Comparison of Google Offices
Google is one of the unique offices that offer wide varieties of benefits and facilities to its employees. The management of Google gives utmost importance to all the employees to make them feel better in the workplace which in turn helps the organization to increase its organizational productivity (Bock 2015). The employees who first visited the company were amused and taken back after having a glance of the office space. The office is totally different from the other contemporary offices and seems much like a amusement place or a playground. However these offices of the mentioned company are always innovating new and revolutionary products and services for the future. The Google campus in different places of the world is considered to be a good life for all the employees working there. The mentioned technology company offers perks, comforts, privileges to all its employees which is quite different and enviable for the employees of all the other similar companies. The HR department of the mentioned organization is specially fitted with the task to look after the different needs and wants of the employees and provide them accordingly. In contrast to the other HR departments in other organizations the HR department of the said company tries to b r4ing in analytics, data and science to serve the employees in the same way as the engineers of the company do on the product part (Schmidt and Rosenberg 2014).
Recent reports by the company as well as reports from other independent sources have claimed that the employees in Google are 15% more productive than the employees of other similar companies. The reason behind this is mainly attributed to the working place environment and the unique workplace design of the organization. The workplace design of the company is unique in nature as because it does not match with any of the other workplaces. Such a environment helps the employees to have the feeling of owning their individual workplace and be as much as creative which helps in their personal as well as professional development and increases the organizational efficiency (Schmidt and Rosenberg 2014). The different offices of Google located in the different parts of the globe have their own set of uniqueness. The USA office of Google in California can be taken as an example to provide insights into the work culture of the mentioned IT Company. The office spans over 1 million square feet and is believed to be giant entertainment zone. The campus has a total of 16 offices in them with a variety of different features installed in each of them. First and foremost of the benefits the company employees receive is the food which is totally free. The lunch and all the other foods the employees have during their office hours is provided totally free of cost to the employees. There are 18 restaurants in the campus and all of them serve a variety of food because of the cultural mix up of the employees. The management of Google employs people from all across the world and thus the restaurants offer a wide variety of food to the employees. This includes Asian, Continental, Chinese, Indian, South American and many more as such. Google also cultivates its own food inside the campus and thus provides organic vegetables and fruits. Apart from such facilities the management of the organization has also four fully equipped gyms in place that helps the employees to work out after a tiring days of work. These gyms have also personal trainers who help the employees to stay fit and fine (Bock 2015).
The list of benefits goes on and on as the management has also installed a number of sleeping pods in the offices where people are free to take a short nap. Some other benefits include a free check up facility with a doctor present round the clock to ensure the prevention of any accidents or other uncalled incidents. Another most important feature of the office is the providence of laundry facilities that facilitates the employees to wash and clean their dirty shirts after a day’s work. As mentioned by, Bock (2015) most of the offices of Google provide similar kind of services. It will be necessary to compare the different services provided by Google in its different offices. The comparison has been done in a table format given below;
|
USA |
CHINA |
BRAZIL |
SWITZERLAND |
|
· Huge office space of 1 million square feet with 16 buildings in the campus · Employees are offered different types of foods absolutely free of cost · All types of foods available because of the variety of employees working in the office. This includes ethnic, continental, Indian, Chinese and many more as such · Employees are free to hit the gyms for a workout. They are also provided with personal trainers · Laundry facility is available to the employees which is also a unique one and quite different to the other facilities provided by any other organizations |
· The Beijing office of Google is another innovative workplace · Employees conduct meetings in a fun environment by sitting on bin bags and couches · Employees are free to sleep in tents and sleeping igloos constructed by the company |
· Employees take a nap in the indoor amex and enjoys all the different types of opportunity that helps them to increase their perform better. · The employees are free to create their own schedule of their work to help them maintain both their personal as well as professional life. |
· The Switzerland office is one of the most hi-tech offices in the world. · A psychologist was appointed by the owners of the company to decide on the designing and planning of the organization. · A large library as well as private pods have been kept in place to make the employees relax |
Work Culture at Zappos and strategic initiatives to be taken
Zappos is one of the few companies in USA that is recognized as one of the best companies that provides a world class working culture and ethics. The practices help the organization to make their day to day operations smoother in nature. The managme4nt6 of Zappos constantly creates and reinforces the corporate culture (Eremina and Puhakka 2017). The environment that it provides to the employees is not suitable to most of the employees and also not fit for most of them. However the professional people who fit the corporate culture want to rather thrive to be an employee of the company. The management of the company has one of the best leaders of the market who coordinates the culture with the Human Resources and management work systems of the organization. The corporate culture of the following company has been defined by the management of the organization using the ten coir values of management. This includes;
The management of the company takes specific actions each and every day that helps to reinforce its culture of a fun workplace which is a bit strange. According to, Henson (2016) the work culture at Zappos is really amazing and can be imitated by other companies to get success.
