey is “one of the most important ways” the company measures how much people like working at the company.

Retention and employee satisfaction are more critical than ever to Google and others in the tech sector as record numbers of people in the U.S. are quitting their jobs and exploring new opportunities. Google is also about to begin bringing most of its employees back to physical offices at least three days a week. After two years of remote work because of the pandemic, Google’s reopening is scheduled for April 4.

A Google spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment. Business Insider previously reported some of the compensation survey results.

Pay is a matter that Google executives have been forced to address of late. At an all-hands meeting in December, Frank Wagner, Google’s vice president of compensation, responded to concerns about rising inflation and whether the company would provide any sort of increase. Wagner said Google would not implement a blanket raise to match inflation.

Meanwhile, revenue has continued to surge, executives have received pay bumps and the stock price hit a record in November before falling with the rest of the market.

Pichai still received a favorable rating of 86% from employees in the survey. But some of the more specific questions about Pichai resulted in less-flattering responses. For his vision of what the company can be, 74% said Pichai inspires them, while the same number said his “decisions and strategies enable Google to do excellent work.”

Prabhakar Raghavan, who oversees key businesses including search, ads and commerce, noted in an internal email that 61% of employees see themselves as able to meet career goals at the company and said, “there’s work to be done.”

“We need to make sure that you succeed to your full abilities and keep learning and growing in your careers here,” he wrote.

Highlighting a 7% dip in views about Google’s execution, Raghavan said “that means we need to bring more attention to busting bureaucracy and ensuring we can act quickly when needed.”

In the cloud division, CEO Thomas Kurian also noted a decline in execution, and said in an email that there still remains “barriers to decision-making.”

Kurian’s unit faces issues similar to the parent company’s. Only 54% of employees in the cloud group say the promotional process is fair, a decline of two points from a year ago. Kurian said there’s “a lack of criteria for promotions” and “lack of transparency.”

Raghavan and Pichai each received favorability ratings of 84%.