Introduction
People are the basis of any organization; the business’s success and the prospects for the development of the enterprise depend on them. Each position must have exactly the person who has the corresponding abilities. After all, it happens that an employee seems ineffective with good personal qualities. Sometimes, it is not about the person, but that they are not in the right place. Someone loves and can work in a team, another achieves higher results working individually. There are good performers, and everyone should be entrusted with a particular responsibility.
The staff shall be selected so that the abilities, education, aspirations of the person are taken into account, and everyone works in their position and, at the same time, is a part of one large team. Nevertheless, finding a valuable candidate is not a completed task as the company still needs to cause them to stay and continue working.
Google is one of the most successful corporations in the new era, along with Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. Today, Google is a company with an annual turnover of more than $50 billion and branches in 45 countries with more than 49,000 employees. Hiring and retaining several professionals requires considerable effort, including developing a specific strategy to list the best candidates, which will help meet the organization’s goals. Recruitment is a search for staff with specific skills that meet the requirements. The retention of human resources is a strategic activity of the company aimed at interesting its employees in further work in the enterprise despite periodic difficulties in organizing labor and possible profitable offers of other employment in the future.
Processes for Employee Recruiting and Retention
Google is a top-rated and successful company attracting the attention of many people in search of work. More than a million applications are received each year, and a transparent recruitment process has been established in order not to miss out on talented candidates. It is designed by Google’s mission – to organize and make available information. Even though this process at first glance seems standard, it has distinctive features that help identify a worthy Googler. The approach used by the company makes the recruitment process as objective as possible, accessible to everyone, and transparent.
The job applicant needs to start the process by visiting the Google Career platform, where the candidate can find the necessary guidance, vacancies, as well as valuable tips for finding the right workplace. After conducting some research about the company and choosing a vacancy, the applicant makes a resume, for the content of which career platform also provides advice. A person can submit three applications for consideration per month. At the same time, Google insists that sometimes, refusals are not justified by qualification or insufficient potential, but only a matter of time, and it is important to continue sending a resume.
The subsequent stages of the candidates’ selection may differ depending on the department in which the candidate has shown a desire to work. It may be a conventional telephone interview or for specific applicators writing and discussing code or algorithm. Sometimes, candidates perform a small project before the next stage. A successful telephone interview involves an invitation to a more in-depth conversation. It is at this stage that famous puzzles from Google may appear, for example, “Why is the hatch lid round?” Their goal is not to get the right answer but to help the interviewer understand how the candidate thinks. However, recently, preference has been given to situational and behavioral questions, which reveal how the candidate acts in real situations and how they can act in hypothetical ones.
Google’s undeniable advantage in choosing employees is the next stage after the interview. The candidate is not just evaluated by a department manager or one recruiting specialist. Several professionals participate in the final assessment, expressing their points of view on the applicant. This group of disinterested people reviews the full report, interviewer’s notes and decides whether to take the person for work or not. This stage ensures that the recruitment process was independent of the interviewer’s biases and that its outcome was utterly impartial.
Google’s task is to attract creative and extraordinary individuals and motivate them to work as long and productive as possible in the company. To achieve this task, comfortable working conditions are created, high wages and other bonuses are offered. Taking care of employees’ health, Google campuses offer healthy and free food, places for sports training. A study by Smith and Veazie (2008) shows that employees want to remain in a certain position not only because of high earnings. First of all, they need a sense of belonging to the company, job security, and an understanding that their work is valued. Taking into account these factors, Google has developed a thriving corporate culture.
Google seeks to show care for employees also through their families. The company offers extended parental leave, as it was previously noticed that many women leave due to insufficient time. Moreover, at this time, the mother receives all the necessary payments. To create a cozy and creative atmosphere, pets are allowed to be brought to some offices. Plans were designed to accumulate pension savings, as well as posthumous payments to the families of employees. The company has introduced a special type of material assistance, which is aimed at caring for the family members of a Google employee. If a worker of this Internet company dies, their family will receive payments for several years. The late Google employee’s wife or husband will receive 50 percent of the monthly salary for the next ten years after his death. Moreover, every child until the age of 19 will be able to claim one thousand dollars per month.
The employee’s productivity depends directly on their mental and physical health. For this reason, Google offers broad access to medical services, providing them in offices too. To save time and improve employees’ physical state, sports centers and playgrounds have also been built. Moreover, several cafes cook healthy food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Most offices also offer bicycles for convenient movement on campus or on the way home.
An important place is occupied by the concern for the development and recreation of Google employees. They can change the length of their working day for their own needs or take time off if necessary. The company widely encourages public volunteer work by adding donations for its part. Considerable attention is constantly paid to employees’ education – from gaining the knowledge necessary for the workflow to skills that are interesting as a hobby, for example, playing guitar.
