Thursday, March 22, 2007
Keeping Up With the Googles
Google seems to be a leader in the increasing tendency, especially in the "knowledge-industry", to offer an unusually wide array of perks, ostensibly to attract the best workers in a competative environment.
A recent article in Knowledge@Wharton lists such perks as, free gourmet food including breakfast, lunch and dinner, a fitness center which includes a 24 hour gym with weights and yoga classes, an in-house doctor, a nutritionist, dry cleaning, massage service, personal trainer, swimming pool and spa. Plus a high-tech wi-fi equipped bio-diesel shuttle bus for those that do not live close to the campus.
It is obvious that Google is doing what it considers best to attract and keep the best employees. There is no question that there is a great demand today for technical-professional people. So Google is upping the anti to make it easier for them to succeed. When a company is flush with the kind of cash that Google has acquired, it would be natural for them to take such an approach.
In taking advantage of all that is offered, some employees may become uncomfortable with their employer reaching so far into their personal lives. But many will not give it another thought, and take advantage of everything they can. Certainly having gourmet breakfast, lunch and dinner available will make it easier to work much more than a normal US work day.
A real question is, how long the value of such perks lasts before an employee begins to chafe at how much of his life is being devoted, controlled and demanded by his employer.
Are such perks nice? Of course! Who would turn down such opportunities?
Are there other things that an alert employer could incorporated into its company's operations that might be of more vital and lasting employee benefit? Without question!
Such organizations could undertake a study of the ways each of their employees are dealt with, in all day-to-day work - an honest careful evaluation, along the lines of "The Checklist for Leaders" in Chapter 8 of the book "In the Best Companies, People Are Everything" by Lawrence Haines, available on Amazon.com.
There are simple, easy to implement fundamentals that can bring enormous improvements from the smallest operations to giants having more than 10,000 employees.
posted by Larry Haines at
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