BMSK5005 Workplace Culture and its Impact on Organizational Efficiency

To develop an understanding of workplace culture and context in order to improve one’s ability to function within the organisational norms.

 

Upon the successful completion of this module, the student should be able to demonstrate the ability to:

 

Critically assess the culture and context of an organisation;
Evaluate an organisation within its broader environment using appropriate environmental and organisational analysis techniques;
Critically appraise the cultural and ethical behaviour present in one or more organisations

Introduction

Google is one of the largest American MNC which focuses on Internet related products and services. The company which was founded by Larry Page and Sergy Bin in the year 1998 has a presence across the globe (Lazer et. al., 2014). The company with its offering in the field of online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud platform, software, hardware and consumer devices.  The company which is headquartered at Mountain View California and employees over 85,000 people made whopping revenue of USD 109 Billion in the year 2017. Google has not only been inspiring the people who work for the company but is a pioneer in the setting up new realms of creativity and innovation in the organization. Google is current Beta testing is self -driving cars, Google Glass and other such technologies to benefit the community(David, 2017).

In the year 2015, the company made its plans of becoming a conglomerate and reorganize its interest in the form of Alphabet.inc. Google is the leading subsidiary and the most profitable one and it is the umbrella brand to serve the interest of Alphabet.Inc (Brabazon, 2016). At present Indian origin Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Google, whereas Larry Page is the CEO of Alphabet, the aim of Google is to make the lives of people simpler across the globe. The product offering of Google is as magnanimous as the business organization, some of its product includes;

• Google Allo and Duo-Messaging platform
• Google search-Search engine
• Google Maps-Navigation platform
• Google Translate- Language convertor
• Google Chrome-Browser
• Youtube- Online content platform
• Google Play Music-Online Music platform
• Chromecast- Streaming platform
• Google Pixel- Smartphone
• Google Home- Personal assistant
• Daydream View- VR Headset
• Google WiFi- Wifi device

Google did not reach the pinnacle of success overnight; it was the hard work, perseverance of the employees which made the company one of the largest in the world. Google is known for its culture across the globe, which is the result of the efforts of its leadership and the employees who work hard to keep the culture at Google Intact(Kenney & Zysman, 2016).

The team at Google works hard to achieve its goal of sustainability and in order to achieve the company infuses creativity and innovation in its culture. The report here will create an understanding of the culture at Google with the context of improving the ability to function well within the defined norms of the organization. The report will critically assess and analyse the culture at the organization and also asses the performance of the organization using the strategic framework tools of PESTLE ad SWOT analysis.  The report will also create an understanding about the concept of external environment, formal and informal relationships between the department and the people in the organization.  The readers of the report will develop a clear and coherent understanding on the culture, ethical standards of the organization, communication channels used to build relationship with the stakeholders and the potential barriers to the effective functioning of the business organization.

Findings and Analysis

This section here will focus on the analysis of the internal and external environment of Google along with focus on the workplace culture, values, beliefs, communication, Culture, ethical standards and corporate social and ethical responsibility in the organization.

PESTLE analysis is one of the elementary strategy tool or a framework which helps in ascertaining the impact of the forces on the business organization. The company will be assessed in the context of the impact of Political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental forces on the business organization.

Political Forces

The impact of the political forces on Google can be ascertained in the following ways:

• Increased Globalization is a very big opportunity for Google, as globalization opens up the company platform to the entire world. This way the company has an option of leveraging its online ad platform, as well as to create a market for other products. Apart from China, this uses Baidu and does not allow Google to enter the China market. Apart from China, Google is taking advantage of Globalization and marking its presence in the world.
• Most of the market for Google has political stability, due to this political stability in the climate the company faces less obstacles in expanding its business activities.
• One threat of the political forces is the impact created by the state run or state funded business organization. For instance, China controls the presence of other companies in its region(Datta, Tschantz & Datta, 2015).

