Fortune Magazine released their Top 100 places to work and the search giant Google came in at the number one spot, moving up three spots from the previous year.
According to Fortune, “Everything was up at Google last year — revenue, profits, share price, paid search clicks, hiring — and so, too, was employee love. The reason? Employees rave about their mission, the culture, and the famous perks of the Plex: bocce courts, a bowling alley, eyebrow shaping (for a fee) in the New York office. There there’s the food: some 25 cafes companywide, all gratis.”
Fortune also mentioned that Google, headquartered in Mountain View, California, has 18,500 employees in the U.S. And showed a job growth rate of 33% in 2011.
ZK Research’s analyst Zeus Kerravala told Sharon Gaudin of Computerworld that Google is set to ride out the bad economy and maintain its image as one where people want to work.
Kerravala told Gaudin: “It attracts people that are creative and entrepreneurial. They encourage creativity and they want a lot of out-of-the-box thinking. That alone doesn’t make it a great place to work, but combine that with a stock that is soaring, market-leading share and people who feel empowered, and it’s a place people want to work at, instead of feeling like they have to work there.”
Google prides itself on other employee benefits as well. As a company they want employees to maintain healthy bodies and a healthy planet.
According to the Mercury News, Google’s founder Larry Page has a very acute sense of smell. This sense of smell makes him very sensitive to toxins in the air. Google puts a lot of effort to maintain quality air in order to create a top-notch work environment and help boost employee well-being.
The focus on clean air even means giving building materials a sniff test to make sure they are free of outgassing chemicals that could impact employee health. The company says its air quality resembles a hospital rather than an office building.
Anthony Ravitz who heads the “Green Team” for Google’s Real Estate and Workplace services told Mike Swift of Mercury News: “We’re really thinking about long-term health effects. How can we extend the life span of our employees by 30 years?”
Google even has perks that help maintain a clean environment. The company built a park for its employees at the Mountain View facility and they maintain a fleet of electric Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs that employees can check out for free.
All these perks add up to help with Google’s success. By putting their people first they have more motivated employees willing to work harder to increase the bottom line.
Stanford management science professor Bob Sutton told Swift: “There are large industry studies that show, on average, the firms that treat their workers do better over the long haul.”
Google executives think that the perks for working at Google is only secondary. The real story is that Google treats its employees like they are the owners. They have an ethic of corporate transparency that allows the rank and file to criticize, question and expect honest answers from their superiors. In return they expect the employees to feel that everyone can have an impact, both internally and in the larger world.
Source: http://bit.ly/wummDO
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