In December, a group of Google Managers responsible for overseeing their thousands of temporary staff members found that the company was paying some of those workers less for years.
According to internal company emails and documents reviewed by The New Yorker, the gap in so-called benchmark rates by Google between full-time employees and temporary workers doing the same job was widening. Times. This was particularly problematic in countries with so-called pay parity laws, which required the company to pay temporary employees the same pay as full-time employees in similar positions.
But Google’s lapse was not detected outside the company. Managers were concerned that suddenly fixing the shortfall by raising the 20%-30% rate would draw attention to the problem and invite negative publicity to a company that already had generously compensated full-time employees and two-and-a-half-years of less-expensive. Criticizing for creating a level-headed workforce. Temporaries and contractors that are easy to hire and fire.
So, Google landed on a fix that wouldn’t pay as much attention to the problem: It decided to apply the correct rates only to new employees starting in 2021, but hold off on more expensive, bulk changes, according to the company’s email. Put it Times.
Alan Barry, a Google compliance manager in Ireland, wrote in an email to colleagues that it was the right move to adjust all of its floating rates from a “compliance perspective”. However, doing so could raise the possibility that Google’s current temporary staff members could “connect the dots” about the reason for the pay increase and that the agencies that supply and pay employees could “legally and ethically” put you in a difficult situation”.
“The cost is significant and it will lead to a flurry of noise/disappointment,” Barry wrote. “I’m also not too keen on inviting the allegation that we have allowed this situation to persist for so long that the need for improvement is significant.”
Google’s decision not to immediately fix pay rates for all current temps was flagged in June in a whistleblower complaint Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the complaint, non-compliance with pay equality laws in 16 countries over nine years could cost Google more than $100 million in unpaid wages. This figure does not include potential fines or legal costs.
The complaint accused Google of securities infringement because it failed to disclose risk to investors. it is not clear that seconds Currently investigating Google. The SEC did not respond to a request for comment.
In addition to the complaint, the Times separately reviewed dozens of documents and internal emails about Google’s management of its temporary employees, offering an unusual glimpse of how the company grapples with increasing pressure to treat temporary workers like temporary workers. Is.
Google said this week that it has started making some changes to temporary pay rates. The company said there was no change in the benchmark rates for a few years, the actual wages for temporary employees had gone up manifold and most temps were paid more than the wage limit.
“It is clear that this process has not been handled to the high standards to which we hold ourselves as a company,” the company’s chief compliance officer, Spiro Karatos, said in a statement. “We’re going to find out what went wrong here, why it happened, and we’re going to fix it.”
The total number of temps and contractors working at Google is more than 150,000, while Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has 144,000 full-time employees, according to people who are familiar with the figures but are not allowed to publicly disclose them. Google has said that temporary workers make up about 3% of its temporary employees. Most are outsourced employees.
The company said it fills short-term roles for temporary employees to stand on leave or when there is a sudden business need for a maximum period of two years. In some cases, Google employees said that temporary roles tend to increase from year to year.
There is no federal law that requires US companies to pay equal pay to temporary and permanent employees for equal work, but other countries are passing laws for more equal treatment. There is some sort of pay parity law in place for temps over 30.
(Start optional trim.)
In countries with company-recognized equal pay laws, Google normally takes extra care to ensure that open temporary jobs are paid at par with reasonable full-time positions. In those countries, Google gives temps a 15% annual bonus, which is the same as the minimum bonus rate for its permanent employees. It usually does not pay bonuses to temps in countries with similar pay requirements.
But last year, in a company email, a Google manager said it appeared that 16 additional countries, including Brazil, Canada, Australia and Mexico, had some form of similar behavior laws for temperatures that the company did not properly recognize. and no one had taken it. Additional steps to comply with local laws.
(Optional trim finish.)
As more countries introduce new rules, Google is being forced to act. In 2019, the Netherlands passed a law that requires Google’s staffing agencies to provide benefits similar to the company’s permanent employees such as sick pay, maternity and other paid leave, health care and stock grants. The change affected at least seven Google temporary employees in the country.
(Start optional trim.)
“This is a situation we must avoid,” Barry wrote in an email to colleagues. He recommended that Google fire all seven employees before the law goes into effect in 2020. Ultimately, Google said it decided to hire six temporary employees into full-time positions for the remainder of its contracts. The other employee was laid off but with three months’ salary, according to the company.
In recent years, Google has sought ways to cut down on its use of temporary employees. Google started the project in 2018 bright light, an initiative that included a review of whether jobs were being classified correctly as part of a “labour model reset”.
In an internal 2021 email, a Google executive said the company has reduced the number of temps by 2,700 since 2018. Most of those positions were outsourced, while 750 temps were turned into full-time employees, the email said.