Economic Factors

The business of Google is subjected to a lot of pressure at the front of economic condition prevailing in the world; the economic impact can be ascertained in the following manner:

• Economic stability of the developed markets and the growth in the economy of developing country is one big opportunity for Google. The growing and the grown economies help in increased penetration of company’s product offering.
• The rapidly growing economies of the developing countries help in creating a ready -made market for the products of Google. At the same time, it also indicates towards the growing disposable income of the product. This is further accentuated by the growth of Internet and social media platforms(Lee et. al., 2017).

Socio/ Cultural Factors

The influence of the socio/ cultural factors on Google can be ascertained in the following manner:

• People are moving towards the increased use of social media which is pushing brands also to divert their funds on the social media platforms. This is a major threat to Google, as the company might lose its revenue to strong competition such as Facebook and other platforms.
• Google is working to make its platform and product offering in sync with the taste and preference of its customers, this can be seen as an opportunity for Google, as this way it can easily map every customer it serves(Schmidt & Rosenberg, 2014).

Technology Factors

Google is a tech giant, some of the factors in context of technology which has an impact over Google are:

• Internet has a penetration of 54% in the world population of 7 billion; this implies that growth in internet will definitely benefit Google. The growth is seen in both the developing and the developed markets, thus opening new avenues for Google to grow.
• Google is the market leader in technology; the company keeps experimenting with the technology and creates high end tech products, which are then replicated by other industrial players. Thus, the growth of technology is aiding Google to focus on creating products and services highly desired by the customers.
• Smart phone penetration in the developed market is saturated, but in the developing markets it is increasing at a CAGR of 16% YOY. This implies that Google has got more platforms to promote its product and services, thus a big opportunity for Google(Zou et. al., 2014).

Legal Factors

It is important that Goolge ensures legal compliances in the market in which it is operating and save its image from getting tarnished, some of the ways by which the impact of legal factors on Google can be ascertained are:

• There has been growing concern over the privacy issues, the recent US presidential election point out to the lacunae created by the social media platforms. The data leakage from the social media platforms gives an upper hand to Google. And the company by focussing on the privacy issue can lead the bandwagon of Privacy and security features.
• There has also been a growing concern of regulation on the Intellectual property rights, this implies that Google itself can focus on innovation and keep its intellectual property safe(Duhigg, 2016).

Environmental Factors

Although Google generates maximum revenue from its online activities which does not adversely impact the environment, however the impact of Google on the environment can still be ascertained as:

• The growing concern regarding the damage done to the environment pushes Google to come up with innovative ways to reduce the degradation of the environment. The company through its environment protection program can contribute towards the environment.
• Business are focussed on ensuing sustainability in the business, in a bid to do this the organization has to contribute towards the environment. The positive work by Google will help in creating a good brand image which would further lead to sustainability(Bock, 2015).

The PESTLE analysis of Google reflects that the company has a potential to grow in size and also contribute positively towards the development of the community and its technological ecosystem.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis is an internal environmental analysis and assesses the organization in terms of the strength and weakness which is internal to the organization. It also gives an overview of the potential opportunity ad threat on the business organization. The resultant of SOWT analysis is to maximize the strength, minimize the weakness and leverage on the growing opportunity for the business organization.

Strength

• Google has a brand image which can be compared to none. It is synonymous with quality search, tech innovation, great product offering, excellent customer service, creativity and innovation. Since the inception of the organization it has been taken efforts to maintain its positive brand image in the market.
• Google is the undisputed market leader in search engine. Its rivals are much behind in the competition, and 76% of the search on internet is contributed by Google. Yahoo got closed down this fiscal year, and now Google does not have any substantial competition in the search engine space.
• Google has a unique ability to generate traffic on its search platform; the company serves approximately 1.2 billion hits every month.
• The company earns most of its revenue through display and text advertising on its profit. It is the major source of revenue for Google.
• The company was the pioneer in launching the android platform for the development of the mobile OS. In addition to it, the company launched Nexus series smartphone to compete in the highly competitive industry.
• Culture at Google harbingers creativity and innovation which also sets the tone for its future innovation(Morris, 2015).

