Google employees fear revamped verification process will cut bonuses

Google laid off 11,000 employees last month. Now the Googlers who escaped the bloodbath are worried about their bonuses.

In particular, employees have complained that the search giant’s employee vetting process appears to have been redesigned to cut their annual pay.

In late December, a couple of weeks before Google announced its January layoffs, CNBC reported that the company’s GRAD system, which stands for Googler Reviews and Development, was recently changed so that 6% of employees are now rated as underperforming compared to 2% earlier.

Similarly, GRAD now rates only 22% of employees as above average, compared to 27% previously, according to a report that has been confirmed by The Post.

At the time, employees were reportedly primarily concerned that an enhanced GRAD system would be used to fire them.

According to the documents cited by CNBC, Google will look at bonuses, pay and equity, and expects to “generally spend more on rewards per capita.” One also says the company still plans to pay between 5% and 10% of market rates, the network said.

However, this month, two remaining Google employees told The Post that their annual bonuses have been slashed after they received the equivalent of an average ranking in a five-tier system, despite receiving a promotion last year. They see the GRAD upgrade as another cost-cutting move designed to push even more workers out.

“We used to have a very forgiving culture where you had time to bounce back from mistakes,” one source told The Post. “Now they are trying to ‘manage people’.

“Google is trying to improve our reputation to be more like Amazon’s, where it’s more intense and productive,” the source added.