Google tries to get inside their employees’ heads but I Love Rewards has a solution

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Google tries to get inside their employees’ heads

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

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In recent months, Google has lost a number of key executives, prompting the search giant to develop an algorithm that predicts which of its 20,000 employees are most likely to leave.

Laszlo Bock, the VP of People Operations for Google said that the algorithm helps the company, “get inside people’s heads even before they know they might leave.” This has stirred up a lot of talk and media attention about how Google is handling their brain drain problem.

Why does Google have a brain drain problem?
A May 19th Wall Street Journal story found that current and former employees believe Google is losing key people because they don’t feel they are making an impact. The problem is a lack of engagement and alignment.

Is math the answer?
Once Google has identified those who are ready to walk out the door, what are they doing to keep them? Here’s an even better question: what are they doing with the data to prevent employee disengagement?

Valerie Frederickson, CEO of Valerie Frederickson & Company, a leading HR consulting firm based in Silicon Valley argues, “Data around why employees disengage is like data around why there’s a recession: maybe it’s interesting, maybe you can use it to beat yourself up, but it’s still looking backward and doesn’t help solve the brain drain so many employers will face this year.”

Collecting and analyzing data is a starting point, but by no means is it the desired outcome. People who have “checked out” or are otherwise disengaged in their work are the last people companies like Google should be concerned about retaining.

What companies should be concerned with is keeping their top performers and figuring out how to keep them engaged. Employers need to take a positive, proactive approach that uses data to identify their A Players and then put the right motivators in place to align, recognize and reward them. Their increased productivity and morale is crucial to the company’s ability to compete, something Google is worried their brain drain will put in jeopardy – “[Google] had turned to mathematical formulas because it was “concerned a brain drain could hurt its long-term ability to compete.” , reports the Canwest News Service.