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People, Culture And Contemporary Leadership

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People, Culture And Contemporary Leadership

Table of Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 3
Performance Related Initiatives ................................................................................................................... 3
Culture-Based Initiative ................................................................................................................................ 4
Engagement-Related initiative...................................................................................................................... 5
 gDNA ................................................................................................................................................. 5
 Segmentors & Integrators................................................................................................................. 5
Recommendations for HR Strategies ............................................................................................................ 6
 Performance Oriented ...................................................................................................................... 6
 Culture Oriented ............................................................................................................................... 6
 Engagement Oriented ....................................................................................................................... 6
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
Recommendations ........................................................................................................................................ 7
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Introduction
Google is one of the most leading and advanced companies in web services and over the years
has gradually become a front-runner in consumer hardware capabilities backed by its software
and AI expertise. An American global technology-based company founded by Larry Page and
Sergey Brin in 1998 becomes the symbol of creativity and innovation for the past decade. The
world is progressing every day and so is the tech sector. Many companies along with research
and development are also capitalizing heavily in their employees to attain a better performance
management system. Google offers a unique and creative working environment as employee
goal-setting has been a part of Google’s DNA from the start. (Trahant & Trahant, 2019)

Google controls its activities in Australia under the flag of Alphabet Inc. and goes by the name
“Google Australia Pty Limited” which is a foreign-owned private company. Google is leading
the way in the IT sector as it prioritizes in investing in its organization. The organizational
culture and employee engagement we see in Google is highly innovative which in turn reflects
better performance and high profits. ("Google Australia Pty Ltd", 2019)

Performance Related Initiatives

Human resource management has played a key role in Google’s success. Google mostly
highlights brilliance and smartness among its staffs. What makes Google different from rest of
the companies is its performance related initiatives and innovative human resource management.
Different approaches, procedures, and methods are used for hiring and recruitment. This
exceptional approach ensures an adequate workforce and results in admiration and approval of
the employees. Along with excellent human resource management of the firm, the organization
also tends to develop new performance-related initiatives and performance reviews. These are
modified to offer great outcomes for Google’s smart and creative approach. (Steiber & Alänge,
2013)

One of the initiatives taken by Google is to develop an exceptional performance review system
hierarchy from top to bottom. Senior Vice President of People Operations Laszlo Bock
implemented this system in 2014 where the rating system was ended and a new five-point scale
method was implemented twice every year throughout the world. A specific group is selected
related to an issue or performance of the organization and their opinion or feedback is then
processed. The leading purpose for the managers in this feedback is to avoid any sort of bias in
the feedback which is accomplished by mutual consent and through the justification of every
manager’s decision. Department executives are informed about possible difficulties in unbiased
the given feedback. It can be done either by exaggerating an employee’s latest performance or
any other reflective approach is considered. Google considered all the variables and obstacles
and after assessing every possibility, the respective managers fill in on the concluding evaluation
of an employee. Outlines of these evaluations are shared ever six months and a different set of
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situations are related to validating the evaluation. The employee annual compensation doesn’t
depend on the evaluation taken from the reviews. Google semiannual review initiative was
launched to make its performance management systems better with the goal to offer the
appropriate motivation to their staff so that they can grow and contribute to Google’s success.
("Performance Management at Google", 2019) Google believes that external rewards and
benefits are no doubt important but positive feedback highly influences an employee to give
better than before. Google drives its performance management on these phenomena and results
are extraordinary.

Culture-Based Initiative
It’s well established that Google has a distinctive and pioneering culture. Ordinary companies
not even come close to what Google spends on its employees and the environment it provides for
them. But Google’s accomplishment can be endorsed to this culture. It is not wrong to say that
Google even hired individuals whose only purpose is to have the staff content and uphold
productivity. The organizational culture in Google is surely one significant reason that drives the
industry to endure its management in the IT section and online advertising businesses.

Google organizational culture is exclusively planned for innovation. They are aware of the
significance of directness among teams. Google believes that this path will lead them to
encourage an innovative approach among the employees and they are surely delivering. Some of
the key features considered in Google’s organizational culture are:

 Openness among the employees

 Seek for Innovation
 Excellence with smartness
 Hands-on approach

Surely, all these benefits come at a great price but Google’s believes in employee disappointment
and high revenue. No matter, how much it cost, it surely helping Google generating tremendous
revenue. Here are some of the finest benefits of being a part of Google:

 Provision of breakfast, lunch, and dinner

 Provision of health and dental facilities
 Free laundry and haircuts
 Entitled massages
 Entertainment and Recreational Facilities
 Sports Activities
 Provision of Hybrid car
 Nap pods
 Health Insurance
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 On-site physicians
 Death Benefits

One of the finest examples of a culture-oriented initiative taken by Google was the paid
maternity leaves for a sufficient time. This is because Google data analysis showed that women
were resigning rapidly and this was mostly happening with new mothers. ("Inside Google's
Culture of Success and Employee Happiness", 2019) At that time, Google’s paid off leave plan
covered only 12 weeks but Google transformed this plan to 5 months so that the new mothers
could get enough time to manage their personal affairs with complete pay and entitled benefits.
This showed a remarkable result as this modification in the policy decreased the attrition for new
mothers to 50%.

