Report One-

Policies of
Google
Nainika Hira
 CONTENTS
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1. Policies of Google 4-50

 GOOGLE
 From Fortune to Mashable to Glassdoor,
Google is consistently ranked as the best
company to work for in the world. What
truly makes Google a great place to work
is the people. Google’s philosophy is that
with the right tools, you can attract the
best talent, and develop happier and
more productive employees. With these
efforts, Google’s leadership is recognized
worldwide.
Picture 1 and 2: Google’s
Office
Google’s Employee Retention
Programs:
 Uses coaching and mentoring to retain
and develop employees with leadership
potential.
 The responsible department is known as
‘people operations.
 People operations is seen as the core of
the company, the one area that
connects and facilitates all other
departments.
 People operations is seen as the core of the
company, the one area that connects and
facilitates all other departments.
 Google has touted its "Ten Things" philosophy
for some time. One of the "Ten Things" that
really sticks out in light of retention issue is the
following: "It's best to do one thing really, really
well."
 Google applies data collection and analysis
to both potential and existing employees.
Google’s Employee Practices:
1. Getting the right People at The Right Time
One way to cut turnover is to hire the right people the first
time around. Start with a thorough and realistic analysis of
what the different roles in your organization truly require
with regard to knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA’s).

2. Giving attention to every Employee

Schedule frequent check-ins with each employee, keep the
lines of communication open, give plenty of personal
feedback, and make sure that their original positions are still
energizing them. Behavioural assessments that yield insights
into an employee’s natural strengths, needs and drives can be
very valuable tools. Top performers are less likely to flee if
they feel that they are truly valued as individuals.
 Co-founder Sergey Brin added the following: “Our
employees, who have named themselves Googlers,
are everything. Google is organised around the
ability to attract and leverage the talent of
exceptional technologists and businesspeople. We
have been lucky to recruit many creative,
principled and hardworking stars. We hope to
recruit many more in the future. We will reward
and treat them well.”
 At Google, employees are considered the
company’s most valuable asset – the backbone of
the organisation. They are given freedom, a
healthy work-life balance, incredible perks, and
even the chance to have fun at work.
3. Training & Coaching
There is a direct link between training and employee
retention. Employees involved in ongoing training feel that
their employer is interested in them doing a better job, and
the employer cares enough about them to make an
investment in their development.

Google is really good at providing job enrichment.

Googlers are assigned several projects at a time and have
ownership of their projects. They work on these projects
from beginning to end, so they are involved through the
whole process and are able to see how their work makes
impact on the organisation”.
 What are the features of the
coaching programs?
1. Frequent Data Analysis :
Examine both “internal” and “external” drivers of turnover. Internal
drivers refer to characteristics of employees themselves, such as their
personality, intelligence, educational background, experience, job
performance and promotion history. External drivers refer to conditions
that reside outside of the person, such as the job market in a given city
or the quality of one’s immediate manager.

2. ‘20 percent time’ Concept. This programme allows employees to

work on a personal project outside of their allocated duties for up to 20
percent of their working week. Although one day a week may seem like
a lot of time to divert from one’s responsibilities, it is during these
hours that an individual’s passion and ingenuity is best harnessed.
Illustrating this point are the products that have been created from
personal projects, such as Gmail, Google Talk and Google News.
 Each employee is assigned their own mentor within
the company. Naturally, the mentor is chosen based on
data that matches the compatibility of the two
individuals.
 The ‘career guru’ programme allows junior staff
members to discuss their career development, daily
schedule and how to deal with office politics, within a
confidential and friendly environment.
 Staff members are also given the valuable opportunity
to ask senior management any work-related questions
they wish during sessions called TGIF (Thank God
It’s Friday), which, in true Google fashion, often take
place on Thursdays.
 Google-O-Meter, allows staff to vote on employee
suggestions in order to gauge their popularity and
whether each policy or perk has enough traction for
implementation.
 Projects to support the community are another pillar
of the culture at Google; employees are paid for
voluntary work they carry out, while philanthropic
donations are encouraged. Some of the most effective
perks in terms of staff retention are not about
monetary reward at all, but focus on fostering team
spirit and a sense of community.
 Key aspects considered at
Google
 FIT: Is the organization a fit for the employee? Is the organization’s
contribution meaningful to the employee? And are the values of the
workplace in harmony with the employee’s values?
 TRUST: Does the employee have a trusting workplace that exhibits
fairness, respect, integrity and competence?
 CARING: Is the work setting a caring workplace where the
employee has meaningful relationships, a sense of belonging and
camaraderie?
 COMMUNICATION: Does the employee feel the workplace is
transparent, with open, two-way communication?
 DEVELOPMENT: Is the work challenging giving the employee a
feeling that he or she is developing skills and building mastery?
 OWNERSHIP: Does the employee feel like an owner–involved
and participating in decision making and having flexibility and
autonomy?
Google’s Training,
Performance Management.
Google’s practices cover effective employee training
programs, as well as performance management to
maximize resource capabilities. The company uses
appropriate needs analysis to design training
programs aimed at supporting an innovative
workforce. The training programs and their results
are regularly evaluated to ensure that they meet
Google’s needs. The company also has finely tuned
performance management practices, inclusive of
performance planning that directly address corporate
objectives.
Selection Process at Google:
The most significant criteria used in
Google’s management for the selection of
applicants are smartness, creativity, drive
for excellence, and alignment with the
organization. The company does not use
work experience as a major criterion for
selection. These criteria are based on the
firm’s goal of maximizing innovation to
support its broad differentiation strategy.
Constituents of Employee
Training at Google
 Needs Analysis: Google’s management
uses different types of needs analysis,
such as organizational
analysis, work analysis,
and cost-benefit analysis.
 Program Design: Google maintains positive
internal relations to foster employee
participation in creative and innovative
processes. The results-oriented approach
focuses on training outcomes. For example, in
implementing a training program, Google uses
this approach to facilitate employees’ learning.
The relational model optimizes relations
among employees, while the results-oriented
approach ensures that Google’s resources are
effective
 Delivery: Google’s management delivers training
programs in various ways, such as discussions,
simulations and on-the-job training. Discussions
enable Google to maintain rich communications
involving employees. The company uses simulations
to facilitate creative responses. The company uses on-
the-job training to maximize the transfer of knowledge
to new hires or interns.

