Globalization, Tech Revolution, Workforce Diversity and Social media revolution are the biggest drivers behind the changing business ecosystem globally. All these are also the big influencers behind the employee motivation, empowerment and engagement which not only enhance their productivity in the business organization, but also help the organization to attain its goals of sustainability (Rong et. al., 2015). Managers and leaders are the key people who have the ones of keeping the employees motivated, engaged in the work practices by empowering them by virtue of acknowledging their feedback and involving them in the decision making. These can also be seen as some of the key practices which are responsible behind creating a positive workplace environment which in turn helps in retaining the employees (Cherbakov et. al., 2005).
The report here will analyse how Google as a company engages and motivates its employees and the roles and responsibilities of the leaders and managers in doing so. The same will be connected with the HR practices which enable managers and leaders to work for the development goals of the employees. The report will describe some of the motivation theories used by Google, best practices of engagement and how the company has been able to keep its employee motivated and engaged since its inception.
Google, an Internet company which changed the world for good was founded by two visionary and innovative leaders Larry Page and Sergy Bin in the year 1998. The company which serves ads, digital services, analytics, software and hardware products worldwide, employees over 85, 000 People and is one of the most employee’s centric firm on the planet earth. One of the world’s best employers receives over 2 million applications every single year; this can be potentially seen as the success of the company in nurturing, managing, motivating and engaging its huge workforce (Case, 2016). Google across the globe is known to be the employee friendly company, who creates policies and procedures which revolve around its employees. Google does not call the people working for it as employees, but it calls them Googler’s, this helps the employees to build a deeper connect with the company, eventually leading to motivation and engagement with the workforce. The HR team at Google is always looking out for the best practices to keep the Googlers engaged and motivated, they work with the aim of creating a fulfilled environment for the employees (Singer, 2017).
Before moving further with the topic and understanding the insight about the best practices of motivation and engagement, along with the role of line managers, leaders and HR, it is first important to understand the concept at length.
Motivation is derived from the word motive which means the desires, needs, wants or drives within the individual. Motivation can also be understood as the mechanism which urges people to behave in a certain manner, or it is the force which pushes a person to work tirelessly towards his own set SMART goals. Motivation is simply putting People into action, organization do this by stimulating people to take actions in order to accomplish the goals (Deci & Ryan, 2014). The importance of motivation lies with the fact that if people are motivated, they would work with enhanced productivity and be committed to the business organization they are working with. The underlying factor behind motivation arises from understanding the employee on a deeper level and identifying his motivation needs. Plethora of motivational theories such as Maslow Need Hierarchy, Two Factor Theory, McClelland Need analysis and many more are used for motivating the individual. Thus, motivation is critical for the development and growth of the employees and the organization (Reeve, 2014).
Employee engagement is a critical step and process which explains and defines the extent to which an employee feels passionate, committed and dedicated about his/her job. People often confused employee engagement with employee satisfaction; however, both are very different terms (Anthony-McMann et. al., 2017). Employee engagement goes beyond the normal scope of fun activities, games and other recreational performances and is driven by performance. Employee engagement entails the engagement they have with other employees, line managers, leaders and with the HR people in the organization. It is by virtue of engagement that employees connect strongly with the organization work towards the accomplishment of organizational goals (Aryee et. al., 2016).
Google by all means and reason is one of the best companies to work with in the given business organization. Candidates keep their eyes always open on the job opening of Google with the aim of landing a job in the company. Every single year the company receives over 2 Million applications of candidates with the desired skill sets and the competencies. This section will explore how Google manages to keep its employees motivated at all times.
Google with the aim of keeping its staff motivated allows them to dedicate 20% of their time to work on the projects of their own choice. This in turn gives the staff the kind of freedom they envisioned and ability to expand their horizons beyond the normal order of the day. This helps to explore creativity from a different angle and become an innovator. In a way, it is good for Google as well, as the company gets to shed off the workload from the shoulders of the employees and keep them motivated at the same time. Flexibility is thus one key practice which ensures that the employees stay motivated. This can be seen as an extrinsic motivation technique which sets of the tune in the hearts of the employees intrinsically (Albrecht et. al., 2015).