Weakness

• One of the biggest weaknesses of Google is that it is a closed organization when it comes to revealing its algorithm on its search query, crawling and indexing. This makes the company prey to the criticisers who believe that Google uses unlawful means to benefit the business organization.
• Google has a very minimal physical presence; this is a major weakness for the business organization.
• Despite foraying into the consumer electronics category, the company is still under the shadow of excessive dependency on advertising for its revenues (Duffy, 2016).

Opportunity

• The growth and the penetration of android devices in the mobile ecosystem is an opportunity to further develop and leverage the platform for Google.
• Cloud computing has become incessantly important in the present day ecosystem. The growth in cloud computing is a major opportunity for Google.
• Google  has expedite its efforts on the future technological revolution, Flying cars, Google glass and its Google home device are some of the devices and the products which will be used in the future on a massive scale.
• Google is rapidly looking for opportunities to expand in the category of non-advertising business. The company is looking forward to leverage and make use of the growing opportunity in the category of consumer electronics.
• The company also has an opportunity to tap into the growing mobile market. The company can easily take the advantage of mobile communication to further leverage its ad platform (Postigo, 2016).

Threats

• Google is facing intense competition from Facebook which is making waves in the advertising ecosystem. Additionally, the rise of Amazon and its efforts to leverage its platform for online advertising is another major threat for the company.
• Mobile computing is another major threat to the organization as it allows many players to bypass Google and display its ad in-organically on the mobile devices.
• The company is facing heat from various government related to the privacy and security issues.
• Some of the products of the company such as Google Home, Nexus, and Flying cars are being imitated by other MNC (Kosambi, 2016).

Thus, the SWOT analysis for Google reflects that it’s ad platform and its cloud computing are the source of major opportunities. However, it is required that the company focuses on its security and privacy features to be a truly global organization.

Formal and Informal groups at Google

Creation of groups in a business organization is extremely beneficial for the sustainably and enhanced productivity in the organisation. The groups at Google help each other in pushing the performance of one another which helps in the achievement of the goals and objective of the organization. Google is a decentralized organization, which lets the managers and the employees take their decision on their own, which is a characterization of formal group. The different kinds of group at Google comprise of:

Formal Group

These types of groups are created in the organization on the basis of shared goals and objectives and helps in achieving the organizational goals by the virtue of team work. These kinds of group are created on the Basis of various department and functions in the business environment (Chan et. al., 2016).

Command Groups-This is the group which comprises of managers and subordinates and is created on the basis of the similar functions at Google.

Task Forces-These are the small kinds of formal groups which are created at Google with the objective of completing shorter deadline tasks, or the tasks which are not related to the direct revenue of Google.

Committees-Work committee at Google are created to resolve the conflict in the business organization.

Informal Groups

People working at Google office are called as Googlers and the company pampers its employees by providing them plenty of flexibility in their work, working conditions, facilities and other such initiatives. Google understand that informal groups are extremely important to the business organization, in fact informal group’s helps in better functioning of the formal groups. The company here promotes the creation of informal groups by organizing team based activities and outing to develop positive synergies in the workplace. These positive synergies in individuals help in creating a positive workplace environment in the organization (Haucap & Heimeshoff, 2014).

Organizational culture, values and Ethos at Google

Google is inarguably one of the toughest companies to secure a job at, which makes the company extremely lucrative to its potential employees. Google has been making its mark in the entire list comprising of the best workplaces to work in the world. The company was at the Number 1 position for a long amount of time; this is a reflection of the company’s great culture, values and ethos. The tech giant is known for treating its employees in the best possible manner by providing them with plethora of perks related to fun work environment, unlimited food and beverages, sleeping pods, fitness centres, complementary massages, on site day-cares and gym membership for the Googlers. All these extra co-curricular elements in the culture of Google make it one of the coolest companies in the world. This is one of the strongest reasons which make candidates to give in everything in a bid to work at Google (Zhu & Furr, 2016).

