Engineering Management IV, Semester 2, 2019

Lecturer: Murray Wynter

Assignment 2
Date: 16 September 2019

Student Number:215014782

Number of words: 6,508

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Table of Contents
1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Significance of the assignment ............................................................................................................ 1
3 The company; Google .......................................................................................................................... 1
4 Approaching the assignment ............................................................................................................... 1
5 Literature Study ................................................................................................................................... 2
5.1.1 Participatory Communication .................................................................................................... 2
5.1.2 Workplace Empowerment ......................................................................................................... 2
5.1.3 Tangible and Intangible Compensation ..................................................................................... 3
5.1.4 Employee engagement. ............................................................................................................. 4
5.1.5 Motivating employees to work harder. ..................................................................................... 5
5.1.6 Motivating with KITA ................................................................................................................. 5
5.1.7 Trends in motivating staff. ......................................................................................................... 7
5.1.7.1 Relations at work. ............................................................................................................... 7
5.1.7.2 Decision making opportunities ........................................................................................... 8
5.1.8 Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to improve professional skills. ............................................. 8
5.1.8.1 Introjection ......................................................................................................................... 8
5.1.8.2 Identification ....................................................................................................................... 8
5.1.8.3 Integration .......................................................................................................................... 8
6. Case study ........................................................................................................................................... 9
6.1.1 Participatory Communication .................................................................................................... 9
6.1.2 Workplace empowerment ....................................................................................................... 10
6.1.3 Tangible and Intangible Compensation ................................................................................... 11
6.1.4 Employee engagement: How to motivate workers ................................................................. 12
6.1.4.1 Inspiring employees .......................................................................................................... 12
6.1.4.2 Encourage development ................................................................................................... 12
6.1.4.3 Culture of togetherness .................................................................................................... 12
6.1.5 Working harder. ....................................................................................................................... 12
6.1.6 Motivating with KITA ............................................................................................................... 13
6.1.7 Trends in Motivating Staff ....................................................................................................... 13
6.1.8 Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to improve professional skills. ........................................... 14
7 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 14
8 Reference ........................................................................................................................................... 15
1 Introduction
Any person who is motivated will achieve much more than a person with no ambition. Having
employees that are motivated and that stays motivated is a big advantage for any business. A
literature study has been done in showing different ways of motivating an employee to perform in
his/her work. This is followed up by a case study where the different ways of motivation have been
scrutinized. After the study, key factors that motivates an employee will be identified.

2 Significance of the assignment

Motivation plays a big role in an employee’s work environment. Motivation effects almost everything
that an employee does. It is his commitment to work. Having your employees motivated will result in
better productivity, better quality of products, better behaviour (mood) and an employer will also
receive more than expected form employees. Thus, it is important to know what motivates your
employees and more essentially what keeps them motivated.

3 The company; Google

Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google on the 4th of September 1998 and the company made their
first public offering on 19 August 2004. [1] Googles headquarters is located at Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA. [1] BackRub was a search engine that they had in 1996. In 1999 Google was a mere
8 employees that worked at University Avenue in Palo Alto and in 2013 Google had about 47 800 full-
time employees that works for Google. [1] Google earns there profit by advertisement and they create
innovating products, besides that they provide a free service of website searching for users. [1] The
employees of Google has been given freedom on work and they are provided with a good workplace.
[1]

4 Approaching the assignment

The assignment is about a study of how a company motivates their employees. I started to think of
companies that I would want to work for a why would I want to work there, I also thought of a big
company, because it means a lot of people works there and such a company will know how to keep
their employees motivated. I thought were do a lot of people want to work and Google came to my
mind, I have heard and read multiple times that Google is the best company to work for. I’ve seen
headlines where they are praised for being the best company to work for. Thus, I believe the
employers are doing a great job in motivating their employees to perform in their work and keeping
them motivated as well as how they manage their employees to be so passionate about their work
and getting the best out of their employees.