There is a fascinating thing about Google; the company gives the same amount of time to its employees as it gives time in creating products for the customers worldwide. Some of the free perks which a lot of large corporation do not offer include; free haircuts, Gym Membership, Shuttles to and fro from and many other such as time off to new parents. Another big motivation practice of the company is that it 100% reimburses any cost incurred towards a class or a program which might help the employee with his job duties (Dash & Mahapatra, 2016).
Google believes that it is an extremely important step to ensure the well-being of its employees. Google removes all kind of barriers that Goolgers face in their lives, or which are stressors. The company replaces the same with work enhancer or enablers which motivates the person to work happily and motivated at Google. The company with the aim of ensuring the health and safety of its employees has in-house physicians, medical officers and nurses; additionally the company provides a comprehensive health care program for the staff and their entire family (Street, 2017).
Free food is one of the biggest motivations for the employees, especially the employees who are working the midnight all to make the world a better place and give consumers a range of product which could make their lives easier and simpler. At Google, food is discussed everywhere, and people are seen indulging in the different cuisines of food in the entire office. Google has ensured that food is always in access of 150 ft. from the Googlers. By all means, food serves as a big motivation for the Googlers as Great quality food most definitely satisfies their hunger and keeps them motivated towards their goals (Sayed, 2014).
At Google, the management is of the opinion that the best way to learn, develop and grow is by becoming self-aware about oneself. In order to do aid its employees the company follows a 360 degree performance management practice under which the employees are always under inspection. This is one of the most helpful exercises which help the employees to stay focussed on their goals and also to get feedback from the line managers or leaders whenever required. Feedback thus helps the employees to gauge their standing in the organization and comparison of their performances. Feedback also helps the employees to find lacunae or gap in their working practices/skills/competencies, working on which the employees can perform with enhanced productivity (Manish & Sutter, 2016).
As explained earlier, different people have different motivation needs, which is the responsibility of the management to figure out so that they can present the same to the employee. One such solution which came out of the need analysis is the safety of the family. Google has recently created a policy where it will give salary to the family of the deceased employee. This certainly takes off the burden of fear from the employees that what will happen after they are gone. Noticing Google is helping them in taking care of their deep rooted concerns; it serves the purpose of motivation for the employees who in turn show deep respect and commitment towards their jobs.
These are some of the specific practices which are used by Google to motivate its employees, the company uses plethora of motivational theories and all the managers/leaders and HR team are working hard to keep the employees motivated and committed towards their work. The company’s motivation is a combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors of motivation for its employees (Knies, Leisink & Thijssen, 2015).
As mentioned earlier, Google is considered as one of the best places to work on planet earth. The company’s reviews on Glass door are filled with some great reviews and the employees have painted a great picture of the company. One striking observation from the reviews is that as much the people in the reviews are talking about the perks at Google such as the Chef Prepared food, Gym Memberships, Nap Pods, Salon and many others. People have been equally talking about the culture at Google, Work-life balance, growth opportunities which is an indication of the fact that the company values employee engagement the same as employee motivation. The section here will discuss some of the practices which is a harbinger of exceptional employee engagement at Google by the combined efforts of the managers/leaders and the HR Team (Albrecht et. al., 2015).
The first thing which comes in the mind of an employee working at Google is, its Culture, the second one is obviously Culture. This is a very shocking revelation, as despite having so many tangible options, employees preferred to go forward with intangible element which is the culture. The culture of Google is filled with elements of positivity, fun, consistent learning, innovation and creation. It is the culture of Google which keeps the employees engaged at any given point in time. The culture of Google thus can be seen as empowering, motivating, challenging and respectful towards the employees (Gould-Williams, 2016).
Google is one of the largest internet, tech and software companies which have been serving the customers worldwide for over 2 decades by now. The company which follows an open door policy using plethora of communication channels to build engagement with its employees. The company majorly relies on social media and online channels of communication to establish communication with the clients. These engaging and two ways communication platforms help in establishing and building better relationships with the managers and the leaders. The company by virtue of using Chatbots, Google+ and other social media platforms brings a high degree of engagement with the employees (Gould-Williams, 2016).
Google has a Google-o-Meter in place which plays an important role in setting up of the culture and measuring the engagement levels of the employees. The company’s charting tool takes a survey on the popular suggestion of the employees on various policies such as housing more doctors, what kind of food to be put on the floor and many other things. The idea here is to make the employees give something in return in the form of reward and empowerment to the employees by virtue of engaging them with the Google-o-Meter (Larsson, Eriksson & Pesamaa, 2018).
