Workforce Incentives at IT companies : the Google’s Case

Abstract

Organizations may have much to gain in attracting and retaining IT professionals than can help to reduce costs and improve the productivity of the business. That is even more crucial for IT companies that rely upon talented IT professionals to add value in their core business processes and not just to support them. Thus we need to better understand what motivates and keeps satisfied an IT workforce. As a successful IT company, Google may be a good example to look at adequate incentive policies for IT professionals. Using a netnographic approach, this study examined a blog discussion with the participation of past and present Google employees. The collected data was analyzed under a total rewards model, a framework from WorldatWork to encompass a diversity of topics in building a reward strategy. One of those topics, work-life, was significantly discussed showing that Google´s incentive policies take into consideration work-life sub-topics such as health and wellness, cultural environment, community involvement and work flexibility to attract and retain IT professionals. Adding to the sub-topics already proposed in the framework, some new ones popped out still under the work-life topic: equipment and technology, administrative efficiency and workplace stability. Although compensation and benefits are certainly incentives to not be disregarded, it seems there may be something else also important as work-life incentives to attract and retain an IT motivated workforce, specially, at an IT company.