Thus, Google carefully worked out the process of hiring and retaining employees to attract the best talents. The main advantage is the maximum transparency and clarity of these processes. Despite many bonuses and other benefits for employees, there are still those who leave the company. Abadi (2018) interviewed several former workers to find out the reasons for leaving the dream job. An analysis of the answers showed that most of them sought further development and felt that they did not have enough opportunities for this in the company. These reasons are difficult to call a drawback since such ambitions and the desire for creative freedom are characteristic features of the type of people Google is interested in.
However, some of the former employees expressed dissatisfaction with the corporate culture. They felt insufficient support from the company for LGBT people, although it positions itself as open and tolerant. Discontent also manifested concerning some projects – a round of layoffs followed the decision to cooperate with the military and provide them with artificial intelligence technologies. That is, first of all, Google is a commercial company seeking to profit. For this reason, there is a demand for a more tolerant and peaceful policy.
Key Result Areas in HR Recruiting and Retention
To make the company’s human resources most efficient in the recruitment and retention processes, certain parameters were set – key result areas. They are closely intertwined with bonuses offered to retain employees. The recruitment metric is manifested in a transparent recruitment process explained in detail for future candidates. At various stages, the applicant can find the necessary hints and useful information. The purpose of recruitment is to find employees who show curiosity, perseverance, and readiness for training. At the same time, Google insists on diversity, and to comply with this metric, the recruitment process is made as honest and objective as possible.
Retention can be considered as a separate metric, the purpose of which is to prevent staff turnover and money spent on hiring new employees. Therefore, Google has developed a corporate culture with many bonuses and other advantages to achieve this goal. Different metrics can be considered important retention components, such as training and development, benefits, leave, maternity leave, and employees’ work on possible grievances.
The goal of the training is to provide employees with the development opportunities necessary for professional growth and productivity improvement, as well as for personal gain. For this, special courses are organized for training in various areas. Another metric – regular and timely payments – are an additional motivation to work well for employees. Google offers competitive wages and other payments described in the previous section of the paper. The provision of leave and time off according to employees’ needs demonstrates the company’s care about its workers and allows for establishing a balance between work and personal life.
Constant feedback from employees is also crucial for comfortable work and retention. At the same time, discussions can concern not only colleagues of their team but also managers. A questionnaire is distributed to employees to assess bosses according to important criteria, including a tendency to micromanagement. Such actions can prevent the occurrence of grievances and dismissal due to an unfriendly team (Maria-Madela & Mirabela-Constanta, 2009). Moreover, using simple tools, such as questionnaires and expressions of opinion, it is easy to find shortcomings in the workflow and organize work to eliminate them.
Human Resource Planning to Support the Strategic Direction
Human resource planning is the determination of the required number of specialists to achieve the goals set for the company. This process can significantly affect the success of the company or bring it to bankruptcy (Mansaray, 2019). Google’s human resource planning strategy is based on forecasting the company’s activities to prevent excess or lack of employees (Lombardo, 2017). It also allows them to define the necessary support for already hired employees or the need to find new ones.
Forecasting in Google includes trend analysis and scenario analysis. The first involves studying the current state of the sphere in which the company operates. The second method implies the analysis of potential case scenarios and calculating the required number of employees. The peculiarities of Google’s products allow them not to worry about possible excesses or lack of workers. This problem is only relevant to some areas, such as Chromecast or Fiber Internet. These features are also applied to the supply and demand aspect – web and software products do not require a significant increase in the number of staff when demand grows. These methods are useful for maintaining Google’s work at a high level, and their improvement is possible when optimizing analysis processes using new technologies.
Conclusion
Thus, Google clearly understands that the company’s success depends on its employees – their abilities, motivation, and desire to work. For this reason, unique methods have been developed to attract and retain qualified staff. Hiring involves several evaluation stages, and a team makes the final decision of specialists for a maximally objective assessment. Employees, along with decent wages, receive many bonuses, as well as care for their health, development, and communication with the family.
Training, benefits, weekends, and other metrics have been installed in Google as key result areas. They are necessary for the achievement of the goals set. What is more, planning based on forecasting and analysis is essential in human resources management. This company effectively manages its employees, preventing a high degree of personnel flow. This advantage makes it attractive to talented people in search of a job.
References
Abadi, M. (2018). Everyone wants to work at Google — but we found out how 15 ex-Googlers knew it was time to quit. Business Insider.
Lombardo, J. (2017). Google’s HRM: HR planning, job analysis & design. Panmore Institute.
Mansaray, H. E. (2019). The consequence of human resource planning on organizational performance: An ephemeral review. Britain International of Humanities and Social Sciences (BIoHS) Journal, 1(2), 50-61.
Maria-Madela, A., & Mirabela-Constanta, M. (2009). Talent management – a strategic priority. Annals of the University of Oradea, Economic Science Series, 18(4), 25-30.
Smith, S., & Veazie, J. (2008). Using incentive plans wisely. Receivables Report for America’s Health Care Financial Managers, 23(6), 9-11.