Google Faces Employee Retention Challenge

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Google Faces Employee Retention Challenge

Posted by michael on Saturday October 2, 2004 @11:10AM from the golden-handcuffs dept.

prakslash writes "60% of Google's 1900 employees now hold stock options worth at least one million dollars. According to experts in this Reuters article, it is now imperative for Google to maintain its sense of mission. If it fails to do so, a whole slew of employees facing post-IPO burnout and boredom will leave the company to go back to school, start a new company, or join the ranks of high-tech early retirees. Such a mass cashing-out could lead to a decline in Google stock price and intellectual brain-drain. Oh how I wish I worked for Google."

20 of 339 comments (clear)

You wish you worked for google? by HappyClown · 2004-10-02 11:12 · Score: 5, Funny

Well send in your CV! It sounds like they might have a few job openings shortly...
1. Re:You wish you worked for google? by pdx_joe · 2004-10-02 11:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  At what point does Google go from hip, cool company to overbearing, monopolistic, Microsoft company? It seems public opinion is a bit fickle.
2. Re:You wish you worked for google? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-02 11:28 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  google is an american company, it's called a 'resume', not a 'CV', (OT, but just thought i would let you know).
  Americans use the term CVs as well. Americans with advanced degrees. If you want a seriously nerdy position at google (instead of clerical), you'd do better with a CV instead of a resume.
  Feel free to use a dictionary and note the difference between the two terms. I have both a CV and a resume and I'm still an American.
3. Re:You wish you worked for google? by Alien+Being · 2004-10-02 11:41 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  "It seems public opinion is a bit fickle."
  
  Right, we must not waffle or send mexed missages even if presented with new facts.
  
  Google is now a public company. Many /.ers will be sure to point out that it is now their obligation to maximize ROI. That's not quite correct. The board of Google is responsible for doing whatever the prospectus said they would do.
  
  Let's hope that Google continues to change the way things are done. If they become myopic about short-term profits, they will be screwed in the long run.
4. Re:You wish you worked for google? by Uber+Banker · 2004-10-02 13:05 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I've really never understood this difference, usually cited by Americans, between CVs and resumes.
  
  Yeah, I can look in a dictionary for a difference, but this is one of those cases where 'one language, two meanings' really comes into play for the English language. Both words, of course, are not English, but French (resume - OK I can't be bothered to get acutes into slashcode) and Latin (CV ). Both words have been adopted by English common usage, but English does not have an acute on 'e' in its scope so 'resume' [raesumae] cannot be an 'English' word, and CV is just a couple of letters, not a word.
  
  Curriculum Vitae: Loosely translated, this means "course of one's life" [Latin does not translate directly].
  Resume: Summary [more or less]
  BTW I'm not a great one for direct translation of languages as nuances and subtleties are often lost
  
  But lanaguage is functional. A CV could be a one page document, if one were succinct, a resume could be a summary, but a summary of what (resume with no context means nothing), a document entitled 'John Doe - Resume' surely means a summary of John Doe (if one were to interpret in English), so what is the difference of 'John Doe - CV'?! Defining the difference between the terms is looking for a difference for a difference's sake.
  
  A CV refers to what someone would submit for a job application, as would a resume. Someone would be mad to write a 10 page essay about their life [common interpretation of 'CV'] equally someone would be mad to submit a 2 line summary of their skills and previous position titles [possible interpretation of 'resume']. Drawing a distinction between the two, or saying one is better than the other is folly. I would be interested in what others think, but in the US a resume seems to be a 1-2 page document, a CV a long document, in the UK a CV is a 1-2 page document, the term resume is rarely used, what about Canada, Australia, countries for which English ios a second language?
  
  Basically, adapt your resume/CV/description to what you apply for: list in descending chronological order (with some potential variation of importance), add some 'summary paragraph' that sells yourself near the top, stay relevant. Always include a covering letter.
5. Re:You wish you worked for google? by fbg111 · 2004-10-02 17:28 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Well, when you claim to be good yet position your IPO to rape buyers of as much cash as possible
  
  They weren't trying to rape their IPO buyers. They were trying to prevent Google from being raped buy the investment banks who traditionally lowball the IPO price knowing there will be a huge first day appreciation as the market prices the stock closer to what it's worth (to the market, that is), and the ibanks and their large institutional investors (mutual funds, pension funds, etc.) can pocket the float. But that float doesn't belong to the iBanks, it is value created by Google and no one else, and it should rightfully be pocketed by Google. The ibanks get it only because they control the financial system - they're the gatekeepers, and the toll has been massive, until Google executed the first Dutch Auction with a high float price. So I have no problem with what Google has done, which is basically to ensure they get roughly what they have earned.
  
  IMHO it will be a great day when open electronic IPO networks make the market more freely accessible to new companies looking to go public, and they'll no longer have to go through the ibanks in the manner they do now. A similar paradigm shift happened when stock trading went online in the 90s, and then went to no/low-fee trades. Banks hated it, but consumers loved it, and some banks adapted and learned to profit from it. I think other areas of finance, IPO's for one, are ripe for such a change. I don't expect to see it soon, and don't pretend it will be technologically or politically easy, but hopefully it will happen one day, and I think Google may have taken the first small step in that direction.
  
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Free lunch? by miroth · 2004-10-02 11:12 · Score: 5, Funny

I guess Google is finally realizing that there's no such thing as a free lunch (even if they provide their employees with one).
It's a problem, but it's already solved. by LostCluster · 2004-10-02 11:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

Google seems to already be a step ahead of this problem, creating a billboard puzzle in the Boston area and publishing a test for potential applicats to fill out.

