Google's Motivational Techniques

I would like to begin by saying that I am usually not jealous or envious of many people but I have to say I am actually jealous of all the googlers. That being said I know now if I was to ever own my business I will make sure to first read Laszlo Bock’s book “WORK RULES! INSIGHTS FROM INSIDE GOOGLE THAT WILL TRANSFORM HOW YOU LIVE AND LEAD” I believe this book can help transform the way we conduct our businesses and how we treat our employees. It’s the new way of looking at the workforce, the old view was to invest in your business and not employees but new view is when you invest in your employees the rest will follow. Google’s HR along

Google Inc. was founded in 1998 by two Stanford University graduate students collaborating to create a new search engine. Today, Google employs over 19,000 people, has become the most widely used search engine in the world and now offers e-mail, mapping, video sharing and social networking services, just to name a few. The company’s success is notable, but not just for its financial growth, in 2007 Google was listed as the number one company to work for by Fortune 5 magazine (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2007/full_list/). Google has been noted for its unique corporate organizational culture, to which many attribute the company’s success.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both PhD students at Stanford University in California, founded Google in 1996 as a research project. Their research projects original plan was to successfully “create the world’s best search” (Schmidt, Rosenberg, & Eagle, 2014, p. 5). According to Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, and Jonathan Rosenberg, former SVP of Products, once their revolutionary search engine became a viable company their plan was to “hire as many talented software engineers as possible, and give them freedom” (2014, p. 5). The theory was that in a company depending on engineers, Google should develop hiring practices “attracting and leading the very best engineers” was the most efficient way for Google to meet and surpass corporate goals (Schmidt, Rosenberg, & Eagle, 2014, p.

Google designed their offices and cafes to encourage employees to interact with other Googlers within and across teams. This allows them to spark conversations about work, as well as play, creating a relaxing work place. It’s not the typical corporate culture. In fact, just by looking at pictures inside the Googleplex, you can see that it looks more like an adult playground, not a place for work. Google’s success can be attributed to the free culture of their workplace. Google has people whose sole job is to keep employees happy and maintain productivity.

“Our employees, who call themselves Googlers, are everything. We hope to recruit many more in the future. We will reward and treat them well.” Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Founders of Google

The book is written by Steven Levy a journalist that had a long standing relationship with the company and wanted to write a book about the company. He was granted access into the company where he interviewed the top executives to learn about the company from their perspective. The book is about the journey and progress of Google from a small Stanford dorm room to a search giant. The book discusses how Larry and Page met, their background, the struggles they had and the people involved in building the key products/services that makes Google number one. The book provides details about the company’s major services and how they were invented like Google News, Google toolbar, Gmail and Chrome. The book also address the culture of Google how they ran the business, the work environment, their unofficial slogan, their hiring philosophy and how they treat their employees. The book acknowledges how google thinks, how they work and shape the lives of people who use their products. The book also shows how Google grew and expanded into other industries by acquiring other companies such as YouTube and others.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is best known for its highly profitable advertising and search businesses, which are revolutionizing how consumers globally access, analyze, interpret and use data and information. Since its founding in 1998, Google's founders and senior management teams have strived to create a culture that enables rapid, disruptive innovation. Google's Rule of 20%, which states any engineer has the freedom to invest up to a fifth of their time in a research project of interest, is today responsible for 57% of total revenues (Steiber, Alänge, 2013). The Google culture thrives in innovation as a result, with a well-defined process in place for initially evaluating, qualifying and then prioritizing specific research projects. Each engineer has the opportunity to own the project from initial definition through presentation to senior management and eventual launch (Steiber, Alänge, 2013). The motivation to excel with their own inventions and innovative new product ideas has led to the development of Gmail; Google+, the highly successful social network that Google launched in response to Facebook's' dominance; and a myriad of other developments including visual and contextual search, two technologies still under development.

Google’s human relations and human resource management styles have changed the way that companies will be managed in the years to come. Google’s model of motivation and leadership tears down the traditional scientific management theory which focuses on results rather than the employees who deliver those results. The Vice President of People Development at Google stated that the company’s strives “to create the happiest, most productive workplace in the world. It’s less about the aspiration to be No.1 in the world, and more that we want our employees and future employees to love it here, because that’s what’s going to make us successful” (Smith,2014). Google shows employees they are valued and constantly motivates them in the workplace by creating a culture that fulfills their needs in all aspects. The office design, the management style, policies, and perks/benefits all put the employee first.

Google is known for its fast pace and high-energy work environment. While the company might portray a casual dress code, it continues to attract and retain the brightest minds from the technology field. The atmosphere emphasizes on play hard and work hard. The company emphasizes on the twenty percent program where employees are encouraged to invest twenty percent of their time on personal interests and projects. This has kept employees happy and business booming. Experts have estimated that half of the products launched are attributed to the twenty percent time project (Farrell, Fella

Being named the top company to work for, for the last four years is no easy feat. But Google has created a recipe for success in how they recruit, manage, evaluate and motivate their 33,100 employees. By utilizing their data analysis systems and empowering their employees, Google has been able to create a successful workforce that focuses on work/life balance and transparency for all of their employees.

The strategy of focusing on getting information to millions of people internationally is the foundation of Google. Another strategy in which Google is unique is their culture. Google creates an atmosphere of creativity, teamwork and brainstorming which has helped win them a spot in the top 10 of Fortune magazine’s best companies in which to work.

It is no wonder that Google is considered one of the best company’s in the world to work for. With its generous pay and compensations plan it has the ability to attract the best of the best employees. Googles well-designed compensation philosophy supports the organization’s strategic plan and initiatives, business goals, competitive outlook, operating objectives, and compensation and total reward strategies. Throughout its history google has continued to access their pay model and adjust it to ensure it is internally aligned, competitive, takes in to consideration employee contributions and has their management actively involved. Google is not only faced with the challenge of attracting, retaining and motivating the very best talent,

There are very few companies in the world that are successful in two realms: its personnel realm and the business realm. It has become common knowledge that Google’s employees love working at Google. They don’t simply like it, they love it. Many of Google’s employees are computer programmers and coders, and it takes more than money to both motivate them and keep them content. Google’s original “campus” in Mountain View, California, otherwise known as GooglePlex, offers employees everything they may need or want – and more – leaving them with little reason to go home at all. It is abundantly clear that this costly approach has paid huge dividends to Google.

The idea of Google developed when its founders wanted to organize an “infinite” amount of information on the web. It was first called “Backrub”, and later on adopted the name Googol, after a mathematical terminology. The founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin worked on their idea for 3 years before deciding to incorporate it. It officially became a company in the year 1998. Google started off as a search engine, and it maintains its core business until now. The main benefits of having a search engine include quick results for intended searches, as search engines extract information from the web and display in an organized manner.

At Google, it’s also about sharing knowledge and assisting those who utilize the google site to grow their skills. Google has opened their minds and doors to many entrepreneurial nonprofits that share their two