After watching “The Internship” last night for the third time, I decided to base my post on James Lau’s blog post on “EVERYONE WANTS TO WORK FOR GOOGLE!” James explains the benefits of organizational culture, that it encourages involvement and a sense of belonging for the employees; indirectly increasing efficiency and marketability. I would like to add on however, that organizational culture such as Google’s brings along its own disadvantages.
Organizational culture establishes shared beliefs and values which can lead to the growth of “herd mentality”. This mentality could hinder unconventional, creative or innovative thinking. If the CEO decides to make certain changes that affects the firm’s organizational culture; the employees may feel sense of loss identity or even oppose it. Moreover, the organizational culture of say Google may not suit everyone, thus alienating the best individual for the job. I would like to add that Google may not be that ideal company to work for that it seems to be. Since Google is a huge company, it could be really difficult to advance in rank and employees could potentially feel like a “grunt” or a small piece of a puzzle. Working with other individuals who are the best in the field may constantly lead to the clash of completely different opinions or solutions, causing disagreements and rivalry. This tension and identity crisis could lead to increased levels of stress related illnesses in employees.
In addition, Google’s organizational culture offers a lot of freedom to encourage employees to be disciplined, motivated and responsible. On the other hand, this does not offer much mentoring and supervision which could hinder learning opportunities and growth. It can be argued that Google provides free food, facilities and other benefits in order to encourage their employees to ‘live’ in Google and work longer hours.
In conclusion, even though Google’s employees enjoy a lot of perks and benefits, organizational culture could potentially lead to stress related illnesses or lack of productivity for the employees.
References:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-corporate-culture-67042.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-working-at-google-sucks-2012-6?op=1
http://blogs.ubc.ca/jameslau/2014/11/09/everyone-wants-to-work-for-google/