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Google Training Document Reveals How Temps, Vendors, and Contractors Are Treated (theguardian.com)
"An internal Google training document exposed by The Guardian reveals how the company instructs employees on how to treat temps, vendors, and contractors (TVCs)," writes Slashdot reader Garabito. "This includes: 'not to reward certain workers with perks like T-shirts, invite them to all-hands meetings, or allow them to engage in professional development training.'" From the report: "Working with TVCs and Googlers is different," the training documentation, titled the The ABCs of TVCs, explains. "Our policies exist because TVC working arrangements can carry significant risks." The risks Google appears to be most concerned about include standard insider threats, like leaks of proprietary information, but also -- and especially -- the risk of being found to be a joint employer, a legal designation which could be exceedingly costly for Google in terms of benefits.
Google's treatment of TVCs has come under increased scrutiny by the company's full-time employees (FTEs) amid a nascent labor movement at the company, which has seen workers speak out about both their own working conditions and the morality of the work they perform. American companies have long turned to temps and subcontractors to plug holes and perform specialized tasks, but Google achieved a dubious distinction this year when Bloomberg reported that in early 2018, the company did not directly employ a majority of its own workforce. According to a current employee with access to the figures, of approximately 170,000 people around the world who now work at Google, 50.05% are FTEs. The rest, 49.95%, are TVCs. The report notes that "the two-tier system has complicated labor activism at Google." On November 1st, after 20,000 workers joined a global walkout, "the company quickly gave in to one of the protesters' demands by ending forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment -- but only for FTEs."
Google's treatment of TVCs has come under increased scrutiny by the company's full-time employees (FTEs) amid a nascent labor movement at the company, which has seen workers speak out about both their own working conditions and the morality of the work they perform. American companies have long turned to temps and subcontractors to plug holes and perform specialized tasks, but Google achieved a dubious distinction this year when Bloomberg reported that in early 2018, the company did not directly employ a majority of its own workforce. According to a current employee with access to the figures, of approximately 170,000 people around the world who now work at Google, 50.05% are FTEs. The rest, 49.95%, are TVCs. The report notes that "the two-tier system has complicated labor activism at Google." On November 1st, after 20,000 workers joined a global walkout, "the company quickly gave in to one of the protesters' demands by ending forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment -- but only for FTEs."
Badly.
#DeleteChrome
And in California, those risks are very real, and the labor board enforces the law with great zeal. (Not that they give a damn about workers, but they sure to love to crap all over employers to justify their jobs. Which happens to work out for employees, at least part of the time.)
They used to be Temps, Interns and Contractors (TICs) but that had an obvious negative sound and it was less well know. It was mostly used to poke fun of people (usually friends but not always) and was only a few docs. It was changed to (a) not sound so bad and (b) separate interns from The Others because interns were thought to have actual value. I think the terminology changed some time around 2005 or 2006. Around the same time, a special group of temps had their badges changed to be brown (they became "Brown Badgers" in all conversation) and weren't allowed on the main campus. There was an incident with a chef and one of these folks hoarding food to take home.
Google has never cared about non engineering staff. (There are expectations, yes.) After Wayne Rosing departed, those feelings became more pronounced. This is who they have always been but now there are large enough masses of unhappy people to do something noticeable. (This is far from the first time but previously these things stayed inside and were handled differently.)
This is why I found that article to be purely sensationalist. I manage 30+ of what the article calls "TVCs" and I am not allowed by law to give them certain kinds of feedback or give them swag. This is know as co-employment and can land the company in a lot of legal hot water so most large companies that use "TVCs" I get that the vast majority of people haven't managed "TVCs" but the article didn't even mention what the law is.
You can read up on co-employment here:
https://aquent.com/blog/managi...
I work at a public university in the US. I've been both a permanent and, later, a temporary employee. I've seen the same type of thing, where my employer treats permanent and temporary employees very differently, even when the job duties are the same. Temporary employees don't get any paid holidays, so they're required to use vacation leave or be unpaid. An arbitrary decision was made to close the university for the national day of mourning last week on Wednesday. For permanent employees, it was treated like a permanent holiday. For me, I had to burn vacation leave. The university goes to some length to limit the benefits that can be paid to temporary employees, not unlike what Google is doing here.
It's not like temporary employees don't work as hard as permanent employees. The university also has a policy that temporary employees can be terminated immediately for any reason or, presumably, no reason at all. This means that when my boss engages in some very unprofessional behavior, reporting it carries the risk that I could be terminated because I spoke up. It doesn't matter that I'd be right that his behavior is unreasonable, I could be terminated for reporting it. This opens the door to a lot of abuses and, yes, I've seen them, and been on the receiving end of some of this unprofessional behavior.
The biggest thing #metoo got wrong is being just about taking down powerful men who abused their position to harass women. Any time there's a massive power differential, where subordinates don't feel they can speak up without retaliation, those abuses will happen. I've seen it happen to others, including graduate students threatened with having their visas revoked if they didn't work well in excess of 40 hours per week. I've seen faculty who frequently were nasty to female graduate students working for them, who often left meetings crying because of how nasty their advisor was. I've seen outright racism tolerated and the department refuse to do a thing.
