Engines of Growth
Google has created a culture that ensures that its people are engaged in work that is critical, satisfying and creative
what google does is not the easiest thing to describe. With a multitude of businesses reaching out to a vast number of people worldwide, it remains one of the most recognisable brands globally. Making all this possible is its large and heterogeneous pool of workers.
Shraddhanjali Rao, Market HR Director at Google India, describes the company as one with a diverse crowd of curious, talented and passionate people. “They build products for everyone, be it down the street or across the globe. We believe that great, creative things are more likely to take place with the right culture,” she says. Her objective, she adds, is to ensure that Google’s employees “find satisfaction in their roles, feel included in their work, and have opportunities to develop and grow”.
Speaking of building a culture, Rao maintains that it should be about fostering continuous learning, agility and innovation. “Our goal is that when a Googler dreams, together we aim to make it happen,” she says. To make sure that an employee gets the best out of the company, internal mobility “is celebrated and encouraged”. Smart talent—that can evolve with the changing landscape of the organisation—is given priority during hiring drives. “There are people who want to move around the company to grow and stay challenged,” she explains. Among the ways to move inside the company are a number of options available with Googlers. First is a bungee assignment—a short-term development opportunity that also serves the purpose of covering for a Googler on a leave of absence; second is the job shadow option— where a Googler signs up to shadow another Googler’s role; and the third is to work on a project other than their primary one. Learning is another facet that the company encourages, with courses, workshops, seminars and conferences that employees can attend.
At the scale that Google operates, diversity, equality and inclusion are a part of every process in the company. This is where policies focussed towards women are hugely important. “We work hard to create the right environment and programmes to support women in pursuing their dreams and building tools that change the world. It includes the millions of girls and women for whom technology is a powerful key to equity,” points out Rao. The idea, she says, is to support women with flexible policies. An example is ramp-back time that is offered to returning mothers,
who can put in half their weekly working hours and get their complete salary during their first two weeks back at work. Not only that, Google has been ensuring pay equity for all women employees since 2017. This is done based on a statistical analysis to make sure all new salaries, bonuses and equity awards are fair. “We take into account the things that should impact pay, such as role, level, location and performance. If there are differences in the proposed pay between men and women globally, we make upward adjustments,” she explains.
Based on data from Google, 2022 was the company’s best year for women in tech and the Asia Pacific region demonstrates this. The number of woman hires was at 37.2 per cent, which is higher than the global average. For context, the share of woman hires in tech globally has increased from 20.8 per cent in 2014 to 33.7 per cent now. Similarly, women in leadership roles has increased from 28.1 per cent in 2021 to 30.6 per cent in 2022.
The concept of flexibility is another aspect that Google pays a lot of attention to. According to Rao, the company’s hybrid approach means that staff spend around three days a week in the office and two days from wherever they work best. “We also offer opportunities for Googlers to apply for completely remote work, which is away from the team or office, based on role and team needs. Now, they can temporarily work from a location other than their main office for up to four weeks per year, with their manager’s approval,” says Rao, adding that the goal is to give everyone more flexibility around summer and holiday travels. All of this combined has helped Google India emerge as one of the top companies in the BT-Taggd Best Companies to Work For in India ranking this year.
On the specific issue of inclusion and LGBTQ+ policies, the thinking at the tech giant is to close the gap in the different experiences of the under-represented groups. “Every Googler is encouraged to take unconscious bias training and we are integrating diversity, equity and inclusion into our mandatory manager training. To date, over 20,000 Googlers (including 80 per cent people managers) have engaged in workshops that focus on the science of how the brain works. [This has] created a company-wide dialogue around how unconscious biases can affect one’s perceptions of others,” says Rao.
In a world that is evolving and changing rapidly, the tech major continues to be proactive. Its people are critical to the success of the organisation and Google India wants to leave no stone unturned to meet their needs.