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How Google became such a great place to work
- fuzzix 14y agoQuite funny to read about maternity leave being an extraordinary perk - 6 months paid is the statutory minimum in Ireland and it must start a reasonable amount of time before the child is born. Is it also true that there is no minimum amount of annual leave allowance in the US? You have to negotiate it? edit Not to suggest Ireland is ahead of the curve here, paternity leave does not exist whereas it would in, say, Sweden.
- ceras 14y agoNo minimum time off in the US. For most white collar jobs, 10 or 15 vacation days is typical (but many Americans feel pressure to not use all their vacation days). Some companies offer more, especially to employees with seniority. Government jobs tend to be nice about this, too. This is in addition to holidays -- about 8 or so per year is typical for these workers, I think (days like Christmas that most everyone in the company has off). Those working blue collar jobs, however, aren't always so lucky. They might not have any vacation days or even holidays.
- fuzzix 14y agoWell, isn't that just disgraceful. No wonder George Costanza was a half-assing burnout...
- alexkus 14y agoIt's 28 days minimum in the UK[1] (for a full time employee) but these can include the public holidays (8 a year in England/Wales, 9 a year in Scotland and 10 a year in NI). <generalisations follow> In reality most IT companies give ~25 days and give the 8 public holidays off too. Longer service often gets you more days. I'm up to 27 days/year (plus the 8 public holidays). Any reasonable IT company will also require you to take all of your holiday during the year, it's a manager's responsibility to ensure that his team are using their holiday. There's certainly no pressure to not use all of the days! I can carry over the odd day or two across years but generally not allowed to accrue large amounts of unused paid leave. We don't have a concept of an allocation of "sick days" either, if you're unwell for a day or a few days you can self certify yourself off work sick. If you're ill for longer than a week the expectation is that you'll provide a letter from a Doctor explaining the absence. If you're ill frequently then the company will discuss it with you (and if you're pulling frequent sickies then that'll be dealt with as a disciplinary). I've had 3 days off sick in the last 5 years. 1. https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays#england-and-wales https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays#england-and-wales
- krzyk 14y agoIn Poland it's 20 or 26 days off, all state holidays are added on top of that (there are few days, probably around 8). All of those are paid. Except those one can also take unpaid vacation but that has to be negotiated with the employer. 20 days is until you have 10 years of work experience, but graduating counts as 8 years of experience so most people just have to work 2 years to jump to 26 days.
- patio11 14y agoMany facets of US employment law are different on a state-by-state basis, so "The US sets no minimum/maximum for ..." can frequently be true but vacuous. Broadly speaking, salaried employees in the US can expect a statutory minimum of 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. Fairly few states mandate paid maternity/paternity leave. They're available at many companies as a perk. Broadly speaking, Americans enjoy broad discretion in negotiating the amount and format of paid leave. By law and custom, the practical minimum is ~2 weeks plus holidays for most white collar workers. We historically do not have European-style vacations as an expected feature of the social contract.
- fuzzix 14y agoFair point. I wonder if the increasing number of us tech firms setting up in .ie (for whatever reason, being an Irish graduate I know it's not for the skills pool) find the adjustment difficult - 20 days minimum, 25 not uncommon, with the ability to carry some leave across years generally accepted. edit Anecdotally, even companies based in the UK have had trouble with the difference in employment law when setting up (or wrapping up) here, though I would put that down to lack of diligence rather than any cultural thing.
- ido 14y agoIreland has (or at least had as of a couple years ago) some sort of tax loophole that allows international companies to dodge paying some taxes both in their home country and in Ireland.
- gfritzsche 14y agoSee e.g. the Double Irish Arrangement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
- easytiger 14y agoits not a loophole, they have very low corporation tax compared with anywhere else
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- codemac 14y agoAlso - other places I have worked (NetApp notably) have had better benefits than the Google offers I have received. So don't read too much into the hype, there are several places that are on par or better when it comes to treating your employees well. And yes, it is true that there is no minimum leave federally. I don't know about individual states. The Department of Labor is linked[0] on the wikipedia article about leave, seems to be an accurate source. [0]: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/workhours/vacation_leave.htm http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/workhours/vacation_leave.htm
- ohsnapman 14y agoCan you post a link? At least according to this link: http://www.netapp.com/us/careers/your-career/benefits-new.aspx http://www.netapp.com/us/careers/your-career/benefits-new.as... Google's actual US benefits are scattered, unfortunately, but: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Google-RVW245122.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Google-RVW2... NetApp offers a $3000 401k match, whereas Google does $8750 (50% of maximum) with no vesting. NetApp gives you 25 days vacation a year after 10 years, 15 days after year 2, 20 on year 6. You get 25 days after your 5th year at Google, 20 on 4th year, start at 15. NetApp offers $5250/year in tuition reimbursement. Google offers $13,000/year. In addition to all of these, it's well known that Google provides donation match to a charity, gym reimbursement, heavily subsidized massages, sick days as needed. If Google benefits are hype, I'd love to see data that shows where other companies beat them out.