Not only do they have the problem of suddenly having a few hundred jobs to fill, but they also have the problem that nearly everybody in the world would like to work for them. By setting up such qualifying quizes before even asking for a resume, Google's trying to filter out the best applicants early in the process so that they don't waste their time on pursuing people they'll not end up hiring.

So, yes, Google's going to lose some key talent because they've just created a bunch of modern-era dot-com millionaires. However, they'll just hire somebody else to replace anybody they lose and will move on.
Doing something interesting by johnmoe · 2004-10-02 11:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

As long as they have interesting things for people to work on, I don't think they should have too much trouble keeping people. Who really cares about money? It is hard to find interesting problems to work on Google lets their employees do that AND pays them for it. What more in life could a person ask for?
Billboard 'recruitment' test? Marketing. by WombatDeath · 2004-10-02 11:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

That billboard thing was a piece of piss. I wouldn't consider myself qualified to work for Google and yet their little puzzle was so trivial that I couldn't actually be bothered to solve it. Added to which, of course, is the fact that you could Google the answer within a day or two of the buzz commencing.

If they really wanted to use that sort of approach to resumé filtering they'd have used a hard puzzle and put a time limit on it. In reality, it was a marketing tool - albeit quite a good one, in my opinion.
Re:Not facing it, in reality by torstenvl · 2004-10-02 11:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yahoo's search results aren't that much different than Google's in the top ten.

No company can create something and just sit on it and remain in a market position. If MS couldn't parlay its success with MS-DOS into its success with Windows 95 into its success with IE and 98 and XP...

Yeah. Nobody would still be using MS-DOS today. They'd all be using Linux or BSD or something.

So Google does need talent to stay competitive.
*Maintain* it's sense of mission? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-02 11:21 · Score: 5, Interesting

Google has the challenge of building a whole new mission. With billions in the bank and way more employees than are needed to operate a search engine, there is no way they can keep going if they just maintain their current mission. They need to get a whole new mission.

Another challenge they need to get a grip on is a release culture. Up to now, most of their products and services have been in perpetual beta. If they want to expand, they need to get a mentality that sets targets, and makes releases. Right now they look like Netscape did. Their most visible product, the Google search engine, has way more features, many of which are useful, than any competitor. In terms of search quality, though, I think they already fall behind the new MSN search. If all they do is tack more features on and add new beta products they will fall behind. Granted, they have a long time to make it work, with that mountain of cash, but that won't sustain them forever.

Google needs to decide on a new vision that is grand, but reachable with the money they have now. Then they need to execute their new plan successfully. Neither staying where they are, or growing at their current rate, is a viable option. They need big changes. They may well be up to it, but we won't know for certain for a few more years.
Google Labs by rafikki · 2004-10-02 11:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

I like their Google Labs idea. It's a great way to show the employees that they're supporting them, and at the same time allows them to stimulate the engineers creativity, probably helping to reduce burn-out rates as well.
Google's new quitting policy by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-02 11:27 · Score: 5, Funny

To quit your job at google go to: {last 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com
Re:Totally expected by irokitt · 2004-10-02 11:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

So, you're one of those people who reads Dilbert and sympathizes with the boss?

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reminds me of... by nbert · 2004-10-02 11:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

the documentary "Microslaves"
They interviewed some ex Microsoft employees. All of them are millionaires due to stock options. Now they are mostly in their late twens wondering what to do with their existence for the rest of their time (one of them - living in his huge mansion alone said that he pretends to be into IT consulting on dinner parties, because saying that you basically do nothing is kind of embarrassing).

It makes me wonder if stock options are really a sustainable way for both sides to grow. Wouldn't it be better to have more employees at a lower wage like 500 grands a year? Every ex MS worker being part of the documentary suffered some kind of burn out syndrome, so it might make sense to reduce their workload at the same time.

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Re:Totally expected by Forbman · 2004-10-02 11:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

No, you hire people who will enjoy the work, the kind who appreciate the money, but don't care too much about it.

If all you hire is people wanting to move up to $70K a year, instead of people looking for new cool things to do, then, yes, you create the lack of motivation that money seekers get.
this article is worthless by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-02 11:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

This whole article is based on interviewing people at other companies and asking what happens after an IPO. There's nothing specific about Google at all. Is there any actual evidence of people at Google selling out? Is there one actual instance of somebody leaving Google because they got rich on the IPO?

Recently I was interviewing with Google in Mountain View (and I'm posting AC for that reason) and I didn't meet a single person there who seemed like the IPO had affected them at all. Some engineer made the comment to me "Yeah, I ended up with a lot of money after the IPO, and the thought crossed my mind to leave, but what would I do? I can't think of any place I'd rather work."

Everyone loves to hate on Google now that they're no longer the scrappy underdogs. But after walking around the "Googleplex" I can't say I've ever seen a company where the engineers were happier.
Operation: Shootfoot by mikeophile · 2004-10-02 11:50 · Score: 5, Funny

CFO: It looks like we have quite a problem, Eric. We are losing employees because their stock options are worth so much, they don't wan't to work anymore.

CEO: The deuce you say, George. There's only one thing to do.

CFO: What's that?

CEO: George, we have to tank the company. When the stock bottoms out, we'll buy back those options and correct the retention problem. We must destroy Google to save it.

CFO: OMFG, you're brillant. But how will we devalue the company? Google is doing great.

CEO: We're going to need help. We need someone with experience in this sort of thing. Get Carly at HP on the phone, quick!
Re:Maybe not that bad... by WhatAmIDoingHere · 2004-10-02 12:40 · Score: 5, Funny

Maybe you'd even be able to purchase an iPod instead of getting people to sign up for a pyramid scheme so you can get one.

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