Human Resource Management Case Study PDF

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A case study about the human resource practices by google....

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT 1 – PART 2

Topic : Case Study on HR practices of Google

Submitted To : Prof. Binwant Kaur

Submitted By : Sakshee Sree BFT/18/202 Sem-6

OBJECTIVE  To do a case study of any company – [Google] and to trace out the distinguished HR practices implemented in the company and to analyse them.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. It is considered one of the Big Five technology companies in the U.S. information technology industry, alongside Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. Founded : September 4, 1998; in Menlo Park, California, United States Founders : Larry Page, Sergey Brin Headquarters : 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California, United States, Queenstown, Singapore (Asia-Pacific) Key people : Sundar Pichai (CEO), Ruth Porat (CFO) Industry : Internet, Cloud computing, Computer software, Computer hardware, Artificial intelligence, Advertising Revenue : 182,527,000,000 United States dollar (2020) Operating income : 41,224,000,000 United States dollar (2020) Net income : 40,269,000,000 United States dollar (2020) Total assets : 319,616,000,000 United States dollar (2020) Number of employees : 135,301 (2020) Products catered : 

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Search Tools : Google Search ,Google Alerts ,Google Arts & Culture , Google Assistant , Google Bookmarks ,Google Dataset Search, Google Finance , Google Flights ,Google Images ,Google News ,Google Patents , Google Shopping ,YouTube Advertising services : Google Ads, AdMob , Google AdSense, Google Ad Manager, Google Tag Manager Communication and publishing tools : Blogger ,FeedBurner ,Gmail ,Google Account , Google Calendar , Google

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Chat , Google Charts , Google Currents , Google Docs Editors (Google Docs ,Google Sheets ,Google Slides ,Google Drawings, Google Forms ,Google Sites ,Google Keep ,Google Domains ,Google Drive ,Google Fonts ,Google Groups ,Google Meet ,Google Translate ,Google Voice ). Map-related products : Google Maps , Google My Maps , Google Maps Gallery ,Google Mars , Google Moon , Google Street View , Google Sky, Google Santa Tracker Statistical tools : Google Analytics , Google Surveys ,Firebase , Google Ngram Viewer , Google Public Data Explorer , TensorFlow , Google Trends ,Google Activity Report . Business-oriented products : Google Workspace , Google My Business, Google Tables (beta)

Source : [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google]

HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES DONE BY GOOGLE

1. HR Planning At Google :

Google’s HR managers focus on the effective use of forecast information to minimize the surplus or shortage of employees, and to establish a balance between the supply and demand for qualified employees.

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Forecasting. Human resource managers at Google use trend analysis and scenario analysis for forecasting. Trend analysis is a quantitative technique that allows the company to predict possible HR demand based on current conditions and changes in the business. Scenario analysis is Google’s qualitative technique for forecasting HR demand. Scenario analysis involves analysing different combinations of variables to predict HR demand for each resulting scenario. In this way, Google uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques for forecasting HR demand. Surplus & Shortage of Employees. Concerns about surplus or shortage of employees at Google are mostly in the production processes, such as the manufacture of Chromecast and the provision of the Google Fiber Internet and cable television service. For production processes, Google’s human resource management identifies possible surpluses and shortages through forecasting techniques. Such information is used for recruitment and scheduling. Balancing Supply and Demand. Even if demand for webbased/software products and online advertising services increase, Google does not need to commensurately increase its human resources in these business areas because of the digital nature of these products. Still, the company needs to address HR supply and demand in other areas, such as the production and distribution of consumer electronics like Nexus and Chromecast. For these areas, Google uses a flexible strategy where new employees are hired based on forecasts of human resource needs.

2. Job Analysis And Design At Google : 

Organizational Design : Google’s organizational design enables the company to flexibly address human resource needs. The interconnections in the firm’s matrix organizational structure allow human resource managers to easily identify cross-linkages among different parts of the organization and use this information for the processes of job analysis and design. Thus, Google’s organizational design facilitates and optimizes human resource management activities, particularly in job analysis and design.

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Methods of Job Analysis : Google uses a combination of workeroriented job analysis methods and work-oriented job analysis methods. However, the company emphasizes the use of workoriented job analysis methods in jobs like those in research and development, as well as jobs in product design and manufacturing.

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Google emphasizes the worker-oriented job analysis methods in jobs that require significant interpersonal skills, such as human resource management positions. Job Description & Specification : Because of the large size of the organization, Google has highly varied job descriptions and specifications. The job descriptions and specifications for positions in product development, for instance, significantly differ from the job descriptions and specifications for positions in human resource management. Nonetheless, Google emphasizes certain characteristics in all employees, such as smartness and drive for excellence in all job positions throughout the organization.

3. Training and development at Google : 

Google has created a work environment that fosters continuous learning. Employees get opportunities of continuous learning and growth.

