HRM514 Report: Trends and Challenges for Google's IHRM

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the trends and challenges impacting International Human Resource Management (IHRM) practices at Google. It begins with an executive summary and introduction, then delves into key trends such as the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on recruitment, training, and employee engagement; the rise of gender equality initiatives and the 'Me Too' movement's influence on company policies; the integration of social media in recruitment and employee relations; and the empowerment of managers to assist employees. The report examines the future implications of these trends on Google's IHRM strategies, considering potential impacts on job roles and workforce dynamics. The report concludes with a discussion of the overall effect of these trends and challenges on the future of IHRM at Google. The report draws on academic references to support its analysis.

Running head: IHRM 0
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

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Executive Summary
The following report will be discussing about the trends and challenges faced by Google and it
affect International human resource management. The first section deals with the introduction of
the report. The other section deals with the different types of trends and their impact on IHRM
practices. The trends discussed in the reports are Artificial Intelligence, social media, gender
equality and empowering of the managers. After the discussion of the trends the future
implications of them are discussed in the company.
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Trends in IHRM at Google..............................................................................................................4
Artificial intelligence...................................................................................................................4
Gender Equality...........................................................................................................................5
Social media.................................................................................................................................6
Empowering manager to assist employees..................................................................................6
Future implications of trends...........................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
An MNC operating internationally faces various challenges or trends in today’s world.
These challenges are due to the dynamic business environment where something new is always
coming up and the old is fading away. The challenges or trends coming up could affect the
company either positively or negatively. These trends greatly affect the International Human
Resource Management practices of a company. One such company is Google that follows the
best IHRM practices in the world where it focuses on providing excellent treatment to employees
and it provides the best training to the global employees to minimize the cultural shocks. Due to
globalization, various dynamic changes are happening in the environment that is affecting the
International human resource management practices of Google. The following essay will be
discussing about various trends and challenges and their impact on the international human
resource practices of Google.
Trends in IHRM at Google
Artificial intelligence
In 20th century, the companies are facing various trends and challenges. Some of the
trends are large-scale panic for acquiring the right workforce, evolution of artificial intelligence
and data insights, high focus on agility, increased importance of organizational culture and
working environment by employee and debate on bringing in more females and minorities at
work place (Apperly, 2019). These are impacting the IHRM policies of the Google. One such
trend is the coming up of Artificial intelligence. The artificial intelligence is all concerned with
automation and making every day’s task of employee easier. In a report by Personnel Today, the
AI is used by around 38% of the organizations (Farndale, 2017)While in another report by Bersin
by Deloitte, it was claimed that 33% employees believe that the AI would augment their jobs in
future (Donier, 2015). The Artificial intelligence has impacted the International Human resource
management practices at Google. It has affected the areas of recruitment and selection, training
and development, and workforce retention internationally. The usage of AI has made the global
hiring process of Google easier. The process of hiring is no more a tedious job where analyzing
the applications of every candidates took decades. The manual screening of candidates

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applications have been replaced by the smart software, doing it. The practice like managing the
information about every employee is done by HRMS software where any changes are
automatically updated on its portal. The Artificial intelligence has come up with the devices that
can track the employees’ activities outside the office. Such tracking could be useful in knowing
the employees’ activities (Florén & Fischer, 2016). For example, if an employee is trying for a
job change then his activities could be tracked and the actions could be taken to retain him in the
organization.
The other area where AI proves to be the great friend of the company in managing IHRM
is employee engagement. Google is a global organization where people of various cultures and
origins are its core employees so it becomes important to keep their motivation high for the
company (Furusawa & Brewster, 2016). Employers organize various engagement programs
according to the tastes and preferences of employees. Google frames an effective employee
engagement programs by doing the right survey with the help of AI tools (Hassabis, 2017). A
comprehensive survey is formulated where the interest and needs of the employees are analyzed.
In the process, the job of AI is to break down the data and transform it, to make it easier to
comprehend. The data is also scanned to develop useful patterns for taking correct decisions.
This reduces the manual burden on HR managers and there is high level of accuracy in the AI
generated information. AI offers applicant-tracking system that helps the HR manager to track
the activities of its employees belonging from different cultures thus improving their satisfaction
and increasing the retention rate of employees across globe.
Providing compensation to employees is the major issue especially where the global
employees are working. The compensation determining software is useful in determining the
right kind of compensation and updating changes in it automatically. There are positive impacts
of the Artificial intelligence on the organization (Hymalakshmi & Anusha, 2019). The AI helped
in improved assessment of the candidates, reduced the human judgmental behaviors, increased
compliance and better relationship with employees. It has positively transformed the
international Human resource management environment of Google but it might have some
negative impacts in the future. The negative impact includes increased inclusion of AI such as
robots and machines could make various job positions redundant. There would be decrease in the
global hiring process, as machines would do most of the work.

