I chose to document because I find Google’s work environment very fascinating and it has one of the highest employee retention rate. It has won the award ‘Best Company to Work for’ by both Fortune magazine and the Great Place to Work Institute a total of 7 times. It also received this accolade in 2017. This is no accident; Google is deliberate in its actions and does not do things by chance. As a data driven company, Google makes calculated decisions for everything it does; including its HR policies. Google also like my family business is very diverse in its deliverables and I hope to learn and apply the learnings quickly. Hence, to have a complete and broader take on HR policies I chose Google.
With the mission ‘to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’ google started as a search engine company co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin on September 7, 1998. It is based in mountain view, California and is the leader in the field of online advertising, search engine and technology.
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Google as a company, is part of the knowledge economy. Its human resources; the people who work within the company are the most important determinants of Google’s ongoing success and growth. Like most tech companies, Google’s workforce is comprised mainly of young people, and a large number of Millennials; with an average employee age of 29. If we look at the US workforce’s average age of 42.2, this number is considerably young. As a result, this youthful workforce demands a different type of work environment.
However, Google’s employees are not the only driving force behind Google’s innovative ‘people processes’. As a tech company, Google uses data to inform all of its decision making, including its HR processes. The combination of Google’s HR management approaches for forecasting, identifying issues with surplus and shortage of employees, and balancing of human resources supply and demand effectively supports the human resource needs of the firm. Google uses conventional methods and techniques together with advanced information systems to analyse human resource data to support HRM decisions. By adopting this scientific approach to its processes; from improving employee retention, workplace collaboration, diversity, to hiring algorithms which indicate which prospective candidate has the highest probability to succeed at Google. “All people decisions at Google are based on data and analytics”. The goal is to … “bring the same level of rigour to people-decisions that we do to engineering decisions”. Nothing is left to chance.
Like everything at Google, happiness levels too, are monitored and researched; with data driving new directions and policies. A particular internal group known as PiLab carries out these experiments and plans its human processes in accordance with its findings. This research includes determining the most effective approaches for managing people and maintaining a productive environment (including the type of reward that makes employees the happiest). Google have also notably increased the health of its workers by lowering their calorie intake at work by relying on such scientific data; and an experiment which decreased the size of its canteen plates.
This focus on employee happiness and health extends beyond the world of work. Google’s ‘Pay-for-Performance’ compensation package provides considerable compensation for strong performers and coaching and training for under-performers. On the job learning, training sessions from experienced managers, as well as inspirational talks from famous people such as Sen. Hillary Clinton and Lady Gaga help to inspire its workers. Google also provide gourmet meals to all of its employees. All of these perks create a happier, healthier, more engaged workforce with high company morale.
Google has a philosophy that work should be challenging and challenges should be fun. Hence, as a part of inducing employee creativity it emphasises on innovation and considers each employee as a contributor of these innovation activities. It expects every employee to realise that they are an important part if google’s success. Also, the HR practices work under the name ‘People Operations’, which is designed to underline the fact that it is not an administrative function. Google recruits through Employee referral, college recruitment, professional networking, and recruiter training. Being a giant company, it has contacts with over 350 professors at major colleges and effectively uses networking groups like linked.
While recruiting the interview panel looks for mainly four qualities in any individual: leadership, role-related knowledge, how one thinks, googleyness.
To encourage creativity and interaction among employees, Google’s office is designed so as to provide colours, lighting, and shared room locations. This makes google’s workplace different from other organisations and is touted to be the most creative one.
Conclusion
The most important lesson one can take from google is that happier employees are more likely to go above and beyond, and do the very best for their employer once they feel valued and appreciated. Also, as the organisation grows, need for right evaluation system is mandatory to make the system just and reward the right person at right time.
Not only in IT, Google is a talent magnet across the board. Google attracts and retains the top talent in all areas from IT to marketing, sales, sustainable development, engineering and more. It is this ability to hire and retain the best talent that accounts for Google’s continued success and dominance on the world stage.
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