{"id":3536,"date":"2018-03-14T01:49:45","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T01:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.culturesummit.co\/?p=3536"},"modified":"2022-04-20T09:31:30","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T13:31:30","slug":"employee-engagement-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.culturesummit.co\/employee-engagement-best-practices\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Employee Engagement Best Practices from the HR Experts at Google"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a guest post by Mike Sonders, Head of Marketing at Spoke<\/a>, a simpler, smarter way for HR and People teams to manage employee requests.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Fortune\u2019s annual list of the \u201cBest Companies to Work For\u201d has featured Google<\/a><\/u> every year since 2007. For the last six years, Google held the number-one position.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Fortune isn\u2019t the only one praising Google as a great place to work. Google\u2019s Glassdoor rating<\/a><\/u> is 4.4 stars\u2014impressive on its own, but even more so considering its based on more than 6,000 employee reviews. Additionally, Glassdoor\u2019s \u201cEmployees\u2019 Choice\u201d list of best places to work has featured Google every year since 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n

Google is a leader in the employee engagement space, and it\u2019s not just because of its high salaries, free chef-prepared lunches, and other quirky\u2014and pricey\u2014benefits. On Glassdoor, Google employees praise things like work-life balance, growth opportunities, and company culture just as frequently as their perks.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re part of an HR team at a small or medium-sized business that’s<\/span> looking for ways to boost engagement, discover new ideas and exciting opportunities by learning more about the employee engagement practices at Google.<\/span><\/p>\n

How Google Measures Employee Engagement<\/h2>\n

Google\u2019s entire approach to business\u2014including how the company drives engagement\u2014revolves around data.<\/span><\/p>\n

During his tenure as Senior Vice President of People Operations (HR) at Google, Laszlo Bock instituted a long-term research study<\/a><\/u>\u2014named gDNA\u2014focused on developing a scientific understanding of the work experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than just Google\u2019s employee engagement survey, gDNA measures how both the work environment and employees\u2019 individual personalities shape the employee experience. Thousands of randomly selected Google employees complete the survey each year.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the earliest findings from gDNA results was that the idea of work-life balance is flawed.<\/span><\/p>\n

They discovered that there are two types of people: \u201cSegmentors\u201d and \u201cIntegrators.\u201d Segmentors<\/span> are people who are able to go home at the end of the day and completely forget about work. Integrators, on the other hand, struggle to separate work and life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Less than one-third (31%) of people are Segmentors. The rest are Integrators\u2014people who want to achieve work-life balance but are incapable of making it happen on their own. This data helped Google identify an area with tremendous potential for improving engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n

If work-life balance is important for keeping employees happy, motivated, and productive\u2014but employees can\u2019t achieve work-life balance on their own\u2014there\u2019s an opportunity to boost engagement by developing policies that enforce work-life balance.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, Google\u2019s Dublin office ran a program called \u201cDublin Goes Dark\u201d that required employees to drop off their devices before leaving the office.<\/span><\/p>\n

With a team of psychologists, researchers, and data scientists, your HR team could recreate gDNA at your business. But since most SMBs don\u2019t have access to those resources, the better approach is to look at what Google has learned and adopt those practices at your company.<\/span><\/p>\n

Employee Engagement Practices at Google<\/h2>\n

In Google\u2019s early days, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin focused on two things: creating a better way to find information on the internet, <\/span>and making Google a great place to work<\/a><\/u>.<\/span><\/p>\n

To find out what makes a company a great place to work, they met with executives at SAS Institute. SAS Institute is one of Fortune\u2019s \u201cBest Companies to Work for Legends<\/a><\/u>,\u201d appearing on the \u201cBest Companies to Work For\u201d list every year since the list began.<\/span><\/p>\n

