Google’s Approach to

Human Capital

HBRReverse engineering Google's innovation machine.HC Online A look inside the Google talent machine• One of the biggest brand names in the world

today • Topped the Fortune magazine’s 2012 list of 100

Best Companies to Work For• Success = Generative chaos + Precision output• Laszlo Bock, calls it "People Operations".

• HR Department, a strategic partner to the business

• Recruiting machine or the world’s first recruiting culture

• Attract, retain, and motivate the most difficult crop of employees – the Y generation

• Interestingly, there is no formal, well-communicated recruitment strategy.

Creation: Recruitment• Centralized Operation Model with distinct roles • Each role is carried out in a highly

choreographed manner by teams, similar to supply chain

• Google values the quality over the cost

AdWords as a recruiting tool

College Recruitment Recruiter TrainingProfessional Networking

Brain teasers as recruiting tools

Contests as recruiting tools

Retention• Working with 20 per cent time:

– 70%: Time should be spent on fulfilling the job role– 10%: Time for innovation and creativity– 20% : Time for 'personal work', a period spent on personal

development which will ultimately benefit the company

• Cultivating a taste for failure and chaos:

Please fail very quickly—so that you can try

again

I’m so glad you made this mistake. Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of

these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk

-CEO Schmidt

-Larry Page

Compensation:• One of the most underpaying 20 employers in the industry• Yet became the first company a reduction in salaries and

compensation was requested• In 2005‐06, the employees formally demanded a wage cut

themselves

Employee Benefits:• Philosophy of "You can make money without doing evil.

Google is known for facilities that were unheard of in the corporate world.

• E.g.. Google’s Death Benefit policy, Three weeks' vacation during the first year, Maternity and parental leave, A "no tracking of sick days" policy, etc

-HBR: Reverse engineering Google's innovation machine

If a company actually embraced the idea that its people are its most important asset,

it would treat employees in much the way Google does.