Not A Happy Accident: How Google Deliberately Designs Workplace Satisfaction

While much has been said about Google's enviable employee perks, those just scratch the surface of how it totally re-engineered traditional HR to ensure a happy and profitable workplace.

Few businesses in the world’s history have had as profound an impact on human life in such a short period of time as Google.

Pause to consider that just 15 years ago, Google’s search engine, now used globally over 100 billion times a month, didn’t exist. Products most of us take for granted, including Google Maps, Gmail, Translator, Google Earth, and Android all were created since 1998 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin cofounded the firm with the soaring ambition of making the world’s information available to everyone.

To punctuate the obvious, Google’s inventive achievements in a mere decade and a half are simply stunning.

But in Google’s short lifespan, it has also grown from a two-man startup to an organization with nearly 37,000 employees in 40 different countries. This notable and relentless workforce expansion begs the very important question: How have they successfully managed and integrated all these new people while concurrently motivating them to be consistently loyal, ambitious, innovative, and productive?

Read the full story:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3007268/where-are-they-now/not-happy-accident-how-google-deliberately-designs-workplace-satisfaction

Ten ways to turn your staff into teammates

Teambuilding conjures images of trust falls and wall climbs, but often once those tasks are done your employees are no more united than they were in the morning.

"Performance within groups typically does not just happen. For a group to really perform well it needs practice,” CMI Teamwork CEO Bruce Hodes said. “The group needs to understand the best way to organize itself for performance.”

It’s something sports teams and the military understand – Boot Camp for the military and pre-season workouts for sports teams are the norm. In business, there is far less interest or appreciation of group development and the need for practice. Team practice, for the most part, is not factored into the business or corporate world.

Read the full story:

http://www.hrmonline.ca/article/ten-ways-to-turn-your-staff-into-teammates-173528.aspx?p=1

6 steps to embedding organizational culture

I’ve had the pleasure of working with many organizations, all with their unique culture. I can tell if the culture has been embedded effectively by talking with employees and asking them to describe their organizational atmosphere.

When I hear consistency in their answers, it’s music to my ears –I know that leadership has put intentional effort into building a culture that employees can describe to others.

If you want to create a specific culture within your organization, you need to be precise and explicit about what that is. Otherwise, you get the default culture (whatever that is), which may not be to your liking or in the best interest of your business.

Read the full story: http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2012/09/19/6-steps-embedding-organizational-culture/

How To Recruit & Retain Millennial Employees

When it comes to the Millennial generation there are a lot of misconceptions around how hard they work and how committed they are to their jobs. Turns out those misconceptions are just that, and employers that wrongly buy into them will face a difficult time managing and retaining a group of people that will have a huge impact on the future growth of companies across the country.

“The large significant misconceptions from more senior generations about Millennials are that they are entitled and don’t want to work as hard, but my own experience has been the opposite,” says Lauren Stiller Rikleen, Executive-in-Residence, Boston College Center for Work & Family and founder of The Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership. “My sense is this generation is very accomplished, have done a huge amount in a very short period of time and do work hard.”

Read the full story: http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/recruit-retain-millennial-employees/