Engagement-Related initiative
Another factor that played a critical role in Google’s success is its human resource department
different approach towards the business. This not only involves the development of an
organization or employee but also how the corporation paves its way to drives engagement.
Google is very keen and systematic in this sector and purely relies on statistics and data gathered
through different experimentation every year. Google is one of the few countries where there are
people hired just to make their employee well satisfied. Whenever an opportunity presents itself,
Google takes full advantage of it and formulate new initiatives to keep company progress in
check.

 gDNA
A few years back, Google started an employee engagement related initiative to see what
problems or hurdles were affecting their workers and how they can overcome such situations.
Laszlo Bock, the People Operation leading person introduced an extensive research study named
“gDNA” dedicated on creating a scientific approach of the work involvement. It opened many
new areas of research for human resource management. Employment engagement surveys were
conducted on different parameters to gather very valuable data. gDNA is much more than a
survey, it can also evaluate how both the work atmosphere and workers’ discrete behaviors shape
the employee involvement. To generalize the result Google makes sure that thousands of
indiscriminately opted workers complete the survey every year. (Steiber & Alänge, 2013)

 Segmentors & Integrators

One key outcome from a comprehensive survey conducted from Google showed that the concept
of work-life balance is faulty. It was revealed that there are two kinds of employees working at
Google. First comes the “Segmentors”, these are the individuals who after working hours can go
home freely with any tension about work then there are “Integrators.” Unfortunately, these
people keep on struggling to distinguish work and life. The results of this research were very
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promising as it provided Google the opportunity for engagement related improvement. Before
this, there were 31% Segmentors and 69% Integrators in Google organizational structure. Google
started working on identifying the areas that had led to such disproportional division so that they
can make their employee's life easier. ("re:Work - Segmentors vs Integrators: Google’s work-
life-balance research", 2019)

Recommendations for HR Strategies

 Performance Oriented
Any company’s performance relies on its employees and particularly when your business
expands. As the number grows, you might start neglecting what matters most, your employees.
Google’s hierarchy makes the managers more influential as they are more involved with
stakeholders and it provides them more access to the information. On the other hand, a
manager’s team has not accessed to all that information which can assist them in their
performance. The decision makers must engage their respective teams as it surely influences the
impact of their work. ("Performance Management at Google", 2019)

 Culture Oriented
There is always a chance for improvement, no matter how much you progress. (Rai, 2011)
Google’s organizational culture if improving can step up the information sharing process. At
present, the organization’s cultural appearances assist in communications networking and
information sharing but in an organized manner. Google can upsurge operatives’ degree of
freedom to capitalize on the speed and competence of information handling. This will surely
uplift the innovation level in the business’s product development procedures.

 Engagement Oriented
There should be a balance between an employee personal and professional life. This is necessary
to make the employees pleased, inspired, and creative. Any organization plays a critical role in
assisting employees to attain work-life balance. So there is a wonderful opportunity for Google
to develop rational and adaptive policies or modify current policies to increase engagement that
imposes work-life balance. . ("re:Work - Segmentors vs Integrators: Google’s work-life-balance
research", 2019) For example, if Google’s Australian office could run a program like “Dublin
Goes Dark” which Google initiated in Dublin that made it compulsory for the employees to drop
off their work-related gadgets before departing the office.
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Conclusion
Google as an organization can be considered as a dynamic and unique corporate system for
constant innovation, connecting the whole organization and supported by a performance, culture,
and engagement-oriented and top to bottom management and board. With the passage of time,
Google has certainly taken numerous initiatives for the organization as well as for their
employees keeping the innovation process grow rapidly.

Recommendations

1. Google Australia Pty Ltd. (2019). Retrieved from

https://www.ibisworld.com.au/australian-company-research-reports/information-
media-telecommunications/google-australia-pty-ltd-company.html
2. Performance Management at Google. (2019). Retrieved from
https://blog.impraise.com/360-feedback/performance-management-at-google-360-
feedback
3. Inside Google's Culture of Success and Employee Happiness. (2019). Retrieved from
https://neilpatel.com/blog/googles-culture-of-success/
4. Trahant, G., & Trahant, G. (2019). Google Innovation Case Study. Retrieved from
http://www.transportationlab.org/google/2016/11/28/this-is-a-test-for-private-
business-google
5. Steiber, A., & Alänge, S. (2013). A corporate system for continuous innovation: the case
of Google Inc. European Journal Of Innovation Management, 16(2), 243-264. doi:
10.1108/14601061311324566
6. Rai, R. (2011). Knowledge management and organizational culture: a theoretical
integrative framework. Journal Of Knowledge Management, 15(5), 779-801. doi:
10.1108/13673271111174320
7. Work - Segmentors vs Integrators: Google’s work-life-balance research. (2019).
Retrieved from https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/googles-work-life-balance-
segmentors-v-integrators/