Managing People in Organizations: A Google HRM Case Study

This case study delves into Google's Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, examining the company's approach to creating a dynamic work culture and effectively managing its employees. It highlights Google's focus on employee training, performance management, and the creation of a healthy and innovative work environment. The case study also explores Google's recruitment process, emphasizing the company's desire to hire multi-talented individuals who embrace challenges. Furthermore, it analyzes Google's methods for measuring employee performance, flexible working practices, and strategies for managing stress among employees. The analysis considers Google's emphasis on employee well-being and its impact on overall organizational success. Concluding with recommendations, this case study offers insights into Google's HRM strategies.

P a g e | 0
Managing People in Organizations
Google
STUDENT DETAILS
email id

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 1
Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Task 1..........................................................................................................................................................2
HR practices of Google...........................................................................................................................2
Google work culture................................................................................................................................3
Relationship between employees and the company.................................................................................3
Task 2..........................................................................................................................................................4
Recruitment.............................................................................................................................................4
Google’s hiring Process...........................................................................................................................4
Google’s Stages of Recruitment..............................................................................................................5
Task 3..........................................................................................................................................................6
Measuring employee performance.........................................................................................................6
Task 4..........................................................................................................................................................7
Flexible Working Practices at Google......................................................................................................7
Task 5..........................................................................................................................................................9
Managing stress at Google......................................................................................................................9
Conclusion and Recommendation.............................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................................................12

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 2
Introduction
Google LLC is an American multinational technology company which was founded in the year
1998, headquartered in California, and founded by Sundar Pichai. The company aims at offering
internet connected services and products such as online advertising technologies, search engine,
cloud computing, software and hardware. Alphabet Inc. is the parent organization of the
company (Tran, 2017).
Task 1
HR practices of Google
The human resource practices of Google is to conduct effective training programmes for the
employees and manage the overall performance of the employees in order to enhance the
capabilities related to the human resource. The company aims at using sufficient need analysis in
order to design huge number of training programs in order to assist the new and innovative
workforce environment (Savoia & Copeland, 2011). The programs and their outcomes are
determined and evaluated on a regular basis and the company makes sure whether those results
meet the set objectives of the company or not. The results must be aligned with the overall needs
of the company. In addition to this, the company also focuses on the performance management
practices and policies which include the planning related to the employees’ performance that will
majorly emphasis on the objectives of the human resource management. Consequently, the
company also measures the issues related to the performance of the employees. To identify such
problems, the HR team of the company uses knowledge and information in order to reduce such
issues by enhancing the overall performance and management practices combined with the
employee training programs. The prime asset of the company is not the equipment or neither the
property nor the data, technology but the main asset of the company is the people and the
employees who work in the company i.e. the human capital. People are the most valuable asset
of the company and they are the one who forms the strategy and implement them in order to
move the business in the right direction with the right people (Rodrigo, 2016).

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 3
Google work culture
Moreover related to company culture, the company Google has tried to create a dynamic work
culture and work environment which includes games rooms, floor-to-ceiling whiteboards and
helter-skelters adjusted between the floors. As per the records, the employees working in the
company has a very ambitious mind and brightest skills which aims at working as per the major
objective of the company (Steiber & Alänge, 2013). The company majorly focuses on the
creating a healthy environment where employees will be given an opportunity to create
innovative ideas. The local facilities provided by the company makes the most suitable work
environment for the employees working. The facilities include healthcare services, travel
insurance, childcare facilities and academic benefits. The business leaders of the company aims
at working and maintaining a day to day demands of the business which denotes that the human
capital is one of the most important asset of the company which build a next step towards the
company’s growth and innovation. In general, 32% of the global leaders in the company have
talent and skills in order to gain the strategic goals set by the company (Chande, 2015).
Relationship between employees and the company
The company is known to have the best work culture and Google has been awarded for this. The
successful culture of the company has created healthy and happy employees in the company. The
company also offers other many intangible assets which makes the employees working there the
most happy and productive as well (Tansel & Gazioglu, 2013). The work environment provided
by the company helps the employees to work in a more effective and efficient way. The
company also aims at creating the work culture in a more ethical ways (Gabcanova, 2011). The
company is a fun place for the employees and they do not feel any burden while working in the
company. They work for long hours and sometimes they even work on weekends. However, they
do not feel any difficulties to work under such pressure. Consequently, the work environment
and the flexibility provided by the company is managed in a more creative and innovative ways
(Subramanian, 2017).