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Google has special training programs related to presentation skills, content development, management and leadership. 120 hours of training and development every year is mandatory for all Google employees.

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Free classes in foreign language and culture are also provided to Google employees.

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The group of engineers at Google is paid special attention for its important role. They are provided orientation and training plus mentoring by a special group called engEDU. These programs have been designed by the engineers for the engineers.

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There are special reimbursement plans for the Google employees if they want to pursue further education. The Stanford MS program is designed to cater to the needs of engineers needing technical expertise in a specific area. The full cost of this program is born by Google. Its global education leave program allows up-to 5 years of leave and reimbursement of up to $150,000 for employees who want to take their education further.

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Google’s Learning and Leadership Development (LLD) team innovative learning programs to identify and groom the company’s existing talent. The managers perform the task of being life coaches and advise the young employees on a lot of aspects apart from work also.

4. Employee Motivation - Benefits and Perks : Google focuses on work-life balance of the employees. These benefits instil motivation, collaboration and innovation in the employees.

Some benefits that Google provides to its employees are :  Flexible work hours  Work from home facility  Telecommuting  Vacation policy : three weeks’ vacation during their first year of employment  free recreation including video gaming, football, volleyball and pool tables, valet parking for its employee’s and onsite carwashes  Casual dressing  Onsite medical care  Pets allowed  Health benefits applicable soon after joining  Free gourmet meals, drinks and snacks  Onsite gym, free massage and yoga  Expert help with financial management so Googlers can remain worry free.  Generous parental leaves  Retirement savings plans  employee referral bonus programmes, onsite childcare centers, fuel efficiency and onsite dry cleaning  Death benefits etc. 5. Performance management at Google: 

Throughout the various stages from hiring to performance management, Google cares for equity and believes in providing each Googler with equal chances of growth and development.

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Its payment strategy is based on the pay for performance scheme. 360 degree feedback is used for performance review and reviewers can be selected from all across the organization. It is not just the seniors but the subordinates too can be a part of the review team. So that people can perform at their best, Google’s leaders have taken care of a few important things  A person is assigned to a task he is interested in.  Everyone can learn continuously.  Challenges are there for everyone.  Everyone feels being recognized for his contribution.

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Google has HR Business partners who perform the task of developing and implementing innovative programs and technology in place to identify and resolve end user issues across the company anywhere in the world. They collect and maintain important user

data collected over an employee’s life cycle which is then used to find out important traits and trends of employee behaviours and identify the potentials problems. 

Google has quarterly hand holding sessions with the senior executives to celebrate the achievement of the previous quarter and set the agenda for the next quarter.

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For those who are not comfortable of speaking up in a public forum, the company conducts regular surveys which are kept anonymous to understand the trends and identify the problem areas if there are any.

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Google launched ‘Project Oxygen’ in order to assess how its managers were doing, and to suggest future training and coaching when inadequacies were uncovered by the performance management process. Google came to the realisation that if managers are effective they do not need to build a lot of training infrastructure. Project Oxygen, uncovered 8 traits that Google managers, ranked in order of importance must possess: o Be a good coach o Empower your team and don’t micromanage o Express interest in team members’ success and personal wellbeing o Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented o Be a good communicator and listen to your team o Help your employees with career development o Have a clear vision and strategy for the team o Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team

6. Recruitment and Staffing at Google : The main focus of Google’s recruitment policy is to have the right person in the right position. It does not officially reveal its number of recruiters but sources say that more than 400 internal and external recruiters were working for hiring new Googlers in 2009. These recruiters are well paid professionals, many of them external recruiters, to recruit new candidates. In 2012, the number of new recruits Google hired was more than 8000. Recruiters focus on hiring staff that is highly talented and culturally compatible. The company has a centralized hiring team, comprising of specialists whose main endeavour is to identify the best talent in the market and retain them.

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Culture plays an important role when it comes to hiring new people. How culturally compatible the applicant is with Google decides how well he will perform once he is inside. The more culturally compatible are the employees, the higher will be the overall productivity of an organisation.

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Another key focus of Google’s recruitment strategy is diversity. It has partnered several organizations to make its selection process a success and to bring a highly diverse workforce together. Diversity is not just an HR concern, instead something visible in all aspects of Google’s business. They look for people who can bring new perspectives and life experiences to their teams. curious, passionate, and have desire to learn who are big thinkers eager to take on fresh challenges as a team . The recruitment team has members in roles like recruiting research analysts, candidate developers, process coordinators, candidate screeners and several others.

7. Screening and selection At Google : 

Google uses an innovative recruiting tool that relies on algorithms to identify the potential talent rather than traditional ways of hiring like those based on academic grades, SAT scores, degree from wellknown colleges, prior industry experience, interviews and subjective test results. This gives Google the power to identify and select the candidates on a more data driven approach. The whole idea behind this screening procedure is to evaluate the candidates on their innovative and dynamic skill and to check their ability to work in a flat organizational structure with small teams as present in Google, which is also referred to as “Googleyness”.

