MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES – COMPETING FOR, RECRUITING AND RETAINING TALENT AT GOO
ID: 419704 • Letter: M
Question
MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES – COMPETING FOR, RECRUITING AND RETAINING TALENT AT GOOGLE UK
Over a decade ago, ‘a pair of idealistic lads in a garage set up a company (Google) that would change the way many of us live’ (Usborne 2009). Google is now Fortune Magazine’s fourth best place to work and the second (after Apple) most admired company (2010). It is known for having an informal corporate culture, operating under a philosophy where they believe work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun. The Independent newspaper recently took up an invitation to spend a day at Google London. They wanted to ascertain whether or not it really was the greatest place to work in the world. The reporter toured the offices and spoke with employees (Googlers). The UK Director of Operations stated that ‘We look after our staff so that they want to come to work.’ Having toured the office for a day the reporter departed, ‘secretly wishing [he] were a Googler’.
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin named the search engine they built ‘Google’, a play on the word ‘googol’, the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The name reflects the immense volume of information that exists, and the scope of Google’s mission: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products and generates profit primarily from advertising; the Google web search engine is the company’s most popular service. Google runs over one million servers in data centers around the world, and processes over one billion search requests every day. Revenues typically exceed $20 Billion per year. Google’s rapid growth has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions and partnerships beyond the company’s core search engine. It has also created significant Human Resource Management (HRM) challenges. Google has around 20 000 full-time employees worldwide and aims to attract and retain the smartest designers and engineers. Google claim to be ‘inclusive in [their] hiring, and favor ability over experience’. With offices around the world and dozens of languages spoken by Google staffers the company is diverse. The result is a team that reflects the global audience Google serves. They aim to ‘nurture an invigorating, positive environment by hiring talented people’.
At Google London, the company employs technical and administrative staff, including human resources, finance, legal, facilities, marketing, communications, business development and corporate development staff. Google’s HR team (People Operations) work closely with management teams to attract, hire, develop and reward talented people. The HR function is committed to preserving Google’s ‘uncommon culture’ as they continue to grow worldwide. Within the HR team they have specialists working on staffing, benefits, compensation, development, people programs and talent management.
Supporting the company’s growth, Google Staffing is responsible for developing strategies to hire exceptionally talented people. ‘Google is organized around the ability to attract and leverage the talent of exceptional technologists and business people. We have been lucky to recruit many creative, principled and hard-working stars.’ Larry Page, Google Co-founder. Google’s People Programs are geared to anticipate the demands and meet the requirements of the company’s rapid expansion throughout the world. They aim to encourage talented people to explore career opportunities with the organization.
This department helps Google’s recruiting and HR processes work effectively, engage in ongoing dialogues with university students and professors. Providing information on their ‘hiring’ process, Google claim to take great care in how they attract and hire the very best talent – ‘because at Google, people are our most important asset’. For candidates, the process begins with searching for a job opening that interests them. Following application, qualifications and experience are reviewed by Google recruiters to determine suitability. Recruiters may then contact candidates to learn more about their background and answer candidate questions. A phone interview may then be conducted in order to determine whether a candidate should be brought in for interview. The interview process for technical positions evaluates core software engineering skills and for business and general positions evaluates problem solving and behavioral abilities. Following interviews, recruiters will decide if a candidate is suitable for the job opening and will then make a job offer. Recognizing the ongoing need to develop talented employees, Google’s Learning and Leadership Development (LLD) team designs and implements innovative learning programs that support and develop employees.
HR Business Partners are on the front line of servicing and interacting with employees. They perform both operational and strategic roles in providing human resources expertise in employee relations, coaching/development, compensation, conflict management, organizational development, and training – placing considerable focus on retention, scaling and culture issues. Google aims to guide employee actions and behavior in order to encourage creativity and productivity. The founders believe that great, creative things are more likely to happen with the right company culture. There is an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments that contribute to overall success. As a motivation technique, Google uses a policy often called Innovation Time Off, where Google engineers are encouraged to spend twenty per cent of their work time on projects that interest them. Some of Google’s newer services originated from these independent endeavors. As noted by Mediratta (2007), a software engineer at Google, ‘It sounds obvious, but people work better when they’re involved in something they’re passionate about’.
The company lists reasons to work at Google. ‘Appreciation is the best motivation, so we’ve created a fun and inspiring workspace you’ll be glad to be a part of, including on-site doctor; massage and yoga; professional development opportunities; running trails; and plenty of snacks to get you through the day’. Google offers a variety of benefits, including a choice of medical programs, stock options, maternity and paternity leave and much more.
