Organization Description

Employee motivation is a human resource role that helps to improve employee performance and job satisfaction. The implementation of employee motivation is however complicated and differs from one industry to another. The technology sector is a candidate driven industry which implies that tech professionals have higher negotiating power. Despite the relatively better perks in tech companies as compared with most other areas, the sector records among the most senior employee turnover rates. The average time an employee stays in Google is one year. Thus, entrenching employee retention in tech companies is quite a puzzling task. The employee retention challenges in Google and other tech companies thus form the basis of the problem statement. To understand the topic in a broader sense, a literature review has been conducted to establish the findings of various researchers who have tackled the problem in the past. Two significant motivation forms are widely used which include monetary based and nonmonetary based. The various theories of motivation describe how effective the different strategies are in different circumstances and for different individuals. The employee motivation approaches provide insight for the appropriate employee motivation strategies that could be applied in Google. The recommendations that could change the future of employee retention in tech companies have also been described. The companies should focus more on nonmonetary strategies to achieve greater success. For instance, promoting career growth and development is a suitable motivator.

Table of Contents

Abstract 2

I. Organization Description. 4

A. Products and Services. 4

B.. 4

1. Organizational development/leadership/and or H.R. Support expectations. 4

2. Leadership, management, HR programs. 6

a. Common organizational structure within the industry. 8

1. Organizational structure initiatives requiring OD, management, Leadership, H.R. Support 8

2. Recent or planned changes to the structure. 9

3. Management/leadership philosophy. 9

d. Organizational goals or industry mission/purpose. 9

II. The Problem statement requiring OD/HR/management/leadership services or Interventions: current and future 10

III. Strategy to address the Problem.. 12

IV. Literature Review.. 15

V. Best practices and Recommendations (3-5) 22

a. Identifying a strategy issue within the organization. 22

i. OD/HR/Management concepts pertinent to the issue. 22

ii. Description of the OD/HR/Management activities that would address the issue. 23

iii. Designing OD/HR/management? Organizational development concerning the issue. 25

VI. Performance management, maintenance, evaluation and review.. 26

VII. Recommendations for future. 26

a. Designing a program concerning the issue. 26

1. Organizational partners. 26

2. Organizational resources. 27

3. Program outcomes. 27

b. Summary of the recommendations and projected organizational outcomes from the strategy initiatives 27

VIII. Conclusions. 28

I. Organization Description

A. Products and Services

Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Incorporation. The company’s core products and platforms include Google Play, YouTube, Chrome, Gmail, Android, Search Engines, and Google Maps. Most of these products have over 1 billion subscribers. The products are widely categorized into Watch & Play, Talk & Text, Work smarter, Search and Explore, Use anywhere, and devices. The search and explore products include the Google search, translate, chrome, and maps. The watch & Explore products include YouTube Music, Google Play Movies and TV, and Chromecast. The devices include the Google Pixel 3, Connected Home, Google WiFi, and Pixel Slate. The use anywhere products include Android OS, Wear OS, Chromebook, d Android Auto. The talk and text services include the Gmail, Google Duo, and the Google Allo.

B

1. Organizational development/leadership/and or H.R. Support expectations

Google’s corporate development and support expectations can be best described through its vision and mission. First, the company expects to continue hiring talented individuals as well as providing them with competitive compensation programs. The company notes that it will always strive to employ great workers with perspectives and backgrounds as diverse as those of its global customers. The firm expects to provide an environment where the talents of its staff can be fulfilled as it addresses some of the biggest challenges in society and technology.

The mission of Google Inc. is to create and maintain a workplace place of implausible innovation and creativity that leverages the technical expertise of its staff to address challenge facing its customers. Therefore, the firm expects its employees to be creative and innovative in everything they do. Google as a leading technology company has to innovate to remain ahead of the curve constantly. Thus, the company leverages on a highly competent and creative workforce to always ensure it enhances its product offerings in a way that meets the needs of the modern-day technology consumers. To achieve the objective, Google needs to attract and recruit the best talents within the industry. The leadership of the company thus strives to establish a strong corporate culture to ensure it puts in place an internal environment that is attractive to work in. The efforts of the leadership team have paid off in the past as the company has been voted to be one of the best corporate cultures. The use of employee performance is primarily judged based on how much creativity a worker is at the place of work.

