Concerns Raised Over Google’s New Employee Evaluation System

Employees who get low scores under Google's new employee evaluation system are likely to risk losing their jobs

Google introduced its new GRAD employee evaluation system earlier this year, like many other organizations. The GRAD stands for Google Reviews and Development. The training, learning, and progression of employees are the major objectives of Google's New Employee Evaluation System. This new employee evaluation system boosts productivity by combining human resource practices and initiatives like training, career advancement, gaining knowledge, performance evaluations, continuous feedback, and rewards.  The goal of Google's GRAD performance evaluation is to maintain a focus on serving as an employer that fosters professional development for its employees.

Google department head says the company was into employee evaluation and promotion process twice in a year earlier. Revamping its older version of the evaluation system the team introduced GRAD. There are many concerns over the new employee evaluation system, employees are displeased. This is because there is news floating across the organization that the management would lay off employees who are under low scores as per this new evaluation system. The purpose of introducing the new performance evaluation was to lessen the employee's burden as the earlier evaluation was performed twice a year and had the pressure of performing well. Also, the GRAD purpose is to reduce the paperwork involved in employee assessment and to modify the assessment module.

Citing the many reports, it is confirmed that six percent of full-time employees fall under the low score list. Thus, they are definitely under job threat. The six percent would be approximately ten thousand employees across the globe plotted to take off from the position. This new rating system altogether has been a bane to Google employees. In addition to job threats, this new evaluation system is also used by managers to cut-off bonuses and stocks for employees who are underperforming. The threat will not end with the low-scoring employees, the employees who have scored well have to put in more effort. It is because as per the grading system only twenty-two percent of the employees will fall under top performance, in which competition is huge.

Although Google CEO Sundar Pichai hinted that employees who received low grades under the GRAD system are required to put in more effort in each of his recent meetings. He has not openly declared that he will be cutting staff anytime soon. While considering feedback from the employees, a fact is revealed that they feel concerned to maintain a good ranking rather than focusing on a given project. This is also true employees experience stress to maintain good scores no matter what, and this could lead employees to behave unethically.

The rise in the GRAD evaluation system does not limit lay-off. The evaluation system includes two categories for underperforming employees. Firstly, the six percent of full-time employees will fall under this category would get the chance of improving their routine in the performance improvement plan of 60 days. In the second category, the employees will have the option of resigning with fixed compensation.

In addition to the above-mentioned concern, the GRAD system also has ambiguity in support check-ins. As per the evaluation system, the managers need to fill in the names of poor performers' quotas. The problem with this here is there is no standard measure to pick the employees to enlist the poor performer's name, no one knows how it works. However, the company has denied the fact that they do not maintain any such quota for poor performers. Though there were many questions raised in a recent meeting about these support check-ins, there are no appropriate answers from the company.

Google is now implementing substantial changes to how personnel is compensated and promoted to reduce additional expenses and safeguard against economic disasters. In the new GRAD system, management will make the majority of the decisions on promotions rather than a committee of managers and peers. However, reports have indicated that employees are still permitted to request promotions twice annually.

The issue is that prejudice is more common when the context and parameters for making an assessment are unclear. It is evident from Google GRAD's decisions are not made based on factors like religion, gender, or ethnicity. However, it would be considerate if the evaluations for grading established procedures and standards that are consistently used across all personnel. Employees feel more open to the assessment when it is clear, transparent, and unambiguous.