Subject: HPT/ MHP7233

Assignment: HPT Presentation Report

Group: 1

Ali Aminrezai (1092300098)

Google
Introduction

Searching definition has not been that meaningful and extensive until google came into play in 1995.
Larry page and Sergey Brin developed a new approach to searching the web. Google start from the dorm
room in Stanford University but quickly spreads to the information seekers around the globe. Now it is
recognized as the world most efficient and largest search engine. The simplicity and efficiency is the
major feature in google services and applications.

As a business google generates revenue by providing advertisers with the opportunity to deliver
measurable, cost-effective online advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given
page.

Larry and Sergey started an idea of building such search engine as university project. The project was
initially called BackRub in 1995. They bought a terabyte of disks in bargain prices and build their own
computing warehouse in Larry’s dorm room which become google’s first data center. The two students
found it difficult to find any buyer or investors for their project, so they start to raise funds and stablished
a company called google Inc. An angle investors Andy Bechtolsheim – one of the founder of sun
Microsystems gave them 100,000$ and they gathered through various other ways 1000000$ .

By 1999 the school project turned into a company. And thanks to their effective search engine they
popularity start to grow rapidly and followed by some introduction through public press google become
the word of mouthes; afterward google by hitting one billion pages index become known as a biggest
search engine in the world. The thing that made google even more attractive was about some of their
motto that they chose as their philosophy, like “ You can make money without being evil” or "You can be
serious without a suit" and "work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun." They set the
mission to “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Base on these philosophies google designed its organizational policy and through those policies they
practiced some initiatives and managed to drives motivation in their employee, so they build a very liberal
and comfortable working Environment.

Culture

It has been proven that the organizational culture plays a major role in company performance. Culture is
an abstract and general concept, a term that is used to encompass many aspects of organization. Culture
exists within all organization. When every individual goal aliened organizational culture that supposed to
be a successful culture. As Denison (1990) refers to effective organizations as having corporate cultures
which consist of four factors: involvement, consistency, adaptability and mission. Involvement refers to
employee responsibility, being involved to decision making and as result committed to their work.
Consistency is implied that values and expectation are aligned within organizations. Adaptability infers
that the organization is able to adapt its behavior, structures and systems when it is needed. And mission
is about the shared definition of organizational purpose.

The manifestation of google’s culture is analyzing through looking at the various aspect of google. It is
shown that google has an integrated culture, which is comprises of four elements; mission, innovation,
fun and rewards. There is strong degree of sociability and solidarity in google’s culture in which
employees get the job done efficiently and effectively that every one tends to help each other passionately
toward success. There for there can be seen a link between motivation and culture, and google truly
understand this fact that strongly integrated cultures will often result in motivated employees. Proceeding

Referring to the organizational success it can be analyzed through different aspects; financial success,
company image through customer perspective and finally internally from employee perspective.

Regarding Human Performance technology we mostly refer to the internal processes improvement. As
mentioned by Kotter and Heskett (1992) The strong cultures can have powerful consequences.

While the googles culture is very integrated at the time the diversity in members’ cultures is also
respected in google. So base on this cultural climate they have been able to set individuality through the
eyes of employees and public which set the organization apart from its environment (Gagliardi, 1992).

GooglePlex is a term that they put on that area; Googleplex is distinguished from other corporate
headquarters in that it is extremely wacky, As people enter the Googleplex they are overcome by sense of
extravagance and fun (De Cagna, 2005); in the reception there is a grand piano, a large fridge full of
drinks and spinning that displays realtime searches happening around the glob. When one ventures further
into Googleplex; bean bags, large robber bouncy balls, football tables, fridges stocked full of free drinks,
couches, lava lamps and meeting rooms named after rock stars are just some of the unusual examples of
furniture. As Russ Cohn (Director of B2B at google) reports, Google does not provide a traditional
working environment.

Successful and creative employee environment

Google provide a truly unique and attractive working environment for its employees. Within the
Googleplex there is a gym, washing machines, massage rooms, pool tables, table tennis tables, video
games machines even an outside beach volley ball court. The employees’ dietary needs are also met with
through ‘snack rooms’ and the reputable cafeteria. The ‘snack rooms’, which are completely free, offer
an array of snacks like, yoghurt, carrots, gummy bears, fresh fruit, M&Ms and coffee. The food at the
cafeteria is so excellent that it is rumoured that workers from Google’s biggest rival (Yahoo!) sneak into
the Googleplex to eat at the restaurant (TechCrunch, 2005). google even go beyond providing for the
basic physical needs of their employees by having on site dentists, doctors, financial advisors and
massage therapists to help employees be stress free at work (Ten reasons to work for Google, 2005).

google employees seem to have a motivation for working at Google which is unrivalled at other firms.
Colvin (2006) comments, by treating employees well, the firm thrives in a virtuous circle like effect.
Activities such as free movie nights for employees and families, and free ski holidays and other social
excursions have created a social bond between employees. Through the provision of free holidays, sports
facilities at work, nursery care for children and 25 days holidays a year, Google encourages its employees
to work hard and play hard. At the same time as providing very attractive fringe benefits for them, the
activities create a social unity between employees, something which is essential to the effectiveness of the
organisation.