I am the HR consultant of ABC private limited company. Our company specializes itself in the real estate sector. The company has its operational headquarters in Singapore and it is involved in building and selling apartments, office spaces and other kinds of both residential and non residential properties in Singapore. The management of the company had earlier decided to extend its operations across South East Asia especially in neighboring countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and India. Managing the operations of such a huge area and ensuring a smooth operational efficiency is a challenge to the organization. Thus it will be better to cite the example of Zappos to have an effective HR planning in place. The case of Zappos is an eye opener to most of the companies like ABC private limited on how to formulate, manage and maintain an effective work culture. The process must start from the grassroots as it will help ensure the success of the company. During the hiring process of the company it must make sure to provide a clear picture of the culture of the company to the potential candidates. After they gets selected a friendly training session must be conducted by the organization to make sure that the employees of the organization can come in contact with each other. I will be focusing more on the employees who can fit into the organizational culture and who are honest, effective and hard working in nature. This may need some time but will ultimately result in the well being of the organization. A detailed feedback on each candidate will be provided to me so that I can analyze the performance of each and every of the individuals and provide my detailed report on their proper implementation in the company to the management. The core business values as described by the management of Zappos clearly states that the workplace must be a place where apart from work the organization needs to implement co-curricular activities that can help the employees stay happy. The employees must also be rewarded and recognized when they achieve special achievements as because such a reward system motivates the employees and helps them to increase their operational performance.
I will have to coordinate with the different departments of the company to make sure that the employees face no problems in the workplace. The employees in the mentioned company must be given the freedom to express themselves and innovate new ideas to facilitate the demand of the customers. Like the core values of Zappos my company must also run on some core values which are as follows;
The work environment must be formulated in such a way that employees will themselves follow all the regulations and adapt themselves accordingly. The main driving force behind the creation of such a model will be the leadership quality of the managers in charge. The management will have to choose the best leaders from within the organization who are capable of providing a strong and compact leadership that can help the employees to deliver the best performance and lead the company to success in future.
Pre Departure Training Program
Pre-departure training program is the most important for the people who are generally send for international assignments (Aravind et al. 2017). The pre departure training programs helps the particular person to be compatible with the objectives of the company and also ge3t an idea of the cultural, social and political dimensions of the host country. It helps the person, to be send for the assignment adapt to the new environment and perform in the best possible way. The training is generally conducted in the frameworks of cultural awareness and also includes the support for the performance of the organization. A number of different elements are generally inducted into the personal development training programs which includes;
In the following case a British couple with two school going children has been assigned to take up an expat assignment in UAE in a span of just 6 months from the present time. The wife has taken up an offer with Zayed University in the city of Abu Dhabi in a managerial post. The husband on the other hand is an experienced music teacher. The children are aged 11 years and 6 years respectively. Thus the family must have a clear idea about the host country and its various policies and rules. The couple will also have to ensure their Children’s admission in an international school located in Abu Dhabi. The pre-departure training program will be conducted for 10 days which will include discussion, class room and a 1 month training program which will purely consist of language training programs for the couple. The trainee should be professional and must have a transparent and thorough idea about the cultural and other paradigms of both UK and UAE. The training program must be designed in such a way that will help the couple feel comfortable in the host country and easily face the striking differences in culture and other sectors.