- codemac 14y agoGlassdoor isn't a valid reference for anything (it's like a wikipedia page, except no one is trying to cite sources), and benefits are negotiable, including everything on that NetApp page. Please don't misunderstand me, obviously Google is one of the better place to work these days. Their benefits are great, but it's not far and away best for every individual. Articles like this are marketing for Google.. grumble grumble link to pg's submarine article.
- ohsnapman 14y ago
- seivan 14y agoMany of the Irish and Swedish safety nests are not sustainable under the current economy and will eventually crash. I love it whenever people bring up Sweden and don't realise that countries like Sweden and Germany can't sustain the benefits they give out. When I get older I won't have the same access. Germany pays around 50% taxes, Sweden it's around 30-40% for software developer salaries.
- Mvandenbergh 14y agoSweden had a deficit of 0.40% of GDP in 2011 (last year I have figures for), in that same year the US had a budget deficit of about 10% of GDP. Furthermore, maternity leave and holiday time are neither expensive nor are they getting more so in the future. What is more worrying in the long term are benefits associated with retirement because due to demographic changes that cost will continue to grow even as the number of people in the labour force stays steady or slowly shrinks. Those problems are not unique to Sweden.
- mongol 14y agoThank your making an informed statement about this. I don't think parent knew what he was talking about, his figures about tax rates in Sweden were far from accurate or knowledgeable.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- patrickg 14y ago50% taxes in Germany? Example: you get 42.000 Euro/year, you pay ~20% taxes. If you earn 100.000 Euro/year, you pay 30%.
- seivan 14y agoI am sorry, I should have said Berlin. 100k euro a year is not 30% in Berlin. Please check your source again.
- pjmlp 14y agoThe more I learn about US work laws, the more I like being an European.
- Jach 14y agoI guess it depends where you are in Europe. I'm glad I'm in the US and not in Hungary. http://andorjakab.blog.hu/2012/01/06/this_is_why_i_don_t_give_you_a_job http://andorjakab.blog.hu/2012/01/06/this_is_why_i_don_t_giv... Edit: I found it interesting that in http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/otherreleases/smallbusiness08ed.pdf http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/docume... on page 58, about 58% of sampled women in Ireland are in jobs classified as "low skilled non-manual" or "elementary" compared to about 32% for men in medium-to-large businesses, but 22% in small businesses. When your female employee might take 6 months off, paid while doing nothing useful for the company, it's best if the work they would have done can be easily (and cheaply, so that 2X isn't so much greater than X) done by another, eh?
- pjmlp 14y agoGermany
- hect0r 14y agoWhy? Europe isn't exactly a hotbed of innovation, economic dynamism or growth; and that is largely attributable to the socialist mindset that pervades much of Europe. Although entrepreneurialism is a word that originated in Europe, it is rather hard to find much evidence of it in any meangingful way.
- nodata 14y agoAre you suggesting that the 50 United States are a hotbed of those things?
- hect0r 14y agoNo, but I am suggesting that, in general, free markets lead to growth whereas socialist experiments such as those in Europe tend to fail and lead to a variety of social and economic ills. One just look at the aging population, declining birth rate plus vast social security apparatus in some of these European states to see that they are heading yet again towards disaster.
- VeejayRampay 14y agoWell, since Ireland has been abortion-retarded until very recently, I guess you guys had to implement some proper maternity care.
- seivan 14y agoI suspect either people dislike the use of the word retarded in a offensive way, or they didn't get that you meant retarded as in "delayed". I like to think you were downvoted because they didn't grasp you meant delayed or behind progress :)
- VeejayRampay 14y agoNah I meant retarded. And people are right to downvote it, I shouldn't have used that kind of language. It only goes to pollute the message which was in essence that the religious grip in Ireland has been a very detrimental factor in the progress towards proper health care for women in the country. Sorry if I offended anyone, it was wrong.
- netcan 14y agoYour entitlement to pay and superannuation during maternity leave depends on the terms of your contract of employment. Employers are not obliged to pay women on maternity leave. You may qualify for Maternity Benefit which is a Department of Social Protection payment you have sufficient PRSI http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/maternity_leave.html http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_r...
- fuzzix 14y agoAh, seems I misread the info. An artifact of commenting at 6am.
- hect0r 14y agoBy forcing employers to pay women six months maternity leave, it means that the cost of employing a woman of child-bearing age relative to a man is much higher and hence, all things being equal, the economically rational approach is to discriminate against women in hiring and promotion. This is just one of the many unintended consequences of government interference; the other, of course, is the minimum wage which is a particularly nefarious and wicked concept that results in the unskilled being kept unemployed and economically disadvantaged.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- nodata 14y agoThat's short sighted: if you discriminate against women, who will give birth to the men?
