Managing Human Resources at Google Essay

Google Inc. is an American multinational corporation which provides Internet-related products and services, including internet search, cloud computing, software and advertising technologies. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University in 1995. By 1996, they had built a search engine (initially called BackRub) that used links to determine the importance of individual webpages. Larry and Sergey named the search engine they built â€Å"Google,† a play on the word â€Å"googol,† the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google Inc. was born in 1998, when Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim wrote a check for $100,000 to that entity—which until then didn’t exist. Google has been estimated to run over one million servers in data centers around the world, and process over one billion search requests and about twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data every day. Google is a high-energy, fast paced work environment. While the dress code might be â€Å"casual† the company attracts and retains some of the brightest minds in the technology industry. There is a work hard, play hard atmosphere. Most workers at Google have base salaries that are on the lower end of normal for the markets they operate in. The base salaries are supplemented by stock options, challenging work and extensive benefits. In addition to the normal health and welfare benefits that larger companies offer, Google provides its employees with other benefits like Health care for employee and his family, plus on-site physician and dental care at headquarters, vacation days and holidays, flexible work hours, maternity and parental leave, plus new moms and dads are able to expense up to $500 for take-out meals during the first four weeks that they are home with their new baby and Google Child Care Center, just five minutes from Google headquarters in Mountain View. Other bene fits that Google offers to its employees are Fuel Efficiency Vehicle Incentive Program, employee discounts and onsite dry cleaning, plus a coin-free laundry room in the Mountain View office. Google has principles, â€Å"Ten things we know to be true†: 1. Focus on the user and all else will follow. 2. It’s better to do one thing really, really well. 3. Fast is better than slow. 4. Democracy on the web works. 5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer. 6. You can make money without doing evil. 7. There’s always more information out there. 8. The need for information crosses all borders. 9. You can be serious without a suit. 10. Great just isn’t good enough. Some of Google’s products are: †¢ Web Search – search billions of web pages †¢ Google Chrome – a browser built for speed, simplicity and security †¢ Mobile – get Google products on your mobile †¢ Image Search – search for images on the web †¢ News – Search thousands of news stories †¢ Drive – Create, share and keep all your stuff in one place †¢ Translate – Instantly translate text web pages, and files between over 50 languages †¢ Groups – Create mailing lists and discussion groups †¢ Blog Search – Find blogs on your favorite topics †¢ Scholar – Search scholarly pages  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ Alerts – Get email updates on the topics of your choice †¢ Code Top Google Inc. competitors: Yahoo! Inc. Company Profile Yahoo! wants to spread some cheer to Internet users around the world. Its network of websites offers news, entertainment, and shopping, as well as search results powered by Microsoft’s Bing. Yahoo! generates most of its revenue through providing search and display advertising to Web operations in three categories: Communications & Communities (including Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Groups, and Flickr), Search and Marketplaces (Yahoo! Search), and Media (Yahoo! Homepage, Yahoo! Finance). Other revenues come from fee-based services such as premium e-mail; royalties, licenses, and mobile products; and broadband Internet access. Yahoo! publishes content in about 45 languages and in 60 countries, regions, and territories. MSN Company Profile MSN, a part of Microsoft’s Online Services Division, is a leading provider of Internet content and services. Its msn.com Web portal provides a wide range of news, information, and entertainment content, as well as online shopping and a search service powered by Bing, Microsoft’s search engine product. MSN also offers communications services such as its MSN Instant Messenger and the Web-based e-mail service Hotmail. All total, the MSN portal draws an audience of more than 100 million monthly users in the US. Its global reach includes some 50 country-specific sites in about 20 languages. Managing Human Resource in Google Managing Human Resources has become vital factor for the organizations within the modern and fast-paced business environment. The unique challenge of HR department is to ensure that the employees are motivated and committed to the organization with the complete integrity and honesty. HR practices at Google named â€Å"People Operations†, which is designed to underline the fact that it is not a mere administrative function, but ensures to