Competing in a Global Environment, Workforce Diversity, Ethics and Character - Essay Example

The drive for innovation and creation has created a very diverse, young, and optimistic workplace that continues to top the list of best places to work year after year. Interestingly, whereas many companies place the full emphasis that their employees seek to effect profitability and development, Google seeks to nuance this approach by placing profound importance on ethics and giving back to the global community. For this purpose, Google encourages employees to perform volunteer work in some of the more economically depressed regions of the globe; even going so far as to reward them monetarily for doing this outside of regular work time.

2. Examine the organization’s specific practices or policies and the influence of these practices on individual and organizational outcomes.
One of the specific practices that Google employs which this author understands to be the most unique with regard to promoting individual or organizational outcomes has to do with the fact that Google offers more paid time off than almost any other firm within the market. The reason behind this isn’t a desire for philanthropy or necessarily to encourage people to perform more volunteer work.

Instead, Google has come to realize that the overall productivity of the workforce is established and maximized by firms that allow people to spend sufficient time with their loved ones; away from the job site (Silverman, 2012). Furthermore, Google has come to realize that the most creative ideas that its employees have been established outside the office. For this reason, Google offers and encourages its employees to take, at least one month of vacation for every 12 months they work at the firm. Interestingly, this has worked out very well for Google as it has continued to grow each and every year by impressive percentages.

One additional tactic that Google uses to encourage organizational and individual outcomes has to do with the fact that employees are encouraged to form impromptu teams and engage with other sectors within the company. Whereas other firms fail as they slot employees within certain divisions and leave them there indefinitely, Google succeeds in that it allows these individuals to interact throughout the organization; and even encourages this (Zhu, 2011). The underlying reason behind this is that Google appreciates the fact that the most creative ideas come from individuals that do not feel as if they are slotted within a specific job; but have the ability to create, establish alliances, and forge new ideas with individuals that they might not otherwise regularly come in contact with as a function of their day to day job responsibilities.

3. Determine which practices related to work attitudes in U.S. organizations are most strongly affected by diversity and how those effects could be addressed.
After reviewing the issue of diversity, it is clear and apparent that some of the practices of diversity which weigh the most on work attitudes have to do with the value that employees share with one another and the value that they believe they have for the firm in general.

A case in point would be the fact that employees within a firm that places a high emphasis on diversity would likely come to realize that the firm is uniquely interested in the individual and seeks to maximize the dual goals of diversity alongside utility for all employees involved. Likewise, a converse view of the same situation would illicit an understanding that the individual is nothing more than a faceless representation of a larger whole; not unique individually, and certainly dispensable if the company should need to hire someone else. By proving to the employee that their individual nature and the diverse representation of their workforce is a priority, the firm is able to establish a degree of trust that might otherwise not exist. This encourages loyalty and promotes the overall efficiency and productivity of the workforce. Read More