Google’s mission is to organize the information in the world using its products and services and make it useful and accessible to everyone. The task shows the much the company expects its employees to contribute towards solving the information needs of its clients. The company’s products have evolved, and in the process, the firm has added several services to its portfolio with the aim of enabling customers to access information quickly. Therefore, the management expects the company to consistently and continuously change and meet the dynamic demands of its customers. The need for change, therefore, is regarded as one of the primary functions within the company and all employees are expected to contribute towards the change.

The company also takes great pleasure in its organizational culture. The firm expects its employees and management to embrace creativity and collaboration, encouraging the iteration of ideas regardless of the roles a worker plays in the company. The company expects its employees to show transparency and open dialogue at the workplace. Additionally, the company prefers first to reach its employees using its internal communication channels.

Google rewards its employees with the expectation that they will increase their performance and use their talents to innovate and develop cutting-edge products and services. To continue offering its services, the company must have a committed workforce working round the clock to ensure that everything is running as it should. The staffs are expected to make appropriate decisions to solve challenges that occur at critical times to ensure that essential services are not interrupted.

The tech company focuses on having a high retention rate of the skilled, creative and competent employees (Deci & Ryan, 2014). A low employee turnover rate is desirable since it helps to maintain the focus of the company on its core business. The process of having a constant cycle of recruitment and hiring is not only expensive but also creates inefficiencies when new employees have to be trained now and then. Thus, the company has implemented a wide range of measures aimed at increasing employee satisfaction with a hope that the level of employee satisfaction is positively impacted.

2. Leadership, management, HR programs

The Google Incorporation’s HR practices are among the most imitated HR programs in the world. Some of its HR programs include telecommuting, diversity programs, extended and paid employee leaves, and innovation and creativity programs. The company is practicing teleworking through its ‘Google icy, remote policy.’ The program allows telecommuting for employees under specific and short-term contracts. The solo remote work is only permitted on a case by case basis. However, issues have been raised about the HR program due to the lack of transparency involved. Many employees do not know whether they qualify to telecommute or not.

Diversity in the workplace is a significant HR program at Google Incorporation. Through the ‘Google Diversity’ program, the company believes that it has an accelerated diversity and inclusion programs which allows its employees to come from all parts of the world with different national cultural orientation.

Innovation is also a vital HR program practiced by Google incorporation. The HR encourages employees at all levels to be innovative. Through its ‘fostering an innovative workplace’ programs, the company believes that it can ignite innovation through a shared vision, autonomy, risk-taking, intrinsic motivation, and connection and collaboration. The program ensures that everyone in the firm is aware of the direction the company has taken. The program also allows the company’s employees to define their work as much as possible. Also, the program encourages employees to take a risk and feel psychologically safe when trying out new ideas.

The company offers a paid leave benefit to its workers through different arrangements. The leave days vary from 15 – 25 depending on how long the employee has been part of the company. The company has a flexible working environment whereby any employee has the option of taking three months of unpaid leave and be able to come back to their job thereafter. For new mothers, the company offers them a paid leave of up to 22 weeks. The adoptive parents and fathers are eligible for a paid leave of between 7 to 12 weeks (Alphabet Inc., 2018). Another vital benefit in Google is their 401k plans. The plan is a retirement benefit available for the employees upon their retirement. A 401k plan is a useful investment to employees as it enables them to secure their future. Google offers a 50% match for the amount contributed by the employees. Another unique benefit provided by Google is the provision of extended benefits to the spouse of a diseased Google employee. The organization provides the surviving spouse a 50% salary of the deceased worker for up to 10 years (Alphabet Inc., 2018).