Google by all standards is one of the biggest creators and innovators of its times, which by the virtue of its innovation labs engages the employees with thousands of projects they do in their office hours. Google believes that every employee has a creative side, which if can be harnessed will be beneficial for the people, society, community and the whole nation. Thus, the company by allowing the teams or the employees to work on their own projects or by giving them challenging tasks sets a culture of innovation and creativity, in turn engaging them in the activities of the organization(Rajabi et. al., 2018).
Employee empowerment can be understood as the process of engaging the employees in the process, procedures, change management and other decision making which is critical to the employees. Employee empowerment is a form of engagement which also helps in motivating them. The employee certainly feels empowered and they feel that the organization values their time, efforts, energy and their skill set, which is why their suggestions are considered to be so important (Mishra, Boynton & Mishra, 2014).
These are some of the best practices by which Google engages its employees, certain other things such as learning program, Leadership and other training programs also helps in building engagement with the workforce. The idea here is to constructively and productively use the time of the employees whilst keeping them happy, satisfied, engaged, motivated and committed towards the goals of the organization.
Managers can be seen as the link or the middle men between the top management and the employees, thus there role in managing the performance of the people becomes extremely critical. In the similar lines, the HR representative who is responsible for the recruitment, selection, motivation, induction, creating HR policies and other such functions has a very important role to play as well. The first and the most important role are to correctly ascertain the manpower requirement and the skill sets or the competency to look forward in the individual. This is fulfilled by the leaders or the managers who give the HR team a clear cut list of the things they are looking for in a candidate. Thus, neither of the two can’t perform effectively and efficiently towards the welfare of the employees without working closely with each other (Mone & London, 2018). Some of the ways by which this relationship can be understood in better insights are:
Key performance indicator for set for each and every employee in the organization so that they know the path they have to follow to achieve their goals. KPI provides them with this path and gives them a clear indication of their work goals and duties. The KPI for the employees are developed by conducting a joint meeting with the line manager, HR and the employees. It is the cumulative work of all the three people which helps in the overall development of the employees (Shuck & Reio, 2014).
Google is known for its great culture which comprises of free chef cooked food, amazing interactive and engaging activities, motivation, flexibility and other many reasons. All these perks, benefits, adding tangibility to the reward and other is done by the leaders. It is the leader who is always looking at the surface and consistently thinking on how to make the lives of employees better at Google. The leader discusses the ideas with the managers; he then takes it over to the HR team, as they are responsible for the implementation of such policies. It is after a thorough discussion around all the ideas that managers, leaders and the HR teams bring to the table, the benefits and the policies for the employees are laid out. Hence, the inter dependence between managers. Leaders and the HR team are high, and it is the level of association which makes the employees appreciate and encourage the effort of the organization (Eisenberger, Malone & Presson, 2016).
Conflicts are a natural occurring phenomenon in business organization, the difference lies in how people or the organization views the conflicts. Google, by all means, looks towards the conflict as an opportunity; the company always aims to extract something positive out of the conflict. The first person to become aware of the conflict in the Manager, he knows that members in the team or inter teams who are the loggerheads with each other. The next person to become privy to such information is the HR and then comes the leader. However, it is the combined synergies of all these three which helps in resolving the conflict in an amicable way, ensuring that it does not crop ever again. It is the cogency of manager, leader and the HR representative which helps in resolving conflicts at Google (Slack, Corlett & Morris, 2015).
It can be clearly said that, it is extremely necessary for every large corporate organization to ensure a high degree of cooperation and support from the managers, leaders and the HR representative to create policies and procedures for the engagement and motivation of the employees.
Conclusion
Annually, Google receives over 2 lakh application every year; this is an indication how successful the company has been over the years in motivating, encouraging and engaging its employees that the company has such a positive brand image in the market. Google motivation efforts are a culmination of variety of factors which are both intrinsic and extrinsic in nature. The company does not shy away from giving its employees plenty of handsome benefits monetarily, but also by providing them with a rich culture to learn and grow. Google certain believes that its employees are its greatest asset and thus the company does everything possible to provide its hard working employee a culture which is rich in motivation and engagement. A big share of Google’s crafted motivation and engagement practices goes to its impeccable leadership, managers and the HR team.
References
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