Giving away money earmarked for employee appreciation to charity doesn't get Google points with the press, or their staff. This isn't a good move by Google.<p>Employees don't depend on Christmas gifts, but they are certainly nice. It's a great time for the company to say, with a simple little gesture, "Thanks, we really appreciate you."<p>The company can also give money to charity... not like Google has a shortage of money.<p>But yeah, this... it comes off as telling the Google Employees, "You're a bunch of ungrateful, over-privileged, spoiled brats... so I gave your gifts to people who would appreciate them more."
It's kinda funny how they spun it to employees, because what happened here, is Google bought <i>itself</i> a tax write-off. The article misses that when it suggests that it's "not exactly a cost-saving move".<p>And I mean, heck, I don't work at a Fortune 500, but my company gave me a Christmas gift worth more than a Google Home.
If Alphabet wants to do goodwill marketing, so be it. But doing so at the expense of their employees is kinda shitty. Did employees at least have the option to select which charity to donate to?
What's the average salary at Google? Does getting a Google Home or even a Pixel (which they can easily afford imho) really mean something to the employee?
Not sure how to feel about this one. On one hand the people who end up with the gifts will be grateful I'm sure. On the other hand it was at the expense of the employees, who had no say in it. Maybe they should have been given the option to donate or receive on a person-to-person basis?
I always thought Google gave out hardware strategically because they wanted every engineer to easily do side projects targeting, e.g., a phone with up-to-date Android and a smartwatch. I wonder if this means end-user adoption is now more important.