The leadership at Google understands it very clearly that it is not about the cool and fancy facilities provided by the company, neither it is about the Ping Pong game at the office, nor the revenue the company is generating for itself. But on the hindsight, it is the vision and the values which are dear to the company and engraved in the culture of Google, which makes it the finest companies to work with. It is all about the fun, work, bonding in the team, culture of helping each other and the values of the organization which makes it the best place to work in the entire world. The best takeaways from the culture of Google are:

Defining its core values-Google created a long list of ten values when it was founded, these values makes it possible for the company to hire the candidates who have the values similar to that of Google. Some of those values are:

• The focus of the company has to be on its users, rest everything will follow
• It is always advisable to do one thing really well.
• Fast is always better than slow.
• Democracy works perfectly fine on the web.
• There is no need to be at the desk to answer the question.
• The money can be earned without doing any kind of evil to the people or society.
• There is always more and more information in the world to be consumed.
• One can show professionalism or can be serious without even wearing a suit.
• Great is just not good enough at Google.
• The need for information crosses all the borders.

The above mentioned values reflects how open, progressive, transparent and performance extracting Google as an organization is to its employees and to the world.

Hiring based on the character and not on the skill set-The Company receives on an average around three million application in a year, out of which the company hires only 7000 people. This goes on two prove that company not only looks for the right fit, but also focuses on the character of the employee rather than the skill set.

Not to be a copycat-Google is a creative and an innovative organization which does not company any other company, albeit its sets its own culture on the grounds of forward looking and innovative mentality approach.

Embracing Transparency-Google nurtures a culture of openness in communication at all levels. The top down, lateral and bottom up communication channels are characterized by high degree of freedom, openness and transparency. The company encourages its employees to open up their hearts and speak with full confidence (Chen & Miller, 2015).

Fun is good at work-It has already been mentioned that Google is a fun company when it comes to enjoying hours at the workplace. The company encourages and nurturers the culture of fun at workplace as it is one of the biggest motivation factor for the employees. The company has plethora of Cool gadgets to play with for its employees, designated playing rooms, ping pong and TT tables on the floor and many more such fun things to do. The company uses Slack and WAYGO to further built engagement and fun at the workplace.

Creating shared leadership-Google has a flat hierarchy, which provides a chance to every employee to become a leader and lead the wave of Innovation at the company. The company encourages the employees to speak up in the meetings with the top management and it also takes their feedback positively. Thus at Google, shared leadership is a part of its organizational culture policy (Gillespie, 2014).

Open to Change- As mentioned in the last paragraph, Google nurtures and encourages its employees to keep their point straight in front of the management or even the CEO. The company allows for its employees to bypass the managers and go directly to the top management or the CEO.  The company keeps on analysing what works best for its employees, on the basis of which the company keeps on changing its policies to better suit the culture of the organization.

Culture of Sustainability at the workplace

Some of the factors which ensure culture of sustainability at the workplace are:

• Culture aligned with the values- Google’s culture is a culmination of its values, which point towards a bigger and a better future for the employees.
• Motivation-The Company ensures that its employees are always motivated by providing a great working environment, employee empowerment, R&R, game rooms, innovation, learning and development, opportunity to lead and grow, openness in communication and other such reasons behind the motivation of its employees(Lee, Mun & Park, 2015).
• Flexibility in workplace-Google doesn’t instruct its employees to sit at their desk and do their job. The company allows for lot of flexibility in terms of the working in terms of the working hours, sleeping pods to rest and many other such elements.
• Openness in communication-Communication at Google holds the centre for professional excellence and motivation factor. The company encourages all its employees to open up while communicating with any person in the organization.
• Feedback Policy- Google believes that its employees are the responsibility of the company, hence in order to be more responsible towards the employees the company keeps sharing with them constructive feedback to elevate their performance.
• Innovation and Creativity- Google is one of the most innovative tech companies in the world and the company transpires the same within its organization culture to achieve its goal of sustainability (Plantin et. al., 2018).

