Slashdot Mirror
Google's Security Guards Are Now Officially Google Employees
jfruh writes People concerned about the growing gap between the rich and poor point to a common practice in Silicon Valley: going through staffing agencies for non-core jobs like janitorial and security work, leaving those workers disconnected from the company and lacking in the job security and benefits their co-workers take for granted. Google has now decided to buck the trend, bringing their security guards in-house.
The security guards at twitter have been proper employees since they moved to Market street. I believe they even hired a couple of the old guards of the last office from the security company they used to contract for. But twitter is a bit of an egalitarian exception, still just wanted to say.
The why is obvious if you take a cynical approach: not long ago there were articles about the ethnic ratios of Google employees. Now if they hire all their own security of african-americans and hispanics, woo-hoo, just look at those workforce diversity numbers skyrocket!
I'm glad to see Google making this decision because contract security companies beat up their employees for crap pay, no sick time, and benefits that are laughable. I should know because I was an Allied Barton Employee when between IT contracts. Their medical benefits were so expensive as to leave very little left over and for coverage that was simply a sick joke. I wish more companies would make this move!
And by the same token, it's not uncommon for guards to be outsourced, especially since it's the sort of job that you might only need one guy for, and he can't ever call in sick. If you outsource the position, he comes from a larger pool.
Further, guards come with liability issues. You might not be well suited for managing them, arming them, training them -- especially if you're going to have one or two of them, at most.
Security guards, cleaning companies, the people who water your plants... ...all make sense for outsourcing if you're not huge.
Google is probably big enough to bring them all inside -- if they're not too stingy with the benefits.
Now, all they've got to do is hire all of their bus drivers -- or at least pay their employers to end split shifts for them.
At a small scale, the fixed costs of running your own security are substantial relative to the total cost, meaning that it's cheaper to pay a contractor instead, despite the overhead that comes with having a middleman between you and the guards. At a large scale, such as Google's, the fixed costs are a relatively minor component, whereas the overhead associated with the contractor is rather substantial, so it ends up being cheaper to bring the guards in-house. You can even provide them with better pay/benefits thanks to the money you'll be saving by cutting out the contractor.
That's the most obvious answer, at least. Other possibilities are that the employees will feel more loyalty towards Google on account of the shared bond with the other employees (not to mention the better pay/benefits), which would make them more inclined to do their job well; they'll get to be a part of more of the corporate culture, which will help them to recognize things that are out of place better; Google won't be subject to the hiring whims of their contractor, meaning that they can work on hiring the cream of the crop; and that having them in the company is conducive to a healthier Google in the long-term, which is in line with preserving Google's value.