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 4
Task 2
Recruitment
Recruitment denotes to the complete procedure of attracting, selecting and appointing the
candidates who are suitable for the job in the organization which could be on contract basis or
permanent (Nabi & Wei, 2014). The process can also refer to the choosing of the people for the
positions which are unpaid like voluntarily roles or for training programs. It is not just about
filling the designation with the hired people on the job but also about creating the consequent
long term investment for building highly talented and able workforce who are talented,
passionate about their work and who believe in completing the firm’s current and the future
objectives and also missions (Kumari, 2012).
Google’s hiring Process
Google wants the people who are multi talented and also good for the roles at which they are
designated to. They always search for the people who are good at many things at the same time
and those who loves new challenges. They are not looking for people who are just goes at one
thing. Also, they do not recruit people in one domain or in one section. They will always look for
people who can sustain themselves at the company for the long term. This is the main part of the
recruitment of Google makes it different from the other companies and the way they employee
individuals. The result of this was that Google was considered to be the best company to work in
in 2013 and this was declared by Forbes Magazine.
There are these following questions which are asked by Google in the interviews:
 How many Golf ball can actually fit in the school bus?
 How much should a person charge for washing all the windows in Seattle?
 How many tuners of piano exist in the whole world?
 Why are the covers of the manhole round?
 Design the evacuation plan for San Francisco.
 How many times in a day do a clock’s hands overlap?
 A man pushed his car to the hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 5
Google’s Stages of Recruitment
The procedure of getting the job at Google is:
1. Recruiter Screen: The person who recruits gives a check to each and every resume for the
technical needs, education and experience of one has for making sure that the person has
potential or not. Google receives approximately 1 million resumes each year.
2. Phone Screening: After the screening of the resumes, the recruiter calls the shortlisted
people by phone and gives the detail of the process of the interview and also informs that
person what exactly to expect. In case of the engineering roles, the recruiter might ask for
GPA or SAT scores (Chaubey, Mishra, & Dimri, 2017).
3. On Site interview: The first round of interview will be done with having four to five
people and it will continue for 45minutes each. The person giving the interview ill has to
solve the technical problems which might involve coding the solutions or white boarding
a design in case if the person has applied for the technical role (Roehling, Cavanaugh,
Moynihan, & Boswell, 1998).
4. Feedback of the previous interview: Each interviewer gives the feedback round the
applicant in the standard arrangement and also gives the ranking to candidate. Then the
search is done for matching the resume of candidate for employees resume to find the
matches for companies and schools specified.
5. The hiring Committee: This committee involves the senior managers and the directors
and also employees who are experience in the domain. All of them look for all the
potential people for the job which are open to be filled. They all are very well
experienced for filling these positions with the right people. The mission of the company
is to hire right people for the right position. This committee reviews and evaluates
everything involving the feedback from interviewer as well as the resume and the work
expedience that the candidate has.
6. Executive Review: The review is done by the senior management level too.
7. Compensation Committee: They evaluate and determine the offer to be offered for the
candidate for the particular role.

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 6
Task 3
Measuring employee performance
The annual performance of the company includes two major parts i.e. a Preview which takes
place at the end of first semester and a whole annual analysis which takes place in between
October and November and which takes place alongside with the company’s 360- degree
feedback collection process. Managers majorly focus on two major aspects when attributing the
performance rating of their employees. The main aspect are results or what are the task
completed by the employees and the behaviors i.e. how the employees work in order to gain such
targets (Bakotic, 2014).
The employee initiates with the self-assessment which is generally followed by peer reviews.
Here, the employees tend to review one other based on some major criteria such as Googleyness,
problem solving, execution, thought process, leadership and presence. Googleyness refers to the
devotion of employees towards the values and norms related to the company. Problem solving
include the analytical skills required for the employees which can easily be applied on the work
to solve the issues that take place in various situation. Execution belongs to offering hard work
without any support of any other employees or managers. Thought process includes the resources
which are required for particular themes, training colleagues on tech talks, training employees
and delivering content as per the set standards. Presence is defined as the ability of the
employees in order to find himself in such a huge organization (Bhoganadam & Rao, 2014).
One of the major step of performance review is Self-Evaluation. Here, the employees are given
an opportunity to evaluate themselves based on the above-mentioned criteria. The main
accomplishment of the employees are highlighted and they are shown in the 360 degree reviews.
The 360-degree feedback review process of the company aims at serving the managers by
creating a holistic image of the reports and makes sure whether those reports are not biased. The
entire process and procedure begins with a back and forth that exists between the employee and
the manager. The employees need to deliver assessments majorly in three media such as
strengths, things which an individual mist keep on doing and weaknesses which a person must
develop and rate each criteria starting from 1 to five numbers. There are two open fiends
assertive and pessimistic which have changed from the larger form few years back. Laszlo Bock

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 7
which is the SVP of Google, people organizations, observes with in his work rules that the
generalization decreased aggregate time which is spent on this particular step by more than 25%
whereas improving the share of the candidates who perceived it as useful were from 49% to
75%. Calibration after the data was collected in the form of reviews of self and reviews of the
peer or 360 degrees feedback and outcomes obtained are understood, managers draft a rating for
their subordinates which is based on the following measurements:
 Requirement of the improvement.
 Meeting the expectations continuously.
 Exceeding the expectations.
 Very strongly exceeding the expectations.
 Superb.
Task 4
Flexible Working Practices at Google
There are so many flexible programs which are popular now days as compared to earlier days.
Google allows mostly every employee to set their working hours accordingly to their own
comfort.
Employee generally loves these types of flexibility as all this helps them to ignore the
compromises they have to do in between home as well as work. However, there can be
boundaries in which the work day should begin and end and there are some shores which should
be done at the particular time. Having those obstacles too, the employees can schedule their
working hours around the different other demands according to their own time which gives them
the control over their own lives and allows them to succeed more.
Flexible working approaches help the organization in many ways:
Benefits for the employers: The employers are the ones who introduces the flexible working
hours for attracting the new talent and retain them as they as highly qualified to work for Google.
With the capability to schedule the hours of work for the workers, they feel that the employer is
actually caring. Google feels that the employees are the ones who drive the whole company. If
they are happy then they will grow and at the same time, make the company grow too. All this