These are some of the factors pointing towards establishing a culture of sustainability at the workplace.

Corporate social and environmental responsibility

At Google, its values reflect their beliefs which are inclined towards importance of inclusion, openness, science and commitment to the environment. The company’s core value is to ensure that it works in an environmentally sustainable workplace. The year 2016, Google marked 10 years of its operating as a carbon neutral company and it also made an announcement that it will reach 100% renewable energy for its global operation in future.

Google believes that Global businesses like it have the onus of improving the lives of people by reducing and even eliminating the dependence on the virgin material or the fossil fuels. The end goal of Google is to ensure zero carbon emission, and in order to do this the company is making investment in alternate sources of fuel such as wind and solar energy. The company through its innovative product offering also gives its users to view and monitor the health of its planet. The users can easily look through the statistics related to global warming, carbon emission, melting of glaciers and more so, and be committed towards the sustainability of the environment. The company has opened various landfill projects, waste management projects, solar energy, electricity projects for the development of the society and community.

The company is also focussing on getting net neutrality, which gives access of internet equally to all the companies and the customers. This ensures that the company is not indulging in any kind of biasedness in leveraging the technology to benefit only some of the big players. Thus, the company is committed towards its corporate and social responsibility and environmental sustainability.

A picture below further reflects Google’s work towards its mission of sustainability.

Communication Channels at Google

Google is one such organization which being a technology company ensures high level of communication with both its internal and external stakeholders. The company which has plethora of in house tools on the likes of Chat bots, Slack, Yammer, Chit Chat, social media, which it uses to ensure a high degree of communication at its workplace. Google ensures that all its employees are on the same page when it comes to communicating an information, or while rewarding and appreciating the efforts of its employees. Some of the prominent communication tools the company uses beyond its in house tools of Hangout, Google chat and other are:

Slack

Slack is an in built company chat software based on android and is used as a collaborative platform. Slack is used in organization for variety of purposes such as chat, organizing meeting, video calling and many more. Slack is easy to use, customizable and ensures a high degree of communication (Korschun, Bhattacharya & Swain, 2016).

Open Forums

At Google there is a policy wherein the senior management engages with the employees every month and discusses strategic challenges or the problems being encountered by its employees. The aim of this communication of Google is to ensure that the employees strongly associates with the organization and get a feeling that they are empowered (Kim, 2017).

Visual Aids

The company believes in visual communication while rewarding its employees. A big display screen located at the entry of Google office and inside its fun room is used to communicate the appraisals and to reward the high performing employees.

Social media Platforms

Google’s social media platform Google Plus could not reach the distance which Facebook did in the category of social media platform. However the company still uses the channel to communicate important information or to share a notification with its employees.

Barriers to effective functioning of organization and how to overcome them

Some of the barriers faced by Google and strategies to be used to overcome the challenges are:

Challenges faced by Google	Strategies to Overcome them
Communication challenge	The company overcomes this challenge by following an open door policy and also the optimum use of communication channels to ensure high efficiency in its communication.
Learning and Development	Google nurtures creativity and innovation and in order to ensure the same, plenty of training and programs facilitate the learning and development in the organization.
Workforce Diversity	Google is of the opinion that diversity in the workplace can be achieved by allowing inclusion at work and by looking for character in the person rather than regional culture(Hur, Kim & Woo, 2014)

Conclusion

Google is a US based technology company which is disrupting the world by its technological innovation and creativity. Google culture is based on the pillars of sustainability in the performance, fun at workplace, getting the candidate with the right fit in the business organization. The leadership at Google gives a greater emphasis towards the creation of positive workplace in its environment by creating policies and procedures which suits them the best. Google in undoubtedly one of the best places to work across the globe, and the company is constantly setting up the standard for setting up better culture at it workplace, a culture which foster creativity, innovation and productivity.

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