Corporate intelligence…
… is NOT an oxymoron!
At least, not ALWAYS…. 
Yes, I have received raises of over 10% in my life. No, none of them occurred in Silicon Valley, even during the “boom” years. Most of the major salary increases I received occurred after changing employers and negotiating starting salary.
Google will also move a portion of employees’ bonuses into their base salaries, ensuring that they receive the entire amount.
An email from CEO Eric Schmidt, published in Business Insider, is revealing. The Business Insider article, in my opinion, does a better job than the CNET article in explaining ALL of the various types of financial compensation being given, including ADDITIONAL merit raises.
The statement attributed to Schmidt is actually, “There’s more. We’ve heard from your feedback on Googlegeist and other surveys that salary is more important to you than any other component of pay (i.e., bonus and equity).” Anyone who finds this result SURPRISING has been stuffing his/her head into an anatomically impossible position! (Note added November 19, 2010: Yet, it is amazing how many of these people there ARE! )
A Google spokesperson said that retaining employees was key to the company. The CNET article cites a few high-profile defections to Facebook.
I saw this article tonight after talking with my brother, who is visiting from another state and who has just been rewarded well for doing an excellent job in the health industry. No, he is not in sales. Yes, he is in management.
In any case, I told him that most of the companies that employed me treated me like sh*t, (or worse)! Some of them rewarded ONLY sales or management people. (Oddly enough, most of those companies are no longer around! Sadly, the best place I ever worked in high tech is ALSO no longer around.) My brother’s company is apparently ALSO a good one, which values its employees and their contributions.
Here’s to the good folks at Google, who richly deserve the raise and other financial compensation for pushing the envelope in the ways that people use the Internet. Let’s hope that the intelligence of their management’s action becomes a model for rewarding the behaviors (and the people) that truly push companies ahead.
-Bill at
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