Google goes an extra mile with implementing flexible HR policies such as allowing employees to bring their pets to work. Such a program is effective ways of ensuring employees part of the organizational vision and goals. The workers are also allowed to enjoy on Fridays in the office as a way to be motivated. Such measures help to encourage employee bonding through supporting them to socialize.

a. Common organizational structure within the industry

1. Organizational structure initiatives requiring OD, management, Leadership, H.R. Support

The Google Incorporation’s organizational structure is cross-functional. The structure comprises of a matrix structure having a considerable degree of flatness. The structure comprises of a divisional and functional structure (Maier, 2017). The nature of operations of technology companies means that such organizations run several projects at a go. Each of the projects or division relates to the functional departments such as HR, finance, engineering and design, project management, among others. One distinctive characteristic of the Google organizational structure is an emphasis of flatness which means that the employees on the lower level s of the company can bypass the middle management and communicate directly with the top leadership. the flatness was also involved in allowing for the minimization of the vertical hierarchical lines of command and authority which are associated with high levels of employee dissatisfaction

Other features of the firm’s structure initiatives include product-based definition and function-based definition. The employees at the company are grouped based on their functions. For examples, there are sales operations, product management, and the Engineering and design groups.

2. Recent or planned changes to the structure

Over the past years, the need for flatter organizational structures has been in demand, and has prompted several organizations to implement different structures. In the recent past, the flatarchies organizational structure has been implemented to allow for two-way communication with everyone in the organization. Essentially, the structure eliminates the unnecessary levels and instead spreads powers across various positions to allow for better decision making and improve managerial efficiencies. The structure leverages the strengths of the hierarchies, and flat structures to allow companies to practice both structures. While they can be more hierarchical, there are ad-hoc teams which act as the basis for flat structures. Therefore, flatarchies are expected to be the future organizational structures.

3. Management/leadership philosophy

The management philosophy in Google leans towards distributed leadership ("Our latest | Google," 2018). The company has a policy of employing the best talents in the industry and then giving them the space to make decisions and the freedom to exercise creativity. The size and the scope of Google's operations require a dedicated team with decision-making capabilities. In Google, most of the new innovative products do not emanate from the top. Rather, they originate from ordinary employees and later turn out to be significant milestones for the organization.

d. Organizational goals or industry mission/purpose

The mission and vision statement communicate the underlying principles and philosophy of an organization which helps in understanding the corporate culture. The mission for Google is to make the world's information universally accessible and to ensure the information is presented in an organized manner ("Our latest | Google," 2018). The goal of the company is to be a corporate leader in developing technology that is at par with the current demands of the consumers. The company also strives to entrench the accuracy and usability of its technological products. The company's operations are dictated by its core values which include a customer-centric focus, democracy, honesty, efficiency, among others ("Our latest | Google," 2018).

II. The Problem statement requiring OD/HR/management/leadership services or Interventions: current and future

There are several HR factors which have caused employee dissatisfaction, increased employee turnover rates, and as such require important leadership and management interventions. One of these issues is the micromanagement witnessed at the company. Although the firm’s micromanagement policies are done with good intentions of allowing employees to get their works done, they most of the time drive the employees crazy, saps the life out of the workers, and consequently cause work apathy. According to Raziq and Maulabakhsh (2015), micromanagement reduces employee trust because it consistently informs the worker that his/her manager does not trust the work they are doing thereby triggering employee disengagement. The formation of Alphabet, a conglomerate consisting of many companies, Google Incorporation being one of them, also caused problems for the HR. similar to mergers and acquisition, the employees had to deal with a new corporate culture which was different from the one they were used at Google incorporation. The line of command and communication suddenly increased, and the employees felt that they did not get enough information about the formation changes. Furthermore, the employees thought that they were not appropriately informed about the reasons for the formation of Alphabet group of companies. As a result, apathy to work increased; some employees became bored and decided to shift allegiance to the Google competitors. Therefore, before the company can lose more talents, it is important that the management intervene and solve the communication problems which make employees less motivated to work for the firm. All these issues have resulted in an escalated employee turnover.

