Google's Human Resource Management and Its Success

This essay analyzes Google's human resource management (HRM) practices and their significant contribution to the company's overall success in the competitive technology industry. The paper highlights how Google's focus on employee satisfaction, innovation, and career development has set it apart from its competitors. The essay delves into Google's strategies, including providing employees with freedom to innovate, offering competitive compensation, fostering career growth, and addressing employees' social and psychological needs, as key drivers of its success. The study references research from HRM experts, emphasizing the importance of non-monetary benefits and the impact of employee motivation on organizational performance. The essay concludes that Google's effective, employee-centered HRM practices are substantially attributed to its effective human resource management strategies, which have enabled the company to attract and retain top talent, drive innovation, and achieve market leadership. The essay also references various scholarly articles to support its claims.

Google’s Human Resource Management 1
HOW GOOGLE’S HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT CONTRIBUTES TO ITS
SUCCESS
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Google’s Human Resource Management 2
HOW GOOGLE’S HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT CONTRIBUTES TO ITS
SUCCESS
Google has established itself as the market leader in the highly competitive technology industry.
The company has been able to subdue its competitors due to its innovative abilities. Google’s
abilities have attracted the attention of management and leadership experts who have been keen
to establish the driving force behind the company’s success. The outcomes of these studies have
identified Google’s human resource management practices as the foundation of the company’s
innovativeness and success in the technology industry. Unlike most of its competitors, Google
has invested significantly in satisfying its employees. The company’s human resource
management practices have seen it named as the best firm to work in by the Fortune magazine.
Google’s success emanates from its human resources management practices that focus on giving
employees freedom, competitive compensation, career development, and satisfying their
workers’ social and psychological needs.
Human resource management experts insist that money alone is not a sufficient incentive to
motivate employees to drive organisational success. According to Conrad, Ghosh, and Isaacson
(2015), employee motivation is a multifaceted concept achieved by a mixture of monetary and
non-monetary factors. However, Conrad, Ghosh, and Isaacson (2015) point out that employees
are more interested in the non-financial benefits offered by their employees since a significant
percentage of organisations offer competitive salaries. Therefore, companies that offer attractive
non-financial benefits are considered as being the best employers in contemporary society.
Consequently, Google has incorporated this concept of providing attractive non-financial benefit
packages to its workers successfully. This move has enabled the company to attract and retain
the best talents available in the global labour sector. According to Morgan (2014), the quality of

Google’s Human Resource Management 3
talent that an organisation attracts determines its success in the market. This conclusion is
derived from the view that a company’s success is directly related to the skills of its human
resources. Currently, Google can be ranked as one of the companies that employ the best
technology minds in the world.
This ability is attributed to the company’s attractive non-financial package that includes free
food, work breaks and free internet. A study by Schlechter, Thompson, and Bussin (2015)
confirmed that non-financial reward elements have statistically significant effects on employees’
perception of job attractiveness as well as their performance. In this regard, Google’s human
resource management practice of offering attractive non-financial incentives to its worker has
significantly contributed to the organisation’s success.
Moreover, Google’s human resource management practice of granting its employees the freedom
to innovate has contributed significantly to the company’s success. Google is among the few
companies globally that allow their employees to work on their unique projects that are not in the
organisation’s schedule. According to Pfeffermann, Minshall, and Mortara (2017), Google has a
rule that allocates employees with 20% of week time to work on their projects. This rule has
enabled individual employees at Google to enhance their innovation skills and produce some
unique creations at the company including the famous Gmail. In essence, Google’s innovative
prowess is attributed to the freedom it grants to its employees to develop new creations
independently. Consequently, Google’s innovative success emanates from its human resource
management practice of providing their staff with the freedom to innovate.
Importantly, Google’s human resource management practice of paying its staff competitive
salaries that reflects the market’s standards also plays a vital role in influencing the
organisation’s success. Although scholars opine that contemporary employees are more

Google’s Human Resource Management 4
interested in the non-monetary benefits offered by employers than the financial ones, the role
that money plays in attracting, motivating, and retaining employees cannot be underestimated.
According to Chatzopoulou, Vlachvei, and Monovasilis (2015), offering satisfactory salaries to
employees is one of the key strategies of attaining organisational success. Under-paying
employees, based on the industry’s threshold results in high employee turnover rates as well as
making a firm unattractive to potential employees. Consequently, by mastering the art of paying
their employees satisfactory salaries, Google has been able to attract and retain quality and high
performing employees making the company highly successful.
Additionally, Google’s human resource management practice focusing on career growth and
development plays a vital role in maintaining the company’s success. Google is known for
developing talents internally and externally. The company has a well-established mentorship
program which focuses on improving the skills of existing employees as well as those who are in
the company for internships. According to Akhmetshin et al. (2018), the philosophy of
continuous improvement of employees through training and mentorship is a crucial pillar in
organisational success. Consequently, the holistic career development policy applied by Google
ensures that the company does not experience a significant talent gap that can hinder its
production and innovation activities.
Lastly, Google’s success has also been significantly influenced by its human resource
management practice of striving to satisfy the social and psychological needs of its employees.
In practice, Google seems to have mastered the concept of motivating employees as outlined by
Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory. According to Javadi (2018), Maslow acknowledged that
there are precise needs of employees that employers must address to have a highly motivated and
productive workforce. Some of these need include psychosocial needs such as the need for

Google’s Human Resource Management 5
belonging. In essence, psychosocial needs entail the creation of a conducive working
environment that promotes positive interpersonal relationships such as teamwork. Google has
invested significantly in ensuring that it allows its employees to socialise and work as a team. In
return, these efforts have enhanced the innovative capabilities of the firm, thus making it
competitive and successful. Moreover, it has enabled the organisation attractive to potential
employees.
Conclusively, Google’s human resource management practices that focus on career development,
adequate compensation, innovation freedom, and addressing the social and psychological needs
of its employees have played a vital role in the organisation’s success. The company
acknowledges that its profitability, competitiveness, and sustainability relies on the skills and
productivity of its employees. Therefore, Google has ensured that it has effective and employee-
centred human resource management practices. In this respect, Google success is substantially
attributed to its effective human resource management strategies.

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List of References
Akhmetshin, E. et al., 2018. Motivation of personnel in an innovative business climate.
European Research Studies Journal, 21(1), pp. 352-361.
Chatzopoulou, M., Vlachvei, A. & Monovasilis, T., 2015. Employee's Motivation and
Satisfaction in Light of Economic Recession: Evidence of Grevena Prefecture-Greece.
Procedia Economics and Finance, Volume 24, pp. 136-145.
Conrad, D., Ghosh, A. & Isaacson, M., 2015. Employee motivation factors: A comparative
study of the perceptions between physicians and physician leaders. International Journal
of Public Leadership, 11(2), pp. 92-106.
Javadi, A., 2018. Constant Progress Indication Motivating individuals at work. Human Resource
Management, 5(3), pp. 156-171.
Morgan, J., 2014. The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders, and Create a
Competitive Organization. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Pfeffermann, N., Minshall, T. & Mortara, L. eds., 2017. Strategy and Communication for
Innovation. 3rd ed. London: Springer Science & Business Media.
Schlechter, A., Thompson, N. C. & Bussin, M., 2015. Attractiveness of non-financial rewards for
prospective knowledge workers: An experimental investigation. Employee Relations,
37(3), pp. 274-295.