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Human Resources Practices at Google Inc Company
The business world in the contemporary world is highly competitive and ever changing. Companies have therefore, been forced to capitalize on their strengths in order to withstand the high competition and other aspects in the market. The human resources department of a company is a critical part of the company. Companies with strong human resources practices are most likely to succeed as compared to those with weak human resources practices. This is because human resource management is the source of company success and increased performance level. Human resources management department of a company is responsible for the execution of crucial tasks such as recruitment and selection of new employees and ensuring employee motivation, among other tasks relating to employees. Since employees have a high influence on the productivity of a company, the human resources management should perform explicitly. This paper focuses on Google Inc Company, addressing its human resources practices, including strengths and weaknesses in this department.
Google Inc is an international company, which has its focus on innovation. It aims at improving better ways through which people communicate and connect by use of information. It is among the 500 fortune companies, with enormous revenues. In the United States, Google has employed approximately 20,000 people, and its job growth rate stands at 33 per cent. Today, the technology has advanced at an alarming rate, therefore, the needs of customers in the market have subsequently revolutionized. Since Google Inc is a technology-based company, this has called for it to renovate a number of its products in order to meet the needs of its customers (Anthony Web).
The good thing about Google Inc is how it has managed to remain reputable as one of the most successful company worldwide. This is with regard to its profits and the way it meets the needs of its customers. Secondly, Google Inc is identified as one of the topmost best employers in the world. Google Inc is one of the top companies known to invest heavily in its human resources, for high productivity. This company has adopted various human resources practices, including recruitment, training, motivation, and compensation, among others. All these are aimed at making the employees perform well, and this is the reason why this company is ranked among the world’s best employers (Anthony Web).
Google Inc scores high on employee satisfaction, compared to other companies. This is because of the kind of work environment the company sets for its employees, which boosts their motivation. In this company, new employees are trained and familiarized with the company culture before starting the job. This therefore, gives them the knowledge of what their employer expects from them in meeting the company goals. Google Inc is also good at recruitment. Since it is an international company, it values diversity, and this is reflected in its workforce. Despite recruiting from different regions of the world, Google Inc still manages to identify the best candidates, who have contributed to its success (Walker Web).
Motivation for employees is through different ways. First, Google Inc is one of the companies with the best salary package for employees. Apart from salary, there is a variety of benefits for employees. For instance, the recently unleashed death benefit in the company aims at compensating the deceased employees’ families. Upon death, a family gets 50 per cent of the deceased employee’s salary for the next ten years. Additionally, their partners are entitled to stock benefits, in addition to $1,000 monthly for all children until they reach nineteen years (Casserly Web). In order to ensure that employees update their skills, Google Inc has a training programme through GoogleEDU. This in-house programme helps employees boost their skills for better performance on their job. The leadership style adopted by this company is participatory, whereby all employees are involved and contribute to major decision making in the company (Walker Web).
Google Inc despite being a productive company has also had its downs. However, this can be blamed on the economy and inflation. In the recent years, Google has registered a number of layoffs, which is detrimental to employees. In November 2008, Google hit the highest layoff of about 10,000 contractual part time employees. This continued until March 2009, when the company cut off 200 positions. Apart from this, Google Inc treats its customers equally, so that they all feel valued in the company. These are entitled to same benefits and other privileges, depending on their positions. There have been no public claims about financial mismanagement at Google. However, due to the company’s overambitious inventive nature, it lost a considerable level of its profitability recently. Although this did not hurt the company revenues much, a repeat of this could have a negative impact on the company (Jackson Web). Google has qualified employees, and it still invests in its employees through further training. Therefore, Google produces some of the best internet products in the market, which are reliable than those produced by other companies such as Apple.
Google has had a number of lawsuits against it. Different individuals, as well as domestic and international companies press these lawsuits. Among all the lawsuits against this company, the most interesting ones are the ones between Rosetta, Apple, and Oracle. The lawsuit by Rosetta against Google mainly has to do with trademark infringement. This lawsuit is ongoing, and the verdict for Google is not yet out. On the other hand, the lawsuit against Google by Oracle is also still pending, as Google awaits the verdict. This one mainly revolves around one of Google’s products, which is the Android operating system. Oracle accuses Google of using some of its patented aspects of the java programming, which Oracle had utilized in the previous years. Currently, Google is involved in another legal case with the European Union concerning the anti-trust law. If this qualifies for formal charges, legal analysts predict that Google and other search engines might be compelled to change how they facilitate their web searches in Europe. Additionally, this could lead to more strict regulations for all search engines (Levine and Oreskovic Web).
The negative issues identified about Google Inc include its previous layoffs and the current lawsuits it faces. These have negative effects on employees and the company itself. Layoffs for instance cause employees to lose their jobs, thus lacking a means of survival. This in turn influences the government and national economy, as the level of unemployment shoots up. This also means that Google is not stable enough to withstand economic crisis, since the layoffs happened during the financial crisis, and this influenced negatively the human resources of Google Inc. On the other hand, numerous lawsuits might reduce the customers’ trust in the company products. This gives the company a bad name, especially if the law suits concern patent issues. Therefore, increasing lawsuits against Google gives it a negative image, risking losing the trust of customers.
These issues can be solved through human resources management. The HRM department should collaborate with other departments to initiate strategies, which will ensure that the company remains stable, even in hard economic times. Alternatively, the company could reduce its number of products, and invest in the ones that are confirmed to be profitable. Concerning the increased lawsuits in the company, the HRM should train its staff on the importance of transparency, honesty, and accountability in the company. This is especially regarding issues to do with patents, copyrights, among others. If all these are put into consideration, Google Inc will maintain its profitability and competitiveness in the market, with a positive image.
In conclusion, despite being ranked among the best companies, Google has considerable flaws, which could be easily dealt with through its HRM. However, compared to other companies, Google remains exemplary in the manner in which it invests in its human resources. Researching on Google Inc has been informative, and helpful in the understanding that human resources is core of an organization, therefore, a worthy investment for any company.
Works Cited
Anthony, Scott. Google’s Management Style Grows Up. Bloomberg BusinessWeek. 23 June
2009. Retrieved <http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jun2009/ca20090623_918721.htm>
Casserly, Meghan. Here’s What Happens To Google Employees When They Die. Forbes. 8
August 2012. Retrieved <http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/08/08/heres-what-happens-to-
google-employees-when-they-die/ >
Jackson, Erick. Google’s Big Problem They Do not Want You to Know About. Forbes. 23
January 2012. Retrieved <http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/23/googles-big-problem-they-dont-want-you-to-know-about/>
Levine, Dan and Oreskovic, Alexei. U.S. judge tosses Apple vs. Google lawsuit over patents.
Reuters. 5 November 2012. Retrieved <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/06/net-us-google-patent-idUSBRE8A419M20121106>
Walker, Joseph. Schools in Session at Google. The Wall Street Journal. 5 July 2012
Retrieved <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577466852658514144.html>
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