UAE is one of the fastest changing Asian countries that offer a lot of scope in the recent times. The city of Abu Dhabi with its marvelous structures has been the destination for a large number of people in the recent years. The shift of the couple from an European background to a totally new culture will involve a cultural shock. The cultural shock can only be avoided once the couple has a proper amount of knowledge of UAE. As mentioned earlier some of the main points that are to be incorporated within the pre-departure training program for UAE will include;
Geert Holfstede’s cultural dimension theory states that culture is the organized programming of the human mind that is the main cause behind the differentiation of one person from the other based on their nationalities, race, caste, creed, religion, speaking habits and many more as such (Wurtz 2014). The British family mentioned in the following case study must abide by the rules and regulations of UAE and work according to the ethics of country. Opposed to their own free lifestyles of England they must restrict themselves and adapt to the conservative mindset of the Emiratis. The training program to be undertaken by the couple will thus be followed accordingly to ensure their success.
1.Mazda is a Japanese Automobile manufacturing company headquartered in Hiroshima, Japan. Mazda produced around 1.5 million vehicles for global sales. The company has an annual revenue turnover of around 3.4 trillion Japanese Yen and a net income of around 13.4 billion Japanese yen. The company is surely one of the largest automobile makers of the globe. However the company faced a bankruptcy in the year 1980 which challenged its survival. This made the organization more careful about the future actions and thus the management reacted to the situation by formulating and applying a set of strategies to counter such serious threats to its existence (Bruner et al. 2017). The first thing which the company did was to reduce the salaries of the managers by 20% and also decided against providing bonuses to the employees for a period of four years. This was done basically to avoid any termination of employees. The management of the mentioned company implemented a set of principles in the year 2009. They were;
In the year 2008, Mazda implemented a Human resource development program which ensured that all the new employees of product related divisions are trained for about three years in the product development related divisions (West Ford and Ibrahim 2015). This will help them to become experts in the work and will also help to avoid any kind of flaw in the system designing. The extensive training program will also help to improve the logical thinking and to express the individuality of the drawings of the design and also be able to control the practical work easily. The supervisors of the training program also meet with the trainees every now and then to ensure that they are on the right track in their development process. The main motive behind such a move is to make sure that the employees become experts in their own fields.
On the other hand Chrysler is an American company that also produces automobiles. The management policies of Chrysler depends on the home grown prospective of the eastern countries especially that of the countries in Asia (Zorkóciová Šimorová and Šášiková 2014). The management of the mentioned company drastically terminated a large number of employees during their crisis period and also reduced the payment of the senior executives of the company by 2%. This proves the capitalist mindset of the management as they were ready to sacrifice their workers but feared to get rid of their managers and supervisors. The American society on the other hand is not too much family centric and thus the independent nature of the people makes them change their jobs every now and then. Thus it was easy for the employees to accept the situation. However the company has adapted to a new style of organizational development that has helped them to put a stop to such practices. The integration of the company led to the structural changes in the organization that included consolidation and integration of a number of different functions, centralizing the Human Resources of the company. Such a positive step ensures the proper management of the organization.
