A630.9.4.RB_Hiring and Recruiting_Wathen_Sandra
Ref: Eric Schmidt on Business Culture, Technology and Social Issues (Hiring and Recruiting Segment)
Hiring and Recruiting: This video clip’s segment with respect to Google’s strategies for hiring is quite unique. It is quite obvious that Google has an unusual way of bringing people to the organization. The thought processes for how they manage all those who come into the organization; at each and every level. They put a lot of energy into who’s going to be hired into the company.
The comparison to academic and management books is something that is so true. What good is it if nobody does it? Developing a culture is so important in that it will foster the environment for people to apply their knowledge and skills, and leadership/management only there to assist when necessary.
The belief that it becomes personally driven because of passion and in turn becomes something they want to do and inspired to do and only asking for help when needed. To me, that shows that leadership has done their job effectively. These people are the type that you want in an organization and it is up to leadership to find ways to foster this type of environment.
From the outside looking in, Google’s impression by others might be that they are not doing a good job of managing. In reality, they have already done the job, and done it right, because they have established the environment and culture and it is leading the company in a self-sustaining mode.
They know that even once they get the right people in the right spot that the job doesn’t end there since there are still areas that will need some nurturing due to people’s inability to work as a team player. It may require Google to provide team building training to those individuals for developing those skills.
The overall strategies in their recruiting include: seeing if they are compatible with others; recognizing that people are different and some are not good at being a team player. By keeping these factors for consideration when hiring employees, it will provide them with a well-rounded workforce that can work in harmony.
Also, it is important to figure out and understand all the interpersonal similarities and differences because people are needed to do the job regardless. But, by using this methodology when recruiting provides for a higher probability to obtain the right person that will fit in best with the current workforce.
In addition, it was brought up that disagreement in a meeting is a good thing. If everyone agrees then there are no innovative ideas or areas of improvement generated. Google encourages interjection of controversy in order to develop some type of controversy in conversation; flares a discussion. This persuades those that are quiet to speak up during a meeting which then in turn, generates a more interactive discussion. They believe that a certain level of discord need to be part of meetings, otherwise the meeting had no purpose, nor consensus.
Therefore, their thinking for a positive meeting that consensus needs to be the goal of a meeting. The reason for this is that Google believes this is the ultimate approach for getting the best outcome with respect to business judgment. In order to get consensus, they believe that you need a deadline – plus, discord. Deadline and discord provide the elements to obtain a qualitative outcome for a meeting.
Google allows 10% of employee’s time to be able to do whatever they want to with that time. Typically that time is spent on adjacent business which is still part of the skills required for their hired position. This is interesting because employees are looked at their work by a 70-20-10 allocation rule with 70 percent for core business, 20 percent on adjacent business, and 10% on other things as described by Eric Schmidt. It was interesting to find out that when employees applied their 10% they found themselves still performing the adjacent work.
They use this as a business strategy in that it becomes a strong recruiting tool and takes some pressure off the employee; especially if they have a poor manager. However, it also benefits Google since they are getting that 10% back in some form for the most part when employees are working on the adjacent work. In essence, they really are getting what a normal 100% would be – they just used a recruiting strategy to make it seem that an employee can get up to 30% to do other than core business type of work, but in reality the employees are not taking advantage of the 10% for working on other things.
Another area was mentioned about not allowing managers to hire friends. Enforce using a recruiting team to bring employees on.
In addition, in the past Google would allow people to be interviewed up to 17 times; and then do not bring them on board. Google reduced this down to 8 and has proven that you can get a probability of getting a correct outcome around 5 interviews. They feel strongly that if you can have 5 people during an interview process that the group should be able to make a decision as to whether to hire or not.
Does Schmidt's description of the Google Culture make sense to you? Yes, Google’s Culture makes lots of sense. In reality, they are thinking outside the box in their approach and it has created a win/win situation for the employee and the organization.
Is this a reasonable way to view the work that most people are doing in your workplace? Yes, I think the 70-20-10 of how work is to be allocated is very ingenious. If you really think about it, most people if they are at the office and have opportunity to work some things other than the core business they will work something that is relevant to their work which also adds value to the organization. Most people are not going to use their 10% to do whatever they want; especially people who are committed and loyal to the company; more so with good business ethics. Most of them will still be doing things that fall in that 20% mode of adjacent business efforts. It is a win/win situation. Basically, they are allowing for something that will not be fully utilized and works to their benefit.
As a leader, does it take courage to have and to implement this point of view? I don’t think it is as much courage as it is the creativity and forward thinking that is involved with how they approached their hiring and recruiting program. Although, there may be some courage and also some risks involved with breaking the paradigm from typical traditional methods for hiring and recruiting which puts Google in some unprecedented areas.
Could this approach backfire? Yes, it could. The 10% could unexpectedly end up going in the direction with the individual doing - what they want to do rather than actually doing adjacent activities that the company benefits from currently.
What can you take away from this exercise to immediately use in your career? I think the biggest takeaway is that there are many different strategies that a company can use in their hiring and recruiting process. This example is one that I think benefits both the organization and the individuals being hired to the company. I would like to talk with our VP and share some of Google’s approaches and see if they could be applied or at least do a trial period to give it an opportunity for possible implementation.
