Job Satisfaction in Google: An analysis of Google’s workplace culture’s effect

on satisfaction and productivity

“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” – Larry Page, Founder, Google Inc.

Introduction
Established in 1998, Google Inc. has seen its transformation from a web-based search
engine to a multinational multi-faceted tech giant. One of the prominent reasons for the
success of this company has been its workplace culture which strives its employees forward
for better productivity and consequentially, helped the organisation to turn into a multi-
billion internet company. This is the reason why this company has also been a constant in
Glassdoor’s list of ‘Best places to work.’[CITATION htt1 \l 16393 ]
Google achieved this job productivity by various measures to their workplace environment
and policies which have employee happiness at the core. “Employee Happiness = Growth of
the organisation” has been Google’s fundamental building block which they have achieved
by giving their employees a very comfortable environment to nurture and engage in
innovation i.e. a value central to Google. It is also further analysed how Google’s employee
policies have resulted in a high rate of OCB (Organizational Citizenship Behaviour) which has
indeed given the employees and the managers a sense of belongingness to the organisation
and have allowed them to work like a family just like was envisioned by the leadership of
Larry Page.
Moreover, the company, instead of relying on conventional methods of survey have
developed their own analytical methods to study leadership and teamwork which has
presented a true picture of the structure in which the employees’ happiness lies [CITATION
Goo \l 16393 ]. Google has continuously brought modifications to their structure to suit the
preferences of its employees thereby giving a good Perceived Organisational Support (POS),
enabling them to show better employee engagement.

Workplace policies, facilities and job satisfaction

According to a research by Payscale, 86% of Google Inc.’s employees are satisfied with their
jobs [ CITATION Pay \l 16393 ] compared to a national average of 51% in the United States of
America[CITATION The18 \l 16393 ]. This is highly because of the employee friendly policies
and programmes that Google offers. The crux of Google’s policies is centred around –
innovation and openness[ CITATION Smi18 \l 16393 ]. By propagating a culture of openness,
they essentially decrease the communication gap between the employees and managers so
that the employees can freely share their ideas in order to promote innovation. This
innovation is indeed the driving force of Google’s generic strategy which, based on Porter’s
model, is differentiation[ CITATION And17 \l 16393 ]. Under this strategy, Google caters to a
broad spectrum of audience, throughout the world, using its uniqueness to edge ahead of
the competition. This uniqueness is brought by hiring innovative and out of the box thinking
employees and give them enough work autonomy in the organisation.
Work Autonomy:
Prasad Setty, the Vice President of People Operations at Google has stated, “if you give
people freedom, they will amaze you.” It has been found by a research in 2017, that
employee burnout has hugely resulted in disengagement. [ CITATION Nat17 \l 16393 ] Google,
by providing its workers autonomy combats this issue of employee burnout. This is done by
a policy which allows employed to spend 20% of their work time working on anything that
they desire or are inspired by. Multiple successes such as Google News, AdSense and Gmail
have been the boons of this policy [ CITATION Cul18 \l 16393 ].
Another reason for high happiness and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour in Google
employees is the work time flexibility and highly coordinating nature of the organisation.
There is a high work time flexibility i.e. it’s not only a 9 AM-5 PM job for Google’s employees
rather they can choose the time according to their own convenience [ CITATION Cul18 \l 16393
]. This essentially gives them a happier and more free life where they can manage
organisational stress efficiently. Moreover, Google provides a fairly gratuitous maternity
leave as well. Expecting mothers in the organization get 5 months leave which is fully paid
with added benefits[ CITATION Sha18 \l 16393 ]. Google also provides some unique benefits
such as tuition grants for employees’ wards and retirement insurances to its
employees[ CITATION Cul18 \l 16393 ]. This is in turn builds a high POS(Perceived
Organizational Support) for the employees for whom policies like these are a testimony to
the fact that the organization wants their welfare.
Pay Policies:
Google has always been gratuitous in its salary and bonuses as well which is why most of the
employee are highly satisfied monetarily with the salaries they receive. As per PayScale, the
median salary of experienced workers is $140,000, the second highest in tech giants and
employees with less than one year of work experience earn on average around $93,000
[ CITATION Rac16 \l 16393 ].Therefore, pay is hardly a concern for Google employs, giving
them further financial security and hence, high job satisfaction. Google also often offers
ESOP i.e. Employee Stock Ownership Plans to some of its employees which directs their
individual goal to the organisational goal as well[ CITATION Jil15 \l 16393 ].
Collaboration:
Another significant value in Google’s workplace culture is – collaboration. This is achieved by
programmes like ‘Googler to Googler’ where employees can train each other in various
business skills like marketing, public speaking or extra curriculars like billiards as
well[ CITATION Sha18 \l 16393 ]. This spirit of collaboration in the workplace does not only
allow an individual to nurture better but also serve as a huge plus in the job engagement of
the employee. They tend to identify better with the organisation since by creating a sense of
homeliness, it increases on the Organizational Citizenship Behaviour of an individual. This
collaboration is also tried to be established between managers and employees with Google
giving its managers, 8 paramount rules involving communication and management which
does not allow any leader to be highly autocratic [ CITATION Nei19 \l 16393 ]. Hence, there is
no significant bar to the freedom of employees.
Perks and Entertainment:
In its efforts to provide a homely feeling to its employees, Google provides many free perks
such as free meals, free haircuts, free dry cleaning, free healthcare etc. to increase the OCB
and employee inclusivity in the workplace. They also have incorporated innovative ideas
such as having long lunch tables which exposes them to more people to know at their
workplace again boosting workplace inclusivity and engagement. To create a casual homely
sense, they have focussed to have more diner booths than conference rooms as it facilitates
creativity better since an individual tends to be more innovative at a comfortable casual
environment[ CITATION Nei19 \l 16393 ].
Google has also incorporated in its workplace, various sources of fun and entertainment in
the form of subsidized massages, arcade room with video games, foosball, ping pong,
bowling alley etc. and gyms and swimming pools. In the words of Google’s former HR Boss,
“All of these efforts support one another, and together create an organization that is
creative, fun, hardworking, and highly productive.” As was found in a study by Bright HR, fun
at workplace does not only lowers the level of tension and stress but also reduces
absenteeism and facilitates productivity, leading to Job satisfaction [ CITATION Bri \l 16393 ].
Google has incorporated another very high-tech innovative idea in the form of sleeping
pods. These sleeping pods are comfortable zero gravity beds that employees can nap or rest
on further creating a very health friendly stress-free environment for them where they can
focus soundly on their work and enjoy it.[ CITATION Sar17 \l 16393 ]

