Google gives execs raises after declining to boost employees' pay (opens in new tab)

That's sort of the point. They want to pay underperformers less in the hopes that they leave, while paying overperformers more to make sure they stay.

Generally at big-tech/FAANGs, you can expect:

... a refresh grant every year equal to 25% of a new hire grant for someone of your level vesting over 4 years, quarterly, with no cliff.

... a COL adjustment.

... a merit-based pay hike.

... a market adjustment if appropriate.

This is not a reduction in pay no matter how you slice it. It's going to be way more than 7%. It's going to be roughly 6.25% + 3% + 0-5%. 10-15% annually. 13-18% if they get the COL.

These are assessed relative to the market.

This is on top of your base pay, bonus, company bonus multiplier and vesting equity which has probably significantly appreciated year over year - potentially huge, as GOOG is up 37% YoY.

I'm not worried for the employees even though leadership didn't commit to making COL adjustments 6-7% this year instead of 2-3% like most years. It's a rounding error for these folks and there's no world in which they're getting a pay cut if they're meeting expectations.

Mostly it gives them the ability to effectively cut the pay of those whose performance they don't value, by giving them increases smaller than inflation.

I have a fear that my team where I work is going to go through more attrition this year because of a similar philosophy. We didn't get merit or COL increases last year, and I doubt they're gonna wanna go more than a few percent on COL this year. That's a huge effective pay cut.

Google gives regular raises and the raise curves were considerably higher this year than prior years. "Index raises to inflation" would mean lower pay for engineers here.