Why am I still there? I'm working on leaving, and trying to make sure I land in a good situation next time.
Which if Google gave those TVCs those benefits would get them in the territory of co-employement and then they would have Microsoft's issues...
But if half the workers in your buildings are "temps" (per article stat), then they are probably doing something similar to what MS did: hire temps to do employee-ish things without having to provide them employee obligations.
Do you know any stats of the average stay of a Google temp?
Table-ized A.I.
The hard factual discussion is this.
At what point does a "temp" worker become permanent? 20 years? 10 years? 5 years? 1 year? 6 Months? Arguably, temp-to-hire contracts are all 3 months, so beyond that, they are an "employee".
How much does the Janitorial, Helpdesk, Building Maintenance, Cafeteria Cooks, and Security people help the company "bottom line"? Management might say things like "they are not in our vertical", the observation being, hiring 10 more janitors is unlikely to improve company revenue and thus these employee's are largely "costs". The discussion on that one goes something like; the eyes said to the rest of the body " I'm the most important because they I See the apple", and the mouth said to the rest of the body "No I'm the most important I eat the apple", then the hand says to the body "But without me, you can't grab the apple! I'm the most important!" and then the spincter chimes in "If I don't work, None of you work, so I'm the most important".
The lesson being, MBA's only understand linear, non-iterative business processes with a defnied start and end that are quantifiable, and Accountants are a sub-set of MBA's that only understand Cost and Risk. You need a MEA to understand process engineering and manage bottlenecks effecitvely, and that requires specialized knowledge, experience, and lots of hard work. Accountants do not understand oppertunity like an Bicycle mechanic will never understand a rolls royce; they operate on a loose framework of analogies and advise that are ultimately very narrow and do not work outside of those narrow constraints. What they do understand is cost and risk, and that is how they view everything in an organziation. They are hopelessly doomed to destroy any section of a company they manage. The entire act of viewing any employee as a "cost" announces to the whole world you are a clueless accountant, and simultaniously is an indication you need to Get The F!@#ck away from that person if they are your manager.
Do temps provide better security? Eventually you're pre-programmed turnover and low pay is going to hire a spy, janitor, theif, or someone looking to burn the building down. Do transient, temporary jobs provide better results? Training costs always exceed combined hiring, firing, and retention costs, always. Is it better to seperate your employee's from the "rabble"? Only if you enjoy megalomaniacs for employee's. Do you get less drama as a company because you aren't dealing with "rabble"? Not if you pay them enough to live on.
Find me one reason why Google shouldn't hire any of the above position for permanent jobs at 80% of market wages.
What the discussion boils down to is if you were to look at who owns the temp agencies, you're going to find the executive managers have a pretty big investment in them. They benefit directly from shaving nickels and dimes off of paychecks. Or the company is using their paychecks and retirement funds as a revenue source to fund expansionary and experimental projects.
The real discussion you need to have with yourself is, how do you define a bankrupt company? If 50% of the company can't afford to live and eat on what they are being paid, or the companies books only work by screwing staff over, is the company bankrupt? This is the concept of "trash" management; the staff are the "products", the management are the "consumers" and once the "products" are "consumed" what do we do with them? Into the trash bin. You can tell trash management because they are surrounded by, you guessed it, trash.
And if thats the case, and they are falling further into bankruptcy, pulling that "50%" with them, either at some point there's going to be a "labor movement" to fix the issue, or, like the french revolution, people will give up, lose their concept of self-respect and dignity, and eventually decide, as maria antonette is trying on her nth boat hairdew, that it'd be a great idea to engage in the ritual of exacting justice on their own terms. That 2nd bit, by the way, when the staff loses self-respect and dignity, if you notice that, don't just get ready to leave. Run. You do not want to be anywhere near that.
I manage 30+ of what the article calls "TVCs"
Why on earth do you manage 30+ TVCs? Do you manage 30+ employees? If not, why not? TVCs are meant to fill temporary holes. It certainly sounds like your company (assuming you're only managing 30+ TVCs which I find likely) is dodging various labor laws and the costs and obligations associated with FTEs. Which merely implies that the laws and regulations aren't properly set up to promote employment.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
As long as there is compliance with the labour laws. Anything above is moral policing. And the thing about moral is - there are too many standards.
Why would anyone want to offer career development advices or perks to "vendors" and "contractors"? Their primary employer is either themselves or another company. There's absolutely no point spending on them resources designed for internal growth.
OMG! Google has hit peak Microsoft! Lol!
The way contractors are treated at all these tech companies including Google is exactly a result of what happened to Microsoft and how it was punished. They did not make a distinction between how employees and contractors were treated which got them in hot water for not offering equivalent benefits and perks (like stock).
