Google’s Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter? PDF

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Google’s Project Oxygen: Do Managers Matter?

Case Summary and Synopsis The study of Project Oxygen, which was established at Google, is presented in this article. The aim of this case study is to analyze Project Oxygen's specifics and assumptions, as well as to address the question, "Do Managers Matter?" The case outlines Google's organizational culture and personality. It presents the findings of a report conducted by Google's PiLab team of People Operations. The case examines the feasibility of implementation program based on Project Oxygen's findings, as well as PiLab participants' potential strategies for strengthening management at Google based on Project Oxygen's findings.

Case Problem Statement As we know from this case, the majority of Google employees are engineers. Engineers tend to spend their time coding and debugging on their own. Many of them thinks that direct reports to managers is a distraction and might get in the way to get things done. As stated by Nadav Eiron, Google’s Engineering director at the time, engineer managers without sufficient training are having a hard time striking a balance between providing direction and micromanaging. Since Google had very few managers, directors, and vice presidents, it made the organization relatively flat and the engineering-dominated culture also meant that decision making is consensus driven. From the explanation above, we can conclude that this case has three problem statements that needs to be answered: 1. Do managers matter? 2. If so, what makes a good manager at Google? 3. What should be the priorities for Google in moving forward?

Case Analysis Three members of the People Operation Division (HR division at Google) formed People & Innovation Lab (PiLab) to work on these problems. In 2009, PiLab started actively analyzing and studying data on Google’s managers and it lead the way for the beginning of Project Oxygen. Google uses science and evidence based HR to answer all of these

questions regarding managers in the company. Project Oxygen uses surveys, feedback, observation, and analysis to reach their main goal, that is to find out the most important traits that Google employees perceived to be important in making a great manager. People in PiLab combine Googlegeist ratings and performance review scores and studied a cross-section of high-scoring and and lowscoring managers. “High-scoring” managers were those in the top 25% on both measures, and “low-scoring” managers were in the bottom quartile of both. The studies on Googlegeist shows that small increase in manager quality have a powerful impact. Additional analysis has shown that the difference between “high-scoring” and “low-scoring” has had an effect on job satisfaction, retention, and performance. Employees with high-scoring manager also had a higher score on all Googlegeist dimensions and it leads to a higher performing team. Based on this research, PiLab has concluded that managers do matter and would drive company performance. Next for PiLab is to find out essential traits that a great manager must have. PiLab identified that there are 8 behaviors that high-scoring managers have in common. Base on this findings, they made Oxygen attributes which consist of 8 behaviors of an ideal manager at Google: 1. Be a coach. 2. Empower the team and do not micromanage. 3. Express interest/concerns for team member’s success & personal well-being. 4. Be productive and result oriented. 5. Be a good communicator. 6. Help with career development 7. Have a vision. 8. Use your technical skills to advice. With the help of People Operation, PiLab created a way to measure the 8 attributes by conducting two variations of survey. The Upward Feedback Survey (UFS) was developed for employees in global business organization, and the Tech Managers Survey (TMS) was developed for members of the engineering group. At the end of 2010, the People Operation began to develop management training courses on the result of the Project Oxygen to provide comprehensive recommendations on how to deliver personalized and balanced feedback. UFS and TMS scores drive managers to improve and almost all managers found the benefit of Project Oxygen. As we can see over the time, the qualities of Google’s managers have grown and evolved.

Lesson Learned Afterthe successProject of Oxygen , Google must find a way to continuously improving their managers and employees to increase the company overallperformance. Here are the priorities for Google in moving forward: . TMS 1. Increase the average score in UFS and waysto measure potential eat gr . 2. Create andinnovate managers ould focus on staff nd managers a to develop “trulya amazing manager s”. 3. Google sh of evidence data base HR to understand employees 4. Continuing to improve the use or behavi or and dynamics thuscreating a better workonmen envirwhich would increase t productiv ity and happiness.

There is a saying “Employee that s leavemanagers,tno companies or”.job It means that ng havi a great manager is essential for any company o achievetsuccess . Companies should build a strongcultur especially in employee and manager onship. relatiHavingexcellent a manager e would increase employee satisfaction and pr oductivit y in a wo rk envi ronmenthusimproving t company overall performance.companies All shouldimplement evidence base HR strategy such as doing regular feedback, surveys , observa tions, and analysis toknow truly what is going on with their employees and managers based on real data . Collectinghese t data could help companies to create strategies in improving their workforce efficiencyand effectiveness . Companies should also provide thenecessary trainin g for managersfulfil to all attributes of a great manager, these attributes may vary depending yonculture each compan and resultsrom f the veysconducted sur .

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