Organizational Psychology: Talent Identification at Google LLC Report

This report delves into the field of organizational psychology, examining talent management practices with a specific focus on Google LLC. It explores the core concepts of talent measurement, identification, and retention, emphasizing their significance for organizational success. The report provides an overview of Google's operations, highlighting its position as a leading multinational corporation. It analyzes Google's talent management strategies, including the use of structured interviews, cognitive bias assessments, and psychometric tests. The report also discusses Google's approach to employee retention, including the provision of benefits and the fostering of a unique corporate culture. Furthermore, the report examines the challenges faced by Google, such as the need to evolve beyond its core business areas and the importance of adapting its talent acquisition processes. Finally, it summarizes the key aspects of the company's talent management approach, including the use of various evaluation methods, performance measurement techniques, and the importance of employee satisfaction and motivation. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of continuous learning and development within the workforce to enhance retention.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Organizational Psychology
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

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Executive Summary: It is the responsibility of an organization to select best fitted candidate
based on their talent and ability from a pool of talent in the society. The selection procedure is
based on unbiased assessment of talent by utilising traditional as well as modern techniques as
deemed suitable for a particular company. The paper aims to assess selection procedure
undertaken by Google LLC, the third largest multinational conglomerate in the world.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
Discussion........................................................................................................................................6
Introducing the concept of talent measurement, talent identification and talent retention..........6
Brief overview of the company Google.......................................................................................9
Talent management, identification and retention in Google.......................................................9
Current scenario of the tribulations of Google LLC..................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The variation in the discipline of psychology, which deals with the application of
theoretical and practical knowledge of psychology in the work environment, is known as
organizational psychology (Landy& Conte, 2016). The success of the organization is dependent
on the improvement of employee productivity, motivation, job satisfaction and occupational
safety and health, which can be treated by organizational psychology. The United Kingdom
recognizes the professional organizational psychologists as occupational psychologists (Mertens,
2014). There are 9 protected titles in UK out of waste occupational psychology lies within the
regulation of practitioners’ psychologists by the Health and Care Professions Council(Forest et
al., 2011).. The main objective of the occupational or organisational psychologist is to associate
with the human resource managers and participate in the selection procedures of employees for
that particular organization (Dollard & Bakker, 2010). The aim of this paper is to assess
psychology behind measurement of talent identification of talent and development and retention
of those talents to maintain the efficiency of the workforce in the organisation. Development of
technology and globalisation has rendered the importance of employee retention in every
multinational business corporation. Critical evaluation of employee retention techniques used by
Google LLC corporate will be evaluated in the paper which at present in order to stay at the
vanguard of the industry has been focusing on identifying appropriate talent and expertise which
would effectively demonstrate success in the organization.

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Discussion
Introducing the concept of talent measurement, talent identification and talent retention
Any organization is dependent on the natural ability of its workforce to provide efficient
productivity. It is the responsibility of the organisation to extract talent and recruit them based on
their natural ability to mix with the workforce and add to the success rate of the organisation. It
is also the duty of the organisation officials to attract develop and retain those talented
employees for the betterment of the organisation and obtain competitive advantage over other
organisations in the market (Nijs et al., 2014). It is beneficial for an organisation to include a
variety of talented employees in their workforce to enhance the cultural proficiency and diversity
in the workforce (Hu& Pu, 2011). It is important to identify the pivotal positions in the
organisation that would suit a particular employee with a particular talent. Selection of a
particular talent from a pool of choices and evaluating the best fit for the organisation is very
important to maintain the efficiency of the organisation (Furnham, 2012). Development of vast
and diverse human resource hierarchy is important so as to include diversity in the organisation.
It has to be kept in mind that talent is not a physically measurable entity, therefore psychological
testing methods are utilised to ensure that the selected candidate is best for that particular
organisation (Dries, 2013).
There are various kinds of selection methods of employees according to their talent light
structured interview unstructured interviews and semi structured interviews. Structured
interviews are of two types; behavioural interview that reflects the potential behaviour from the
employee in future and situational interview that determine the intentions of the employee in
future (Patterson et al., 2012). Unstructured interviews are usually done as a part of a casual
conversation (Doody& Noonan, 2013). Semi structured interview is a technique that includes a