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5 Literature Study
5.1.1 Participatory Communication
Many workers tend to look at their job description in the way of how they will gain more experience,
skills and knowledge with the help of the company. Employees want to keep improving themselves by
learning more and this can be achieved by open discussions and free communications in the
workplace.[2] Making use of the participatory communication method in designing job descriptions,
selecting team members and to determine different levels of standards for rewards and perks can be
an effective way of increasing engagement and retention. [2] A company needs effective
communication to connect all its functions and employees to achieve their vision and mission. [2]
Building team spirit and camaraderie is important and is achieved by free flow of ideas, sharing
opinions about the company’s policies and leadership, this can be seen as a guilt free sessions with
the feedback that can be positive or negative and the employees are not expecting any personal
benefit or fear of any criticism. [2] The participatory factor focuses on personal communication and
discussion between the employees on HR issues which the employees identified and communication
from the lowest level of employees that reaches top management. [2] With this approach the HR
Department identifies specific issues about the company that is a source of motivation and issues that
can be a possible downside for engagement and retention. [2] With participatory communication in
effectively winning and retaining workers by giving them opportunities to freely interact, discuss and
share their opinions in such a way that makes them feel connected to the company.[2]

5.1.2 Workplace Empowerment

Dennis Organ introduced Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) in 1988 and defined it as
voluntary behaviour which is not in an employee’s job description. [3] OCB better the overall efficiency
in the company. [3] OCB is break down into 5 dimensions by Dennis; [3]

 Altruism. Employees help one another with job and non-job related issues without any
personal motives. [3]
 Civic Virtue. This will enhance the participation of employees in the company. [3]
 Courtesy. Employees having mutual respect for each other. [3]
 Conscientiousness. The employee is always highly focused and abide by the company policies.
[3]
 Sportsmanship. Employees that can practice tolerance and that can sacrifice in non-ideal
conditions of the company without complaining about it or protesting. [3]

In 1986 it was observed in a study done by Eisenberger that if employers care about employees and
support their commitment to the company, then the company’s employees are highly focused. [3]
This behaviour of employers to provide assistance for their employees to enhance their performance,
caring for the welfare of employees and giving recognition for their efforts, builds an environment of
trust. [3] Employees who believe in their company are motivated to return the same by going the extra
mile and showing commitment by doing responsibilities which is not part of their formal job
description. When an employee can see that he/she can make use of initiative thinking and take
decisions to do their work to achieve their goal and the objectives given by the company it can lead to
a positive change in a company.[3] The Empowerment leads to motivation, commitment and job
satisfaction. [3] Psychological empowerment plays a role in an employee to go the extra mile. This
exists when the work life of an employee is largely controlled by themselves and they are aware of it.

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Psychological empowerment is constructed out of four dimensions combined, according to
Spreitzer.[3] This is:

 Meaning; The purpose of an employees work.[3]

 Competence; Employees believe they have the skills and abilities to complete their work. [3]
 Self-determination; The freedom of how employees do their work.[3]
 Impact; The employees can have an influence on the environment where they work.[3]

5.1.3 Tangible and Intangible Compensation

Motivation has no single answer and is very complex, but it can be divided in two groups of motivation
techniques namely; [4]

 Tangible or financial compensation.

 Intangible or non-financial compensation.

Material compensation is of big significance on which company’s motivation systems is based on and
it is under direct influence from the company.[4] Tangible or financial compensation should improve
or ensure the employees financial state. [4] Making use of the two types of financial compensation:
 Direct financial gains which includes cash.
 Indirect financial gains which include all the financial gains that is not part of the direct
compensation.

Fig1: Direct and Indirect financial compensation.[4]

The first set is direct payment for the performance in which the work is done, while the indirect
financial reward is not dependent on work performances and success. Intangible compensation has a
grown a lot recently. A number of strategies has been developed to motivate employees because of
this growth. The strategies include:[4]

 Job design.
 Management style.
 Participation.
 Management by objective
 Flexible working hours.

With job design companies is trying to make work interesting, challenging and in a diverse manner.[4]
Companies incorporate job rotation which leads to employees understanding different company

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functions, they develop a network of contacts and their problem solving and decision making skills are
improving. [4] Best motivation in which companies uses work enrichment for employees where
businesses grow and their employees gets more diverse tasks and skills, responsibility and
independence of action. [4] There are also multiple other intangible motivational strategies that
companies use that employees find important such as: [4]

 Recognition of success
 Security and continuity of employment.
 Promotion at work.
 Greater informality and social equality

5.1.4 Employee engagement.

Every person is skilled enough and has the desire to move up the hierarchy of need and Maslow noted
that people are motivated in a hierarchy of need. [5] According to Maslow human motivation is built
around personal growth and fulfilment.[5] An effective method to motivate your workers is to set
goals for them which are realistic and achievable, but also challenging and offer them rewards. [5] To
accomplish the goal, engagement in the required area will be needed. Motivation is the willingness
and ability to get work done while employee engagement is the feeling of completion by being loyal
to their position and the company. [5]

Some of the most important factors to keep employees has been identified by Kaye and Jordan. [5]

 Meaningful and challenging work.

