Strategic Human Resource Management: of Google - Case Study Example

Strategic Human Resource Management: Case Study of Google (Name) (Course) (University) Date of presentation: Lecturer: Strategic Human Resource Management: Case Study of Google Case Summary The case study is an analytic review of Google’s human resource management practices. The case study begins with a review of key features of Google’s human resource management practices. The last part is an evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of these practices. Google is an American knowledge-based company specializing in Internet search and online advertising. Although the company has been in the industry for slightly less than two decades, its business prospects have grown tremendously because of the company’s superior and flexible HR policies and today, Google is a global leader in the industry. The company’s products are consumed by millions of individuals and organizations across the world (Guest, Dewe and Conway 85). A key factor that has helped Google grow at such a high rate is its philosophy of working through people. The company believes that investing in human resources is the key to strategic, rapid growth. Indeed, development of human capital is an important determinant of success and growth in the knowledge-based industry. In light of this consideration, Google has embarked on an aggressive human resource management program, as well as, innovative technological changes, which have given the company leading edge in the industry (Guest, Dewe and Conway 86). Google’s human resource practices take into account various issues affecting employee welfare ad productivity. Besides offering competitive salary packages, Google strives to make its work environment one of the most employee-friendly. The company has implemented work-life balance programs to allow employees balance between career and personal life commitments. This initiative is an important strategic move and has contributed to increased employee motivation, morale and job satisfaction Earley & Peterson 15). The company recruits employees from all walks of life regardless of their experience and offers ongoing training and development programs for its employees. This has encouraged employees to be more creative and innovative. Despite the superiority of Google’s human resource management practices, some concerns have been raised. One of these issues whether the company can be able to maintain the high growth rate and not affect employee productivity. There are fears that the company’s rapid growth and large number of employees are a potential cause of inefficiency due to bureaucracy. Moreover, the company does not give its employees resources and time to engage in independent initiatives. Analysis and Discussion a) Analyze the innovative HR practices and the 'Best Place to Work For' culture at Google. Google has implemented some of the most innovative and flexible HR management practices through its ‘Best Place to Work For’ and this has seen the company grow in profitability and size. Recruitment and retention of skilled and motivated employees is a major issue of concern for Google’s HR managers. Through its ‘Best Place to Work For’ culture, Google gives top priority to attracting and developing a wide range of talents. Google has long realized that staff training and development is crucial to its ongoing success (Huselid 666-668). Through continuous training of employees, Google has managed to articulate its human resources with the company’s core strategic objectives and mission. This has in turn added up to the company’s competitive advantages and high profitability. According to Guest, Dewe and Conway (81-86), staff development is an essential aspect of human resource management in today’s organizations, not only in the knowledge based industries but also in other industries. Through staff training and development, Google has provided a framework for its employees to develop their personal and organizational skills, knowledge and ability. To ensure that the right human resources are developed and retained, Google continuously and systematically reviews the development needs of its employees. Development needs are assessed in the context of employee’s position in the organization as well as the company’s strategic goals (Lerberghe, Adams & Ferrinho 525). According to Google’s HR management and practices policy, the process of identifying employee development needs involves careful analysis of job demands, mission objectives, and production process and resource requirement. This has made it possible for the company to identify skills and abilities that need to be developed further. In recognition of the personal challenges that employees face, Google has implemented work-life balance programs. These programs give employees increased freedom to decide how to harmonize personal life and career commitments (Earley & Peterson 100-115). Indeed, Google has been effective in its management of employees because the company recognizes that personal difficulties may cause problems in fulfilling job obligations. This has made the company more attractive to potential and current employees. The various work-life balance programs implemented by the company have increased employee job satisfaction, morale and ability to work under stress. These programs have also not only helped strengthen employee commitment but also given employees the ability to handle situations that lead to absenteeism. In addition to impressive salary perks, Google offers free meals to it employees. The company also offers dental and other health services to all employees. All these strategic initiatives have the ability to court employee loyalty and commitment, which are in turn associated with the company’s superior performance. Through innovative human resource practices, Google has built an enabling work environment for both current and potential employees. Essentially, the primary focus of Google’s innovative human resource practices is to nurture the most competent workforce, which can help the company realize its goals in the most efficient manner (Huselid 670). Is the ‘Best Place to Work For’ culture at Google really meant to attract and motivate the employees or is it mainly done with a business motive Although Google’s ‘Best Place to Work For’ culture can be used to enhance realization of some strategic business objectives, the culture is to a great extent an initiative for