US HR Tour: It’s All About People (17-22 October 2016)

During the US HR tour we studied hiring, managing and motivation policies in the world’s top companies. Let’s start with Google. This company employs 70,000 people, with every last one of them carefully selected from hundreds and thousands of candidates.

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To get employed here, you don’t just need professionalism, you need ‘Googliness’, which includes a lot of values, and being able to put other people’s interests before your own is not the least of them.

Google throws ridiculous amounts of money at its employees. Practically everything in the company is free: food, hairdressers, massage, pool and many other services. If you work at Google, you don’t have any additional expenses. The company does everything to keep its employees focused on work. With its immense profit, Google surely can afford it.

Surprisingly, the company’s salary is not the highest in the market. Moreover, there was a moment when Google’s salaries were lower than the market average. This caused many employees to leave, and the company was forced to give all its remaining staff a pay raise.

Like in many Silicon Valley companies, to get accepted to Google you need recommendations. This rule is based on the idea that good people know other good people. You might think that Google is the ideal employer, and everyone would like to work for it. But it’s not true. Many Facebook and Square employees would never work for Google.

What’s wrong with working for Google, anyway?

First of all, the company’s employees never feel that their work means something. The success of your individual project is practically meaningless in the big picture. If you are not one of Google’s directors, you don’t change anything. If you leave, nothing changes as well. Secondly, Google gives so much care to its employees that it starts to look like a nursery school. Many people don’t like being cared for so much. They don’t want to work 24/7, they want a life outside the office and they want to manage their tasks and problems without outside help. Thirdly, the overly democratic corporate culture makes quick decisions impossible. There are many smart people working at Google, and every one of them has an opinion. They can discuss one problem for months, without deciding on anything eventually. For people used to working for more dynamic companies it’s a terrible place. They believe that it’s better to make a mistake, own up to it, correct it and make the right decision.

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Interesting facts:

1) Google receives 2 billion resumes a year, but most people are hired via a reference letter, for which they have to pay $4000.

2) There are no compromises when working with people, and nobody brings their problems to their superiors – only solutions.

3) Managers like to hire people who are smarter and better.

4) During interviews, you may be asked to teach the interviewer something they don’t already know.

5) The ‘no hello’ rule: in business letters there is no usual ‘Hello! How are you?’ greeting.

6) During retreatment, the company organizes a ‘Wine and Cheese’ time, when teams can relax and talk about improving their work – a very efficient method.

7) Every employee has their own personal and business goals and plans. The interesting thing is, everyone can check these plans out. For instance, any employee can look at the goals and plans of the company’s founder, a colleague, or a subordinate, which helps them understand the company’s direction.

8) One of the most surprising startups in the company is a sex ed for girls online program, which is important and topical.

All in all, Google is one of the best companies on the planet, and its employees are absolutely happy. Still, there’s a talent drain from Google to the Valley’s other tech companies.

VISA

This company’s main goal is to develop entrepreneurship. There is an open ‘job market’ inside the company, meaning that any manager can invite any subordinate to their project by offering better bonuses, conditions or position. Thus, managers are motivated to make work for their subordinates as comfortable as possible.

Every year, the company invests $10,000 in outside learning. There is also a corporate university with many online courses. To continue moving forward, everyone has to learn a lot. There is a rotation program where an employee can change their project or tasks every two months (horizontal growth) to help them understand what they do best. Eventually, they can make an educated choice, helped by their manager. The company focuses on developing talent, not overcoming weaknesses.

FACEBOOK

They do have a park on their roof! Every week, managers have to allocate an hour to talk with every one of their subordinates – that’s what the park is for. Additionally, Mark Zuckerberg gives weekly talks to all employees, updating them on the company’s progress and answering all their questions in an interactive Q&A session. This kind of contact is very important for productivity.

The company has an open feedback policy: if you see that your colleague has some ‘growth zone’, it’s OK to tell them openly. Nobody sneaks to their superiors, tries to undermine their colleagues or send a copy of their memos to the boss.

 

Freedom is Facebook’s top priority. Here, practically everything is possible: you can bring your dog to the office, you can work anywhere and at all times. The only requirement is to provide the result. There is no official rulebook in the company. Mark Zuckerberg walks around the office, and any employee can approach him and talk. Such freedom is restricted by many ethical norms, known to every employee. Nobody would talk to Zuckerberg just for fun, although it’s not forbidden.

HR tour highlights:

1. Diversity. I haven’t ever heard or said this word so much before. All companies are open to hiring women and international programmers. Even when boarding the plane, I heard that some people were just returning from a diversity conference. The key diversity principle is that people from different countries and environments think differently, and thus can create better ideas together.

2. Everybody is constantly studying: with your boss’s approval, you can spend from $3000 to $9000 on your annual outside education. Additionally, every Valley company has its own corporate university, where all courses and programs are accessible 24/7. Learning is one of the top priorities here.

3. Leaders have the largest list of responsibilities in the company: some teams don’t even know their HR manager’s name. US company leaders hire, adapt, train, motivate and reward their employees to help the business run smoothly and flawlessly.

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