I think it is a simpler problem than that. Taking away all emotion, a company has an idea of what they want to pay for what level of performance.
The problem is, people come into the company with vary variable amounts of pay. The solution that Google came up with was this, hire people at a rate that would get them into the company, observe their performance for a bit (8 - 12 months), decide where they were on the scale, and then plot an intercept course for them for "Google pay".
They have always had two ways to control that, one was your "slotting" if you were over paid relative to your performance they could "down slot" you which effectively froze you out of getting a pay raise over two promotion cycles, and two they could "discount" your calibration value which would decrease your potential bonus and even your RSUs[1]. All had the effect of being able to "dial in" your compensation, post hire, into something they considered appropriate.
The only problem with that scheme is getting people to accept it right? Who would take a job at a company where your offer letter didn't accurately reflect how much they were actually going to pay you? It established a minimum amount they were going to pay you (your base salary) which, people whom I knew took pay cuts because hey, 20% bonus target (and everyone told you that "most everyone get all their bonus") and gee that was actually a pay raise right?
In the Bay Area when your HR "business partner" started reminding you that California was an "At Will" work state (which means you can quit any time, they can fire you any time), if you were paying attention you got the message to stop pursuing your current line of questioning/activity/what ever.
But hey, it's there pool and their rules, that is the way of things. And while you might think it was Wrong, other than some of the stuff that came out in Brian Reed's case I don't think they did anything regularly that was illegal. Just optimizing to the a different set of constraints than you might expect.
[1] "Restricted Stock Units" or RSUs would vest based on your 'score' with a max of 1.0 Google Shares to RSUs and a minimum of 0 Google Shares to an RSU.
The problem is, people come into the company with vary variable amounts of pay. The solution that Google came up with was this, hire people at a rate that would get them into the company, observe their performance for a bit (8 - 12 months), decide where they were on the scale, and then plot an intercept course for them for "Google pay".
They have always had two ways to control that, one was your "slotting" if you were over paid relative to your performance they could "down slot" you which effectively froze you out of getting a pay raise over two promotion cycles, and two they could "discount" your calibration value which would decrease your potential bonus and even your RSUs[1]. All had the effect of being able to "dial in" your compensation, post hire, into something they considered appropriate.
The only problem with that scheme is getting people to accept it right? Who would take a job at a company where your offer letter didn't accurately reflect how much they were actually going to pay you? It established a minimum amount they were going to pay you (your base salary) which, people whom I knew took pay cuts because hey, 20% bonus target (and everyone told you that "most everyone get all their bonus") and gee that was actually a pay raise right?
In the Bay Area when your HR "business partner" started reminding you that California was an "At Will" work state (which means you can quit any time, they can fire you any time), if you were paying attention you got the message to stop pursuing your current line of questioning/activity/what ever.
But hey, it's there pool and their rules, that is the way of things. And while you might think it was Wrong, other than some of the stuff that came out in Brian Reed's case I don't think they did anything regularly that was illegal. Just optimizing to the a different set of constraints than you might expect.
[1] "Restricted Stock Units" or RSUs would vest based on your 'score' with a max of 1.0 Google Shares to RSUs and a minimum of 0 Google Shares to an RSU.