Introduction
Google Inc. is an international company that deals with telecoms equipment, computer and phone software as well as internet. It was established in 1998 by two friends Sergey Brin and Larry Page who met in 1995 in Stanford University and developed a search engine together in 1996. The company was initially offered publically in 2004 August. Google Inc. headquarters are located in Mountain View, California. The company currently has over 70 offices in over 40 nations across the world. The company has a total of 55,419 employees worldwide with Larry Page acting as their CEO, and Sergey Brin acting as the Google X director and also as a director of special projects. The company has a number of subsidiaries and it is the company that holds the largest search engine in the world. This paper analyzes Google Company and how it manages its workers.
People Management in Google
The success of any company highly depends on how the company manages its human resource. Good human resource management help the company in improving job satisfaction and thus, making the workers to be highly committed to their work. It also assists in nurturing talents and skills and thus improving the competitive advantage of the company. A company can be considered to have a good people’s management ability if it can manage to recruit people with skills that they want and to nurture them to ensure further growth and innovation. The company should also manage to maintain its well developed employees without losing them to its competitors. Google has for a long time been credited for effective people management in the company. The section below evaluates Google’s people management in various aspects.
The Best Practices for Selecting, Recruiting, Evaluating and Developing Employees
Recruitment is referred to the process of urging individuals to apply for jobs in a company or an organization so as to have a group of skilled and experienced individuals where the company can select the best. Selection on the other hand is the process of establishing persons who matches the specific job description in an organization the best based on individual variation, job requirements, internal and external environment of an organization. Selection is a process of making decision where the best candidate for the job is selected (Thomas & Karodia, 2014). Google company recruitment and selection process only focus on the best available talents in the world. This is done to ensure that the company remains competitive in the market especially during the current swift changing technology in the world market. The company employs a number of recruitment strategies that include bold and aggressive workers referral. The company takes referral from friend companies, other employees, and other eligible company’s stakeholders.
The company offers bonus for any referral especially from friend companies and employees. This assists in motivating workers and also in increasing the company’s database of potential employees. The company also recruits from colleges where it has established a good relation with the best colleges that can supply the company with the best PHD candidates. The company has also established a professional network where live professional events and social media to recruit and discover top performers. The company also uses brainteasers and contests where the company invites best potential and brightest candidates for a contest and notes the best. The company is also among the few companies in the world who takes their recruits through a training process before they start their work. This way, the company is able to acquire the best and the most talented human resources who assist the company to retain its performance glory in the market (Thomas & Karodia, 2014).
Employees are developed by constant training, workshop and job rotation. Training of the employees starts immediately recruitment where the employees go through a training process before they are commissioned into their obligation. Employees are also given constant training especially to ensure that they are aware of the new technology in the market. The company also ensures all round skills by encouraging job rotation and career growth by offering promotion and salary increment and also job transfer especially when promotions are enhanced. The company provides workers with a good working environment and teamwork to ensure that there is sharing of idea, and knowledge in the company.
Key Practices that should be followed when Making Workforce Changes and Letting People go
Google Company has rules, laws and regulations that govern its workforce. The company also has a code of conduct that guides employees in their daily operations. In this regard, the company only retains workers who are ready to adhere to its policies and its code of conduct. The company also encourages early retirement to those who feel that they cannot keep up with the company’s pace of changing technology. The company focuses on employees’ retention as one way to reduce cost of hiring. The company considers developing the existing employees’ ability rather than recruiting new employees now and then. To let people go, the company offers good retirement packages for early retirement to encourage workers to take the packages and retire earlier than anticipated. However, sometimes this is quite challenging due to the need of the most innovative mind in an organization. Other practices include layoffs of the redundant workers and those that are unable to absorb the new technology. However, the company has not been engaged in a lot of layoff practices for it always considers workers development rather than replacement.
Motivation and Engaging Top Talents
Google Company has a dedication to promoting the growth and development of individuals work talent. The company achieves this by fist hiring the right people and them taking them through constant training and exposure to ensure total growth. The company then offers creative, fun and trusting work environment to encourage employees to stick in the company until their retirement. They also offer good packages, salary increment and promotions to ensure that they have a high job satisfaction and thus making them to offer their dedication to the company. The company also values their workers by ensuring work flexibility, quality leadership, career development, life balance and great workplace. There are also employee recognition and appreciation programs that make workers to appreciated and as part of the company (Gorey, 2011). Idea sharing and open communication is another technique that the company uses to enhance growth and development. Open communication enhances sharing of ideas, information and knowledge, an aspect that enhances effective knowledge transfer and problem solving in the company. The company also offers extra bonus for any activity extra activity an employee is involved. This encourages employees to take part in different activities that enhances the organization’s operation. This includes employees’ referral among others.