 A chance to acquire skills and grow.
 A sense of belongingness.
 Respectable bosses.

Employees need the insurance from a company that they will receive the support and
assistance necessary to successfully complete their jobs. [5] For high engagement from
employees psychological safety is needed where they can take personal risks knowing that
the people working with them are not affected as much.[5]

Areas in the work place that determines an employee’s engagement and plays a role in their
motivation towards their jobs has been identified by Leiter and Maslach.[5]

 Workload.
 Reward and recognition.
 Employee’s sense of self worth

Giving an employee a sustainable workload will develop opportunities to grow which will
motivate the employee, where as a workload that exceeds their time and skills to complete
the job will result in dissatisfaction of the employee and they will be demotivated with less
engagement. [5] Rewards and recognition leads to higher engagement. Giving employees
consistent feedback and interacting with them goes with higher engagement. [5] Rewards can
be intrinsic or extrinsic. Ram and Prabhaker noted that extrinsic rewards has taken the back

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seat when employees settles into a position compared to intrinsic rewards which is a greater
motivator. [5] Employers needs to ensure that an employee receives a sense of self-worth,
because this influence their awareness of equality in the work place as well as respect given
to them when they are busy with their jobs.[5]

5.1.5 Motivating employees to work harder.

Birgit Benkhoff did a research about few motivating factors to help companies to motivate their
workers to work harder. [6]

 Need theory.
 Positive work character.
 Intrinsic motivation.
 Behavioural commitment as implied by the company roles.
 Social discussion theory.

For a company to maximize employee motivation, it should take a divided approach by adjusting work
conditions accordingly and focussing on selection.[6] Effort is affected by personal characteristics and
companies will benefit to identify candidates with relevant needs and character.[6] Employers will
practice intrinsic motivation by giving employees jobs that provides variation and challenges, that they
are able to achieve if they are given the required training.[6] Companies should give regular feedback
to their employees, it can be part of their assessment system or informal. This is known to improve
effort as positive feedback give employees respect and admiration.[6] To further improve employee
motivation some companies consists of an internal labour market to provide the essential predictions
for employees who want promotion. [6] With every promotion the employee is likely to feel obliged
to put in extra effort, in addition to the effect that may come from the added intrinsic motivation,
respect and admiration or satisfaction that the higher position might also provide. For the social
discussion theory to be beneficial, it demands that the employees and employer have trust and a long-
term relationship as guaranteed by job security.[6]

5.1.6 Motivating with KITA

Positive KITA employee practices that were developed to introduce motivation.

 Reducing time spent at work.[7] This is an excellent method to motivate people to work.
Getting off the job. A fact is that motivated people want more hours of work and not fewer.[7]
 Spiralling wages. [7] People are motivated by seeking the next wage increase. However some
employers say that if wage increases can’t or won’t get the job done, reducing wages certainly
will. [7]
 Fringe benefits. [7] Employees receives more money and more security than before, while
they are working less hours and this trend cannot be retracted by companies. [7]
 Human relation training. [7]
 Sensitivity training. [7] Being very sensitive toward employees.
 Communications. [7] Open talks from employees.
 Two-way communication.[7] Employers and employees listening and talking to each other.[7]
 Job participation. [7] Companies giving their workers the bigger picture e.g. a man tightening
10,000 nuts a day with a torque wrench and telling him he is building a Ferrari. [7]

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Growth or motivating factors that are intrinsic to the job are: achievement, recognition for
achievement, the work itself, responsibility and growth or advancement.[7] Extrinsic to the job are:
company policy and administration, supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions,
salary, status and security that make up the dissatisfaction-avoidance or hygiene factors.[7] These
can be seen in figure 1 below.

