Corporate Culture - What are the perks of the Googleplex: working at Google?

Google have often been cited as on one of the world’s best employers. They look after their employees and create a stimulating and exciting environment to work in.

Well one of the first things is that the food in the cafeterias is free. Yes free. But they counteract that with gyms and swimming pools so you can work off those donuts.

For the musicians among the staff, Google went one further than allowing employees to bring in their guitars. They built a state of the art music studio for use by employees to help de-stress themselves!

Google have plenty of sports and entertainments  for the employees including: table tennis, foosball, a climbing wall, and video games for those who like to sit for a bit.

They also have a medical facility where you can make an appointment with the doctor, and you can have a massage at the Googleplex if feeling stressed.

A free laundry service is provided as is free haircuts and if you can’t get a space in the underground car park, there is a free valet service to help!

Google do have a day care service (which isn’t free but subsidised) called the Kinderplex, so family needs are met there also.

Every year they take their employees on reward trips such as skiing or going to the casinos in Vegas! They also get a holiday bonus and a holiday gift (normally a new phone!).

Every Friday is TGIF day and here the two founders, Larry Page and Sergei Brin are joined at an All Hands meeting where people can ask them anything.

Finally, Google have what is called the 20% programme. This is when they let employees work on projects that they want to do and are interested in. This could be an entire day a week, but Google have benefited from this creativity in many key projects, one such example was the birth of Gmail.

So as you can see Google are certainly not your average employee, but then again with the advertising revenue they bring in they can afford not to be ordinary.

Higher Business Management - Entrepreneurial Structure

The other day in class we were discussing different types of organisational structure and we got discussing the very informal structure used in small businesses and in particular sole traders.

This is often called the Entrepreneurial Structure.

Here is a representation of the structure from BBC Bitesize:

What happens is that there are no levels of management. The entrepreneur is the only person who is making decisions, and therefore decisions should be made relatively quickly.

Employees and staff have no quibbles or issues around who is actually the boss, because there is usually only the one head honcho!

There are some difficulties associated with this though, as the entrepreneur may become stressed with having to make all of the major decisions. It also perhaps stifles creativity and input from employees, which is normally to be encouraged and welcomed. This would in turn demotivate staff as they feel isolated and not valued.

LEVI ROOTS IS AN ENTREPRENEUR WHO MAY EMPLOY SUCH A STRUCTURE

Such an informal, entrepreneurial structure is almost impossible in larger organisations, although sometimes in highly creative artistic industries companies attempt to bring this kind of leadership and structure in, with varying effect.

Higher Business Management - Empowerment

Empowerment can be defined as delegating responsibility to a subordinate in the organisation.

What are the benefits?

Hopefully by being engaged and involved in decision making, employees will be more motivated and their productivity will be higher. This in turn will create more loyalty among the employees and they will feel as if they have the trust of the firm and that they are making a valuable contribution. Employees will gain new skills through this process and that will inevitably ensure that they are in better shape for career progression and promotion.

And what are the disadvantages?

Not every employee will see delegation and empowerment as a good thing. In fact some might actively seek not having responsibility and the stress that comes with it. Other employees may simply be not up to the job and struggle with the extra responsibility. Finally, competition may result between employees as they vie for their managers approval.

Internal Organisation

Here is some information and study material from the Times 100 website for the topic of Internal Organisation:


http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theory--internal-organisation--230.php