The project also sought to establish temporary pay parity with permanent employees doing similar work in the United States by 2019.
In a preliminary 2019 study to weigh the financial impact of taking the move in the United States, where Google hires more than half of its temporary workers, the company estimated that it would bring wages to more than 4,000 temporary workers. will cost up to $52 million. Up to the minimum wage of the newly appointed permanent employee.
Internal communications seen by the Times indicate that three years into the project, Google has struggled to make progress on equal pay.
In January 2020, Google apparently realized that it was using the old pay scales. In a company email reviewed by the Times, a Google manager said it had not reviewed European rates in eight years in Asia and three in years.
This year, a company presentation laid out the discrepancies for specific jobs. Google found that the hourly wage for a temporary, mid-level administrative assistant in the UK was £16.51 (about $22.86) compared to what it paid for full-time employees in that role in the past. But an updated 2021 rate should be 40% higher at 23.08 pounds.
Company documents state that Google uses Pontoon, a unit of staffing agency Edeco Group, to handle the hiring of temps, and it charges a premium to staffing agencies to find and become employers of record for employees. pays. Pontoon spokeswoman Mary Beth Vadil said she did not disclose information about client contracts.
“The pontoon does not set pay rates, and in countries with wage equality laws, we play a role in ensuring that casual workers are paid in compliance with the law,” she said.
When a Google manager wants to hire a temporary one, Pontoon provides a “bill rate card” with minimum and maximum wages, according to company documents, which Google said would pay full-time employees in a similar role, according to company documents. Is. Those wages include a markup for agencies and pontoons.
(Optional trim finish.)
Even though Google managers are allowed to be paid more than the maximum salary, the older pay ranges provide a framework for setting salaries, according to a source familiar with the framework.
A Google manager expressed concern in an email that the company classified temporary roles in a way that artificially lowered their pay scales by comparing them to many unrelated and low-paying jobs. For example, based on a spreadsheet of European pay rates reviewed by the Times, massage therapists and lawyers fall under the same job family of “HR/admin” and they share the same basic pay rates – although managers has the discretion to pay different rates.
In another email, a manager said he was asked not to compare the salary for the temporary role with the nearest permanent job in terms of responsibilities and requirements, but instead the “lowest common denominator” or category of the job. The most junior role was used in
As Google worked to assess how to fix temp rates, managers continued to openly weigh what it could do without the negative attention, according to emails seen by the Times.
According to internal company emails and documents reviewed by The New Yorker, the gap in so-called benchmark rates by Google between full-time employees and temporary workers doing the same job was widening. Times. This was particularly problematic in countries with so-called pay parity laws, which required the company to pay temporary employees the same pay as full-time employees in similar positions.
But Google’s lapse was not detected outside the company. Managers were concerned that suddenly fixing the shortfall by raising the 20%-30% rate would draw attention to the problem and invite negative publicity to a company that already had generously compensated full-time employees and two-and-a-half-years of less-expensive. Criticizing for creating a level-headed workforce. Temporaries and contractors that are easy to hire and fire.
So, Google landed on a fix that wouldn’t pay as much attention to the problem: It decided to apply the correct rates only to new employees starting in 2021, but hold off on more expensive, bulk changes, according to the company’s email. Put it Times.
Alan Barry, a Google compliance manager in Ireland, wrote in an email to colleagues that it was the right move to adjust all of its floating rates from a “compliance perspective”. However, doing so could raise the possibility that Google’s current temporary staff members could “connect the dots” about the reason for the pay increase and that the agencies that supply and pay employees could “legally and ethically” put you in a difficult situation”.
“The cost is significant and it will lead to a flurry of noise/disappointment,” Barry wrote. “I’m also not too keen on inviting the allegation that we have allowed this situation to persist for so long that the need for improvement is significant.”
Google’s decision not to immediately fix pay rates for all current temps was flagged in June in a whistleblower complaint Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the complaint, non-compliance with pay equality laws in 16 countries over nine years could cost Google more than $100 million in unpaid wages. This figure does not include potential fines or legal costs.
The complaint accused Google of securities infringement because it failed to disclose risk to investors. it is not clear that seconds Currently investigating Google. The SEC did not respond to a request for comment.
In addition to the complaint, the Times separately reviewed dozens of documents and internal emails about Google’s management of its temporary employees, offering an unusual glimpse of how the company grapples with increasing pressure to treat temporary workers like temporary workers. Is.
Google said this week that it has started making some changes to temporary pay rates. The company said there was no change in the benchmark rates for a few years, the actual wages for temporary employees had gone up manifold and most temps were paid more than the wage limit.