I don't know why that would help you negotiate. Negotiation involves understanding your value and having the confidence to ask for it. Confidence is a personal trait unconnected to math ability. And knowing your value is hard for almost everyone.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
May I point out that tou are _allowed_ to do things for them? You are also _allowed_ to hire them as employees and provide other benefits.
The point is that if you choose to do certain things for them then the law will decide that you have chosen to hire them as employees. If you don't want to hire them as employees then you must not do certain things for them.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
because they can always dangle the threat of turning you into a temp when you get too uppity. Crap like this is why workers Unionized and why companies spend a small fortune demonizing Unions.
You need to be choosier on who you work for. I used to work in a union environment and it was a nightmare. Office politics out the wazoo. I still have friends there and all they talk about is how a third of their coworkers are incompetent and un-fireable, and how it's generally impossible to get anything fix or improved. The people who are lousy at their job get promoted so competent people can fill in the positions that actually do work.
I now work for a medium-sized IT company and, basically, have complete control over how I do my job. Everyone helps each other. If I need any additional resources I get them. I can work from home when I want to, unless there are meetings, which are rare. There are zero office politics, nobody is gunning for anyone else's job. Best of all, my boss, his boss, and HIS boss are all ex-programmers and IT guys. I can walk into any of their offices with any kind of problem and they'll try to get it fixed.
I'm sure such an environment could exist under unions, but I think unionization stems from a bad work environment to begin with. It certainly doesn't seem to help.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Some companies use contractors heavily because it allows them to grow and scale more rapidly than with a permanent employment base. This is fairly normal for consultancy firms that deal with a lot of high value, quick turn around contracts; for example they'll deal with say, 6 month contracts to build A in language and tech stack B. The first month might be requirements, design, and planning, followed by 4 months of dev, and 1 month of UAT and delivery. They only need to scale up in language B for 4 months, so they hire maybe 10 contractors for the period, and can therefore easily let them go when they're done. It's not unusual for someone working at such a company to have a few of these teams on the go at once, so having 30 TVCs doesn't mean that they're not temporary, it may simply mean that he just has 3 overlapping projects in their development phase, or perhaps even one big, albeit potentially still short-lived project.
Such consultancy firms may have permanent staff as well - these will typically be the reusable skills, project managers, architects, HR, payroll, and the like. They may have some permanent engineers for recurring and common languages like Java or the rare few that genuinely are great devs across multiple languages (many pretend to be but are usually shit at lots of languages or good at one, few are genuinely really good at many languages and stacks), but their bread and butter is mainly IT project planning, management, and design, so they sub-contract out the actual development.
So in my experience there are legitimate cases for having that many TVCs, and it's certainly not about abuse of employees or employment laws. IT contractors get paid a reasonable amount (at least here in the UK - the norm is now £400 - £500 a day even in the North of England, so $130k - $170k a year in US dollars), and they do still have permanent employees in their areas of specialisation - again, project management for example. As such in those cases it's win-win, the contractors get paid a very good salary, the company can fill short-lived contracts and grow and provide employment, and the customers can get rapid turnaround on important projects in short time frames.
Not all use of TVCs is about abusive zero hour contracts, sometimes it's an entirely mutual arrangement for everyone involved. Companies are willing to spend a lot of money to get stuff done quickly, so for companies and contractors willing to fulfill that need, it's extremely profitable.
I worked somewhere like that ... for three months.
They had a gym/workout center ... in the basement of the building where most of us IT contractors were. I was shown it on my welcome tour, but told that I couldn't use it.
A department was really happy with what I did for them (with their website) so they invited me to a department picnic ... then their secretary called me back sheepishly to un-invite me; said she that wasn't allowed to invite me after all because I was a contractor.
I left in three months because the commute sucked, but the silly and frankly childish stuff like that didn't hurt when making the decision to leave.
Considering that I have worked at a couple of consultancies as well as at several Fortune 100 companies, I can tell you that if you're running your projects the way you describe, you're already in for failure. You hire a group of consultants with its own team leader. The leader handles managing his team, you manage the project. That's the only way you're going to have any success with 30 consultants under 1 FTE manager.
The more common scenario for what was described is abuse of the TVC by using them as employees without keeping them as employees. In the case of Google in TFS, I don't see how they can justify that many TVCs.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
...Google just wants to ensure that their employees don't cause contractors to be reclassified as Full-Time Employees by the IRS. This is a very common issue and is of particular focus for the IRS currently. If you've paid someone as a contractor/1099 and the IRS audits your payroll taxes, Google would owe the "unpaid" payroll taxes (7.5%) plus penalties. Here is information about employee classification: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/u... In addition to the items listed, thing like including them in all company meetings, giving bonuses, giving direct/day-to-day instruction are all things that companies have to do in order to avoid this issue. The penalty is assessed against one year of the person's wages if they're reclassified. This helps limit the damage as, even if a contractor has worked for 20 years at a company that should have been treating them as an FTE, they'll only assess back payroll taxes and penalties on that one year. All that said, I'm not saying I agree with what Google is doing - they could certainly afford to hire FTEs - but this strikes me as good policy given the regulatory environment around this issue.