Motivation is the force that initiates, directs and makes people persist in their efforts to reach goals, it is also called as a driving force. Motivation is important as how much effort employee put into their jobs depend on how motivated they are (Williams & McWilliams, 2010). Google Inc is an American multinational corporation specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include searching, cloud computing, software and online advertisement technologies.(Google, 2009)
Google Inc motivate their employees by their unique culture, rewards, and perks. Google Inc. have structured their leadership to provide the best environment to motivate their employees with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. (Google, 2009) Google,Inc provides a lot of services and areas for their employees to enjoy while on their breaks(Google, 2009). For example, there are numerous snack rooms, cafes, gyms and even a 24 hour doughnut shop for free, this makes employees feel happy while they are working for Google. They work harder when they feel happy. Other than that, Further training and education is also a motivation for employees who want to develop and learn new skills. More than that, Google provides different fringe benefits to different employees depend on their specific needs. For example, Google,Inc provides their employees financial assistance in the adoption of a child for employees who plan to adopt child.These intrinsic reward is a good motivator to motivate employees according to McClelland’s Learned Needs as employees will be motivated when they feel belongingness to the company..
“Work should be challenging, and the challenge should be fun.” said Google, Inc.’s CEO, Erin Schmitt (Google, 2009). Google Inc provides challenging goals for their employees ,it helps employees to feel fun that comes from doing an interesting , challenging and engaging task and it makes employees to put in more effort. Other than that, they have chance to learn something new therefore it will motivate them to work. When they reach the challenging goal, they will feel fulfill and self actualization which is the highest need of Maslow’s Hierarchy. Challenging work is a good motivator for Instrinsically motivated behaviors employees, which are performed out of interest and satisfy their psychological needs for competence and autonomy are the prototype of self-determined behavior. (Ryan, Deci 2000).
Although intrinsic motivation is clearly an important type of motivation, but there are some extrinsically motivated behaviors as well, therefore Google also pay good salaries to their employees, Google had $209,624 in profit per employee in 2008, which beat all the other large tech companies as they believe people are the best investment (Datamonitor, 2009). This is extrinsic reward Google use to motivate their employees as money is the best motivator to extrinsically motivated behaviors employees.
Other than that, Google does not have a formal hierarchical system in place which mean all employees are positioned at the same level, it will help to encourage for better teamwork as they are more likely to give their opinions and contribute. According to Equity theory, employees will be motivated when they feel that they are being treated fairly.
Google provides both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards as they understand that humans are not motivated by pay incentives alone(Google, 2009). Google Inc. believes good motivation to employees and good company culture is the key to make company success. Google provides everything for what employees are looking for in organizations to motivate their employees.
Reference List
Richard M.Ryan,Edward L.Deci. (2000). Instrinsic and Extrinsic motivation :Classic Definitions and new directions (Volume 25, Issue1) Pages54-67
Google. (2009). Google Benefits. Retrieved May 21, 2011, from
http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/static.py?page=benefits
Google Benefits. (2009). Retrieved November 4, 2009, http://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/benefits/
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