Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, announced the good news to his employees. Everyone at the company will be receive a 10 percent raise to boost morale in an environment where Google employees are leaving for greener pastures. According to the Wall Street Journal article, internal surveys indicated that employees consider salary to be the most important aspect of compensation.
I agree. Though one’s salary says little more than how well one negotiates and is only tangentially related to how much someone is worth to an employer, salary is emotional. If you feel you’re earning less than your peers or equals, it’s easy to feel under-appreciated. Though motivational speakers would suggest using that as encouragement to perform better and negotiate, that’s not a common reaction.
It’s not only huge corporations that have this problem, but the lesson is that your employees are your biggest assets. Whether you’re a huge corporation or a non-profit with 15 employees, you must take care of your employees if you want to attract, keep, and foster talent.
And believe me, you do want to attract, keep, and foster talented employees. They will find something else to do. And for the talented employees out there: don’t wait to be appreciated.
Here’s the article from the Wall Street Journal or read the employee memo on TechCrunch.
Published or updated November 10, 2010. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
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Luke Landes founded Consumerism Commentary in 2003 and has been building online communities since 1990. Luke, also known as Flexo, has contributed to PC World Magazine, US News, Forbes, and other publications. 
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
They must be having a hard time deciding what to do with the over 33 BILLION in cash and short-term investments they reported for Q3 2010. I think this is a wise investment on Google’s part. Especially considering TOTAL operating expenses were just over 15 Billion in 2009 and look to be slightly more in 2010, meaning the raise will “cost” them well under 2 Billion and will likely pay them dividends in the near future by increasing morale and productivity. Now speaking of dividends…
Good move by Google! Now if only my employer would see this article and take a hint :)
Just read this at CR. I’m pretty sure Google has been irked by the recent flow of their employees leaving for Twitter and Facebook.
Wow, that is a huge move! Of course I’m sitting here thinking about my multi-year salary freeze, and the breach of union contracts by my employer! Even if you aren’t able to make this type of statement with cash, giving other perks could help as well – although they don’t say as much as cash!
Definitely good for employees. There is a serious WAR for talent here in SF.
I’ve found over the years that the talent generally ALWAYS rises in an organization, or leaves b/c of a great bid away. The rest, just stay and take what they deserve or can get. Some are fine, some complain, but talent always finds a way to shine.
Not that I am smarter than google, but wouldn’t seem more effective to announce raises between 5 and 15 and then give people either 5, 10 or 15% depending on merit? I would be annoyed if the guy next to me just got a 10% raise but he doesn’t do his job.
Working at google just got even better! I was at the google offices in New York City a couple of months ago for a training session, and I have to say I was pretty impressed with their facilities. They had the full cafeteria for all employees, the fully stocked snack stations everywhere with fruit, candy, gum, starbucks,etc, game stations, the razor scooters to get around the office. And now they get a 10% raise! Color me green with envy – sitting on my stagnant pay with no raise in sight. *sigh.