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 8
leads to the satisfaction levels of the employees and their job and hence, this results in the work
commitment which is high (Hashim, Ullah, & Khan, 2017).
Benefits for the employees: In spite of the flexible working practices of the workers, some of
them usually men think that such types of flexibilities might result in the lower salaries and high
job insecurity. There are finding where it is found that men see flexibility as the method for
developing their commitment to the organization whereas women see flexibility to maintain their
work life balance. But it is true that for the entire employee be it men or women, flexibility does
improve their productivity and which indirectly helps them to succeed as well as the firm
(Ahmad, Idris, & i Hashim, 2013).
Work-Life Balance: This concept has presently gained attention because of the aptness and
significance for all the employee in spite of the relation status, size of the family and number of
children they have. Some of the scientists have this faith that if there is a lack of balance, then it
would lead to the conflict or fights in between the work and life daily responsibilities. Google
also find that work life balance is a must for the employee to have. Not just it increases the
productivity but it also helps the employees to have a good and healthy life. The assertive
relation is found in between work life balance and the performance of work. Hence, successful
completion of the responsibilities of life such as family and parental roles results in the good. It
also increases the satisfaction level of the employee towards life (Shagvaliyeva & Yazdanifard,
2014).
Google also feels that the flexible work practices allow the employees to be well and healthy
with mid and physically both. Google gives the environment of work such that promotes the
well being of the employee. When a person is physically ill, it affect the emotional quotient too
of a person. Mentally the person can become ill if the physical illness is prolonged. In order to
achieve balance, both need to be in place. All such terms like work balance, productivity,
commitment and wellbeing are related to a happy working mid of the employee. If the employee
will be free from stress or tension, he will be able to perform better in life (Amritha, Ramana, &
Reddy, 2017).
Sometimes, people take advantages of this facility too (Choo, Desa, & Asaar, 2016). But Google
is one of the companies in which the employees are made to understand the importance of this
facility and that they expect something good out of their approach. The employees too are taking

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 9
the company to a new success level by being satisfied working with Google as well as by
understanding the fact that this approach is for their own good and hence, they should not
misuse it (Abid & Barech, 2017).
Task 5
Managing stress at Google
Google being the leading company in the IT industry, the employees face challenges in the
innovative and creative environment to work for Google to stay competitive in the market. The
methods by which stress could be reduced and which are suggested by Google are:
Fun Environment: There are so many activities for the employees which they can do while at
work. Example: They can relax in the relaxing room, listen to music, take something up as the
hobby, and etc. for the reduction of the stress as these fun moments would really be motivating
for the employees. With such fun things, the employees can divert themselves from their daily
work and stress (Li, 2017).
Flexible Environment of work: As discussed, Google is one of the first companies which allowed
its employees to work in flexible hours. Google understand the significance of the work life
balance and allows its employee to be stress free and work according to his comfort and timings.
With flexible hours, the employees can easily give importance to their work as well as the family
and etc. important things which matters in life. Lifestyle disorder if would not exist then the
stress would also not become the part of the employee.
Sport Facilities: Gymming for the employees to be fit and healthy is a given advantage for the
workers. There are people who really give importance to healthy lifestyle but because of not
getting enough time, they are unable to do that. With the sports and gym facilities provided, the
employee can reduce their stress and do some management about their lifestyle too.
Hobbies and pets: Google also allow the employee to take up some of the hobbies and work on
them. Also, it allows its employees to bring their pets in the office. This is a very challenging
thing for a company to do in order to keep their employees happy. When the employee is
stressful, they can easily relax by playing with their pets and can again feel restored and restart to
work in more efficacy way (Sharma, Jauhari, & Singh, 2015).

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 10
Corporate sponsored childcare. Google is accounted to have a corporate membership with
childcare and tuition centre providers. The employees in Google can take pleasure in these
services given by Google, and to register their children in these programs, which is partly
sponsored by Google.

M a n a g i n g p e o p l e i n o r g a n i z a ti o n P a g e | 11
Conclusion and Recommendation
In this report, the company Google is being discussed with respect to the HR prospectus. Google
is the company which knows how to keep its employee happy. Flexible working hours is one of
the strategies which keeps its employee satisfies and helps them to maintain the work life
balance. The relations of the employee and the employer are also good. In the conclusion, one
can say that Google not only is a good service company but also a very employee friendly
company. None of the recommendations would matter as Google is perfect in every sense.