attracting and motivating employees. This is well evidenced by the fact that the culture is more focused on employee issues. Google uses a number of human resource management techniques to motivate is staff so as to get the very best out of them. As an example, the best place to work for culture encourages employees to do more and think outside the bubble. This has the effect of generating more creativity and variation in the workplace. The culture’s recruitment and staffing policies encourage diverse workforces and invites people from different backgrounds. This has the effect of bringing more interest and opinions to the work groups and is a crucial aspect of employee motivation (Lerberghe, Adams & Ferrinho 525). In contrast to a great majority of multinational organizations, the ‘Best Place to Work For’ does not have any formal hierarchical system. This means that employees, both junior and senior are considered to be at the same level. This encourages better teamwork and enables employees to feel motivated and offer their opinions freely. Another example in which Google’s HR practices contribute to increased employee motivation is through work-life balance programs which are family friendly. Google’s work-life balance programs include health issues, pleasure and family matters, all of which are necessary for meaningful enjoyment of life. Through these programs, Google strives to harmonize or make compatible employee’s personal life and work life. The work-life balance programs have helped strengthen employee productivity and loyalty, which are in turn related to increased motivation. One important reason for the success of the ‘Best Place to Work For’ culture in motivating employees is that the company budgets for employee’s time. New ideas at Google are generated by employees in a prescribed system of time allocation. The company has a policy that technical employees can spend only 80% of their time in core business and the remaining 20% in technical and innovative projects of their own choosing. This strategic initiative gives employees time, appropriate resources and the motivation to engage in creative practices in a flexible manner (Guest, Dewe & Conway 81-86). In various ways, the “Best Place to Work for” culture is highly improvisational. The culture is well designed to eliminate frictions at any turn and hence ensure that change can happen and be adopted quickly and efficiently. This gives all employees the necessary motivation to create new products and features at any time. An important motivational aspect of the ‘Best Place to Work For’ culture is that it prevents employees from being deterred by failure. By encouraging employees to cultivate a taste of failure, the culture enables quick identification of weak points in the company’s business and human resource operations (Huselid 649). The innovative HR culture invests substantial amount of time and resources in areas that employees can enjoy while on lunch break. For instance, there are numerous snack rooms, gyms and cafes. The company believes in investing its resources in motivating employees and showing them that they are valued members of their teams. b) How do employees help Google in differentiating itself from its competitors in the knowledge-based industry? There are a number of ways in which Google uses its employees to differentiate itself in the industry. The company has developed a creative, dynamic and highly talented workforce. The company consistently involves its employees in developing and implementing business strategies. In the knowledge-based industry, this partnership is necessary if an organization wants to reiterate the HR function’s importance and function. Google’s human resources have been invaluable in facilitating the development of a unifying corporate culture and cultivating the highly valued leadership talent (Earley & Peterson 100-115). Google’s future-focused Human Resource policies have helped it source talents from across multiple cultural and geographic boundaries. All these important HR initiatives have differentiated Google’s service from those of its competitors in the industry. d) Analyze the future implications of Google’s HR practices in the long run. Although Google has implemented innovative and flexible HR management programs, the company has to contend with the fact that HR management are continually undergoing massive transformations, which will change career paths in uncertain ways (Guest, Dewe & Conway 94-96). As such, it is necessary for the company to place greater emphasis on business acumen by enabling its HR professionals the ability to demonstrate new skills and competencies for unfamiliar jobs. It is the case that job titles and functions will undergo metamorphosis with time. For this reason, some of Google’s current HR practices will be less common or less important or give way to new ones. With this consideration in mind, a possible future implication of the company’s current HR practices is that they should be aligned with market dynamics in order for the company to remain competitive. Google’s current business environment is characterised by increasing global growth, emerging businesses and new technologies, continuous change and competition. This requires the company’s HR management to focus on increasing value for its human capital. In addition, the company is faced with the difficult challenge of aligning organizational capabilities and culture so as to be able to attract and recruit highly talented employees who can cope with change (Lerberghe, Adams & Ferrinho 525). The issues of emerging businesses and global growth require that the company focus its HR policies on diversity management. By recruiting employees from diverse cultural backgrounds, Google can insure its global growth and effectively compete for the future. Although the company is currently a global leader in the industry, it faces immense competition from major rivals such as Microsoft and Yahoo and several other small emerging knowledge-based companies (Earley & Peterson 100-115). Employees who aspire to continue working with the company in future must be more strategic, more proactive and more involved in the overall business of the company. This means that Google must use its HR management practices to train employees in leadership roles. For Google’s Human Resource management practices to make a breakthrough into the future in the knowledge-based industry, it has to focus on cost. There is