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set of open ended questions as well as thematic questionnaire that would evaluate the efficiency
of the employee (McIntosh& Morse, 2015). Google with improved-screening recruitment
procedures has managed to sustain enhanced brand recognition. The procedures applied by the
organization to evaluate relevant proficiency are reliant to the concept of algorithm to make
predictions regarding the chances of candidates to succeed the interview (Furnham, 2012).
Furthermore, leadership expertise has been considered as another significant factor for the
selecting procedure.
Cognitive bias is a part of the selection procedure composed by an organisation. There
are several preconceived that is attributed to the liars towards a particular ability or prime focus
of the employee and is preferred over others. This kind of cognitive bias is based on previous
references and expertise of the human resource management. There are also different kinds of
psychometric tests that can be used in the selection methods to evaluate the characteristic
features of that particular candidate. There are two variations of the psychometric tests like
maximum performance evaluation test which considers the cognitive and sensory motor ability
of the candidates as well as typical performance that measures a circle preconceived interest and
values expected from the employee (Toplak, West& Stanovich, 2013). Evaluation of
biographical data is also another method which is used to select particular candidate from a pool
of talent. The final approach to selection methods is the Assessment Centre which applies a more
generalized overview of the evaluation and identification of talent from a potential candidate.
This technique utilizes a vast array of tasks and methods which are given to a potential candidate
and if they succeed satisfactorily then they are selected for the organisation. It has to be kept in
mind that the assessment of the potential candidates must be fair and reliant on the fair practices
which are taken into account before recruitment.

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Nevertheless, in the light of the current marketing competition, the companies and
organisations and now focusing on retention of employees to maintain the efficiency of their
work force. There are different techniques that can measure the performance of the employees
after the selection of the candidate and standardise performance enhancing techniques which can
be useful to develop the professional competence of the employee (Kompaso& Sridevi, M. S.
2010). The two approaches to measure performance in the workforce quantity and quality.
Quality of the performance is measured by the number of productivity customer and customer
retention capability provided by the employees. Measurement of quality amongst the employees
can be measured by the level of customer satisfaction quality of the report assignment and
sustainability of the marketing materials as well as quality of the product manufactured by the
organisation. It is important to identify the goal set by the organisation to the employees, define
the objectives for them to follow, continuously monitor the performance and progress of the
workforce, evaluation of the performance of employees, providing valid feedback based on those
evaluative techniques and providing performance appraisal to deserved candidates (James&
Mathew, 2012). Adhering to these objectives can help improve the workforce efficacy and
provide better production in business profit to the organisation.
By creating an effective talent management strategy Google ensures innovation that is
ever-present. The company conducts ‘stand up’ meetings in order to drive creativity within the
short period. Its talent management strategy creates a difference by providing employees with a
unique corporate culture that further stimulate and motivates them by consistently inducting
them to improve and develop productive leadership techniques within the employees.

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It is also identify to meet the expectations of the employees and arrange for trainings
necessary to perform particular task from time to time. This provides the organisation with an
opportunity to develop and increase the efficacy of the workforce and maintain the marketing
position of the organisation. It is important to encourage the psychology of learning amongst the
workforce which can help conditioning the mind of the employees towards achieving goals and
increasing the performance throughout their career (Clark & Mayer, 2016). This would ensure
retention of talented individuals in the organisation. Retaining the efficacy and the current
workforce is important to maintain the game of profitability and market position in the
organisation. In the modern era the increase of opportunity in the business industry provides a
threat to the organisations to retain their employee and inhibit the decrease in the efficacy of the
workforce.
Google recognized as the world’s leading search engine has achieved notable
accomplishment by effectively shifting their principles and conventions in their process of
recruitment and management. The company is posited around the expertise and competence to
gather and leverage talent, skills of exceptional technologies and entrepreneurs (Sonenshein,
2010). Several benefits bestowed upon the Google employees have acquired individual
concentration regarding their distinctiveness, appeal along with comprehensive medical plans
include dental and optical care along with fertility treatment have also been viewed as crucial
factors for the increased rate of employee retention within the company.

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It is important to measure the current talent and abilities of the employees and encourage
them when necessary various kinds of reward mechanisms can be adopted to enhance efficacy of
the workforce in the present organisation. Employee satisfaction can be achieved by motivating
the employees in the right path and encourage social learning training informal learning transfer
of learning and conditioning those ideas to maintain the competence (Sandhya& Kumar, 2011).
Brief overview of the company Google
In the year 1998 Larry Page and Sergey Brin co-founded the company, we know as
Google LLC today (Google, 2018). Google is considered one of the most successful business
organisations across the globe which is widely used by consumers with using internet. Google is
American origin multinational Technology based organisation that a specialised in utilisation of
Internet Services and associated products including advertisement of Technologies sold online
maintenance of an Internet based search engine computation based on cloud storage along with
Software and Hardware Technologies. The company has been successful in keeping record of the
changes in the technology industry and keeps up with the innovations offered with the use of
internet services to the consumers (Google, 2018). The success rate of the company is dependent
on the usability of the consumers for searching internet data bases about a particular subject
matter and Google is the most widely used search engine in the world. The company changed
gradually and expanded its market into the Software and Hardware Technologies and developed
innovations ideas and arranged mergers and acquisitions that benefited to expand the Horizon of
the organisation. The company is launching new technologies every year and other than the
search engine the most popularly used software applications are Google Chrome, Google images,
Google mail, Google Drive and Google Docs et cetera (Google, 2018). According to the Forbes
magazine Google is the third largest company in the world to derive revenue annually (Forbes,

