Bøllingtoft - Google and benefits Cases on Management, Leadership and Organisations

Anne Bllingtoft

Google and benefits

Anne Bllingtoft

Google and benefits

From the book:

Knud Sinding and Anne Bllingtoft

Cases on Management, Leadership and Organisations, 1st edition 2012, chapter 11

1st e-book chapter 2013

Samfundslitteratur 2012

Cover design: Klahr|Graphic Design

Typeset: SL grafik, Frederiksberg

E-book production: Rosendahls BookPartnerMedia

ISBN: 978-87-593-9534-9

Samfundslitteratur

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CHAPTER 11

GOOGLE AND BENEFITS

Fortune Magazine named Google the best company to work for many times. The list of fringe benefits provided to employees is almost unending, and the culture, which the founders of Google have created, is described by many as being fantastic. The fact is that Google has used billions of dollars on creating its organisational culture and cultural strategy; a strategy that helps the company attract the most talented people and keep them working hard. The question is whether the strategy will continue to work in the long run as the company grows.

Even though Google has become a global phenomenon, the two founders have almost managed to remain anonymous outside the IT industry. Both are reportedly driven by technical challenges and a desire to improve technology. They also appear to be driven by an ambition to change the world through their technology. This requires talented and hardworking employees, so even though Google has earned a lot of money since its creation, the profits dont only go to the two founders. As a conscious strategy, money is invested heavily in the employees and their everyday wellbeing.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page are the creators of Google. They met each other at Stanford University when they were both in their early 20s. Their shared interest for search engine technology united them in work on developing Stanfords Digital Library Project. The project resulted in the internal search engine BackRub, which is the direct precursor to Google. The name Google is inspired by the word googol, which is a mathematical term for the number that consists of the digit 1 followed by 100 zeroes. The founders use of the word reflects their goal to organise a seemingly endless amount of information on the Internet.

Shortly after Google became freely available on the Internet, Brin and Page came to realise that the facilities at Stanford couldnt handle the traffic on the search engine. Stanfords licensing department therefore contacted a number of American companies in 1996 with the intention of proposing cooperation or a direct sale of Google. Many were interested, but Stanford decided that none of the offers were good enough.

In 1998, Brin and Page prepared a business plan for Google and turned Pages dorm room into a data center and Brins room into an office. They began to raise money from friends, family and investors. The company Google was now a reality. Today, Google is the Internets largest search engine and one of the most visited internet services by far. Just under 80 % of all searches conducted online are supported by Google technology. The search engine has revolutionised the use of the Internet by increasing the relevance of searches among the billions of internet sites, which Google stores on more than 100,000 connected computers in storage rooms throughout the entire USA. The company today has several thousand employees and operations in virtually the entire world. Google went public in 2004.

Googles headquarters is located in Mountain View, California and is called Googleplex. Everyone who has visited the company has described how they felt a wonderful, relaxed atmosphere. The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps and old computers, and samples of what is currently being searched for on Google are showed on a screen. The employees dress casually. The halls are full of exercise balls and cycles, and recreational amenities are spread out over the campus including, for example, a massage room, various video games, foosball, grand pianos, billiard tables and table tennis. The majority of Google employees share cubicles, desks and strategy rooms only few have their own office.

Life for Google employees at the Mountain View campus appears like being at college. Many have commented that it feels like the smartest university you could imagine; one where all the students can afford a sports car, although the nerds hybrid cars are considered more cool. Even the dress code sends a signal at Googleplex, with the casually dressed engineers always being the important men and women on campus. Dennis Hwang, Webmaster at Google, explains:

Hardcore nerds are here because there is no other place theyd rather be.

The workplace is described as such a nice place to be that its sometimes hard for Google employees to leave the office, which is precisely how the company justifies the expenses, which are all included in administrative costs. Even people who dont work at Google like being at the complex; Googleplex has become a stop for the worlds famous speakers and has attracted people such as Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. The 24-year-old engineer Neha Narula says:

You must ask yourself why these people come here. I think they come here to get energy from the employees at Google.

An abundance of personal benefits

Food is considered to be important at Google. The company has several gourmet restaurants at headquarters and offers all of the staff free gourmet meals. In addition to the restaurants, Google has snack rooms where you can get various breakfast products, candy, nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks, as well as dozens of different beverages such as soft drinks and cappuccino. Cofounder Sergey Brin believes that no employee should be more than 50 metres from a source of food.

Google also makes it easy for employees to get around on campus. Busses with access to wireless networks drive around on various routes in the area, which makes it easy to park and get to work on time. In addition, carwash and oil change facilities are some of the numerous personal benefits Google offers to everyone. If an employee wants to buy an environmentally friendly hybrid car, the company gives a 5,000-dollar contribution. For employees who have just had a child, Google compensates the family with up to 500 dollars worth of takeaway food to make the first four weeks at home easier. Recruiting a new employee to Mountain View results in a reward of 2,000 dollars.

The list of personal benefits is almost endless. For instance, on campus there is also an exercise room with weights and rowing machines, yoga and dance lessons, massage agreements, doctors who perform free health checks, day-care and a salon. You can study Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish and French, or ask your personal concierge to make a table reservation. It is also possible to wash and dry clothing for free (laundry detergent is also free), or send your clothes in to be dry-cleaned. A Googler who is very busy can in this way get many errands done while he is at work, which Google believes helps balance employees private life and work life.

Google rewards its employees financially as well and quite a substantial amount at that. PayScale, a pay comparison website (payscale.com), recently conducted a survey that showed that the average income for an employee at Google on the middle pay scale is 141,000 dollars per year, more than the employees at both Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft, though, can lure new employees to the company with the markets highest starting salary.