Top ten golden laws of Google employee management

At Google, we believe Peter Drucker, the chief business manager, has the most profound understanding of how to manage "knowledge-based employees. After all, this word was invented by Drucker in 1959. Drucker said that knowledge-based employees believe that they are paying for efficiency, rather than nine to five hard jobs, and smart enterprises will "exclude any obstacles that affect the work of 'knowledge-based employees ". These successful experiences will attract the best employees and ensure "the only and most competitive factor for the next 25 years ."

At Google, we seek this advantage. The current debate on whether large enterprises are dealing with improper handling of knowledge-based employees is one of our concerns. This is because companies that cannot correctly handle this issue will be taken out. We get a lot of good ideas from other places and internal discussions. The following seven key principles are adopted to maximize the efficiency of knowledge-based employees. Like most technology companies, many of our employees are engineer-level, so we will focus on this particular group, but many of these principles apply to all knowledge-based employees.

Organizing Committee, strict recruitment

Essentially, each person who participates in a Google interview has talked to at least six interviewers, which are made up of the company's management or potential colleagues. Everyone's opinions are counted to make the recruitment process more fair and standard. Of course, it takes a long time, but we think it is worthwhile. If you want to recruit excellent employees, you will get better employees after strict recruitment procedures. At the beginning of the company's creation, we began to build such a positive feedback loop, which has been greatly rewarded until now.

Meeting all employees' needs

As Drucker said, the management goal is to "eliminate any obstacles that affect their work ." We provide them with a complete set of additional benefits, but the first is first-class dining facilities, gymnasiums, laundry rooms, massage rooms, office rooms, car wash rooms, dry-cleaning rooms, shuttle buses, etc, almost everything a diligent engineer needs. We can analyze it as follows: programmers are willing to develop programs, and they do not like to wash clothes. Let's make these two things simple at the same time.

Close employee distance

Almost every project of Google is a group project, and every group must communicate and cooperate. The best way to make communication easier is to make every group member close at hand. Therefore, all Google employees share an office. In this way, when a programmer needs to negotiate with a colleague, he can immediately find the other party: no phone number tag, no email delay, and no need to wait for a response. Of course, Google also has many meeting rooms for people to discuss in detail, so as not to disturb their office assistants. Even the CEO of the company received an office several months after Google arrived. It is an efficient training experience to work with a knowledgeable employee.

Simple coordination of cooperation

Since all members of a group are close at hand, it is easier to coordinate the project. In addition to maintaining close health, each Google employee also sends an email to his working group every week to return the work score of the previous week. This allows everyone to easily track the progress of other members, monitor work processes more easily, and synchronize work processes.

Practice and use your own products

Google employees frequently use various tools developed by the company. The most common is building a network of internal webpages for all projects and tasks. These webpages are indexed and open to project participants in an on-demand access policy. We have expanded users of other information management tools, some of which will be launched in the form of products. For example, one of the reasons for Gmail's success was that it had been tested within the company for several months. Email is mainly used to organize information, so Gmail is constantly improved until the consumers who meet the greatest needs-the needs of our knowledge-based employees.

Encourage innovation

Google engineers can spend 20% of their work time on self-selected project development. Of course, there must be an approval process and some failures, but basically we want all creative people to be creative. We have an open secret weapon, the creative mail directory: a suggestion box shared by all companies. Anyone can send their ideas here, from parking programs to next-generation applications. Everyone can comment and comment on the idea to bring the best idea to the fore.

Unify opinions as much as possible

In modern enterprise mythology, there is a hero-like and unique decision maker. We firmly believe in the concept of "wisdom of the masses" and hope to collect a wide range of views as the basis for analysis before determining any resolutions. At Google, the role of a manager is a collector of ideas, rather than a decision-making dictatorship. It may take a long time to unify the opinions of most people, but it can usually form a more loyal Working Group and a more informed decision-making.

Do not do evil

Many people once described Google's slogan, but we did try to use it as a work guide, especially in terms of management. Just as members of any organization are enthusiastic about their views. But at Google, no one is opposed to this principle and does not want the management habits of some other well-known technology companies. We strive to create a working atmosphere full of tolerance and respect, instead of making the company full of mouth and talking only to people.

Data Decision-Making

In Google, almost all decisions are based on a large amount of analysis. We have created a variety of information management systems, not only the internet in the big field, but also the internal network. We have many analysts who specialize in data, analyze various implementation standards and summarize the development trend, so that we can keep up with the times as much as possible. We have created a large number of online "dashboards" for each research project to obtain the latest status.

Effective communication

Every Friday, all employees of the Company gather together to receive company announcements, business introductions, and solve various problems (there are also some foods and drinks ). In this way, the management can closely contact and understand knowledge-based employees in a timely manner, and the employees can also understand the ideas of the management. Google has greatly expanded the distribution of information within the Organization, and has made up for a few serious omissions. Unlike some external ideas, we believe that a trustworthy labor force is the first truth of all results for a loyal team.

Potential obstacles to development

Of course, our company not only abides by the above rules, many of which are very common in Silicon Valley. At the same time, we realized that as the company develops, we must constantly improve our management technology. We (and other companies similar to ours) still face many problems.

The first is "technical arrogance. Competition between engineers is natural, and it is hard for them to tolerate those who are motivated or learn less than themselves. However, almost all engineering projects are group projects, so smart but stubborn people in the group are fatal to the whole work. If we see the words "the smartest person I have ever met" and "I don't want to work with them any more" in a letter of recommendation, we will never pass their proposal. One of the reasons for the popularity of interviews with similar personnel is to ensure that the Group members warmly welcome new members. Many of our outstanding employees are exemplary in group creation, so we hope to continue this approach.

It is related to the National Institutes of Health syndrome (not-related TED-heresyndrome, "not associated with my syndrome "). A good engineer often believes that he can develop a system that is more perfect than the existing system, and believes that "create without buying. Of course, they may be correct, but we must pay close attention to these projects at great cost. Sometimes this means that it exceeds the company's product and service boundaries.

Another problem we will face in the next few years is that companies, industries and internal labor will eventually mature. Not only are we, but other companies in the industry are currently in a telling development stage, but this stage will not be permanent. Many of our employees are college graduates who have just stepped out of campus. Others have families and rich work experience. They have different interests and needs, so we must provide the welfare and work environment that can attract employees of all ages.

The final problem is to ensure that communications programs can be expanded with companies during Google's growth. The Friday meeting is very useful for the team in Mountain View, but Google is now a global organization.

We have always focused on innovation and reform, but this is not the only one for Google. We also need to manage our daily operations, which is not a simple task. We will build technological infrastructure that is larger, more complex, and more demanding than what has been stored in history. These systems must continue to develop to meet an ever-increasing set of requirements. Therefore, those who plan, execute, and maintain these systems must also be highly motivated. At Google, daily operations are not simple things: they play a crucial role in the success of the company, and we hope that in the development of new products, he can achieve the same achievements and inventions as the current ruling domain.