- hect0r 14y agoIf I am an employer in a society where, for each birth, the government mandates six month minimum paid maternity leave. I am hiring for a particular role and have two candidates of equivalent skill with the only difference being one is female and of child-bearing age. Which would you hire? The female may get pregnant and impose two costs on my company: firstly, the cost of maternity leave and, secondly, the cost of finding and training a temporary replacement for a minimum of six months. The rational thing is to hire the male to mitigate this risk since the costs will be lower and productivity assumed to be higher over term of employment. A better solution is for governments to not force such things but allow companies to negotiate freely with employees. Some may decide to offer extended maternity leave as a differentiator and to attract and retain female talent. But if they do so, they are doing so with coercion and for rational reasons.
- sopooneo 14y agoI may be wrong, but I think you are double counting the cost of the maternity leave. The cost to the company is the cost of finding/training/paying a temp. The cost of paying the woman her salary while she is gone would have still occurred if she wasn't gone. Or am I missreading? You would include lost productivity due to a less effective temp worker I suppose. My general response to letting companies negotiate freely is that it seems important, but potentially destructive at it's extreme. I think there should be certain minimum labor standards applied to all employers so that no one employer is at an economic disadvantage by treating their workers humanely. Regarding such minimum requirements including six months of paid maternity leave I'm not sure how I feel.
- saosebastiao 14y agoMaternity Leave elsewhere is typically a government operated insurance program. They typically are not 100% salary, and the burden of paying the employee falls on the insurance program. Since we don't have an insurance program, paid maternity leave is a pretty big deal, as the company fronts all the costs, including the replacement/temp.
- rmc 14y agoIs it also true that there is no minimum amount of annual leave allowance in the US? You have to negotiate it? Correct. Unlike the EU, the US has no minimum holidays. however ¾s or so of US employees have holidays. For white collar workers, you're almost certainly guaranteed holidays (from what I know). Not to suggest Ireland is ahead of the curve here I was talking to some Germans a few years ago. They were shocked to discover we only had 20 holiday days. You get 30 in Germany. They didn't know what they'd do with only 20. Fun excersive: Look at the list of EU countries by how much paid holiday time they give. Look at the lowest countries. Then look at the countries that are being bailed out by other EU countries. :P
- bhickey 14y agoI hope these policies influence other employers to follow in kind (perhaps even outside of tech.) I'm skeptical that we'll ever see, for example, statutory parental leave in the US.
- xradionut 14y agoThis would kill some smaller companies in the US. You can get away with this in larger corps since there is enough staff to fill in for parents. Even with the modest leave we offer at our campany, it was insane a few years back when we had a large "bump" in the number of new parents. Lost a few non-parent staff that got burned out covering for the parents and the attitude/entitlement wars that ensued. :(
- weareconvo 14y agoThe perks are an unmatched tool for building Google's reputation and attracting the best engineers to join the company. But once you've been there for a few months, you adapt - that's just what humans do. Pretty soon it all just feels normal and boring. Case in point - "Noogler" is what a new employee is called. They would often wonder when you're no longer considered a Noogler, and the commonly-given answer was, "You're not a Noogler anymore as soon as you publicly complain about the free food." It usually only takes a month or two.
- rumcajz 14y agoOn the other hand, it probably makes leaving Google for another company quite painful.
- capisce 14y agoThat's probably the point.
- fourstar 14y agoThat's when they turn into Entitled Googlers.
- weareconvo 14y agoThat's exactly what it looks like from the outside. But it isn't. It's just human beings adapting to their environment. This tendency is why maintaining a sense of awe and gratitude toward life is such a major component of spiritual thought.
- chii 14y agobut discontent is what drives the progress - people feeling satisfied all the time would basically not produce new stuff to fill the constant black hole of desire and wants.
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- kakoni 14y agoOut of curiosity (Not really knowing how things are in US) - What typically happens after 12 weeks of paternity leave? Mommy returns to work and child goes to daycare? - This article mentioned only women, what about men? Any father periods/leaves ?
- krakensden 14y agoOften, mommy quits. Paternity leave is pretty rare, and limited to the upper end of white collar jobs.
- jacalata 14y agoDo you have any data on how often women quit after maternity leave? Especially broken down by industry/job type?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- michaelfeathers 14y agoI'd like to see a company like Google ditch the name 'Human Resources'. It's an awful term that, to me, sounds clinical and nearly offensive. Decades ago, that sort of department was once called 'Personnel.' I wonder why that name was let go?
- magicarp 14y agoIn the third paragraph: "Google calls its HR department People Operations"
- michaelfeathers 14y agoI missed that. Thanks.
- gadders 14y agoI'd like to see companies ditch "Human Resources " departments all together.