Cultural linkage to the Environment and beyond

In google there is high level of motivation. Also there are strong monetary incentives in google – a
quarter of google’s employees are milliner through the googles stock market floatation- But the actual
motivation in google is beyond working environment and monetary rewards. If Maslow’s (1954)
hierarchy of needs is considered, Google have created an organisational culture which goes beyond the
basic physiological, safety, social and esteem needs. The employee in google has got an elevated mission
to the level of ethics, they believe that they are making a difference to the world. Google’s mission
objective is to organize the world’s information and make it accessible and universal (Google.com).

Employees have a profound belief in the organisation’s mission and are excited about the company and
the opportunities that they have at Google (Nelson and Quirk, 2005). The result of this belief in the
organisation is extremely high levels of motivation. People within the organisation believe whole
heartedly in Google because the values of the employees are aligned to that of Google. In this respect
Google has an ‘integrated’ organisational culture (Martin, 1992). Unity between employees and Google
is further enhanced through the empowerment of its employees and encouraging innovation.

At Google, employees are encouraged to innovate; there is a 20% rule, whereby 20% of employees’ time
is spent on whatever project they desire (Byte, 2005). In this way google encourage its employee to think
as to say ‘outside of the box’. This gives the employee sense of freedom and at the same time because
employees at Google believe in the organisation, they remain committed to organizational mission so this
free time will be consumed toward the innovation for the sake of organization.

Regarding the structure google’s structure is very flat and huge amount of responsibility and autonomy
will be granted to the employees. Empowering engineers to make decisions and act upon their decisions
had led to Google developing a core competency in innovation and the ability to do things quickly
(Edwards, 2005). Encouraging innovation and having a flat organisational structure are demonstrations
of Google’s organisational culture which recognizes achievement (Truskie, 1999) and is adaptable
(Denison, 1990).

Cultural fit

Google is very sensitive about keeping its culture alive, so according to Cohn (2005) – google has been
very careful when recruiting as attracting the right staff has been crucial for the continuation of Google’s
culture. Google’s founders (Lary and Sergey) are very intelligent people and with the shiny background
the leads to google; so they are still closely and very obsessively playing a very important role in
recruiting process to keep recruit individuals who are a good fit with google’s culture (Nelson and Quirk,
2005). Google’s recruitment policies are strikingly different to most companies, where work experience
counts for less than educational background. Through careful recruitment, Google has ensured that the
right sort of person enters the organisation and maintains the same culture. Sergey Brin said in the
Google recruitment video ‘We built the place in a way that we like, so we have a great environment for
software engineers’ (2005).

Conclusion

As last word, google has an argument of – 10 reason of why people want to work at google. If we look
through these 10 reason the google’s culture and objectives will be clarified;

1. ‘Lend a helping hand’ - Google help people find what they want, so working at

Google means helping people.

2. ‘Life is beautiful’ - Working at Google is working on something that matters

(which is fulfilling).

3. ‘Appreciation is the best motivation’ - Google provide a fun and inspiring

workplace.

4. ‘Work and play are not mutually exclusive’ - Working in a good environment

can be fun.

5. ‘We love our employees, and we want them to know it’ - Google provide

financial rewards and great fringe benefits.

6. ‘Innovation is our bloodline’ - Google is the technology leader in organising the

world’s information, so there are endless opportunities to innovate.

7. ‘Good company everywhere you look’ - Google employees are very talented;

working at Google means working with talented and interesting people.

8. ‘Uniting the world, one user at a time’ - Google is a global company, making

the world a better place.

9. ‘Boldly go where no one has gone before’ - Google encourage innovation into

new fields. The impact could be millions of people finding it useful.

10. ‘There is such a thing as a free lunch after all’ - Google looks after its

employees by providing free healthy food throughout the day.

[Adapted from www.google.com]

As we see though in these 10 motto the monetary incentives is the last part in and even they’ve just
mention it as a free food although there is much more out there than just a free food, this clearly shows
that although they provide incomparable monetary incentives in respect with other firms but they expect
that their employees think beyond just that incentives’, and pay an ethical approach towards working in
google and become committed to organisation’s culture and as to say fulfill to the founders values; then
they can join and be welcomed by Googlers into Google happy family.

References

Colvin, G. (2006). The 100 Best Companies to Work For 2006, Fortune Magazine, January 11, 2006.

Denison, D. (1990). Corporate Culture and Organizational Effectiveness. John Wiley & Sons: New York.

Edwards, D. (2005). Say hey it’s Ray, Xooglers*, December 4, 2005.

http://xooglers.blogspot.com/2005/12/say-hey-its-ray.html

Gagliardi, P. (1992). Symbols and Artifacts: Views of the Corporate Landscape. Aldine de Gruyter.

Kotter, J. and Heskett, J. (1992). Corporate culture and performance. The Free Press.

Martin, J. (1992). Cultures in organizations. Oxford University Press.

Nelson, D. and Quick, J. (2006). Organizational Behaviour: Foundations, Reality and Challenges (Fifth
Edition). South-Western.