The company, similar to other tech companies, faces high employee turnover which has an adverse impact on current and future productivity. Employee turnover is experienced in all industries, but the high rate witnessed in technology companies is a cause of concern. The paradox is that tech companies have comparably better perks and working conditions as compared to several other companies. Still, their employee retention is still way below that of several other industries. The job satisfaction in Google company is 84%, but the employees still leave the company after working for a year ("Our latest | Google," 2018). The shortage of IT experts in the United States is the major cause of employee turnover in the technology industry. The shortage of highly talented experts minimizes the ability to identify and hire a competitive team. The high demand for the IT experts impacts negatively on the retention due to the poaching efforts by other companies (Debbie, 2017).

The high employee turnover has a direct impact on the revenues of the company, which impacts the current and future profitability. The company incurs extra costs in training, hiring, and recruitment of the new workers. The expenses eat into the net profits for the company. An increased turnover rate reduces the work morale of the workforce due to an increase in workload. The new employees have lower productivity due to the aspect of a learning curve that takes them more time before they can match the experienced workers. The high turnover also means that the employee teams within the respective projects keep on changing which diminishes their morale. A workforce with low morale leads to the creation of a negative working environment that leads to reduced productivity (Cho & Yang, 2018).

Employee turnover may lead to a reduction on the Return on Investment in the future of an organization. Turnover leads to loss of the experienced workforce to other competitors which reduce the competitive advantage of a firm. Workers are the most critical assets for tech companies, and thus loss off talented employees is often a big blow. Experienced and skilled employees give an organization a competitive edge over other competitor companies. The inexperienced new employees make a firm to lose in term of productivity and customers (Fu & Deshpande, 2014). When some workers leave an institution, some customers may also tend to move due to the pre-existing relationships with such employees. The loss of productivity and customers minimize the return on investment (Louise, 2017).

The shortage of talented professionals makes the telecommunication industry a candidate driven marketplace as the employees have stronger power than the employers during the job offer negotiations. Therefore, the technology companies compete with more attractive salaries and incentives to retain the best talents. However, the effectiveness of the success of such strategies has been below expectations (Deci & Ryan, 2014). Judging from the current trend and the most probable future outcomes, it is highly probable that employee retention will be an even more significant challenge for tech companies in the future. Advancement in ICT has resulted in the sector expanding with time, and thus more companies and opportunities are possibly to emerge in the future and intensify the competition for tech professionals.

III. Strategy to address the Problem

There are several approaches to the management of Google incorporation can use to reduce the escalating rates of employee turnover and dissatisfaction in the company. The employee retention approaches such as Employee recognition and rewards program, communication and feedback systems, and employee mentoring and training are the approaches which Google must implement and develop to help curb the rising employee dissatisfaction, demotivation, and high turnover rates.

Employee recognition and rewards system involves acknowledging individual and or team behavior, accomplishments, and effort which support organizational values and goals. For example, employees at the company may be recognized based on their years of service. Staff with many years in the company should be known for their allegiance and service to the firm. The process increases employee satisfaction and consequently reduces turnover rates (Lovewell-Tuck, 2017). The competitive reward system is also one of the many ways Google can improve their employee satisfaction and reduce the high turnover rates. Employees who enjoy a total rewards system usually are more motivated and less willing to leave an organization.

Communication and feedback system provides employees with a way of letting the organization know what they want. The process also enables firms to make the employees understand the company goals and directions. Furthermore, employee issues and conflicts which may increase chances of turnover can be addressed through proper communication and feedback. The company can, for example, schedule employee communication programs on a weekly basis to open up lines of contact with the staff (Fordham, 2017). The method is essential because it can allow employees to open up on matters which they feel needs addressing. Furthermore, providing them with feedbacks shows that the management cares for them and significantly induces extrinsic motivation that in turn lowers the possibility of a turnover.

