Google tells employees more of them will be at risk for low performance ratings next year
CEO of Alphabet and Google Sundar Pichai during press conference at the Chancellery in Warsaw, Poland on March 29, 2022.
Mateusz Wlodarczyk | Nurphoto | Getty Images
More Google employees will be at risk for low performance ratings and fewer are expected to reach high marks under a new performance review system that starts next year, according to internal communications obtained by CNBC.
In a recent Google all-hands meeting and in a separate presentation last week, executives presented more details of its new performance review process. Under the new system, Google estimates 6% of full-time employees will fall into a low-ranking category that puts them at higher risk for corrective action, versus 2% before. Simultaneously, it will be harder to achieve high marks: Google projects 22% percent of employees will be rated with in one of the two highest categories, versus 27% before.
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As an example, in order to make the new, highest rated category, “Transformative Impact,” an employee must have “achieved the near-impossible” and contributed “more than we thought possible.”
Earlier this year, Google announced the new process for performance reviews, known as Google Reviews and Development, or GRAD.
But CNBC recently reported that employees have complained about procedural and technical issues with GRAD close to the year-end deadlines, making them anxious they won’t be accurately rated. The anxiety is compounded by a wave of layoffs in the tech industry. While Google has so far avoided the widespread job cuts that have hit other tech companies like Meta, employees have grown anxious if they could be next.
In a December all-hands meeting on the topic, employees expressed frustration with executives, who have long touted transparency but are not providing direct answers to questions about headcount. Some employees believe new performance review system might be a way for the company to reduce headcount.
Headcount has been a subject of employee concern throughout the latter part of 2022. CEO Sundar Pichai found himself on the defensive in September, as he was forced to explain the company’s changing position after years of supercharged growth. Executives said at the time that there would be small cuts, and they didn’t rule out layoffs.
And in November, a number of employees in an all-hands meeting asked for clarification on executives’ plans around headcount, and even asked if executives mismanaged headcount when Google grew its workforce by 24% year-over-year in Q3 2022.
As of Q3, the company employed 186,779 full-time employees. It also employs a similar amount of contractors.
Recent documents about the GRAD also say the company will be looking at bonuses, pay and equity and expects to “spend more per capita on compensation overall.” It also states the company still plans on paying within the top 5% to 10% of market rates.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘A lot of distress and anger’
At the company’s most recent all-hands meeting on Dec. 8, many of the top-rated questions described stress around year-end performance reviews, according to audio of the meeting obtained by CNBC. The questions also suggested some employees don’t trust the company’s leadership is being transparent in how it handles headcount.
“Why did Google push support check-in quotas to front line managers days before the deadline?,” one employee asked, in a question read aloud by Pichai. “I’ve been through a lot in Google in 5+ years but this is a new low.”
“It seems like a lot of last-minute support check-ins were forced through part of Cloud in order to meet a quota, causing a lot of distress and anger,” another employee asked. “With only two weeks to correct course, how is this helpful feedback? How do we prevent this from happening in the future?”
“The support check-in process is confusing, increasingly becoming a cause of stress and anxiety in Googlers, especially given the current economic situation and rumors around layoffs,” said another top-rated employee question.
Earlier this month, CNBC reported employees began receiving “support check-ins” often associated with lower performance ratings in the final days leading up to year-end deadlines. They also said executives changed parts of the process in the final days.
“I know it’s been bumpy,” Google’s chief people officer Fiona Cicconi, eventually said, briefly acknowledging the issues with GRAD in a recent all-hands meeting.
“It’s not ideal to have support check-ins occur so late in the review cycle and we know that people need time to absorb the feedback and take action on it,” admitted Cicconi, adding that “Googlers should have plenty of time to course-correct.”
Several employees also asked executives whether they had quotas for placing people in lower performance categories in order to reduce headcount in 2023. Even though executives said they don’t have quotas, it didn’t seem to convince employees.
One question asked executives if Google was becoming “a stack-ranking company like Amazon,” referring to the process of using quotas to place employees in certain performance buckets.
“Uncertainties around GRAD processes have been putting a lot of pressure on lower level managers to pass down information” about performance reviews and sometimes force “conflicting items,” another highly-rated question stated.
Another read: “Layoffs across the industry has been a topic impacting Googlers, raising stress, anxiety and burnout,” another read. There’s been no official comms on this, which raises even more concern around this. When will the company address this topic?”
But executives largely avoided answering the questions directly. CEO Sundar Pichai kept saying he “doesn’t know what the future holds.”
“What we’ve been trying hard to do is we are trying to prioritize where we can so we are set up to better weather the storm, regardless of what’s ahead,” Pichai said. “We really don’t know what the future holds so unfortunately I cannot make forward looking commitments but everything we’ve been planning on as a company for the past six to seven months has been do all the hard work to try and work our way through this as best as possible so, that’s all I can say.”
Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, US, on Monday, June 9, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple on Thursday announced a redesigned blood oxygen feature for some Apple Watch users, following a years-long intellectual property dispute over the capability.
Apple said the redesigned feature is coming to some Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 users on Thursday. The update was possible because of a recent U.S. Customs ruling, the company said.
In 2023, the International Trade Commission found that Apple’s blood oxygen sensors infringed on intellectual property from Masimo, a medical technology company. Apple paused the sale of some of its watches and began selling modified versions of the wearables without the blood oxygen feature.
“Apple’s teams work tirelessly to create products and services that empower users with industry-leading health, wellness, and safety features that are grounded in science and have privacy at the core,” the company said in a release announcing the feature rollout.
Ether and bitcoin.
Yuriko Nakao | Getty Images
Bitcoin hit a new record late Wednesday as ether climbed even closer to its all-time high.
The flagship cryptocurrency rose as high as $124,496, surpassing its July record of 123,193.63, according to Coin Metrics. Ether rose to $4,791.19 overnight, edging closer to its 2021 record of $4,866.01.
Both coins took a hit Thursday, however, after July’s wholesale inflation data came in much hotter than expected. Bitcoin was lower by 3% at $118,481.00 while ether fell 2% to $4,629.20.
Bitcoin hit a new record overnight, surpassing its July all-time high
The initial gains were sparked by Tuesday’s cooler-than-expected July inflation report, which had lifted investor optimism for rate cuts from the Federal Reserve at the end of its September policy meeting. The coins rallied with the stock market for two days. On Wednesday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also scaled new records.
For the week, bitcoin is on pace for a nearly 2% gain, while ether has rallied more than 14%. Ether flipped bitcoin as the crypto market leader in June, gaining 85% since then thanks to heavy institutional buying, tightening supply and adoption from corporate accumulators – all under the backdrop of a friendlier regulatory environment for the crypto industry. Jake Kennis, analyst at Nansen, said the rally likely has more room to run given the flows remain strong.
“Bitcoin hitting a fresh all time high and ETH being on the verge of doing so means we’ve moved from speculative mania to a phase where institutional adoption, real-world integration, and global liquidity are driving price discovery,” said Ben Kurland, CEO at crypto research and trading platform DYOR.
“The fact that both assets are on the verge of breaking records in tandem signals broad market conviction, not just a single-asset rally,” he added. “Momentum this strong rarely burns out instantly, but it also tends to draw in latecomers who can fuel volatility. Right now the story is less about euphoria and more about validation. Crypto is graduating from ‘alternative’ to ‘essential’ in the global portfolio mix.”
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