According to the most recent 100 Best Companies to Work rankings compiled the prestigious Forbes magazine, Alphabet (formerly known as Google) took home the top spot, marking their 7th consecutive time in this spot. Their extraordinary success as a company bears the question: how exactly did Google’s human resource management defy the conventional wisdom of workplace culture to create one of the most profitable and sought after careers in history?
Google is widely known to offer high monetary compensation, flexible schedules and unique perks, however, the answer does not solely lie in tangible incentives. For Google, they were able to coalesce their wide array incentives and allures, thus fostering a flourishing organizational culture. Firstly, by identifying their targeted generational cohort as tech savvy and creative millennials, Google was able to create an organizational structure that most robustly coincided with the characteristics of millennials. For example, as millennials tend to identify as creative, independent and seekers of a healthy work-life balance, not only does Google allow flexible scheduling and free fitness classes, but also the ability for employees to take extended leaves of absence to explore life outside the workplace . In my opinion, Google incorporated the idealist and individualist characteristics of millennials to create a workplace where the corporate culture allows workers make meaningful contributions and feel individually valued as opposed to some nameless employee in some collectivist machine. Judging from the high job productivity and job satisfaction rate, Google’s organizational culture has succeeded in their ability to foster Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) – that is, creating a positive work environment where employees fee welcome and are encouraged to go the extra mile.
What can other organizations learn form Google? Clearly I think the largest take away from analyzing Google’s organizational culture is that conventional incentive structures of just monetary compensation are not sufficient in attracting and effectively retaining the next generation of talented employees. Given the different values and attitudes of the next generation of millennials, they perceive the world in a fundamentally different way. Forward looking, I believe innovation in organizational structures will come from the ability of managers to recognize the varying perceptions of different generational cohorts and design a workplace culture that is clearly aligned with those perceptions.
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Bibliography
Fortune. (2016). 100 Best Companies to Work for. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/best-companies/google-alphabet-1/
Great Place to Work. (2016, September 19). Retrieved from http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com/google-inc?utm_source=fortune&utm_medium=list-page&utm_content=reviews-link&utm_campaign=2016-100-best
Ram, S. (2014, July). Google [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://says.com/my/tech/revealed-the-seven-best-perks-you-get-as-a-google-employee
Rapier, G. (2014, October). Millennials in the Workplace [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/graham-rapier/millennials-infographic.html