Employee mentoring and training is an essential tool for motivating employees and reducing turnover rates. In the 21st century workplace, the needs keep on changing and put a lot of pressure on the staff and management. Furthermore, the workplace is becoming younger as older and more experienced individuals retire. There is, therefore, loss of knowledge, skills, and performances. Younger employees must, thus, be shown the right path and the right skills through mentoring. Companies which fail to mentor their staff usually have disgruntled employees who cannot match the skills left by the older workers (Vijayan, 2017). Mentoring programs will ensure that employees at Google have the necessary skills and knowledge to solve the problems they face in their places of work. Consequently, employee motivation will increase and, in turn, lead to reduced employee turnover.

Conducting the employee satisfaction surveys is also an approach to address the problem of high employee turnover in Google. The reviews help to identify the cause of high employee turnover hence the solution can be retrieved. The reason for low tenure to other organization will be found during the surveys. The findings from the studies will be used to enhance retention. Benchmarking with other competitive companies and realizing their retention strategies can also be applied to solve the problem of employee turnover (Vijayan, 2017). Therefore, research is an essential tool that enables comparison of the strategies with other companies as a way to improve the tenure.

Happiness assessments will help to improve employee retention in Google. The happiness of the employees should be addressed outside the organization to find other methods for enhancing the retention. The happiness assessment is done through the holding of the discussions with the employees to realize what satisfy them (Yusoff, Kian & Idris, 2013). The employees should also be allowed to explain their dreams and wishes so that the management could determine the efforts required to improve satisfaction. Research done on the past holds that high turnover is barely linked to the monetary benefits. Strategies such as helping the employees achieve their dreams significantly address the issue of high turnover hence high retention.

IV. Literature Review

Maier (2017) researched to find out what leads to employee engagement and involvement in the workplace. Materialistic benefits and value for the work the employees had done were the major variables in the research. She wanted to demonstrate that money was not only the form of motivation for the employees. The participants were the employees of a firm which promised to give them a bonus for every 90-minutes overtime. Only 30% of the workers turned to work for the overtime which implies that money fails to improve commitment and involvement (Maier, 2017). Meir used an experimental example of a behavioral economist Dan Ariely to demonstrate what the employees’ value apart from perk salaries. The experiments involved two groups that were assembling the Lego figures. In the first group, the figures were placed under the table after the members finished assembling. In the second category, the figures were disassembled immediately they were finished. The members in the second group stopped assembling the figures at a higher rate than those in the first group. Disseminating and disassembling of the figures was the greatest demotivator for the participants. From the experiment, Maier concluded that the workers needed to feel the sense of purpose in whatever they do to be motivated. The act of keeping the figures assembled by the first group was a motivator as they felt progress in what they were doing. The progress and improvement in the organization are one of the motivators for the workers (Maier, 2017).

Maier suggested that having a purpose and appreciating and developing the potential of the workers acts as intrinsic motivation. Therefore, organizations should focus to share the success of the projects with the workers to create internal motivation in workers. Human beings have a nature to feel a sense of self-satisfaction when they experience personal growth and improvement (Vijayan, 2017). Managers should foster a working environment that appreciates openness, recognition and coaching to motivate the employees internally. However, organizations should also implement an outward form of motivation to push the employees to work hard for the rewards (Maier, 2017).

Cho and Yang (2018) studied how the perception of the organizational politics influences the intrinsic motivation among the workforce. Corporate politics is a crucial factor that directly affects the workforce motivation. The authors proposed that the work mood including depression and anxiety are psychological mediators for corporate politics. The research involved the analysis of the effect of the corporate politics on the tenure. The results from the study indicated that corporate politics reduced the self-motivation of the workers as it leads to anxiety in the workplace. The job satisfaction is also reduced concerning the depression as a result of the organizational politics (Louise, 2017). The corporate politics was found to be a significant factor controlling the extrinsic motivation and the relationships between the leaders and the subordinates. Therefore, the different types of corporate politics create a work mood that affects the outcomes of a project in different ways. The management should take the necessary caution when implementing the political behaviors as it may be counterproductive (Cho & Yang, 2018).

