Google is revamping its compensation system to better reward high-impact employees who deliver strong results, with fewer perks for those with lower performance ratings. This change follows similar moves by other major tech companies like Meta and Microsoft—both of which laid off thousands earlier this year and claimed that these employees were low performers. Ultimately, these companies want employees who make a meaningful difference to the bottom line.
Visible impact is the difference-maker in promotions, layoffs and virtually any other key decision related to personnel in a business. Because of this, employees who fail to show how they’re a net positive to a company’s bottom line risk being shown the door in the current waves of layoffs.
What counts as impact?
Impact at work means creating results that move a company closer to its goals and delivering work that matters. But not all work is equal—while some tasks merely move the needle, others drive profitability.
Ultimately, impact isn’t about how many hours someone works. Rather, it’s about the value they create.
Many organizations are now trimming their workforces and operating with leaner teams, a trend that’s likely to continue as organizations like Shopify prioritize AI over human workforces. Companies want employees who can point to specific outcomes they’ve been responsible for, rather than those who build up lists of activities they’ve done and boxes they’ve checked.
How to increase your impact at work
Increasing workplace impact is less about an employee’s actual work and more about their ability to both align themselves with the organization’s strategic priorities and showcase the outcomes of that work to key decision-makers. Here are some practical ways you can do this in your own workplace:
1. Understand what the company values
Before you can increase your impact, you need to know what your organization truly cares about.
Every company has different priorities, so getting clear on this early on is key. Without knowing what matters to the leadership team, you can’t effectively identify the outcomes that will set you apart.
To figure this out, review the company’s annual reports, investor presentations and all-hands meeting notes. These will highlight the organization’s key objectives. Then, speak with managers about which metrics matter most in your department or role.
2. Focus on high-leverage activities
Some tasks can dramatically affect outcomes, while others barely move the needle. Understanding the difference between these kinds of tasks will impact your perceived contribution.
Use this activity to help you identify high-leverage tasks: List everything you do in a typical week, then consider which three activities would contribute most to departmental and company goals if they were all someone had time for in the week.
By identifying which tasks have outsized returns relative to the time you’ve invested, you can optimize your week for the metrics your boss will care about. For engineers, this might be solving complex technical debt issues rather than fixing minor bugs. For marketers, it could mean optimizing high-traffic campaigns instead of tweaking low-volume ones.
3. Quantify your contributions
When it comes to demonstrating impact, numbers speak louder than words. If something can’t be measured, it can’t be improved. This principle applies to personal impact as well.
Here are some questions to help you track your work’s impact:
- How much revenue did the project generate?
- By what percentage was efficiency improved?
- How many hours did the solution save the team?
- What was the cost reduction?
- What was your specific contribution to that project?
Even roles that are traditionally seen as hard to quantify can be measured. For instance, HR professionals can track retention improvements, customer service representatives can measure resolution rates and designers can monitor user engagement metrics.
Every salary is a line on a company spreadsheet, so understanding how to talk in a manager or skip level’s language is paramount.
4. Solve problems that others don’t see
The highest-impact employees identify and solve problems before they become apparent. Actual value comes from being proactive rather than reactive, so the people who get ahead anticipate needs and fill gaps.
In order to find these problems, focus on developing an eye for detail so you can identify and solve problems before they happen. This involves looking for inefficiencies and going back over problems to devise a prevention plan for the future. For instance, you might spot needed changes to a department’s workflow or identify a market opportunity that competitors haven’t noticed yet.
5. Communicate impact effectively
Creating impact is only half the equation—making sure others recognize it is equally important. Your work can be revolutionary, but if nobody knows about it, you might as well not have done it. Making contributions visible without being boastful is key here.
Some practical ways to communicate impact include:
- Sending brief updates to managers that highlight key wins
- Presenting results at team meetings
- Documenting your achievements for future performance reviews
- Sharing knowledge that helps your colleagues succeed
6. Develop rare and valuable skills
In today’s economy, being good at one’s job isn’t enough to stay on the payroll—employees need to be difficult to replace too.
People who have unique combinations of skills create more impact because they can solve problems that stump everyone else. This might mean developing technical expertise that complements communication skills or becoming the go-to person for a critical system or customer.
7. Build a cross-functional network
Your impact multiplies when you help others succeed. The most valuable people in any organization are those who make their teammates better and work cross-functionally to get things done.
Mentoring junior employees, breaking down communication silos or connecting people who should be working together increases your visibility within a company. When your presence improves others’ performance and productivity, it makes you harder to replace.
8. Volunteer for challenging projects
An easy way to demonstrate your impact is to volunteer for a challenging project. Playing a key role in delivering on a complicated problem cements your value in the organization. It also helps you stand out to key players like skip-level managers, who can have an outsized role in layoffs and promotions despite not working directly with everyone below them.
The bottom line
We can all agree that the workplace has fundamentally changed in recent history. Now more than ever, companies are looking for people who can prove that they deliver results, not just show up.
As more companies adopt Google’s approach of rewarding impact over activity, the ability to demonstrate value is becoming a non-negotiable for career advancement. By understanding what matters to an organization, focusing on high-leverage activities, measuring contributions and effectively communicating value, anyone can significantly increase their impact—and potentially their compensation—regardless of where they work.
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