Employee Engagement Surveys – Google’s new way

With a widespread use of the SAS (Statistical Analysis System), a very general mode of
survey is used for employee analysis with most of the organizations. Google, with its
innovative and unique ideas for employee satisfaction has conceptualized a unique way of
surveying as well known as the People Analytics where they use both quantitative and
qualitative data to understand and analyse the work culture of each of its employees and
transform their organisational structure accordingly. By this, they could dig deep down into
the inner employee culture with an astounding participation rate of 90% employees.
[ CITATION Ste16 \l 16393 ] A couple of these programmes have brought a significant
change to the organisational structure of Google –

Project Oxygen:
It helped Google identify the ideal characteristics of a manager that suited their workplace
development and employee satisfaction. It was found that most of the employees were
averse to hierarchy which lead to flattening of the management levels in Google. This
creates a holistic contentedness of the employees with their managers, resulting in better
moods and higher satisfaction[ CITATION And16 \l 16393 ].

Project Aristotle:
Through this project, Google made an effort to make a combination of the best teams and
workforces. They did this by taking a qualitative review as well as statistical sales data to
match the perfect combination of groups. This was also highly successful in reducing ego
clashes providing a better workplace environment to the employees with lesser politics and
hence, higher satisfaction[ CITATION Ste16 \l 16393 ].

Conclusion

Since its establish, Google has made multiple endeavours to better its workplace culture in
order to keep their employees happy. They have realised the importance of job satisfaction
in a workplaces and have taken innovative and intelligent steps to incorporate its ideals
through its policies, facilities and engagement surveys. They have made a perfect balance by
giving importance to every aspect of an employee’s requirement, be it incorporating fun
activities to mitigate stress or provision of such flexibility that every employee has
autonomy over there workplace. By making their workplace so homely that it feels like
family just like the founder Larry Page envisioned, they have set a perfect exemplar for
other organisations and vindicated that a happy employee makes a successful organisation.