Google testing HR algorithm
Google wants to make sure more key employees stick around at its Mountain View, Calif., campus.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Google thinks it will be able to tell which of its employees are going to quit, maybe even before they know.
The company revealed Tuesday that it is using its fabled data-collection and analysis powers for more than just search results. The Wall Street Journal reported that Google has developed an algorithm for assessing the number of employees likely to turn their back on the free lunches and multicolored walls of Google's Mountain View, Calif., campus in hopes of convincing the best of those folks to stay.
A few years ago, Silicon Valley workers were flocking to Google, and the company was hiring like mad. The world has changed, however, and Google is no longer automatically seen as the best place for a budding young coder or entrepreneur to hone their talents--especially as the stock price has declined since its late 2007 heights.
As a result, Google has seen recent defections to companies du jour such as Twitter and Facebook, and is determined to retain its best people, according to a company representative quoted by the Journal. The algorithm is still in testing (insert joke about Google's beta culture here), but the idea seems to be to identify disengaged employees before they lose interest in staying with Google.
It's almost like a kinder, gentler version of the "forced ranking" Six Sigma program that encouraged companies to regularly fire the bottom 10 percent of their employees to get rid of the malcontents. Google's not going down that road, but nor is it shy about using quantitative analysis to categorize its workforce.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
Apparently, google is going to remove the H in HR. They are now going to outsource HR to an algorithm. That sounds really sexy...
What a nice work place this must be.
What's next? Instead of having a yearly evaluation meeting with your manager, you will answer a 50-question form on a computer to have your answers crunched to give you a "score" and then a "ranking"?
Why don't they simply engage in human management? Get your managers to know their people, talk to your employees!
I'm so glad I don't work there.
Sure there might always be a weakest link, but that doesn?t mean there?s a stronger link available anywhere that could actually replace it, or even that it needs replacing if the entire chain is functioning well..
It's amazing the amount of dissent, CYA behaviors, goal-gaming, backstabbing, self-promotion, ass-kissing, and other detrimental behaviors these kinds of policies foster.. Just talk with anyone who faces the prospect of being stack ranked against co-workers. Especially if it's a company that in theory is only hiring the top 5% of applicants, but then turns around and says 'every year we're going to rank 30% of these folks as underperforming, and another 10% as disposable" just how stupid is that?
better stop before I really start ranting
It is all about money and personal relationships. Over the past 38 years I have had over 30 managers at seven companies and nine contract positions. The time spans have been 13 years, nine years, six years, various others, and with the shortest being two weeks. The fields have been in aerospace automatic test equipment, software engineering, plumbing, public transit, and longer than needed vacations. One thing in common to every employer was that no matter how they described their great ideals, impartiality, fairness, objectivity, and so on, it always got down to the very simple matter of whether the company had enough money to pay you and whether your boss liked you.
When the company is short on money, nothing else matters. You are out the door.
When the company has lots of money and can hire anyone, they do. After awhile the boss develops preferences. When it comes time to shrink, the picking and choosing has little to do with how smart, productive, or inovative you are. You need the boss to like you.
Google is simply dodging the responsibility and trying to relegate tough choices to an algorithm. It only works in selective cases and then only if the boss likes you. Looks like the latest HR trend of the day.
Life is analog, algorithms are not.
Get your elevator speech in order, you may need it. It is also useful when you don't need it.
Be nice to the people you meet on the way up, you may meet them again on the way down.
If the job is not fun, make it fun. If you can't make it fun, get a different job.
I am married to my wife, not my job. Jobs come and go, family is forever.
Always be prepared.
One of the best damn posts I've ever read on CNet.
Thanks for that! We all need it!
- Bill
- by mista77 May 19, 2009 4:59 PM PDT
- @Been_there_and_saw_it:
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(9 Comments)Couldn't have said it better myself. If you can't make it fun and interesting, then move on.
All though, this may lead to a strange future where the boss is a computer and we are evaluated on factors not yet seen or determined in today's tech world.......