Google Searches for Ways to Keep Its Culture Strong

As an employer, Google enjoys the advantage of being widely considered a great place to work. The company carefully screens job applicants to select people who are extremely intelligent but also humble about what they don't know. It gives them big problems to solve and a significant mission: providing Google's users with access to information, which is potentially the world's most valuable resource. Google employees are excited about interacting with smart coworkers and collaborating on difficult, significant projects. They are encouraged to think like entrepreneurs, which entails taking thoughtful risks to build the business.

Employees also are expected to follow a code of conduct that includes participating in a "supportive work environment, where employees have the opportunity to reach their fullest potential." This includes employment decisions based on merit and skills. It also means creating a workplace where people can thrive free of harassment, bullying, and any level of violence.

And employees who meet the requirements of the company's Dog

The values that Google advocates are consistent with being an innovative, high$-$performing company. Google employees are expected to constantly learn and improve. One way they do this is by communicating: asking questions, arguing viewpoints, and challenging ideas. Google enables this by inviting employees to provide questions for executives to answer at weekly meetings. Employees also can set up internal online discussion groups on topics of their choice. Topics can be as whimsical as juggling, but employees also sign up for groups like Activists at Google $($who organized a rally protesting policies of President Trump$)$ and Militia at Google $($who have advocated for permitting employees to bring guns to work$).$

At best, Google's values contribute to a stimulating environment much like a university at which students engage in passionate debates. Google has investigated the factors associated with its teams' performance and found that "psychological safety" is important for employee retention, creative decisionmaking, and effective team performance.

But this ideal is realized only when employees' freewheeling self$-$expression is grounded in mutual respect. In its early years, the company was smaller, and coworkers debated with people they knew well and worked with on shared projects and goals. As the company has grown to more than $100,000$ employees, discussions are more often deteriorating into the kinds of name$-$calling, ridicule, and intimidation that take place in the wider world of social media.

As unwelcome opinions, rumors, and hostile comments circulate, employees are complaining, and Google's managers are used to giving employees wide latitude$-$are struggling to police the behavior. For example, a white male engineer shared a memo saying the company's efforts to promote diversity ignore that men are better suited than women to some high$-$tech jobs. Other employees complained that his view created a hostile work environment for women. The employee was relieved of his employment and later sued on the grounds that the company was discriminating against conservative white men. At the same time, some female employees observed pay data and filed a suit alleging pay discrimination. Yet another lawsuit by a male engineer says he was fired