Debbie, (2017) carried out a study to find out the science behind motivation. An organization has to implement motivational tools to improve overall performance. Fostering and maintaining a culture of motivation is a challenge for most organizations. Debbie proposes the three dimensions of keeping the team motivated according to the scientific theory. Intensity, direction, and persistence affect the behavior and sustain the motivation of the employees. He described path as the first step that organizations should aim to give incentives and rewards to the employees. He defined the four critical elements under direction as the leadership, goal, culture, and knowledge. The leaders need to guide the team with typical behaviors and be role models to the subordinates to achieve the organizational objectives. The managers should always be transparent, fair, and purpose of creating a sense of intrinsic motivation within the workers (Yusoff, Kian & Idris, 2013).

The management needs to foster an organizational culture that has a sense of purpose and reward the great performance of the workers. The leaders should be knowledgeable to create realistic strategies and make confident decisions. Clear expectations should be spelled out to the team to develop guidelines for achieving the objectives (Vijayan,2017). The employees should be notified on the organizational goals which should be made timely and flexible. The aspect of intensity involves creating an energized environment with a strong team that is ready to work towards the goal. The management is required to explain to the team the organizational vision, directions, and strategies to achieve the goal (Maier, 2017). The aspect of persistence involves developing a follow-up strategy to ensure that the employees are committed to working towards the goal. Persistence can be achieved through rewarding and recognition, learning and skill development among the employees, and providing a feedback loop. Intensity, persistence, and direction are the three tools that when applied effectively create employee engagement and motivation in the workplace according to Debbie (Debbie, 2017).

Vijayan (2017) explored the influence of job stressors on the overall worker performance. The job stressors according to Vijayan include low salaries, high workload, lack of recognition, role conflicts and low morale. Therefore, the management should focus to apply motivational tool and develop strategies to mitigate the job stressors to improve the overall productivity. The job stressors contribute significantly to high employee turnover in companies (Vijayan, 2017). Vijayan identified the high workload, shift work, and job security as the major contributors to high employee turnover. The high workload leads to low performance which reduces the morale of the workers. The lost morale in the workers translates to reduced satisfaction and hence turnover. Time pressure, inadequate staff, role conflicts, and inadequate resources to accomplish a task are the main factors that increase the workload for the workforce (Maier, 2017).

The high competition and the improved technology have led to the shift in the work time. The workers find it a problem to adapt to the new working time, and leads to physiological and psychological stress. The unfavorable working time leads to loss of job satisfaction especially by the female workers hence most of them opt to leave their jobs. There is a significant undesirable association between the job stressors and productivity. The security at the workplace is also a major factor which causes heightened employee turnover rates. Most firms focus on project completion and building strong brand names at the expense of the workforce (Lunenburg, 2011). The companies fail to recognize the potential and the skills of the laborers which demotivate the team. The management has a role in motivating the employees both intrinsic and extrinsic as a way to retain a skilled workforce. However, most of the firms only focus on providing materialistic forms of motivation and ignoring to nurture the internal energy among the workforce (Vijayan, 2017).

Louise, (2017) explored the ways of motivating the workforce without providing the monetary benefits. He proposed that the modern workforce find a sense of intrinsic motivation from other interests rather than financial packages. The increases in the pay catered for the inflation rates hence fails to motivate the employees. However, companies should focus to provide competitive salaries for the workers as it is a form of intrinsic motivation on itself. The rate of inflation outstrips the increase in pays, and the pension schemes have become less valuable in the private sectors (Louise, 2017). To balance the situation, the managers focus on rewarding the high performers while applying stringent measures on the incompetent workers. Louise recommends that companies should focus to apply commercially-minded measures to achieve the balance between the