“It is clear that this process has not been handled to the high standards to which we hold ourselves as a company,” the company’s chief compliance officer, Spiro Karatos, said in a statement. “We’re going to find out what went wrong here, why it happened, and we’re going to fix it.”
The total number of temps and contractors working at Google is more than 150,000, while Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has 144,000 full-time employees, according to people who are familiar with the figures but are not allowed to publicly disclose them. Google has said that temporary workers make up about 3% of its temporary employees. Most are outsourced employees.
The company said it fills short-term roles for temporary employees to stand on leave or when there is a sudden business need for a maximum period of two years. In some cases, Google employees said that temporary roles tend to increase from year to year.
There is no federal law that requires US companies to pay equal pay to temporary and permanent employees for equal work, but other countries are passing laws for more equal treatment. There is some sort of pay parity law in place for temps over 30.
(Start optional trim.)
In countries with company-recognized equal pay laws, Google normally takes extra care to ensure that open temporary jobs are paid at par with reasonable full-time positions. In those countries, Google gives temps a 15% annual bonus, which is the same as the minimum bonus rate for its permanent employees. It usually does not pay bonuses to temps in countries with similar pay requirements.
But last year, in a company email, a Google manager said it appeared that 16 additional countries, including Brazil, Canada, Australia and Mexico, had some form of similar behavior laws for temperatures that the company did not properly recognize. and no one had taken it. Additional steps to comply with local laws.
(Optional trim finish.)
As more countries introduce new rules, Google is being forced to act. In 2019, the Netherlands passed a law that requires Google’s staffing agencies to provide benefits similar to the company’s permanent employees such as sick pay, maternity and other paid leave, health care and stock grants. The change affected at least seven Google temporary employees in the country.
(Start optional trim.)
“This is a situation we must avoid,” Barry wrote in an email to colleagues. He recommended that Google fire all seven employees before the law goes into effect in 2020. Ultimately, Google said it decided to hire six temporary employees into full-time positions for the remainder of its contracts. The other employee was laid off but with three months’ salary, according to the company.
In recent years, Google has sought ways to cut down on its use of temporary employees. Google started the project in 2018 bright light, an initiative that included a review of whether jobs were being classified correctly as part of a “labour model reset”.
In an internal 2021 email, a Google executive said the company has reduced the number of temps by 2,700 since 2018. Most of those positions were outsourced, while 750 temps were turned into full-time employees, the email said.
The project also sought to establish temporary pay parity with permanent employees doing similar work in the United States by 2019.
In a preliminary 2019 study to weigh the financial impact of taking the move in the United States, where Google hires more than half of its temporary workers, the company estimated that it would bring wages to more than 4,000 temporary workers. will cost up to $52 million. Up to the minimum wage of the newly appointed permanent employee.
Internal communications seen by the Times indicate that three years into the project, Google has struggled to make progress on equal pay.
In January 2020, Google apparently realized that it was using the old pay scales. In a company email reviewed by the Times, a Google manager said it had not reviewed European rates in eight years in Asia and three in years.
This year, a company presentation laid out the discrepancies for specific jobs. Google found that the hourly wage for a temporary, mid-level administrative assistant in the UK was £16.51 (about $22.86) compared to what it paid for full-time employees in that role in the past. But an updated 2021 rate should be 40% higher at 23.08 pounds.
Company documents state that Google uses Pontoon, a unit of staffing agency Edeco Group, to handle the hiring of temps, and it charges a premium to staffing agencies to find and become employers of record for employees. pays. Pontoon spokeswoman Mary Beth Vadil said she did not disclose information about client contracts.
“The pontoon does not set pay rates, and in countries with wage equality laws, we play a role in ensuring that casual workers are paid in compliance with the law,” she said.
When a Google manager wants to hire a temporary one, Pontoon provides a “bill rate card” with minimum and maximum wages, according to company documents, which Google said would pay full-time employees in a similar role, according to company documents. Is. Those wages include a markup for agencies and pontoons.
(Optional trim finish.)
Even though Google managers are allowed to be paid more than the maximum salary, the older pay ranges provide a framework for setting salaries, according to a source familiar with the framework.
A Google manager expressed concern in an email that the company classified temporary roles in a way that artificially lowered their pay scales by comparing them to many unrelated and low-paying jobs. For example, based on a spreadsheet of European pay rates reviewed by the Times, massage therapists and lawyers fall under the same job family of “HR/admin” and they share the same basic pay rates – although managers has the discretion to pay different rates.
In another email, a manager said he was asked not to compare the salary for the temporary role with the nearest permanent job in terms of responsibilities and requirements, but instead the “lowest common denominator” or category of the job. The most junior role was used in
As Google worked to assess how to fix temp rates, managers continued to openly weigh what it could do without the negative attention, according to emails seen by the Times.
.