Fig1: Factors affecting job attitudes as reported in 12 investigations. [7]

job enrichment is also used by companies which tend to make workers like their jobs more, it resulted
in more promotions and lower number of workers being absent.[7] As can be seen in figure 2 some
principals in job enrichment. [7]

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Fig 2: Principles of vertical job loading.[7]

5.1.7 Trends in motivating staff.

Salary is still an important material motivator, but this factor is not dominant anymore.[8] The other
factors that are important in motivating employees are:

 The work atmosphere.[8]

 Independence and decision-making powers.[8]
 Promotion and development opportunities.[8]
 Employment security.[8]

5.1.7.1 Relations at work.

Employers want an environment that has a favourable effect on its employees’, the attitude towards
their tasks, motivation and which inspires creativity. Factors that help with this is a good work
atmosphere, the willingness to help and approachable relations.[8] These factors change the way
employees view their work as it is no longer seen as their duty, but rather a need.[8] Employees like
to come to work and they also show commitment in the performance of their tasks.[8] When
employees do work which brings them joy and satisfaction, it will prevent stress and tension between
workers, and enable communication, improve conflicts and bring people together.[8] When the work
satisfy the employees needs they will feel motivated and perform their job with a bigger
meticulousness.[8] As can be seen below in Figure 3, a study done by Anna that the atmosphere at
work is created with relationships between co-workers and with superiors. [8]

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Fig 3: Work relations as an effective motivating factor.[8]

5.1.7.2 Decision making opportunities

Decision making opportunities is very high ranked in motivating employees. [8] When an employee
has the freedom to make decisions it will increase motivation and the power of learning on the job,
his self-confidence will also get a boost. [8] Employee responsibilities should be firmly associated with
his capabilities which will increase the employees feeling of responsibility for the company’s
activities.[8] The employee’s superior should only offer assistance when the employee is incapable of
completing his task.[8]

5.1.8 Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to improve professional skills.

Intrinsic motivation can be defined as doing something, because it is fundamentally stimulating or
pleasing, and extrinsic motivation is to do something, because it leads to discrete outcomes.[9]
Looking at three types of extrinsic motivations that employers use to stimulate employees to improve
their professional skills. They are:

5.1.8.1 Introjection
Which has an ego involvement to it, in which an employee will do something to improve or uphold
self-confidence and the feeling of worthiness. [9] Employees who are competing to be well-off and
trying to avoid professional deprivation are motivated to take part and keep on learning by
introjection.[9] They are motivated by the idea that with higher work related skills their salary will
increase as well as receive a career promotion.[9] With higher positions in wealth and professional
status they boost their self-worth.[9]

5.1.8.2 Identification
This form of extrinsic motivation is more self-determined.[9] Employees acknowledge themselves with
individual rank of behaviour and then accepts a guideline of his own.[9] Employees who are competing
with self-development are motivated to take part in training by identification.[9] These employees will
continue to learn, not because they enjoy it, but, because they see it will improve their professional
development which is part of their life goal.[9]

5.1.8.3 Integration
This is the most self-determined form of extrinsic motivation. [9] These employees are also
motivated to improve their work-related skills as this is a window for them to extend the
opportunities to do what they like to do.[9] With higher professional skills they will be allowed to
move to certain positions in a company which will give them more freedom to enjoy their job.[9]

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6. Case study
6.1.1 Participatory Communication
Google are continuously testing and inventing ways to find the best method to satisfy their employees
and help them to work effectively. [10] Everything Google do is based on the gathering and processing
of data which they use to evaluate employees to improve their productivity.[10] Google has a devoted
team that does quantitative and qualitative research to give them scientific feedback to help them to
enhance their employees performance and happiness.[11]The data that google collect from their
employees allows them to understand their employees from the lowest level to top management and
they can use this data as a source of motivation.[2]

Fig4: Recommendations of Googles Operations Team.[11]

P. Mutyala wrote that building a team that works together is important and this is accomplished when
employees feel free to share their ideas and opinions.[2] Google practice an open culture which
creates a more relaxed and friendly working environment by allowing every employee and even
customers freely contribute their ideas and opinions.[10] Google always supports good ideas.
[10]With the open culture in google, they are keeping their employees by making them feel part of
the company to be able to freely share their ideas and opinions.[2] Google created a program called
G Teams which consisted of:

 A 10-minute survey addressing phycological safety, dependability, structure and clarity,

meaning and impact in order to regulate the performance of employees.[11]
 The results were shown to employees so that they can understand how they were doing in
each topic.[11]
 Employees were given 90 minutes to discuss these results.[11]
 The people operations team are available to address each dimension whenever it is
needed.[11]

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6.1.2 Workplace empowerment
Altruism and civic virtue which is part of the OCB dimensions made up by Dennis where employees
help each other without personal motives. [3] Google has a Googlers-to-Googlers (G2G) education
program. Employees from different departments are invited to take part and play teaching roles
voluntarily. [1] The purpose of this program is to enable employees to share their knowledge and to
grow their employees skill as this will increase their quality and productivity. [1] Another program that
Google has is the Search in yourself (SIY) program. [1] This program help employees to pay more
attention in their work by thinking about their work thoroughly before making decisions. [1] This
program is not only attended by normal employees but also high level position employees. [1] This
program tend to increase employee productivity and they have a good working performance. [1] The
SIY program encourages organizational citizenship behaviour between employees. [1] According to
Eisenberger if employers care about their employees and support them they will be motivated to be
focused.[3] Mark Twain said “Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing
conditions”[10] At Google they pay close attention to how employees work and offer them help to
correct their mistakes. Google shows interest in what caused the problem to happen and how can
they fix it at the quickest way possible. They do not point out any damaged caused or blame an
employee who caused the mistake to happen.[10] Google employees have the opportunities to
overcome their failures with the support of their co-workers and superiors.[10] Google uses a few
methods to empower their employees and as a result are rewarded with an increase in creativity,
loyalty and productivity.[12] These methods from Google let employees achieve phycological
empowerment which is described by Spreitzer. [3]

 At the Cafes in Google, employees from different departments are encouraged to share ideas
and cooperate with each other. [12]
 Employees are encouraged to email any of their superiors in the company.[12]
 A tool called Google Moderator is used where anyone can ask a question at a team meeting
and then all the members from the team will vote for as question they want answered
most.[12] An effective way where Google use participatory communication [2]
 Another method is 20 percent that Google uses which allows their employees to spent 20%
of their work time on anything that has their interest most in order to create innovating
ideas.[12] Google Maps and Google Moderator came from this method.[12] The 20 percent
method from Google will bring a positive change in the company as described by A. Sinha and
K. Negi in their journal. [3]
 Each week at the end they have a TGIF session where all the employees are able to ask any
questions directly to the company’s executives.[12] Google connecting their employees and
their functions.[2]
 Employees from Google are allowed to file their problems using The Google Universal
Ticketing System (GUTS), and these problems are then organized to find the most mutual
problem that needs to be talked about [12] Making use of the participating factor.[2]

With these empowering methods their employees are challenged continuously to be creative and to
solve problems.[12] Which will lead to motivation, willingness to work and fulfilment from their
work.[3]

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6.1.3 Tangible and Intangible Compensation
According to A. Erceg and A. Suljug material compensation has a big impact on motivating
employees.[4] Google has standard benefits which includes:

 Providing employees with a 401(k) plan and allows employees to give 60 percent of their
salary while Google contribute up to %2,200 a year.[13]
 All employees may receive stock or choose between stock options.[13]
 They offer several medical plans to choose from while they pay almost all the cost for these
medical plans.[13]
 Google provides the standard life and disability insurance.[13]
 Employees receives dental and vision benefits as well.[13]

Google goes further with their benefits and distinguish between them with Beyond the basics and
Way beyond the basics.[13] Googles tangible benefits improves their employees financial state.[4] Not
just tangible benefits, but google make use of a lot of intangible benefits as well in their style of
management, job designs, participation from employees and working hours.[4]

Beyond the basics includes:

 On-site childcare and when this fail, they have back-up childcare.[13]
 They give up to $5,000 in adoption support and to new parents they give $500 in take-out
meals for the first month. [13]
 Employees gets $8,000 in repayment for education purposes. [13]
 When an employee refer someone and they get recruited successfully the employee gets
$2,000 bonus. [13]
 When Employee donate money to non-profit organizations, Google will contribute up to
$3,000. [13]

Way beyond the basics:

 Employees have the choice between eleven on-site restaurants where they receive free
gourmet breakfast, lunch and dinner. [13]
 Between meals Google provide their employees with forty-four snack places.[13]
 Employees may use on-site gyms, spas, swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts. [13]
 They also receives pedometers free of charge. [13]
 Google offers dry cleaning and a laundromat for free. [13]
 While employees are working their cars can be washed and oil can be checked. [13]
 On-site hair salons, massages and more. [13]
 Free check-ups from doctors who are on-site. [13]
 Employees dogs may come to the work place. [13]
 Employees receive free shuttles between work and the train station and these shuttles are
WIFI enabled. [13]

This level of benefits from Google increases employee morale, which increases their performance.[13]
These benefits are designed to empower the employees to be initiative in their jobs and to adopt a
sense of ownership, opportunity and faithfulness. [13] Google also keeps the work challenging and

11
interesting.[4] An employee was quoted, he said “So they already love us and why would we ever want
to leave?” [13]

6.1.4 Employee engagement: How to motivate workers

One of the thing that the founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin focused on in the beginning was to
make Google a great place to work.[14] SAS Institute’s founder and CEO Jim Goodnight said “ If you
treat people as if they make a difference, they will make a difference”[14] Google shows their
employees that they are valued which is the starting point for engagement. [14]

 Google keeps people inspired.

 Supports flexibility.
 Promotes diversity.
 They listen, respond and adapt.
 Encourage development
 Create a culture of togetherness
 Offers unique benefits

6.1.4.1 Inspiring employees

Like Maslow noted employees wants growth and to climb up the ranks. [5] Employees need goals
which is achievable, yet challenging and a sustainable workload. [5] Google solve this with their 20%
time, where employees gets time to spend on something their passionate about during work time.[14]

6.1.4.2 Encourage development

To encourage professional development Google uses CareerGuru which give employees the chance to
learn from company leaders where they explain in detail the different roles to work within the
company.[14] This motivates employees to get education and experience if they want to progress
further in the company. Some of the factors that Kaye and Jordan identified. [5]

6.1.4.3 Culture of togetherness

Employees want insurance that they will receive support and assistance from the company. [5]
Psychological safety is also important for employees. [5] Google had a project called Aristotle’s and
Charles Duhigg wrote a summary about it for The New York Times. The project showed Google that
every employee wants to be completely ready for work by feeling psychologically safe and they want
to be free enough to share thing they are afraid of sharing because there might be accusations coming
their way.[14]

6.1.5 Working harder.

All of the motivating factors that Benkhoff research is used at Google to motivate their employees. [6]
An interview was done by Sannita Chakraborty with Sharad Goyal which is the head of People
Operations-Sales at Google in 2013. [15] Google do not employ anyone and has a discrete selecting
process. [6] According to Sharad, the way that Google identify their employees is intense and deep-
rooted and a little unusual. [15] Benkhoff wrote that an employee’s personal characteristics will have
an effect on their work effort. [6] Google is not only interested in a candidates skill for the job, but
they also test the employees life skills, particularly innovation and imagination. [15] Regular feedback
to employees is necessary to increase their effort and to build trust writes Benkhoff. [6] Google has a
variety of recognition and reward programs says Sharad, with one of the most noteworthy ways they
show appreciation for their employees are non-monetary. [15] Benkoff wrote that employees needs

12
diversity and challenges in their work. [6] Sharad says that Google creates a culture of free thinking
and experimentation by making employees feel empowered to give their opinions and make big
decisions. [15] Google allows employees to experiment and come up with their own ideas. [15]
Positive work character is one of Benkoff’s factors. [6] Google has a focus to create a work culture that
will actually motivate their employees to perform better and have a great time at work says Sharad.
[15]

6.1.6 Motivating with KITA

The Two Factor Theory of Frederick Herzberg shows that people are influenced by hygiene and
motivation factors. [7] Hygiene factors is factors that are needed to ensure that employees does not
lead to dissatisfaction. [7] The motivation factors will lead employees to better performance. [7]
Google applies The Two Factor Theory of Frederick to ensure that their employees appreciate the
working environment.[16] Googles Inc provides benefits that has become the best in the world. [16]
Some benefits that employees see as necessity.[7] They are also improving work condition by applying
happiness and fun at the work place. [16] Google has achieved some advantages using Frederick
theory. [16]

 Their employees has become more efficient and creative, because of their great working
environment. [16] Principals of job enrichment
 With this special working environment that Google has created it has prevented employees
to resign. [16] Thus Google retain their staff.
 Google spend a lot of time and money on their employees to improve their knowledge and
keeping their employees, keeps the knowledge in the company. [16]