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Gender Equality
The second most important trend that happened was the debate of gender equality at
workplace. It was about giving the men and women the equal chance at the work place. In 2018,
the “Me too” revolution started where many working females in many multi-national companies
have reported being sexually abused (Kossek & Wu, 2017). Google was one such company
where many female employees reported being sexually abused. In the wake of these challenges,
the company came with various policies to ensure the gender equality and safety at workplace
(Meisenberg & Woodley, 2015). To ensure the gender equality at work place, the company
thought of giving higher salaries to female employees. The policy aimed at attracting talented
females across the globe. It has ensured the higher salaries adjustments for females to make them
come at par with males. To solve the problem of unconscious bias that hurt female workers on
most days. The company started the training program in 2013 where the female employees are
conversed on any kind of biasness they are facing in the organization. The conversation helps in
the resolving the problems of hurt accumulated by female employees (Ostroff & Bowen, 2016).
It is kind of a group conversation where the conversation is being done in ensuring the proper
solution of their problems. The success rate of the program came out be 90 percent.
The trend of me-too movement that followed in 2018 where women reported sexual
harassment cases in the company against themselves. The movement impacted the IHRM
policies of the company positively. In Google, its top manager has received trainings in how to
respond to these issues proactively (Philipose & Kesavan, 2019). The training has been provided
for the development of investigation skills and to remove unconscious biasness among managers.
It had made Google to evolve with the metrics to track such cases of sexual harassments, as
earlier ways of dealing with them did not work effectively. The one such method of tracking was
the Investigation volume and overall trend analysis. In the method all, the reports and the
resolution related to it were analyzed and the solutions were identified (Stoet & Geary, 2018).
After the application of such metrics to curb the sexual harassment cases, many surveys were
done to ensure whether the employees were satisfied with the solutions implemented by the
company to deal with the cases of harassments. The Google also organized various counseling
programs where the females who ever faced with the harassment cases in the company could
afford the right counseling (Saridakis & Cooper, 2017). The HR of the company also organized
various programs for females to improve their understanding and awareness regarding the cases

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of sexual abuse. The defense techniques were also taught to them to deal with such cases of
sexual abuse.
Social media
The third trend in the IHRM was that companies started getting social due to the coming
up of social media in the world (Gomes & Demirbag, 2015). The IHRM practices have become
more flexible. The employee and employer connection become better. The social media had
made the working environment in the organization more flexible and relaxed. This trend had
affected the global recruitment and training and development functions of Google. The social
media has become the hunting ground for recruiters; they hire talented employees across the
globe with the help of social media sites. The recruiter can track the activities of any person
living anywhere in the country and can decide whether he is the right candidate or not for the
company. The business page of Google is used as a way of attracting the profiles of highly
talented employees in the organization.
The other influence of the social media in the IHRM policy of Google is tracking the
wrong activities of the employees. The unregulated activities could be posting the bad feedback
about the company that can hamper the image of Google. The HR manager could control these
unregulated activities by positively directing him not to do it again. The social media has also
improved the relations between the employer and employee that is the prime responsibility of an
HR manager. A great informal bonding is helpful in lowering down the stress among the
employees. The role of social media is helpful in reducing job-related stress in the organization
thus increasing the productivity in the end. Despite of it so many benefits, there are some
negative of it. At Google, the employers started the program of reducing the increased screen
time of employees as higher screen time results in increased distraction thus lowering the
productivity. Many initiatives were taken to lower down their screen-time, in some cases the
employees were asked to deposit their gadgets before entering in the office. This resulted in the
better environment in the office.
Empowering manager to assist employees
The other most important qualitative trait that come up was to empower the managers to
assist employees (Rule & Ambady, 2018). This has been the shift in the perspectives of the
companies. As they feel that, such perspectives could make the company win the market. The

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trend had positively impacted the Google especially in the areas of performance appraisal. The
company had started the continuous performance assessment of the employees rather than
annual. The continuous performance appraisal helps the managers to guide their employees
towards the right track. It is a way through which the managers can help their employees in
overcoming any kind of difficulties that they face in their performance. Such trends made
Google to organize various recreational activities for employers and employees. The recreational
activities include short trips, movies and videos and many more. These recreational activities
develop good connections with employees. The employer is able to know about the nature of
their teams well thus becoming a good team leader. The Google has also conducted various
training sessions for managers to tell them the importance of making the right conversation with
team members around.
Future implications of trends
These trends and challenges can impact the future of the company. The trend of artificial
intelligence will result in inclusion of robots or other AI techniques that could result in the
increased unemployment among people. Although many job positions will become redundant but
it will reduce the workload of many human resource activities such as recruitment, selection, and
performance appraisal. In future, most of the components of the work will be done by the
artificial intelligence. The other trend such as of gender equality will result in increased number
of female candidates in the company. Females will be paid good amount of salary at par with
males in the organization. The application of female safety trends will render females in the
positions to defend them. They would have more power to defend their rights in best possible
manner (Donier, 2015).
The trend of the social media will make the working environment of the company more
flexible and informal where employees can easily reach out to employers whenever face with the
problems. The high social aspect if incorporated in the control manner could result in the
understanding working environment (Hassabis, 2017). Sometimes the excessive use of social
media interface might lead to high-level of distraction among the employees thus affecting the
productivity of employees. The other trend was of empowering the managers to lead the great
teams. The future implication of the trend would be better working environment in the

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organization and increased coordination among team members. This will lead to greater team
productivity in the organization.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The human resource trends in the organizational environment affect the performance of
the people in the enterprise. These trends affect either positively or negatively. It is on the
company to decide the how to utilize these trends positively to churn out the positive benefits
from it. The Google has exploited the trends of the organization positively that resulted in the
better productivity and improved working environment in the country. The trend of me too
movement helped them in making the priority of the women safety as on the top of their list.
They tried organizing various counseling programs for them. Such counseling programs have
been of great advantage to them. They also utilized the artificial intelligence trend in improving
their global hiring process and tracking system of employees in the organization. The human
resource manager can take various steps in managing these changes effectively. Firstly, he
should recognize these trends and try to incorporate it according to the needs of the organization.
In the case of technological changes, HR should bring in those changes in small measures so that
the employees could accept it willingly. In the matter of Gender equality, some percent of
reservation should be done for females in the top management positions in the organizations. The
safety policies for Females should become stringent to protect them from ant kind of future
harassments.

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