Faculty of Commerce
Business Administration Department

A Report about
“GOOGLE Organization Culture”

Submitted by:
Mohammed Algherbawi 120131544

Submitted to:
Dr. Sami Ali Abou-Al-Ross

INTRODUCTION
Google Inc. is one of the most successful and popular internet startups. Until now, it is the favorite search engine all the time due to its accuracy and speed in finding results. Besides its technological advances over its competitors, Google’s success also stems from its ability to attract and retain the best talented employees. During the internet boom in the late 90s, Google was the only company that did not experience any employee turnover, while all other major competitors experienced a turnover rates of around 20-25%. This was achieved through Google’s organizational culture which is perceived as one of the most impressive and successful cultures around the world.
GOOGLE’S ORGANIZATION CULTURE
Google has an informal work culture at Googleplex (its headquarters). Its founders wanted to make it a fun and inspiring workspace. Reflecting their beliefs, the Googleplex was decorated and painted in the bright colors of the Google logo. Google has a “flat” organizational structure with smaller number of middle managers and upper management. This hierarchy fosters a more open atmosphere for employees to voice their opinions and new ideas in various ways like employee engagement. Some of Google’s organization culture components: * RECRUITMENT PROCESS
Founders focuses on recruiting people with the right frame of mind. They are themselves personally involved in the recruitment process. In order to attract high performing candidates. Google recruits people who have diverse skills and qualities. While recruiting, Google attaches a lot of importance to academic excellence as revealed in grade scores in SAT and other graduate exams. To get an interview call from Google, a person has to be from a top-ranking university. However, they do not assess only a candidate’s technical skills and intellect, but also his creative thought process and quick thinking abilities. This recruitment process allows Google to filter the flood of applications for extraordinary people who will best contribute to the company. This is how Google hires people, part of how it attracts, retains, and keeps employees happy and satisfied is by having an inspiring culture with interesting incentives. Some incentives of being a Google employee: * Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. * Free health and dental. * Free haircuts. * Free dry cleaning. * Subsidized massages. * Gyms and swimming pools. * Hybrid car subsidies * Video games, football, ping pong. * Death benefits.

* INNOVATION
Google management also focuses on encouraging innovation and creativity at the workplace. It realized that to maintain its growth, the company has to come out with new products/features. All Google employees follow a rule called the 70/20/10 rule, under which they are expected to devote 70 percent of every work day to whichever projects are assigned by management, 20 percent of each day to new projects or ideas related to their core projects, and 10 percent to any new ideas they want to pursue regardless of what they might be. The company credits this rule with being the driving force behind many of Google's new products and services, because programmers, salespeople and even executives are given enough space to be creative. When the company became too large to easily manage the flow of new ideas and projects, it instituted a schedule of meetings between employees and the company's founders and chief executives. At these meetings, employees can pitch new ideas and projects directly to the top executives. * CLEAR MISSION STATEMENT AND VALUES
Having a clearly articulated mission that is prominently communicated to all employees cultivates an intentional culture – an environment where people know why they do what they do, and love their work all the more for it. Mission statements, however, are much easier to write than to make into reality. You need to realize that a company’s culture will hinge on its ability to make the words on paper meaningful, translating the intangible into something that has real worth and impact. * EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION FOR SMALL AND BIG CONTRIBUTIONS
Recognition provides incentives for employees to do the best work they can do. But as much as Google likes to seize opportunities to acknowledge strong performances, the company is equally willing to celebrate failure as well. Google products are known to always be in Beta – mistakes are praised. Before she became the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg was a vice president at Google whose responsibilities included managing their automated advertising system. When she made a mistake that cost Google several million dollars, she admitted her error to co-founder Larry Page, whose response sums up the company’s attitude on failure: “I’m so glad you made this mistake,” he said. “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.” Employee appreciation leads to a fearless office culture, where people are more willing to take risks. More risk, while daunting, means more fresh ideas that may be what a company needs rise to the next level. * ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE BOOSTED BY COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Commitment to community is one of the leading indicators of a great corporate culture. Events like GoogleFest provide opportunities for employees to become involved in community building and training.

Participation in such events adds another social dimension for the employees, strengthening relationships and paving way for a more enjoyable work environment. Promoting social gatherings in general will allow co-workers to find different ways to connect with each other aside from the work setting.
A CRITIQUE OF GOOGLE'S CULTURE
Many analysts feel that Google's zero per cent employee turnover rate during the internet boom, was a proof to its healthy organizational culture. But not everyone was convinced that Google had got it right in terms of its work culture. They felt that company's culture was not set to manage its growth. A 12-hour working day had become norm at the company. Google's recruitment process was also criticized by analysts. It was pointed out that Google had become too narrow in its recruitment by focusing only on the academic records and graduate ranks of the applicants rather than on experience, but the management defended the recruitment process saying that they valued intelligence and brainpower more than experience. ogle c