The Two Factor Theory has also disadvantages to Google as Google waste a lot of money improving
their facility and setting it up for a better work environment while this cannot ensure that their
employees will work more efficiently. [16] Google has a lot of relaxing departments and this can be
seen as a distraction that can lead to employees not finishing their work. [16]

6.1.7 Trends in Motivating Staff

A few factors to motivate employees according to Wzkatek-Staśko is the work environment, employee
independence, and development opportunities. [8] These factors can be seen in the Google Company.
Google creates a remarkable working environment, they show a lot of value to their employees, as
their employees are given a significant voice. [17] On a regular basis employees are surveyed about
their managers. [17] The goal of this survey is to acknowledge the best managers and to use them as
role models and teachers while the managers with the worst survey feedback are provided with vital
support and training which will help them. [17] Employees want to do work where they control the
decision making and that brings joy and satisfaction. [8] Google believe that by giving their employees
freedom the company gets great results, thus giving employees more control over their work life and
giving them joy and satisfaction. [17] Employees wants their superiors to be approachable as well as
their co-workers. [8] Google view their employees as their biggest assets and share everything that
can be shared with their employees. [17] Google’s Executive Chairman share with all the employees
the information that the company shared with their Board of Directors. [17] One of the higher ranked
motivating factors is decision making opportunities. [8] Google try and make sure that their employees
have inspiring work and instead of top management coaching employees on the protocol for tasks
they can do the tasks in their own ways. [17]

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6.1.8 Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to improve professional skills.
Google provide their employees with food, but the employees looks beyond the food and with this
the company allows their employees to create a relationship with their colleagues while they enjoy
food. [18] This gives a chance for employees to learn from other employees as the people at Google
are amazing and great thinkers. [18] Working with people that has those characteristics allows
employees to be challenged at work. [18] M. Piotrowska wrote about three extrinsic motivations by
introjection, identification and integration. [9] With the environment that Google has created with
restaurants at work their employees gets all three of the motivation described by M. Piotowska. At
Google thee employees are allowed to use Google products that has not yet been released to the
public in order for the employees to give feedback that might improve the product and they are
helping to shape the technology of the future.[18] Google encourage their employees to continuously
learn. [18] Employees are allowed to listen and watch or to be part of talks and presentations on
different topics. [18] This will allow employees to learn from the top people within their fields as the
speakers in the presentations can be people that Google has invited or comes from Google. [18]
Employees will also be able to get extrinsic motivation in the form of identification. [9]

7 Conclusion
Google has won the “Best company to work for” award multiple times. In the case study we can see
the reason why they have won it so many times. Their employees are truly happy and Google does a
great job to keep their employees motivated and the company has reaped the rewards from it. From
the case study it is noticed that the work environment that Google creates, is arguably the biggest
motivating factor for the company. Who would not feel motivated to work with such an amazing work
atmosphere around you? Google covers all the motivating factors from a great work culture between
employees and their superiors, listening to their employees needs and act on it accordingly,
encouraging their employees to always better themselves, giving them opportunities to make their
own decisions, great communication between employees and superiors, employees are in control of
their work life and with benefits that goes beyond basics and even way beyond basics they tick all the
boxes of motivating factors. With all the programs that Google have in the company to increase their
employee participation and getting the most out of them to keep them learning, challenged and
motivated they can send employees to their other branches in other countries to share their
knowledge while they can also learn something. [1] Google does encourage their employees to feel
free to contact their superiors, but the company can have a motivational talk each month between
the employee and employer.[1] The company can keep track of every employee and the classes or
programs that they participate in for instance if that employee has behaviour issues that will affect his
work performance he can be part of a program that will help him and Google can monitor his progress
and give him rewards for attending sessions actively. [1] With the SIY program the company can
encourage employees to confess their problems with co-workers and in that way the company can
help employees to control their emotions. Going further from their the company can set up
counselling sessions and have one on one talks with employees to release stress which will have an
effect on their work performance.[1] There’s not a lot of recommendations a person can give to a
company that has won awards like “Best company to work for” multiple times. Google has thought of
everything for their employees to keep the happy and motivated. Doing this research about Google
made me want me to work for Google.

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8 Reference
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