Approaches to Employee Rewards and Motivation
Google was in 2014 named as the best company in employees’ motivation by Fortune magazine. Google leadership and motivation model focuses on creating the happiest workplace in the globe which is anticipated to be the most productive. It focuses more on those who bring success to the company rather than the success itself. The company offers its employees all kinds of benefits motivate and encourage them to work more effectively. The common extrinsic benefits offered by the company include tuition reimbursement, vacation packages, 410K plans, insurance, dental benefits, no-cost health, and flex spending accounts (Martin, 2014).
There are other benefits which are only meant to motivate their employees even further and to outshine its competitors in attracting more beneficial employees in the organization. They include up to $5000 reimbursement for legal expenses, a maximum of 18 weeks off maternity benefits at about 100% pay and the parents are provided with $500 for expenses for take-out meals during the three months they spend at home. Others include financial support for anyone wishing to adopt a kid, hair stylist, massage therapy, gym, dry cleaning, bike repair, oil change and on-site car wash all available at the company’s headquarters. Moreover, there are free center of fitness, onsite doctors, cloth washing facility and trainers at the Googleplex. Healthy meals are also offered for free at Googleplex. The company also has employee forums at every Friday where the 20 most asked questions are evaluated. Employees are also provided the permission to use any communication channel to air their thoughts and ideas. These channels include direct emails, Fixits, and Google plus conversation. The employees are also mobilized to voluntary address Googlegeist feedback to resolve the company’s issues. The company also gives its employee the freedom to explore, independent time, and environment that make them free relaxed and with great need to be innovative. The company has established a work environment that promotes unplanned innovation and entrepreneurship. All this has enabled the workers to remain enthusiastic toward their job and ready to remain dedicated to the company until their retirement (Martin, 2014).
Company’s Culture
According to the company’s culture, Google is made the way it is by people. The company therefore hires individuals who are determined and smart. The company also embraces diversity in its culture. It normally focuses on one’s skills, professionalism and creativity rather than other discriminative aspects such as the ethnicity, race, gender, age, religion or sexuality. The works to uphold the open culture that is frequently related with startups, where every individual in the organization is a practical contributor and where everyone feels at ease to share opinions and ideas. The company also has a culture of promoting communication where workers can directly address their questions and concerns to the CEO (Larry). The company has designed its cafes and offices in a manner that encourages interactions among the company’s employees (Google.Inc, 2015).
Company’s Ability to Attract and Retain Employees
Google is able to attract and retaining employees by developing a great working environment that makes every person to desire to be part of the team. The company has created a working environment that makes the workers proud to be associated with the company. The company’s workers also have an assurance of experiencing career growth and development in the company. The company also offers a good package and a number of benefits. Employees are also rewarded for good performances, and support to the company. Good communication channels and ability to inquire directly from the company’s leaders also act as a great aspect to attract people to the company. Workers are also valued in the company where their ideas and opinions are always treasured by the company. This make them feel worthwhile and as part of the company. All this has helped the company to retain and attract more employees.
Google Competitive Advantages and Great Disadvantages
The company has been able to achieve its competitive advantages due to its ability to foster unplanned innovations. These innovations are normally very original and unique an aspect that provide the company with a higher competitive advantage in the technology industry. The company has also managed to develop a workforce that feels product to be part of the company and thus, they work hard to protect the image of the company. This ensure that the company’s reputation remains positive despite of a number of open communication channels and the current challenge organizations are facing of uncontrolled communication regarding company’s affair. The company’s recruitment and retention strategies have enabled the company to secure the most talented and determined employees, an aspect that has motivated more growth and development in the company. The company is currently not faced by major competitive disadvantages since it remains the leading companies among most of its businesses in the world.
Recommendation on how to strengthen the Company’s Workforce Strategy
Google has been credited for its effectiveness in managing its workforce. Therefore it serves as a good example of a successful workforce management. The company rewards its employees for a number of issues. However, the company has never tried to reward employees for positive attitude toward the company. In this regard I would encourage the company to consider introducing employees reward not just for good performance but also for good attitude toward the company.
Get Your Custom Paper From Professional Writers. 100% Plagiarism Free, No AI Generated Content and Good Grade Guarantee. We Have Experts In All Subjects.
Place Your Order Now