build a strong employee-employer relationship. Google is well-known as a great employer and majority of its recognition has come as a result of HR programs and ideas. However there are some gaps in the HR practices of Google. Recruitment and Selection procedure Google place great emphasis in how they attract and hire the very best talent. Google take hiring very seriously and make consensus based decisions. However, nearly every candidate at Google commented on its slow screening, recruiting, and interview process. Several posts suggest that hiring process in Google is very long, time-consuming and annoying. Some examples from current employee of Google are: â€Å"Google actually celebrates its hiring process, as if its ruthless inefficiency and interminable duration were a sure proof of thoroughness, a badge of honor. Perhaps it is thorough. But I would be willing to wager that Microsoft’s hiring process, which takes a fraction of the time, does not result in a lower-skilled workforce or result in a higher rate of attrition. â€Å"The interview process was very mixed: They had me slated as a Windows Developer for some reason, to everyone on my interview loop wondered why. I flubbed my first coding pretty bad but after that it was clear that no-one on my interview loop had enough experience or knowledge to level me. On the other hand they figured that out and scheduled a follow on interview with the head of the Kirkland office who asked reasonable and pertinent questions. Also I was surprised that Google seemed to be proud that they didn’t communicate from one interviewer to the next: at Microsoft it was a good opportunity to find more appropriate interviewers, etc. if a person seemed misstated. Oh well, I thought my interview and hiring process was an anomaly.† Hiring process takes from one to four m onth and it is inconvenient for applicants; however it is necessary from business performance view. In order to hire new employee management should approve head count; also staff can only be hired into approved positions. All new positions must pass through the respective budget approvals for each area. Obviously, recruitment at Google is not the responsibility only of the HR team. The need to hire the right people permeates across the organization, becoming the outlook of every employee, turning Google into a recruiting machine. â€Å"My experience actually in Aug. 2004 when I was interviewing for a sales position in the Seattle office was the typical 13+ interviews, including a day trip to MV where I was told that someone would take me to lunch and instead she took me in a conf. room and interviewed me. So I ended up not eating at all that day until I returned to the airport at 4pm. However, I passed my interviews with flying colors and was surprised 3 weeks later when I still hadn’t heard from my recruiter about the results of the hiring committee meeting.† There are a lot of similar complains about hiring process and interviews which give us the conclusion that Google’s hiring process is time-consuming, both for employees and for Google. Some of the current employees mentioned also that Microsoft procedure is much better. Temporary Employees Google HR rarely gives permanent jobs immediately and prefers to recruit temporary and contract employees. Google’s emphasis on attracting youngsters might reduce its ability to get experience recruiters. Another problem of HRM in Google is the inability to track the on-job performance of the new hires. Challenge of growth Google has done a remarkable job in growing from a small private company to a big organization with 15.000 employers in a few years. However Google face the continual challenge of being able to handle successfully its open and fun-filled work culture. As the company grows it is difficult to provide the same financial and other incentives for its employees. Google’s Human resource chief has said that the runaway success of the fast-growing internet company is generating its own set of people management problems. Moreover Google HR has a trouble in recruitment talented locals in its South Asian operations. The shortage of web development, skills and knowledge of JavaScript and Ajax, the web design technology –Google Map- and the short supply of middle managers become a challenge for HR department. The diversification of the HR functions such as salaries in these countries is another gap in the HR management. â€Å"I was hired to work in Google’s Singapore office. I found out very quickly that Google International is not the same as Google-US. The offered pay was way too low to survive in Singapore, so I left after I got another job offer that I felt was better for me. I really do believe that Google is doing some important work with humanitarian mapping projects and digitizing libraries. But for me, I felt that Google’s popular image did not match its actions in the work place, and that some of the things they did were not very â€Å"Googly.