Google Inc Case Study

Google Inc. (Google) is an American company, whose search engine is popularly used around the globe. The company was established in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in Mountainview, California, USA, where the current headquarters lie. It hires 55,035 employees all over the world and has a total revenue of USD 47,898 millions as of 2014. Google makes profits by offering its customers a variety of Internet services and products, including e-mail, online document creation, and software for mobiles and computers. It is known as the best place to work due to the non-monetary rewards that it gives its employees. Non-financial rewards are non-monetary stimuli that motivate employees by offering them psychological benefits. Google provides a myriad

By fulfilling the fundamental needs of its employees, Google has improved their productivity and the overall performance of the company. Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Y Douglas McGregor was another advocate of non-financial rewards for employees as a means of improving their productivity. Appendix J illustrates McGregor’s Theory X and Y. Google’s non-monetary stimuli of free healthy buffets, on-site facilities, a maternity leave plan, and freedom of action are efficient in motivating the Theory X employees, who lack initiative. Free food buffets and on-site facilities act as incentives to encourage them to work harder by establishing an ideal environment where they can generate and share ideas with colleagues.

Google’s provision of various perks can also improve the productivity of Theory Y employees, who seek to achieve beyond their potential. Freedom of action and the healthy food buffets allow them to have flexible working hours, which enable them to push themselves beyond their limits to achieve their

Google’s high turnover rate shows that a large number of its employees quit working despite the perks. This means that the level of employee satisfaction is relatively low although Google provides its employees with a set of highly beneficial perks.

Democratic Leadership Even though democratic leadership is effective in motivating employees, it is not suitable for a large workforce. According to the theory of diseconomies of scale in management, “the additional time needed to communicate effectively with a larger number of staff ultimately [slows] down decision-making”. Without doubt, a slow decision-making process can be detrimental to the overall performance of a company, which goes against Google’s aim to improve its performance by pursuing democratic leadership.

Conclusion

Google’s use of perks, such as free healthy buffets, on-site facilities, a maternity leave plan, and freedom of action distinguishes the company from its rivals. After examining the effects of Google’s non-financial stimuli on its employees, it is clear that they have played a key role in improving the overall performance of the company by increasing the employees’ productivity. However, some people may argue that Google’s use of perks was not very successful because of its high turnover rate and the slow decision-making process, which may have negatively affected the employees’ motivation