A recent article put Google’s sparkling reputation as an employee’s dream in jeopardy – the title says it all – “Toxic environments and crazy deadlines – the Google effect?”.
A disgruntled employee of Nest – the home automation company owned by Google – vented their anger about the company’s poor work environment on Reddit, writing of marriages that were suffering, impossible deadlines, exhausted employees sleeping in corners, a churn rate of almost half the company, sub-par talent and a toxic environment.
It’s worlds away from the glittering reputation and #1 ranking of Google as a place to work – although this is a Google owned company as supposed to the search engine Google itself.
If we refer to the Google search engine company though, former employees have spoken out about its corporate culture before, claiming it to be weird, and one that makes staff dependent.
How to Get the Best Out of Your Staff
But rather than focus on what can go wrong, we’d like to focus on how to get it right when it comes to servicing your employees and getting their best work. Acas lists the below as things it recommends companies do to avoid a scenario like the above:
– Ensuring employees understand the overall goals of your business
– Being clear what work each must do and how you want them to do it
– Being clear how employees will have to work as a team
– Getting a better understanding of individual employees and what they contribute to your business
– Highlighting the on-the-job coaching, support and training workers may need to target
– Improving and motivating individual and team performances
– Adapting to shifts in circumstances that your business may face – and getting your staff to adapt with you so you are all working towards the same new goals
How to Hire The Best Talent for your Organisation
Recruiterbox also released similarities it noticed about companies that consistently seemed to hire the best talent – and keep them happy – in line with the above from Acas.
They noticed these employers are; well known in their industry, demonstrate a strong employee culture, offer good compensation and benefits, approach their most wanted talent and offer referral bonuses for employees.
What We Think
Although some confrontations and situations between an employer and employee may be unavoidable, the risk of reaching the kind of friction as at Nest can be mitigated by the efforts pointed out by Recruiterbox and Acas.
Castle Hill House