† Working conditions and environment The nature of work at Google undergoes constant changes, hence few employees are able to achieve the task for what they were initially hires. It is also opined that this may hinder the performance management function. Some people would agree that working at Google is more exciting, but Google employees are working incredible hours. A 12-hour working day in Google has become a norm, owning to its wide array of employee benefits and perks such us Google Child Care Center, on-site haircut free of charge, swimming pools, dry cleaning services, on-site medical staff etc. A current employee says: â€Å"There was no proper mentoring for 6 months and within 9 months of my tenure my manager was not happy with my performance, and management always stressed on â€Å"Putting some Extra Effort† – in other words â€Å"Spending some extra hours† †¦ this may not be the case at Google-MV but this is what it is in India. If you don’t put extra hours then you won’t get promoted, no promotion means no salary hike. I feel sad about my decision on choosing Google over IBM †¦ Small pay, No work, No Team spirit, No Hike in 12 months, No balance between Family Life and work are few things which motivated my move out.† In such organization where employers work more that the schedule working hours the relationship and the environment between employers might not be the finest. Employees might lose the balance between work and social life and this finally will lead to unfriendly working environment. â€Å"As soon as I got inside, I had the feeling of being swallowed by a giant borg. Really, I felt like I didn’t exist, watching people buzzing around with laptops.† I have been sitting back, surprised at the level of negativity expressed by those on this thread, and wanted to share my very different experience. Recommendations Google has built a culture where a well-chosen elite accommodates flexibility, shifting roles and above all else, urgency. As Google grows in size and strength, it is a challenge to maintain the pace of innovation and convey a sense of empowerment to Google’s engineers and product managers. In my opinion the first thing that HR department must take into consideration is the very long duration for recruitment and interview process. Selection of the â€Å"right† candidate is an important function of HRM, but this doesn’t mean that interviews and selection procedures must be so time-consumer. HR managers might receive 250 applications for every vacancy. They must compare the qualifications of the applicant with the job description of the vacancy and find the application that fits with the duties of the position, the most suitable. It will be also more efficient for both employees and Google to reduce the number of interviews from over than 4 to maximum 2 or 3. For the dilemma to hire permanent or temporary employees Human Resource Manager must recognize the benefits that they could gain from permanent staff. With a permanent employee, company will save time in training and gain stability. Permanent employees can also contribute to the growing of the business as they get more efficient at their jobs through familiarity with the processes. Temporary employees often lack motivation and loyalty to the company due to the short time spent assisting with operations. HR must also encourage innovation and independent initiatives to its employer. It must give them the time and resources to pursue new ideas in order to develop more tools, functions and technology in order to increase its efficiency and contribute to it’s succeed. Although providing freedom to engineers might attract talent and encourage innovation, but company should not deviate from its core business strategy which directly affects the revenue. Also in countries that it is difficult to find qualified person who can meet company’s expectations for the vacancy position, like the example above (South Asia), HR manager can select the most suitable from the applicants and training him to enrich his skills and knowledge. Google might offer a range of benefits and perks but it should be also careful in balancing business and pleasure activities. The promotion and bonus must not combine with overtimes but with performance and skills. Another important factor that HR manager in Google must consider is the corporate and friendly environment in the organization. If they maintain a friendly relationship between employees they will successful growth and increase productivity. Conclusion Managing Human Resources effectively leads to an improved ability to attract and retain qualifies employees who are motivated to perform and the results of having the right employees motivated to perform are numerous. They include greater probability, low employee turnover, high product quality, lower production costs and more rapid acceptance and implementation of the corporate strategy. No company in the world but Google offers expensive perks like free food, free fitness center, free barber shop that come to you, free car wash while work, free pool table, games room, lap pools for exercises, volley ball courts, company massagers, free laundry, free doctor on site. A research in 2012 shows that the best company to work for is Google. However Google seems to have a gap in the Human Resource Management in a range of factors that HR manager must consider and solve them before these become an important impact to its productivity and growth.