Three Things To Learn From Google's Workplace Culture.!
While it might be predictable that Google would become the
king of the web and a trailblazer for technology innovations, there’s something
no one really saw coming a decade (plus) ago: Google becoming a leading
exemplar of workplace culture. Sergey Brin
and Larry Page even made it more unforeseeable, reading their founders’ letter
of 2004 where they avowed:
“Google
is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”
Twist of fate. Consequence of all-round disruption. Whatever
you call it, that “unconventional” company is hailed today for having one of
the most enviable company culture, which makes it one of the best places to
work in the world. And that honor isn’t even a one-time show. Google topped Fortune’s list
of Best Companies to Work For for six consecutive years. The tech giant is also
regular on Glassdoor’s annual Best Places to
Work list.
From a startling approach to employee morale to unparalleled
culture of work-life balance, including awesome parental-leave
policies, free healthy gourmet meals, fitness and laundry facilities, Google’s
successful culture has become a blueprint every organization must keep in
practice. Here are three most important things your organization needs to learn
from the model.
1.
Google builds a herd of ecstatic employees
Keeping employees on the same page with company’s vision is one
herculean task. But for Google, that task is a piece of cake. The secret?
Google keeps a big family of employees (over 88,000) who are splendidly driven
by passion thanks to the company’s culture of employee happiness. Going by
numbers, 86% of Googlers say they’re extremely or fairly satisfied with their
job.
Larry Page describes the culture and its efficiency this way: “It’s
important that the company be a family, that people feel that they’re part of
the company and that the company is like a family to them. When you treat
people that way, you get better productivity.”
2.
Google employees work as a team
Google has over 70 offices in 50 countries with 28 percent of its
employees working from home or telecommuting. Yet, Googlers work as one
efficacious team. Often said, effective teamwork is central to productivity,
inventiveness and steady success of workers and companies alike.
But speaking of culture, it must be noted that teamwork has departed
from the past: mere location-based collaboration. It’s evolved and become more
complex, diverse and dynamic thanks largely to digitization, the evolvement of
tools that enable effective remote communication, virtual collaboration and
sharing of resources. According to Smarp, a knowledge sharing, content hub and
team collaboration platform, “contemporary teamwork entails helping employees
and colleagues navigate through information overload, rise beyond it and become
more enlightened, engaged and productive in the workplace.”
No doubt, the culture of efficient teamwork and
even the business of helping every other company on earth to achieve same is
one of those things that make Google a leading brand.
3.
Despite rigorous tasks, Google Keeps things fun
As counterintuitive as it might sound, having fun at work is twice more
effective than motivational talks aimed at stimulating employees. Fun at work
reduces absence, boosts productivity and lowers levels of stress, finds this
study by Bright HR.
Also in his book, Work Rules, Google’s former HR Boss, Laszlo
Bock, submits that keeping things fun in a hive of activity, constant
innovation and experiment discharges employees’ creativity juice. “What’s
beautiful about this approach is that a great environment is a self-reinforcing
one: All of these efforts support one another, and together create an
organization that is creative, fun, hardworking, and highly productive,” he
writes.
Why ‘Google’ your company’s culture?
Let’s sum it up in the simplest terms– your employees want a cozy,
enabling culture. Good pay, transparency and freedom are building blocks of
that structure but it doesn’t end there. Once you realize this, i.e. nothing in
the world makes your company greater than a good culture, you’d quickly go the
Google way and even develop onwards and upwards.
Your culture is your brand. And there’s overabundance of studies and
practical experience that affirm it as the recipe for your company’s success. A study by
Shiva Rajgopal of Columbia Business School and his team of scientists reveals
that companies with good culture enjoy higher employee retention rate
and stupendous profit, which is three times more profit per employee and
four times faster revenue growth, according to a seperate research by
John Kotter and James Heskett. Source:entrepreneur
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