MGT307 - Google's International HRM: Strategies and Analysis

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of Google's international human resource management (HRM) practices. It begins with an introduction to Google LLC, highlighting its mission, vision, and recent business performance. The discussion section delves into various HR strategies employed by Google, including employee motivation, compensation policies, performance management, hiring and job design practices, and employee development initiatives. The essay emphasizes Google's unique approach to employee motivation, such as the 70-20-10 rule, and its commitment to creating a comfortable and collaborative work environment. It also examines Google's performance management policy, which is based on a 360-degree feedback system and a pay-for-performance scheme. Furthermore, the essay explores Google's innovative hiring process and its focus on continuous learning and development for employees, including specialized training programs and reimbursement plans for higher education. The analysis draws upon various HRM theories, such as Herzberg's two-factor theory and reinforcement theory, to explain the effectiveness of Google's HR practices. The assignment adheres to Harvard referencing style and uses diagrams and models to enhance understanding.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
International human resource management
Name of Student:
Name of College:
Authors note:
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
Google LLC is a multinational technological company based in California in the USA and it
specialises in various Internet based products and services apart from hardware, cloud computing
technologies and advertising technologies based on the internet. The Company was official
launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with an aim to market Google search which
has developed as the most reliable search-engine over the internet. In 2015, Google became the
main subsidiary of the holding company Alphabet Inc. The mission statement of Google is to
organize all the information regarding the world in a single database and making it globally
available and fruitful for everyone. The vision statement of Google is to provide access to
various information regarding the world via a single click.
Alphabet which is the parent company of Google, reported positive results for the company in its
first quarter as it has helped the business to keep growing in a sustainable manner and it
continues to grow at a faster rate than it was a year ago. Google which is the main subsidiary
company of Google, reported 26% growth in revenue year-on year to $31.16 billion in the first
quarter of 2018, and the company also stated that the revenue had grown 22% between Q1 of
2016 and Q1 of 2017 which indicates that the business performance of the company is very solid
in nature and the company is continuing to grow each year.
Discussion
The application of various Human resource practices in an organization such as training and
development of the employees of an organization, acquisition of employees for an organization,
management of project for an organization, managing compliance and cost and quality control
for an organization.. As opined by Kianto, Sáenz and Aramburu (2017) the effective application
of the various human resource practices and strategies helps the organization to achieve their
goals and objectives. The above mentioned human resource practices helps in the overall
development of the employees of an organization and also helps in increasing the operational
efficiency of the organization which helps in accomplishing the goals and objectives of an
organization. For instance in order to achieve the outcomes of the company, all global companies
focuses on providing training and development to their employees which enhances the skills of
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the employees and therefore helps in achieving the organizational objectives. For instance, global
IT companies focuses on the effective acquisition of candidates from a vast pool of eligible
candidates in order to select the right person for the right job in order to fulfil the objectives of
the companies.
HR strategies
The success of Google is largely attributed to the effectiveness of the Human resource policies
and strategies adopted by the company which has helped the companies to become of the most
innovative companies of the world. The main objective of the Hr policies and strategies of
Google are employee welfare and benefits which acts as drivers of growth of the company.
Google has successfully created an organization structure which supports the Human Resource
policies and strategies adopted by the company which in turn helps in achieving the objectives of
the company.
Fig 1: HRM Practices
Source: Minbaeva (2005)
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The HR strategies and policies which are followed by Google are as follows:
Employee Motivation- Google encourages their employees to work on a 70-20-10 rule, where
the employees of the company are expected to devote 70% of their work time in core search and
advertising activities, 20% on a project of their choice and 10 % on working on far-out ideas.
The Google Talk and G mail services of the company are a result of devoting 10% time on far
working out on far-out ideas. The business benefits which are associated with the 20% off time
are very limited as far as their core search and advertising business are concerned but still the HR
executives and the top management of the company encourage the employees of the company to
go after these sort of efforts as it helps the employees to remain motivated and committed to
innovation and novelty.
The compensation policy- Google is very rewarding in nature as the employee get their salary,
incentives and stock awards at regular time intervals and the company also highly encourages
and rewards the employees with high level of performances in order to motivate them further.
The company premise boasts of a highly collegiate environment with various kinds of facilities
and benefits for the employees to avail. As stated by Wu, Luksyte and Parker (2015) the reason
behind creating such an environment for the employees is to make the employees feel
comfortable in the office environment which will help in facilitating easy workings in office for
the employees. According to Lazaroiu (2015) Google also recognizes the importance of work life
balance and therefore in order to maintain the same, the company offers its employees flexible
working hours facilities, work from home facilities and a suitable vacation facility in addition to
the TGIIF sessions of the company which is get together of the employees of the company
organized on Friday afternoons. The company possesses a strong code of conduct in place for its
employees and encourages their employees to report any violation of the same without feeling
unsafe to do so.
