Question: Imagine having a job where you could get generous pay, free lunch and dinner, free snacks, a pet center, free gym membership, a game room, an on-site massage therapist and doctor, hair styling, generous vacation and maternity benefits, parental leave, adoption benefits, paid take-out meals for new parents, stock options, tuition reimbursement, free shuttle to the office, reimbursement toward the purchase of a hybrid or an electric car, telecommuting, on-site oil change and car wash, dry cleaning, fitness classes, bike repair, a sauna, roller hockey, an outdoor volleyball court, and much, much more. That's life at Google, the Internet's dominant search company and one of the trendiest and fastest-growing businesses in the world. The company, based in Mountain View, California, boasts an informal, dynamic, and collaborative culture "unlike any in corporate America," and with people's pet dogs happily roaming the shared work spaces it's clearly not like most office environments.
Google's CEO explains on the company website that "the goal is to strip away everything that gets in our employees' way. . . . Let's face it: programmers want to program, they don't want to do their laundry. So we make it easy for them to do both." Although a few perks are available only at headquarters, employees at all the company's offices can customize their applicable benefits, including traditional health and dental coverage plans, life insurance, and retirement and savings plans, into a package that works for each individual and family. Those benefits make for 12,000 happy and productive employees, many of whom have become millionaires as the company's stock has appreciated in value. The perks also account in large part for the company's being ranked by Fortune magazine as the best place to work in the United States today. Since it must nevertheless compete directly for top-notch talent with other high-tech firms like eBay, Facebook, and Amazon.com, Google is committed to retaining those who fit well with its "Google-y" culture, that is, people who are "fairly flexible, adaptable and not focusing on titles and hierarchy, and just get stuff done," according to the company's chief culture officer.
The company even conducts an annual "happiness survey" to find out how committed to Google its employees are, why, and what matters to them and their managers. The results are funneled into the company's continuing focus on career development and growth. Can a company ever provide too many benefits? Google might be about to find out. It recently announced a major and widely unpopular change in one of its most enviable perks-access to its three-year-old on-site day care facilities. Saying the move was a response to a two-year waiting list for entry into the program, which it called "inequitable," the company sharply raised the fee for using the service to well above the market rate (from $33,000 to $57,000 a year for two children) and also started charging the 700 waiting families several hundred dollars each to stay on the list. The list promptly shrank by more than half. After parents strongly protested the price increase, the company slightly scaled it back but let the basic outline of its decision stand, including changing the company that operates the day care program. Google plans to accommodate those still on the waiting list by opening new facilities within a year.31 For more information about this company, go to www.google.com.
1. What does Google gain by offering these generous benefits? Do you think there is any downside to offering so many?
2. Which of Google's benefits appeal to you? Why? Are there any benefits you think the company doesn't need to offer? Why or why not?
3. What do you think will be the long-term effect of Google's changed child-care benefit? Is it a good idea for companies to reduce or withdraw such benefits?