need for HR professional to look for ways that can help reduce business costs while offering the best experience to their human capitals (Guest, Dewe & Conway 79-80). An important HR issue that will affect Google’s future is the high retirement rate. Although employee turnover is low in the company, high retirement rate which is currently witnessed in the knowledge-based industry means that Google is likely to lose talented and skilled employees. This calls for the company to put in place a mechanism for ensuring that current employees are trained in key areas to guard against possible loss of talent and knowledge due to retirement (Lerberghe, Adams & Ferrinho 525). The company also has to expand the scope of its work-life balance programs to help maintain the original spirit of employee loyalty and job satisfaction. e) Search for and present information regarding Google and its HR practices since 2008 (when the case was written). What has changed? What has remained? Are those HR practices still working? Since 2008, has made tremendous efforts to improve its HR experience and maintain its image as a global employer of choice. In particular, the company has refined most of its HR practices in order to accommodate changes in business practices and the technologies that employees need to offer their services. For instance, Google has made extensive and aggressive use of data and testing to support new business ideas. This initiative encourages employees to input new and innovative skills and abilities for testing. If viable, these skills are implemented in return for recognition and promotions (Earley & Peterson 100-115). In the last four years, Google has embarked on the use of algorithms to support recruitment and staffing process. The new recruitment process involves actual survey of employees on a variety of characteristics such as teamwork, past experience and biographic information. Next, the recruiting team uses statistical procedures to determine which of the identified traits differentiate the potential employees from under-achievers. This way, Google employs highly creative and result oriented employees (Lerberghe, Adams & Ferrinho 525). In addition, Google has developed an online survey program for gathering prescriptive information from potential employees. With this program, applicants’ resumes and biodata are screened electronically and given a score. This process has helped the company save time considering that each year it receives thousands of job applications, which make manual screening impossible. To meet the challenges of global competition, Google has redefined its human resource practices, particularly in the way in which it works with the executive management to attract, hire and reward talented personnel. The company has developed many openings in the human resources to give its employees a variety of interest both inside and outside the company. Since 2010, Google has strived to design unique benefit packages to help employees balance their busy lives and allow them to focus on what they love to do (Huselid 641-643). The company has also established a compensation department, which sets parameters for all pay elements including bonuses, salaries and stock awards. The compensation team ensures that what the company pays meets the strategic goal of being competitive with other organizations. The last four years have witnessed Google make major changes in the operations of the Human Resource Technology and Operations program. The new changes have made it easier for the company to design, implement and continuously evolve innovative technologies that enable all aspects of Human Resources to function well (Guest, Dewe & Conway 81-86). Conclusion Although Google has strategically aligned its business objectives with HR practices, there is need for the company to make efforts in delivering future-oriented workforce metrics and analytics. To his end, the company should train its executives to anticipate enhanced understanding of human resource needs at all levels of the company’s business operations. The executive should be able to understand the critical roles of employees and how difficult those roles will be to fill. The company also needs to create more opportunities for internal mobility and career development. In many organizations, career development and internal mobility are considered a leading indicator of the wellness and health of the overall talent management initiatives. It is equally important for Google to initiate and support an active learning culture for its employees. It is imperative for the company to understand that the role of Human Resources is changing due to globalizations, changes in stakeholder’s expectations and rapid technological changes and progress. As such, developing the right skills for managing employees is a major human resource management issue. This requires the organization to formulate a future focused human resource policy. There are a number of lessons that one can learn from Google’s human resource experience. The company has gained impressive competitive advantages in the industry because it employs innovative, employee-friendly human resource policies. Besides offering attractive salary packages and benefits, the company has created a friendly work environment that encourages ongoing learning and creativity (Lerberghe, Adams & Ferrinho 525). In addition, employees working at the company enjoy some of the most flexible work-life balance programs and work in diverse workgroups. All these are initiatives which demonstrate that competitive advantages can only be gained through strategic competencies in Human Resources management practices. Google’s HR experience also teaches that companies should continuously change their human resource plans and strategies in response to changes in the business environment. Works Cited Earley, C. & Peterson, R. The elusive cultural chamellion: Intelligence as a new approach to intercultural training for the global manager. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 3(1), 2004: 100-115. Guest D. Dewe P and Conway N. Using sequential tree analysis to search for ‘bundles’ of HR practices. Human Resource Management Journal, 14(1), 2004: 79-96. Huselid M: The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 38(3), 1995: 635- 672. Van Lerberghe W, Adams O, Ferrinho, P. Human resources impact assessment. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 80(7), 2002: 525-530. Read More