What they learned from SAS Institute is that the foundation of building a great place to work is valuing your employees<\/a><\/u>. Or as Jim Goodnight\u2014SAS Institute\u2019s founder and CEO\u2014says: \u201cIf you treat people as if they make a difference, they will make a difference.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The starting point for engagement is making employees feel valued. Here\u2019s how Google shows its employees that they\u2019re valued.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Google Keeps People Inspired<\/h3>\n

A 2017 study conducted by Future Workplace found that employee burnout is currently the largest threat to employee engagement<\/a><\/u>.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the biggest causes of employee burnout is lack of control<\/a><\/u> at work. Studies have shown that the most capable employees at a company are often overloaded with work<\/a><\/u>. This leads to incomplete tasks, frequent overtime, and halted innovation\u2014all of which reduce employee control and increase the likelihood of burnout.<\/span><\/p>\n

Google\u2019s approach to this problem is 20% time<\/a><\/u>. Employees spend up to 20% of their time at work every week on projects that inspire them. With their 20% time, Google employees created Gmail, Google News, AdSense, and many other highly profitable products.<\/span><\/p>\n

A perk like 20% time inspires employees because it allows them to focus on things they\u2019re passionate about. That inspiration prevents burnout, increasing engagement and decreasing turnover.<\/span><\/p>\n

Implement 20% time at your company by allowing employees to set an annual goal of their choice. Let them choose anything they\u2019re excited or passionate about. Then, work with managers to give employees the freedom to dedicate one day a week\u2014or one week a month\u2014to working on that project.<\/span><\/p>\n

Including 20% time in annual goals is important because it gives HR and managers the ability to measure progress and see the outcomes of the initiative.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Google Supports Flexibility<\/h3>\n

Another way to prevent burnout by giving employees more control is to allow for flexibility in work schedules.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of Google\u2019s more exotic benefits\u2014like on-site haircuts, massages, bowling alleys, gaming rooms, pools, and playgrounds\u2014aren\u2019t necessarily designed for after-work use. Googlers enjoy those amenities any time they want\u2014even in the middle of the workday.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo Source: CNN<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

While most Googlers work some version of a Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, they can vary it up whenever they need to. Work six hours one day and nine the next, go swimming after a morning meeting, or work from home with a sick child\u2014no one cares.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Prasad Setty, VP of People Operations at Google, one of the company\u2019s core tenants<\/a><\/u> is \u201cif you give people freedom, they will amaze you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But giving their employees freedom and flexibility isn\u2019t a matter of blind trust. Google only hires ambitious people\u2014the types of people who do their work whether someone\u2019s watching or not. In fact, the company is well-known for its lengthy, detailed, and thorough hiring process<\/a><\/u>.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are plenty of ways to support flexibility at your company. Allow employees to work from home when needed, adopt flex schedules, increase the amount of<\/span> personal time employees get each year, or allow employees to take their personal time in hours\u2014not days.<\/span><\/p>\n

And remember that people are most productive in the morning before lunch<\/a><\/u>. If flex time <\/span>means people take the afternoon off for appointments or errands, it\u2019s probably not as much of a blow to productivity as leadership may imagine at first.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Google Promotes Diversity<\/h3>\n

In 2015, Google expanded its 20%-time perk to create Diversity Core<\/a><\/u>\u2014a program that allows employees to allocate their time to diversity projects and initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Employees who participate in Diversity Core work on projects that raise the visibility of women in technology jobs and encourage more Hispanics to apply to work at Google, among many others.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to data from Google<\/a><\/u>, in 2014\u2014before implementing Diversity Core\u2014the company\u2019s gender split in technical roles was 17% female and 83% male. As of the beginning of 2017, the number of females in technical roles at Google was at 20%.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, Google locations in the U.S. employed 5% more Asians and 1% more Hispanics at the beginning of 2017 than in 2014. If these numbers seem small, remember that Google employs more than 70,000 people; even a mere 1% increase is more than 700 people.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Implement a program like Diversity Core at your company by allowing employees to set 20% time goals toward projects that promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and consider adopting some of Google\u2019s other practices:<\/span><\/p>\n