When companies make the news, there often is more going on than meets the eye, and the truth comes out eventually.

For example, Google was the darling of company culture for years with its nap pods, slides, free food, dry cleaning, bikes, and on-site clinics. And more. Google became the standard and inspired all the Silicon Valley tech companies, along with companies all over the country, to one-up each other with their cool offerings to get top talent to join.

To the un-trained eye, it looked like Google cared so much about its employees. Just a year ago, Google touted its increased parental and caretaker leave policy as the Chief People Officer said they wanted to offer “extraordinary benefits” for their people.

Apparently, as Google expanded its leave and staff, it did so without any strategic thinking about its stakeholders, especially its customers. Now, it’s parent company is in the middle of laying off 12,000 employees. As laid off Googlers exit, they get 16 weeks of severance, along with two weeks of pay for every year of employment with Google.

The severance is decent, but one issue came to light last week.

Late last week, Google was in the news for not honoring that new leave policy for people who have been laid off during their approved leave. For example, one woman who just had a baby learned via text that her job was eliminated, along with her maternity leave. Just one hundred people are affected, yet Google is not covering what it said it would cover. (Source: CNBC, Google nixes paying out remainder of maternity and medical leave for laid-off employees, by Jennifer Elias, March 17, 2023)

People plan their lives around company promises, yet Google gave no regard to the promises made to their people. That’s a warning to all current and future employees: you cannot trust Google.

To someone highly experienced with company culture, it was clear as Google’s culture grew from being “bros in a garage” to manipulating people so they would work longer hours and stay with the company longer.

It was never about the people. Google proved it. Pay attention and learn from them.

Five lessons to learn from Google’s culture behavior this week:

1. Strategic planning is crucial when adding people. Strategic thinking would consider what happens if/when customer demand changes. If Google, and Meta, DocuSign, Twilio, and others, had been more strategic prior to hiring all the extra people over the past few years, they would not be in the midst of the downsizing now.

2. Align your company culture with values it intends to keep. List the values and how those values are lived every day—be specific, not pollyanna’ish. Then, design the culture to support the values.

3. Be honest when promoting your company values and culture. Your company doesn’t have to be fun and creative. Lots of people do not want to work at a high-energy place like Google. Understand your culture and communicate about it honestly. At least that way, you are more likely able to keep your promises.

4. Keep your promises. If your policy says people get leave, and someone applies for it, and it is approved, honor that promise. Backing out alerts people to the fact that you do not keep promises. And, they will relate to you accordingly.

5. If you care about your people, then care about your people honestly. You can share hard news, but don’t lie or cover up downward trends. When cultures are really about manipulation, the undercurrent of distrust will infiltrate everything. It takes up so much time and stifles anything good.

Sometimes companies succeed in spite of their practices instead of because of them.

Google will survive this PR disaster. It will go on to make billions for its CEO and investors. It could do more good, like it says it wants to, if it approached its culture more genuinely. Companies can do both: care about people and profit. There’s all kinds of research that proves it—you can google it.