The offices of the company are designed accordingly to provide colour, lighting and a shared
room for the employees. The employees of the company remain seated close to each other and
share offices among themselves which helps in reflecting the importance of knowledge sharing
in the company. As stated by Mikkelsen, Jacobsen and Andersen (2017) an individual employee
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of the company generates very high revenue for the company each year which allows the
employees and the top management to learn new things make mistakes and in turn learn from the
mistakes which serve as another great motivating factor for the employees of the company.
As stated by Miner (2015) the employee motivation policy of the company is based on
Herzberg’s two factor theory also knows as motivation hygiene theory which implies that certain
set of factors in a work environment leads to job satisfaction are termed as motivational factors
while some other factors decreases job satisfaction are termed as hygiene factors. Therefore the
company focuses on increasing the motivational factors and as well as the hygiene factors which
increases job satisfaction among the employees which in turn help in the achievement of the
company goals and objectives.
Performance Management Policy
The HR function of the company handles major responsibilities and therefore the size of the HR
functions of the company is larger than the size of the HR functions of other companies. In the
various stages right from hiring to performance management, the company focuses on equity and
it believes in providing each employee of the company for equal chances of growth and
development. According to Saad and Abbas (2018) there is a huge reward system in place for
performers in the company but there are various downsides for being an under-performer in the
company. The payment strategy of the company is based on the pay for performance scheme.
The company uses 360 degree feedback for reviewing the performances of its employees and the
reviewers are being selected from all over the organization. The company appoints not only
seniors, but also subordinates who forms a part of the review team of the company and therefore
the employers of the company can perform at their best level. The leaders of the company
focuses on few important things such as everyone can learn continuously in the company,
challenges are present for every employees of the company, all the employees feels recognized
for their contribution and an employee is assigned a task one is interested in.
The theory on which the performance management of the company is based on is goal based
approach which suggests that an organization should be evaluated by the goals that it sets for
itself.
Hiring and Job Design Practices
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The hiring and recruitment process which is followed by Google is innovative and non-
conventional in nature. During the time of hiring and selection of candidates, Google implements
an innovative interview process based on algorithms which helps in making the hiring process of
the company effective, scientific and data driven in nature while other companies follow hiring
process based on interviews, checking of academic background and work experience in the
industry. According to Deshwal (2015) however the hiring process followed in the company
draws few criticisms as it is time consuming in nature and it creates few inconveniences among
the candidates but it helps the company in recruiting and selecting the best talent from a wide
pool of candidates. The hiring process of the company are not only looked by the HR department
of the company but also it involves the whole company as the application of the candidates gets
need to be approved by the team in the company which has the opening. Therefore the entire
company is able to contribute successfully in the hiring process of the candidates which is only
possible due to the flat organizational structure of the company.
According to Oldham and Fried (2016) the selection, recruitment, and retention theory of the
company is based on the success of an organization of hiring and retaining valuable employees.
Employee Development
Google has successfully created a work environment which supports continuous learning as the
employees of the company get the opportunity to continuously learn and grow within the
company. As stated by Ford (2014) the company possesses special training program which are
related to presentation skills, content development, management and leadership. The company
also provides free classes to their employees regarding learning foreign language and culture
which helps them to increase their communication skills while interacting with individuals of
other countries and cultures. Google pays special attention to the engineers of the company
owing to their importance in the company and therefore they are provided with orientation,
training and mentoring by a special group called end EDU group and the development programs
for the engineers are in turn developed by the engineers. According to Majumdar (2015) the
process of learning and development has also received special attention in the company which
has resulted in the expansion of the learning and development team of the company. According
to Rodriguez and Walters (2017) the learning and development team of the company works
towards developing future leaders for the company which is evident from the fact that every
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Google employees undergo 120 hours of training and development which is many times more
than the average in the sector itself. The focus on the development of their employee has
transformed the company in to a super employer. Furthermore the company also has various re-
imbursement plans in place if they want to pursue further higher education. The Stanford MS
program is designed accordingly in order to suit the needs and requirements of the employees of
Google seeking expertise in a particular area and the full expense of the entire program of the
employees are borne by the company. Furthermore the global education leave program of the
company allows up to 5 years of leave for their employees with a very high re-imbursement
value for those employees of the company who seek to take their education further.
The employee development practices which are followed in Google are based on the theory of
reinforcement which emphasizes on the learning behaviour of an individual and suggests that the
learner will repeat the behaviour which is linked with a positive outcome. The theory also
suggests that the training and development programs of a company must also be aligned with the
objectives of the organization and a positive outcome can be expected with such training and
development programs.
