Googles HR Dilemma - Assignment Example

Human Resource Management Introduction Human resource (HR) Management is one of the core segments of every organization. HR department is responsible for ensuring the maximum productivity of employees by allocating them suitable responsibilities based on their skills and academic qualifications. Allocation of the jobs is done either individually or in groups/teams. In short, HRM’s responsibility include hiring of the people, developing their resources through training, utilizing them by placing them in appropriate places and sustaining their services with respect to needs of the organization. Even big organizations sometimes failed to adopt the right HRM strategies because of the complex structure of HR management. Google, arguably the world’s best internet search company has also met with difficulties in their recruiting process and this paper analyzes the Google’s problems in hiring professionals, through a PESTEL analysis, a SWOT analysis and a Financial analysis. Problem Google has adopted a complex recruiting method which primarily based on the ability to innovate. The selection process includes; coding contests, mysterious billboards and aptitude tests apart from the interviews which lasts for even months. At the end of the tests most of the candidates were rejected citing various reasons. Even some brilliant talents identified were also not selected because of their failure in the background checkups. Later the recruitment process has been limited to a seven stage process in order to reduce the complexity, but still the hiring process creates lot of problems to Google which needs to be rectified. (Verma, p.3, p.4) PESTEL Analysis Political factors Being the most heavily used search engine, Google in a very real sense control the distribution of information to much of the world. Google has recently started a blog to tagline Googles views on government, policy and politics in America. (Catone) Google knows very well that only through the political influence it can force the government to make policies suitable for their business interests. Lobbying for organizations is a general phenomenon in American politics and Google utilizes its search engines and blogs to persuade American political administration to implement policies suitable for Google’s business interests. Since Google is operating mainly from America, the American rules regarding taxes on product and services, employment, and the government’s economic policies can affect Google and in order to conserve their interests Google make use of their extended control over information. Economic factors Even the current economic crisis has not affected Google much even though it was an IT related company. Google’s economy is not entirely related to its revenue from the American market. Its international revenue accounts for 39% of its total revenue in 2005 which shows that a substantial amount of revenue for Google coming from the world market. (Verma, p.10) Though American economic dip have slightly affected, Google was able to compromise for it from the revenues from other international countries like India, China etc which were less affected by the economic recess. Social factors Since Google is an international company, it gives more emphasize on different cultures and countries in which it operates. The company shows no discrimination towards employing people from different ethnic groups. But there are certain reports in which Google allegedly keeping some kind of discrimination towards people over the age of 40 years. Google seems to be more interested in young bloods and their ideas rather than the experienced people. Technological factors Google is one of the topmost companies in the world which values research and development activities. In fact it allows their employees to spend some time in whatever the things they may interest in, in order to develop new ideas. An idea mailing list opened by Google for its employees allow them to post their new ideas whatever it may be and the selected ideas will be rewarded. (Verma, p.7) Moreover, Google optimises its search engines using advanced technologies always which help the customers to use it easily compared to other search engines like, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Live Search etc. Environmental factors “Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research. With more than 200m internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern” (Wissner). Whenever we searches something on Google, our question will be dispatched to several servers in US, Europe, Japan and China and resulted in immense use of electrify and power which may liberate greenhouse gases like CO2. Most of the people were unaware of the environment problems created by the heavy computer usage. Legal factors Lots of legal issues involved in the contents provided by Google’s search engines. For example, pornography and obscene materials are not allowed in many countries. Moreover such materials are restricted to some ages only in some countries. It is difficult for Google to identify the age of the Google search engine users and to prevent the obscene material from reaching the children of below 18 years. Meta tags and multimedia contents are some other disputed areas in Google’s business. It is easy for users to copy the multimedia contents from Google’s servers for their personal and official use. Even copyright materials can be easily stolen from Google’s servers. SWOT Analysis Strengths Google always focussed in hiring real talents and they have not made any compromise on that. Thought the process of hiring in Google is a lengthy procedure, Google always successful in hiring exceptionally brilliant people which really reflects the company’s strength. Even big projects were managed by small tightly focussed teams because of the exceptional abilities of Google’s workforce. Google also succeeded in ensuring greater progress with small teams. (Verma, p.6). Family friendly work environment in the website is the main strength of Google. Moreover the organization has made bureaucracy free atmosphere in its organization in order to welcome good ideas. (Verma, p.6, p.7) Another strength of Google is its ability to attract and retain talents. (Verma, p.5) Most of the people who join Google remain in the organization for a substantial period of time because of the better management. Weakness Lengthy recruiting process of professionals is the main weakness of Google at present. More money and efforts needed for Google to recruit the talents. Google’s control over the content is very weak which often creates law suits and disputes. Moreover the immense utilization of power and electricity by the users severely damages the environment by liberating toxic gases like CO2. Opportunities Because of the immense talents of the workforce, Google can easily think about the diversification of its business to other areas like software development (Operating system and browser), mobile devices to operating systems, Wi-Fi internet access, e-commerce, and all kinds of communication businesses. Threats If Google continue to grow at its present rate organizational inertia could set in making the new product launches, more difficult (Verma, p.8) People’s expectation about quality of their products is so high at present and people often expects higher levels of quality products from Google. So it is not possible for Google to market any products without thorough testing and analysis. It is difficult to provide a sense of empowerment to Google’s engineers and product mangers because of the rapid pace of growth in Google. (Verma, p.8) Financial analysis Google has recorded revenues worth $ 6 billion in 2005, nearly twice that made in 2004. Moreover, Google joined the list of 100 most powerful companies in the world in 2005 (Verma, p.8). International revenues as percentage of total revenue of Google showed a gradual increase from 22% in 2002, to 39% in 2005. (Verma, p.10) Cash and marketable securities also showed increase; 146331 in 2002 to 8034247 in 2005. Total assets also increased from 286892 in 2002 to 10271813 in 2005. (Verma, p.9)All the above statistics are the clear indicators of Google’s rapid financial growth. Solutions Google should liberalize its recruitment strategies in order to accommodate more talents in their organization. Most of the job seekers consider Google Company as a dream destination and hence Google must consider reducing the length of recruitment process. Google at present eliminates those who fail even in the background checkups even if they are fit otherwise. Such procedures must be liberalized in order to utilize the services of more brilliant people. Indian labour market is a cheap and best market for Google compared to the American and other markets which urges Google’s more involvement in Indian labour market. India is the second best behind China as far as population is considered and also the percentage of well educated young bloods is more in India. Google can reduce their efforts in searching for the talents considerably if they can focus more on Indian labour markets. The space for expansion is limited for Google in the search engine business at present and they should concentrate in other fields like software development, communication, e-commerce etc. Conclusions Google is one of the biggest organizations in the world at present because of the innovative business strategies they have developed especially in the Human Resource Management. Google always went after real talents even though identifying such talents was a lengthy process. Google was able to execute big projects with the help of small teams because of the brilliance of their workforce. The main strength of Google is their workforce and the main weakness is their time consuming procedures in identifying the talents. Google has lot of opportunities in other areas and they should focus on diversification because of the limited space for expansion in search engine business. People have a clear view about Google and the quality of their products at present and it is not possible for Google to introduce a new product with comparatively low quality. Work Cited 1. Verma, Mridu.”Google’s HR Dilemma”.2006. ICFAI Business School, Pune. 6 July 2009. 2. Catone, Josh. 2007. “Google the Vote: How Google is Changing the American Political Landscape”. 6 July 2009. 3. Wissner, Alex. January 11, 2009. “Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches”. Timesonline. 6 July 2009. Read More