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Prompt Questions:
1. What are your insights from this article? What management theories support your insights? (5 marks)
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2. How was managing human resources – competing for, recruiting and retaining talent done at GOOGLE UK? (5 marks)
Explanation / Answer
1) Google is a technology based company and high quality talented manpower is the major input required to ensure success and growth of the company. Google understands this and has build an environment within the organization which is entirely focussed on recruitment, retention, and satisfaction of the human resource within the organization by application of all management principles and and an extremely effective strategy for optimizing output and performance. It has proved that diversity when implemented in the right way and utilised for its core value of existence of differences within the workforce, can prove to be highly beneficial for any organization. The organization understands that a diverse workforce will provide it the required variation, talent, ability, achievement and innovation within the organization to achieve it's goals of producing a unique incomparable product. Inability to accommodate diversity within an organization or support its existence with affirmative action can prove to be a major disadvantage for any organization, lack of affirmative action can lead to mistrust and disloyalty towards the organization. It can also cause an organization to stagnate as impetus provided by encouraging diverse ideas and viewpoints is not available. An organization which refuses to implement affirmative action and utilise diversity misses out on availing the best of talent available in the world. An organization which does not indulge in affirmative action create itself a gap between the various employees resulting in a conflict atmosphere within the organization leading to its focus shifting to sorting out conflicts within instead of handling conflict outside and focusing on its achievements and goals. The price tag for not helping employees learn to respect and value each other is enormous, this statement means that until and unless every employee learns to co-operate, co-ordinate and communicate with the other employees and values the inputs, and all move together as one whole organization rather than as individuals the organization is not set up to achieve goals and sustain itself. We all know that human resource is one of the most important resources for an organization and Google epitomises human resource management by futuristic and dynamic strategies aimed at attracting and retaining young innovators and encouraging personal growth through provision of training, motivation and encouragement to think out of the box and achieve excellence. Google understands the current scenario, that times have changed and organizations are celebrating diversity not inhibiting it. To encourage an environment which is inclusive and ensuring equal opportunity as well as absolute comfort and harmony within the workplace, making the office a want to be at place, rather than a have to be at. Signifying through unity in diversity its global outlook and approach and maximizing utilization of a multicultural team bringing their unique skill sets to the organization thereby creating exceptional value for the organization. Productivity as well as profitability is substantially enhanced creating a model of Excellence which needs to be imitated across the globe and leads to exceptional gains for all concerned. The company exemplifies employee retention and satisfaction through promotion of continuous learning and growth of all employees associated with the company, resulting in excellent performances and low attrition rate. This makes the expansion and growth plans of the company easier to implement as recruitment of workforce is never a problem due to the reputation of the company within the market, among the available workforce. The company encourages competition and motivation through rewarding performance by implementation of economic value added measures of performance, and offering the best compensation and perks in the segment. It represents the dream company to work for, for most job aspirants within the segment.
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Google competed for talent by providing an attractive option to potential employees projecting an image of being an employee focused organisation. It has master the strategy of hiring exceptional and quality talent from across the globe, due to its reputation of offering a unique work atmosphere team that encouraging personal growth and innovation by providing Independence within the work as well as, absolute support by provision of training on the job and for improvement of skills. The company understands importance of flexibility in the workplace, which is a major requirement for innovation. the company has implemented stringent procedures within the recruitment process to ensure that it hires only the right candidate suitable for the organisation to achieve its goals, and having ample enthusiasm and motivation to grow along with the organisation. It implements all required principles of Human Resource Management buy extensive analysis of every candidate on the basis of personal behaviour problem solving skills as well as aptitude and knowledge through collection and analysis of personal data as well as extensive interviewing on a one to one basis.
By having unable and perfectly managed Human Resource Department with adequate stuffing to be able to plan and manage all recruitment and retention activities of the organisation ensures that the organisation is able to hire and retain the best quality manpower within the industry. Constant interaction and feedback through specification of easy and regular flow of communication between employees and management results in complete cognizance of employee dissatisfaction, if any, and implementation of immediate control measures. Atmosphere within the organisation is conducive to encouraging positive action which enhances creativity and productivity within all employees through Emphasis song teamwork as well as motivation for individual accomplishments to ensure all round growth and success of every individual, singly as well as in a group. Encouragement the organisation provides for taking time off within the work hours to develop projects and ideas of personal interest to an individual has paid rich dividend in the form of employees having created innovative products which could well put Google way above all competition. Google has ensured that It stays on top of every process involved in management of Human Resource namely attracting the best available talent, recruiting suitable employees and retaining to the maximum all employees once recruited, through exemplary planning and strategic management of its human resource.
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