Employment relations and grievance handling
Google has a no-tolerance policy for violating employee code of conduct and they take strict
actions against those who violate the employee conduct of conduct. As stated by Ganta (2014)
owing to an affective relationship with all the employees of the company and owing to constant
focus on employee welfare and development, grievance among the employees are not very
common among the employees of the company and in case of identification or reporting of
grievances in the company the Human Resource function of the company takes quick action to
report the grievances by acknowledging the grievance, gathering facts about the grievance,
examining the cause of grievances, taking decision based on the analysis of the grievance and
executing the decision in a quick spam of time and reviewing the decision afterwards in order to
ensure that it has been addressed.
As opined by Geetika, Ghosh, Rai, Joshi and Singh (2014) recently the employees of the
company have ditched the human resource route to air and solve their grievances and are instead
utilizing an employee-run message board which is later created in to weekly e-mail which are
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sent to subscribing employees in order to get their grievances heard and solved. The list is named
‘Yes at Google’, which offers the employees the opportunity to submit their grievances,
allegations and of un-welcome behaviour anonymously and for those allegations to be tracked
and communicated across the company, which the employees of the company has termed as an
attempt to make the company more inclusive. The company is aware of the list of the employees
but the company does not control the content of the list.
The relation between the employees and the relation of the employees with the top management
of the company are effective in nature owing to the employee friendly culture in the company.
As stated by Shields et al. (2015) the company follows a flat organization structure which
facilitates effective relationship between the top management of the company with the
employees of the company. As discussed above, the company has designed its office space and
culture of the company accordingly which helps in facilitating effective relationship among the
employees and promotes shared belief among the employees of the company.
As stated by Giorgi, Shoss and Leon-Perez (2015) the employee relations theory which is being
practiced in the company is unitarist perspective, in which the company is regarded as an
integrated and harmonious group of people with a single loyalty culture. In this type of
perspective the company attaches greater importance to mutual co-operation and all the
employees of the organization share a mutual purpose. The above perspective has a higher
requirement for the loyalty of the employees of the company and as a reason the management of
such an organization is top quality in nature due to its emphasis and application.
Training
The training program of Google is the most highly rated training program which has the longest
waiting list to get in. The training program of Google not only focuses on improving the skill set
of the employees but it mainly focuses on mindfulness and helps in training employees regarding
how to keep mental pressures aside in any situation and accordingly approach the situation in a
present and focuses mind. The training program of Google follows a series of steps which begins
with attention training, then gradually proceeds towards expanding self-knowledge and ends with
the cultivation of skills.
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Fig 2: Model of Learning and Training transfer
Source: Science Direct (2018)
The training approach which is followed in Google is based on the theory of reinforcement
which emphasizes on the learning behaviour of an individual and suggests that the learner will
repeat the behaviour which is linked with a positive outcome.
Conclusion
From the above report it is clear and evident that Google has become one of the most successful
companies in the world owing to their excellent and effective human practices and strategy.
While Google is popular owing to its HR practices and strategies, the same does not apply for
Amazon, which is considered as one of the most innovative companies in the world.
Google Amazon
Mission and Vision statement Mission: To organise the
universal information and
make it accessible and useful
Vision: to offer access to
universal information on one
click
Mission: Providing customers
lowest possible prices, the best
possible selection and at great
convenience
Vision: to become one of the
most customer centric firm on
planet where customers can
find and explore anything that
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they may desire to purchase
online
Business Performance In 2017 revenue of Google
was 109.65 bn USD and they
made most revenue from
advertising which was
recorded at 67.39 bn USD in
2015
Amazon’s revenue in 2017
was 177.86 bn USD and their
net income was 3.033 bn USD
HR strategy Focuses on employee welfare
and welfare development
Focus on innovation and
achieve unprecedented
business growth
Recruitment & selection
Training & development Focuses on mindfulness and
helps in training employees
regarding how to keep mental
pressures aside in any
situation and accordingly
approach the situation in a
present and focuses mind
Focuses on improving the skill
set of the employees
Employee relations Relation between the
employees and the top
management is effective in
nature owing to the employee
friendly culture
Strong relationship between
employee and management
focused on employee branding
Performance management Focuses on equity and it
believes in providing each
employee of the company for
equal chances of growth and
development
Performance review policies
of the companies are very
rigorous in nature which often
proves hectic for the
employees
Compensation and benefits very rewarding in nature Low cash compensation
relative to other companies
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The first and foremost future strategy which can be recommended to Google after analysing and
reviewing its current HR practices and strategy is that they should not only focus on collecting
the frequent feedbacks from their employees but should also focus on collecting the right
feedback at the right time as it will provide valuable data to the HR managers of the company to
impact real change which will help n driving greater employee experiences. The other future
strategy which can be recommended to Google after analysing and reviewing the current Human
Resource policies and strategies of the company is that the company should focus on employer
branding ass it will help the company in talent acquisition. Due to the availability of a huge
source of data on various platforms, the candidates of the company get full information regarding
the company and therefore the company needs to understand how to conduct an exceptional
employer brand and attract, hire and retain top employees by undertaking candidate reaction
survey and ongoing employee feedbacks
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