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2018). The company is among the 100 most visited websites in the world in current times. There
are about 73,992 employees as a part of the workforce of the organisation as per the statistical
report provided by Google on 2017.
Identifying issues experienced by Google prior to introducing strategies
Google in recent times has been facing incompetence to effectively advance beyond
domain of search or advertising as a business that is regarded as a direct outcomes of the
homogenous commercial tradition and culture whereby it has established and further aimed to
maintain through its process of talent acquisition. The rapid transformation in selection
procedures has reportedly triggered the process that has been applied by the company (Job,
2010). Google identified huge gaps and issues in recognizing talents when they evaluated their
procedure of data and information management that played a significant characteristic in the
company. Questions related to unorthodox subjects asked during the interview process proved to
be irrelevant to the job role and designation stated for the candidates. Therefore, the importance
of structured behaviour interview measures has been identified to produce desired productivity to
the organization. Another critical criterion identified by Google while evaluating the altered
talent recruitment or talent identification process is the assessing the gradation system of
candidates from university placements. The data gathered from this system resulted to be distinct
and unrelated to the concrete and actual job performance thus proved to be less effective and
crucial aspect in its recruitment procedure.
Talent management, identification and retention in Google
Suggestive data from the provided case study it is evident that the company Google has
utilise various kinds of skill test and brain teasing questionnaires in there interview structure two

10ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
evaluate the talent of a potential candidate in the process of the interview (Job, 2010). Other than
that following the footsteps of the company many other organisations have joined in to assess
and evaluate their potential candidates from a talent pool by using the same methods as Google
and providing unorthodox interview questions to evaluate the critical and analytical thinking
skills of the candidate. The company Google focuses to retain their employees by applying
motivational and performance enhancing techniques to facilitate the efficacy of their workforce.
The company aims to retain the talented workforce by providing state-of-the art job
responsibilities and better economic compensation than other organisations (Google, 2018). They
also focus on maintaining special benefits according to the needs of the employees in mind to
ensure that they do not lose their workforce. Just like other organisations Google also had to
ensure and invest large amount of their profits for the training and development of their
employees to ensure the better productivity and profit of the company.
Current scenario of the tribulations of Google LLC
Being the largest and of the one of the most sought after companies in the world Google
faces the basic problems of being a multinational conglomerate like overload of work pressure in
the organization(Forbes, 2018). To manage the workload the company invests in recruiting a
large number of people to be a part of a company as a part of their enormous workforce.
Previously the company focused on the traditional selection procedures and interview techniques
for the selection of their candidates. The selection procedure was done by providing the potential
candidate with tricky brain teaser questionnaires that would evaluate their ability of analytical
and creative thinking (Job, 2010). The interview questionnaire format adopted by Google was
unorthodox and that help them for some time. Next the company started selecting the candidates
based on their academic grades and percentage to evaluate their talent. Nevertheless, after a

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certain point of time the technique stopped working as it did not allow the employers to
determine the performance potential of the employees after they have been recruited in the
company. It was noted that those selection criteria did not satisfy the answer when the employees
could not perform well in the organization. This led to the development and rethinking of the
strategies undertaken by the company previously and modified the selection procedure based on
the needs of the company (Sonenshein, 2010).
Google’s efforts to solve issues
Currently the company focuses on evaluation of the attributes of potential candidates by
assessing their leadership skills knowledge about the job role and responsibilities problem
solving skills and application of a new term called “Googleyness”. The term is described as
having healthy relationship with ambiguity and dependence on employees who do not have any
sort of biased notions for actions and exude nature suggestive of collaborative enthusiasm. This
has been proven to be effective and useful for the company to select the suitable candidates for
their organisation from a particular talent pool. The company in recent times to solve such
persistent issues regarding talent identification has been encouraging ‘scientific’ and methodical
approach to assess the criterion based on the leadership, role-centric and problem solving
expertise. The company identified the relationship between effective leadership techniques and
productive team performance whereby group effort and cooperation has been situated at the
centre of their primary operations (Toplak, West& Stanovich, 2013). Google believes that
innovation and modernism develops through proper distribution of ideas, knowledge and team
performance along with the competence to solve issues that is regarded as a fundamental
component in their recent approach of ‘Googleyness’ which the company is looking for in its
new recruits.