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This recruiting team is also well funded with 1 recruiter being provided for every 14 employees, which again makes it the best funded recruiting functions amongst the product based organizations in the country.

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Use structured interviewing to hire employees : Structured interviewing reduces the influence of bias by using the same questions and grading criteria for every job candidate. Google uses four components to get the most out of interviews: 1. only use vetted questions relevant to the position

2. record candidate answers so evaluators can review them easily 3. use a standardized rubric to score applicant 4. give interviewers the training and calibration they need to do their jobs well 

Hire by committee : Google also recommends that companies hire by committee. The company lets its hiring managers say no to job candidates, but individual managers don't have authority to hire new employees before consulting a committee. Hiring by committee helps companies choose the best candidates for open positions. While a manager might feel like they need to fill a position as quickly as possible, a committee can take a long-term approach to accepting new hires, even if it means leaving a position unfilled for several months. While they might take longer, committees help ensure that new employees are right for their positions.

8. Innovative and employee friendly HR policies:  Google has created an environment focused on inclusion. It makes sure that its employees’ suggestions are valued. New products are first released internally and employee suggestions are invited as a part of product development process. The staff provides its feedback on the usability and other features of a product before final release. 

Google encourages its employees to work on 70-20-10 rule where in the employees have to devote 70 % of their time to core search and advertising work, 20% on a project of their choice and 10 % on working on far-out ideas.

9. Improving Employee productivity : 

The offices are designed in such a way so as to provide colour, lighting and a shared room to the employees. The employees are seated very close to each other and made to share offices, thus making knowledge sharing an essential part of the everyday culture at Google.

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On an average, each employee generates more than 1 million in revenue each year. This gives leverage to the Google employees and manager to try out new things, make mistakes and learn from their failures, which is again a great motivating factor for the

employees to try out new stuff. So as a result any employee in the company has a chance to create a new product or a feature.

10. Increasing discovery and learning : Rather than focusing on traditional classroom learning, the emphasis is on hands-on learning (the vast majority of people learn through on-the-job learning). Google has increased discovery and learning through project rotations, learning from failures and even through inviting external speakers like Al Gore and Lady Gaga to speak to their employees. Clearly, self-directed continuous learning and the ability to adapt are key employee competencies at Google.

A BRIEF OF SOME OF THE TOOLS USED BY GOOGLE FOR HR

Data Analytics used for every process at google : Google uses people analytics to navigate most of their people management practices. It produces many products, including dashboards and employee surveys that are not anonymous. It also attempts to identify insightful correlations and to provide recommended actions. The goal is to substitute data and metrics for the use of opinions. Nothing is done solely on gut feeling, or in accordance with outdated HR policies of the 80’s and 90’s which still plague many companies to this day. Instead, data informs all of their decisions. By adopting this scientific approach to its processes; from improving employee retention, workplace collaboration, diversity, to hiring algorithms which indicate which prospective candidate has the highest probability to succeed at Google. “All people decisions at Google are based on data and analytics”. The goal is to … “bring the same level of rigor to people-decisions that we do to engineering decisions”.

The PiLab : The PiLab is a unique subgroup that no other firm has. It conducts applied experiments within Google to determine the most effective approaches for managing people and maintaining a productive environment (including the type of reward that makes employees the happiest). The lab even improved employee health by reducing the calorie intake of its employees at their eating facilities by relying on scientific data and experiments (by simply reducing the size of the plates).

A retention algorithm : It developed a mathematical algorithm to proactively and successfully predict which employees are most likely to become a retention problem. This approach allows management to act before it’s too late and it further allows retention solutions to be personalised. Predictive modelling : People management is forward looking at Google. As a result, it develops predictive models and uses “what if” analysis to continually improve their forecasts of upcoming people management problems and opportunities. It also uses analytics to produce more effective workforce planning, which is essential in a rapidly growing and changing firm.

CONCLUSION Google is one of those companies that puts its employees at the core of their strategy and looks at the long term benefits that they would bring to the shareholders and their peers. In fact, in 2008 when Google began cutting its employee perks, its employee productivity and stock prices both fell. This shows a direct correlation between gaining and retaining outstanding employees with innovative ideas and the overall company growth. The company’s success has been based on the fact that they have been innovative, flexible and dynamic in their functions. Managing growth by keeping the same collegiate environment in the future will be essential to company’s success. As Google grows in shape and size, the challenge for the company will be to maintain the same level creative activism and sense of empowerment amongst its employees. Google is having problems finding the right talent in its other offices worldwide especially in its South Asia operations. The employees must be encouraged to work in a more entrepreneurial manner and they must be provided adequate resources and financ...