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Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

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Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#11

Post by hansvm »

m348e912 wrote: post #2

Why should Google pay maternity leave for laid off workers? They are no longer employees once they're laid off. At the very most they deserve a severence.

- Laying off somebody on maternity leave and then not paying them for that leave is exactly what you would expect from a company laying somebody off _because_ they're on maternity leave, which would be strikingly illegal (IMO not immoral per se -- that burden should be averaged across all of society rather than localized to each employer -- definitely illegal though). At a minimum they'd want their ducks in a row to ensure those layoffs were legitimate.

- Promising a person a particular thing (approving maternity leave, for example) goes above and beyond the ordinary employment contract, and cutting the duration of that promise short doesn't sit well.

- Google offers (offered?) a variety of specialized healthcare plans that you can choose _instead of_ a standard PPO or whatever, and those require you to move to doctors in a very small network. Cutting off those services and saying "LOL, have fun with finding new doctors on top of figuring out Cobra" with less than a day of warning is a bigger inconvenience than you'd expect from comparable layoffs elsewhere.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#12

Post by rektide »

throwaway45501 wrote: post #8
AraceliHarker wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blame of the recent layoffs lay not with the employees but with the managers who had miscalculated their prospects in the midst of the covidic plague.

Why is it the company's responsibility to keep employees that are no longer necessary? I don't understand that. Did Google or any other company promised these people that they will be hired forever? Google hired them and paid them very cushy salaries. What am I missing? I really don't understand the discussion around those recent layoffs.

A company has a basic obligation to only do what makes sense, not what is superfluous.

Mis-hiring a ton of people to only let lots of people go shows a untrustworthy dishonest shallow character.

Maybe in some cases companies honestly fuck up, but most of the time it just looks like the idiotic cancer of growth at all costs attitude, a delusional nature. The infinite quintupling down that seems to be the one & only move business-types so often seem to have, a pattern of relentless self-promotion in all conditions.

The genuineness of a company that can tap a wider base, to make calibrated decisions upon, is rare. And instances like this just show how much disdain there is from the top to everyone below. Utter disrespect, no acknowledgement that the org was being false, no try to do right., just letting trust in the org fail.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#13

Post by alanfranz »

m348e912 wrote: post #2

Why should Google pay maternity leave for laid off workers? They are no longer employees once they're laid off. At the very most they deserve a severence.

Because while you are on a medical leave or a maternity leave it’s especially difficult for you to sort out things, or to find another job? “I laid you off while you’re lactating, please find another job in 60 days or leave US”.

In most places in EU it would be illegal to layoff people in those situations, that’s not a US thing of course, but just asking the already-approved deal to be honored seems just obvious.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#15

Post by temp20160423 »

m348e912 wrote: post #2

Why should Google pay maternity leave for laid off workers? They are no longer employees once they're laid off. At the very most they deserve a severence.

G attracted workers by offering this baby bonding leave and increased it recently from 12 weeks to 18 weeks. Even amazon is letting people on leave finish it before their severance starts according to the article. This whole layoff round at G looks extremely rushed and someone probably didn't think through all the edge cases, such as people already on leave. For 20 years, G's main advantage was top of market perks and culture (comp was good, but not the top). These layoff rounds have permanently hurt Google's reputation IMO. When the tech hiring market gets competitive again, they will either have to raise comp significantly once everyone realizes the culture has changed or they won't be competitive to attract the top talent.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#16

Post by wesleywt »

m348e912 wrote: post #2

Why should Google pay maternity leave for laid off workers? They are no longer employees once they're laid off. At the very most they deserve a severence.

Yes, if the worker was on maternity leave when laid off. What I have noticed about American culture, despite having money they are extreme penny pitches in the oddest of places.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#17

Post by throwaway45501 »

foepys wrote: post #9
throwaway45501 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it the company's responsibility to keep employees that are no longer necessary? I don't understand that. Did Google or any other company promised these people that they will be hired forever? Google hired them and paid them very cushy salaries. What am I missing? I really don't understand the discussion around those recent layoffs.

And people wonder why birth rates are falling and people are afraid to make long term commitments. Corporations like this don't deserve any loyalty. If I worked there and anybody offered to pay me even a few percent more, I'd leave in a heartbeat. I probably wouldn't even work hard, only the bare minimum to not get fired, because why should I? In conservative media this this is being spun as "nobody wants to work any…

Do you keep paying a plumber once they complete their job? As employee I enter into mutually beneficial (and in case of IT and FAANG - extremely beneficial) contract knowing that I can be fired once the company deems my services no longer necessary.

The backlash comes from highest educated, best skilled people who received high salaries and who have great prospects of being hired again quickly. Why they suffer?

Should these companies not hire those employees in the first place? The employees would be jobless then, our would be hired by companies witch they previously rejected in favor of FAANG.

To me it all seems like reality check for people who for years were bit out of touch with, well, reality. This is what regular people deal with all the time.

Regarding your argument about falling birth rates - education, career, job stability etc. are all negatively correlated with birth rates. I'm pretty sure that FAANG employees have one of the lowest birth rates in society - I admit, I have no data to back this up.

Re: Google nixes paying out rest of medical leave for laid-off employees

#19

Post by throwaway45501 »

rektide wrote: post #12
throwaway45501 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it the company's responsibility to keep employees that are no longer necessary? I don't understand that. Did Google or any other company promised these people that they will be hired forever? Google hired them and paid them very cushy salaries. What am I missing? I really don't understand the discussion around those recent layoffs.

A company has a basic obligation to only do what makes sense, not what is superfluous. Mis-hiring a ton of people to only let lots of people go shows a untrustworthy dishonest shallow character. Maybe in some cases companies honestly fuck up, but most of the time it just looks like the idiotic cancer of growth at all costs attitude, a delusional nature. The infinite quintupling down that seems to be the one & only mo…

Business is not your friend, it's not your family. The only goal of business is to make profit. If they can make something good along the way - great, but don't expect them to do it.

At this scale it seems very hard to make good decisions. It looks like a lot of companies overestimated their long term needs. Also, they might have hired those employees to prevent competition from hiring them,and it might have been a good business decision. What people fail to understand is that corporations goal is not to maximize well-being of their employees.

I wonder if this is a result of liberal movement that allowed those companies to leech to various causes (LGBTQ rights,gender equality, etc) and allowed them to spread image of friendly, responsible, good, family-like image. I 100% support those movements myself, but I also have seen this coming for years. As soon as it no longer pays off to be friendly, corporations stop be such.

The best way to fight this is to educate people that corporations are not your friend, family, they don't care much about you.

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