Imagine being at all-company meetings where trays of hors d’oeuvres and drinks are being served, but you and the others who aren’t wearing white badges are asked to return to your desks. That has been the experience of some contractors at Google.
There aren’t just a few contractors at Google these days. In early 2018, there were more contractors than regular employees (and there were more than 89,000 regular employees).58 Google spokespeople have said that they hire contractors when the company needs to fill temporary positions that arise due to events like upswings in workload or paternity leave. Contractor hiring also can be done when there is a need for a certain specialty within the company. Former Google hiring managers explain that hiring expensive engineers in fields like artificial intelligence can sometimes cost as much as $1 million per year, so contractors offer a way to bring the budget back in line.
Contractors can be hired quickly—within days—whereas it can take months to hire regular employees at Google.
There are advantages to being a contractor at Google. Even though they are asked to list their association with Google as being a contractor on LinkedIn, just mentioning Google can open doors. Chris Szymczak, a former Google contractor, had several Google coworkers serve as references. “They were just immensely supportive ... the gig was a real springboard for me.”
Life as a contractor has its negatives. “People look down on you even though you’re doing the same work,” said one former Google contractor. “You’re there, but you’re not there.” Your work assignment can end without notice; asking contractors to hand in their laptop the next day could happen. Google views contractors’ pay, benefits, and grievances to be the hiring agencies’ issues. That means, for example, that experiencing verbal harassment at work is the hiring company’s concern rather than Google’s. There are contractor janitors at Google who make just over half of what is considered to be a “low income” level of pay in the county where Google’s headquarters is located. Benefits tend be less than competitive, such as was the case for a former Google contractor who was paying $600 per month for health insurance.
A group of regular employees at Google met with the company’s senior leadership recently to complain about several issues—including concerns about contractors.
Yana Calou, an organizer with Coworker.org, said that many Google employees believe the experiences of contractors could be better. Calou said contractors “feel isolated, precarious, and like second-class citizens.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
11-1. What are the advantages of contractor workers for a) Google and b) the workers themselves?
11-2. What are the most important problems that you see with being a contractor?
11-3. How do you think the contractor hiring arrangement could be improved to realize effective outcomes for both contractors and Google?

11-4. Do you think the experiences of contractors and regular employees would have a better chance of being more similar to one another in a mechanistic or organic organizational structure? Explain the reasons for your answer.