2.There are lots of reasons that lie behind the difference in approaches to a same organizational crisis by different companies. The approach followed by Mazda was different from that followed by Chrysler. It is seen that the management of Mazda did not put the axe upon the employees and rather insisted on a pay cut which was widely accepted by the employees where as the management of Chrysler made the laborers suffer and retained the white collared employees (Russo 2017). This striking difference in approach is just because of a striking difference in the culture of the countries as Japan and America have a totally different culture.
|
Characteristics |
Japanese Culture |
American Culture |
|
1. Job roles and duties for groups and individuals |
The Japanese companies always give preference to the team. The team preference is given as because it is believed that the team is most important as it helps to improve the performance of each and every member within it. |
Organizational roles and individual roles are related to each other and thus preference is given to a single person rather than the team. |
|
2. Relationship with the employees |
The management of the Japanese companies gives utmost preference to the employees as they are believed to be the assets who run the company. They ensure every possible benefit for the employees and mix with them freely. |
The companies in America usually prefer those employees who are talented and have the right skills to enrich the company. The ordinary employees are not much entertained in US companies (Moran Abramson and Moran 2014). |
|
3. Constancy |
A number of high level discussions and meetings with lots of paper work take place before taking any big decisions. This helps the management of the companies to take the correct decision at the correct time (Kuriyama 2017). |
The US companies generally prefer to take decisions at a quick pace and hardly takes the advice of the juniors to solve any problems or take important decisions. The management of the companies gives a free hand to the managers and supervisors to take important decisions on their own. |
|
4. Mixed culture |
The people of Japan are planned and disciplined in their lifestyle. The Japanese people have a proper upbringing and follow a proper family style which is evident in their way of living. |
The American culture is mixed up because of the presence of people from a variety of countries. The people usually bring lots of new ideas which are implemented by the management. |
|
5. Basis of communication |
Phone, e-mail are not preferred modes of communication. Meetings and formal discussions are preferred (Bungsche 2015). |
Communication through phone and email is preferred in USA. |
4.The management of Etisalat Corporation announced a dedicated plan to adopt a proper business model which is completely based on the outsourcing of business support services. The management of the company has decided to outsource the services to the most specialize vendors who have the global experience to carry out the complex tasks effectively with ease (Samontaray and Al-Aali 2016). The corporation has focused on the core business to meet their goals which include quality of customer care, increasing the productivity of the organization, promoting healthy competition in the international market and to make sure that the company is financially healthy (Kolachi and Akan 2014). The HR department of the mentioned organization has taken the following step to ensure that the company remains competitive in nature. The HR department of the organization is vital to the success of the organization as because it formulates the proper strategies to help the organization move on the right path. The HR department of the organization also provides the structure and manages the organization effectively to tackle the situation. According to, ElKhouly et al. (2014) the HR department of Etisalat is always engaged in managing and increasing the performance of each and every employee of the business organization. Thus from the above discussion it is quite clear as well as evident that the HR department of the organization is quite important for the success of the organization. Etisalat believes in hiring and retaining the best employees from the market as because it is quite crucial to the success of the organization (Kolawole and Agha 2015). The company HR has often faced issues while managing lots f HR functions at one go. Thus they outsourced some of the activities to ease their pressure. The main activity of the company that has been outsourced includes;
The main benefits of outsourcing the HR services include;
As mentioned in the earlier part of the chapter outsourcing is done by the company mainly to avoid incurring high amount of cost. Outsourcing thus simply involves other companies to provide service to the customers on behalf of the main company according to its instructions. The on shore companies usually charges high amount than the off shore outsource companies and thus most of the companies similar to Etisalat outsource their business operations to incur less cost and increase their turnover (Babatunde 2016). The management of Etisalat has recently outsourced the customer care unit of the company to Egypt which will help it to reduce the costs that is generally incurred by the HR department to provide quality service to the customers. It also helps to drastically reduce the pressure off the managers which is helpful to maintain a smooth chain of operational efficiency within the telecommunication company of the Middle East. The following services have helped the organization to expand their presence around the globe slowly. The strategy of the company behind choosing Egypt as the host for the outsourcing of customer service lies in the motive of the company to spread its wings across Asia and then have a strategic entry into the whole of Africa. Some of the most important elements that have been considered by the management of the mentioned telecommunications company during the implementation of the outsourcing are as follows;
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