- shaydoc 14y agoThe maternity and paternity policies outlined are really great at Google, and isn't it fantastic they Google show such desire to keep their team happy, ultimately makes them all the more successful. I think even more radical thinking on employee benefits is required in general by most companies. Taking my own personal case, I am a software dude as is my lovely wife. We now have 2 young babies, to look after. I like what I do as does my wife, but we are definitely not willing to outsource our kids upbringing to some random childcare provider, so the only choice is, one of us must leave the workplace....now both of us are highly skilled and experienced ( seriously) and I guess maybe if the projects were planned in such a way that smaller contributions could be made to them, then there might be a way for me or my wife to continue with our profession! If you get my drift...
- easytiger 14y agoYou are saying the 5 day 8.30-6 expected working availability is not a logical thing in the modern world for skilled jobs where goals are more important than presence?
- shaydoc 14y agoI think for what I do that is true, 8:30 to 6, 9-5 etc is' old hat, its not how software Dev works IMHO... Especially since its very much an intellectual endeavour. Alot of time is spent thinking about things. Also quantifying software development on the basis of time is also a broken paradigm, everyone is different. What I am saying is that if tasks could be so well planned and decoupled, that anyone could pick them up and fulfill them, that would be the way to go, like a service bus, each task/unit has an associated monetary value. The end goal is that if a business is operating at capacity but needs more they could push a component request onto to the service bus and have it fulfilled by whoever, whenever ( within reason). So I could join this service bus and pop some task off and code it, a bit like a software mechanical turk...and get paid and get some good karma points!
- erhardm 14y ago“Ich zahle keine gute Löhne, weil ich viel Geld habe, sondern ich habe viel Geld, weil ich gute Löhne zahle.” - Robert Bosch English version: I don't pay big salaries because I have lots of money, I have lots of money because I pay big salaries. If you treat your employees well, they will do good things to your company
- jacques_chester 14y agoIt's easier to say things like this when you rowing a boat across a river of gold.
- Loic 14y agoIn this case, this is not the case. Bosch is a well known conglomerate in Europe and even during hard times, they really pay attention, respect and support their employees. They even do that outside of Germany, they recently closed car component production lines in France because it was losing money but they paid to get the factory refitted to now produce solar panels. They kept their employees and got them training to do the new job. It would have been cheaper to just close the plan fully and increase production in Spain or Germany factories.
- rockdoe 14y agoThis is because several of those huge German conglomerates are privately, often family-owned, with very little or no accountability to the stock market. They can afford to think long term.
- erhardm 14y agoIt's also because mostly germans value quality over quantity. They don't demand very high margins. They demand very high quality which ultimately brings high margins. Mostly their targets are about quality, not throughput.
- pm90 14y agoJust a quick observation: there seems to be an awful amount of distractions on that cube. If that lady was actually programming, it would be really easy to lose focus. I usually go for a very spartan furnishings. My computer, a few books, a clock and a calendar.
- jzwinck 14y agoAt one big company where I worked, I was ordered to remove a single punch card from the 70's from the wall of my cubicle. Why? Some executive was coming and they wanted the place to look soulless...I mean consistent.
- jp_sc 14y agoLuckily it's her cublicle, not yours. Some people find that kind of environment stimulating.
- eliben 14y agoI agree, and would bet that the person in the photo is not an engineer. Engineers in Google have either two 24'' monitors, or a single 30'' monitor :-)
- raldi 14y agoYou can tell she's not an engineer because she has a phone.
- smackfu 14y agoFunny, I tend to prefer clutter in my peripheral vision since it doesn't provide a single thing to focus on easily (like a clock). The only thing that bothers me is reflective surfaces where the highlights change as my head moves a little.
- groby_b 14y agoI don't know about you, but I look at my screen when I'm programming. It really doesn't matter what's around me if I'm in the zone. If I'm not, however, I like having things that speak to me around. (I also like plush animals as debugging partners. It's surprising how many bugs you find just by explaining what you do to a stuffed toy ;)
- erkin_unlu 14y agoI wonder when the situation will ever be like this in my country, Turkey.
- johnward 14y agoThe situation isn't really like this in the US either. There are exceptions but this is not the norm.
- kriro 14y agoIt kind of boggles my mind that there are companies that don't treat their employees like kings/queens. For knowledge workers this should be an absolute no brainer. Keep them as happy as possible and good things will follow. They will be pretty loyal (non-monetary perks build way more loyalty) and very motivated. I really don't get how anything else is a viable long term strategy.
- johnward 14y agoWhy can't both parents get time off for the birth of a child? It's probably one of the most important events in any parents life.
- mvgoogler 14y agoIt's not mentioned in the article, but there is also 7-weeks of parental/paternity leave available for the other parent.
- binxbolling 14y agoDoes anyone have a copy of a Googlegeist survey or two that they'd be willing to share?