Google executives are telling their employees to shape up or ship out, warning that layoffs are coming if results don’t meet expectations.
Employees who work in the Google Cloud sales department said that senior leadership told them that there will be an “overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general.”
If third quarter results “don’t look up, [then] there will be blood on the streets,” according to a message conveyed to the sales team. The warning was first reported by Insider.
Employees told the news site that they are fearful of layoffs after the company quietly extended its hiring freeze this month without making an announcement.
The Post has sought comment from Google.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai told his employees in an all hands meeting late last month that they needed to improve their focus and productivity due to fierce economic headwinds that have forced widespread belt-tightening all throughout the technology sector.
Pichai said that he wanted to solicit ideas from his employees on how to get “better results faster.”
“It’s clear we are facing a challenging macro environment with more uncertainty ahead,” Pichai said.
“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have.”
The search engine also announced a two-week hiring freeze last month, but so far it has not reversed its decision — prompting employees to fear the worst, according to Insider.
Since Pichai’s comments, “everyone has been talking about the company tightening its belt,” one employee told Insider.
Google isn’t the only tech company that has put its employees on notice.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook’s parent company Meta, blamed “one of the worst downturns that we’ve seen in recent history” for a series of cost-cutting measures, including a hiring freeze.
Zuckerberg also made it clear that the company will part ways with employees who do not perform up to par.
“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Zuckerberg told an all hands meeting in late June.
Facebook’s social media rival Twitter recently rescinded a job offer to a Palo Alto man as part of the San Francisco-based company’s cutting back on hiring.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal informed employees of the hiring pause in a message earlier this year, citing a recent lag on growth and revenue targets.
The company has been thrown into turmoil since Tesla CEO Elon Musk agreed to buy it for $44 billion — only to back out of the deal. Twitter is now suing Musk in an effort to enforce the terms of the agreement.