 Innovation: The emphasis on diversity supports

diverse ideas, which lead to higher rates of innovation.
Innovation is part of Google’s corporate objectives.
 Performance Interviews: Google’s management
conducts performance interviews that address
concerns about individual performance and team
performance. The individual performance interviews
cover knowledge, skills, abilities and other attributes
of employees. The team performance interviews cover
how employees perform as part of project teams in
Google. The interviews are also structured and
unstructured, formal and informal. Google uses
unstructured and informal interviews in the fun
meeting places, such as the coffee and snack areas of
its offices.
Google’s Organizational
Structure & Organizational
Culture
Google’s organizational culture is:

 Open
 Innovative
 Smartwith emphasis on excellence
 Hands-on
 Supports small-company-family rapport
 Google’s success is linked to the effectiveness of its
organizational structure and organizational culture
in supporting excellence in innovation. The company’s
organizational structure is not conventional. Google’s
organizational culture is also not typical because it
emphasizes change and direct social links within the
firm. Theory suggests that a strong alignment between a
firm’s organizational structure and its organizational
culture can lead to higher chances of success. This
benefit is manifested in the case of Google’s businesses
that continue to expand and prosper.
 Google uses function as basis for grouping employees.
For example, the company has a Sales Operations team,
an Engineering & Design Team, and a Product
Management Team, among others
 In addition, the firm’s organizational structure has
considerable flatness. A flat organizational structure
means that Google’s employees, teams or groups can
bypass middle management and report directly to CEO
Larry Page. Employees can also meet and share
information across teams.
Google’s Strengths (Internal
Strategic Factors)
 Google’s success is directly based on its ability to
wield its strengths. In the SWOT analysis model,
a company’s strengths must be sufficient to
support its growth. The following are Google’s
strengths:
 These strengths indicate that Google is growing
and has improved over time. The company’s
diversification of products shows that its business
is expanding. The strong brand image, patents and
large organizational size enable the company to
fight off competition and new entrants
Google v/s The Rest
Google’s people operations
cornerstones are:
 Hiring only the best: sourcing, and selecting, only the
best fit candidates amongst the best pool of candidates
worldwide, and, if it can’t reasonably achieve 100%
perfection in hiring only amazing fits, skewing errors
towards false negatives (eventually passing on a great
candidate) instead of false positives (eventually hiring a
bad fit)
 Creating a meritocratic environment, where the best
performances are correctly identified and rewarded;
 Developing employees to their full potential, through
great people management and on-the-job coaching, peer-
to-peer and outside training, and through a
comprehensive 360-degree feedback collection process.
The following are human
resources tools and processes
used at Google
 Annual performance review (including mid-year
checkpoint)
 Monthly performance check-ins (part of regular 1:1
meetings that also comprise other themes such as career
development, coaching, personal issues, etc.
 Googlegeist engagement survey (that spans much more
than just the regular engagement axes, but measures
basically everything that’s to be measured);
 Annual Upward Feedback Survey, a feedback review
(similar to 360-degree review) where only supervisors are
reviewed by their direct reports
Google’s Alumni Network
 Google has used social media platforms like Facebook
and Twitter to form a network of Google alumni, links
to which are given below:

 Google+ : https://plus.google.com/+GoogleAlumni

 Twitter: https://twitter.com/googlealumni?lang=en

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/googlealumni/
 Former Googlers can make valuable connections with each
other by being part of the Alumni Network. As a member,
they have the opportunity to renew old friendships,
establish new ones and expand their professional network.
 They can get the latest news from Google and share stories
on Google leaders, fellow alumni, exciting projects and
product info. Alumni have also posted hundreds of jobs for
each other.

 They can create and join special interest or regional groups.

Get information about Google events or plan thier own.
Become a mentor to another alumnus, seek advice on
entrepreneurial endeavours, collaborate on open source
projects and more.

 They can take advantage of professional and personal

resources from Google and enjoy exclusive perks for
products and services from international merchants!
 Summing Up: Thus, it is due to the effective
human resource policy practices at Google,
that it is consistently ranked as the best
company to work for; by Fortune, Glassdoor
and Mashable.