Karan Nakra's Official Blog

Now here comes the big question of despite having so many perks why the employees quit? During our analysis and research we actually went to a lot of Internet search and blogs that talked about working at Google and to our surprise we saw that no other company has dedicated blogs or sites which said not to work there other than Google eg ‘no2google.wordpress.com’developed and managed by ex-Googlers.
To our surprise Google was everywhere compared with Microsoft and people said they were happy working for MS and one more fact was revelaed that a lot of people have worked with both of them, either they started with MS then switched to Google or vice versa.
Still what we found that MS was more positive in terms of reviews now we know we are challenging the Workplace of the Year choosen by Forbes but that’s what we found during our research.
Now the reasons behind the finding were:
1. Not keeping promises: We found that Google did not keep the promises it made hugely popular. The perks recieved were not as per the standards. Only the office infrastructure was the actual USP and that too not for all.
Here’s a statement we found to support it:
‘I was hired to work in Google’s Singapore office. I found out very
quickly that Google International is not the same as Google-US. The
offered pay was way too low to survive in Singapore, so I left after I
got another job offer that I felt was better for me. I really do
believe that Google is doing some important work with humanitarian
mapping projects and digitizing libraries. But for me, I felt that
Google’s popular image did not match its actions in the work place,
and that some of the things they did were not very “Googly.”’
2. 20% is your benefit and your responsibility : One of the most popular 20% time of Googlers for their personal project is a different reality altogether. Here’s the statement supporting it.
‘In other words, it’s your job to carve out 20% of your work week for a project. If you don’t carve out the time, you don’t get it. Your project needs to be tacitly approved by your manager. Whatever it is, is owned by Google. If you’re organized, you can “save up” your 20% and use it all at once. It’s not unheard of for people to have months and months of “20% time” saved up.’
3. No privacy: The Googleplex which boosts about its colourful lava lamps and ambience actually bugs a lot of people when it comes to their privacy issues and comfort to work. Although we agree it’s a breakthrough décor of the Googleplex but for techies its kinda too much disruptive as they require a lot more attention and precision to work with. The not so organized structure bugs some of them .
‘Google believes that developers are, with few exceptions, interchangeable parts. This philosophy shows through in their office arrangements which in Mountain View are all over the map. There are glass-walled offices, there are open-space areas, there are cubicles, there are people who’s desks are literally in hallways because there’s no room anywhere else. There are even buildings that experiment with no pre-defined workspaces or workstations – cogs (err, people?) just take one of the available machines and desks when they get to work.

In terms of employees per square-foot, every Microsoft Building 9-sized office is a triple at Google. Google doesn’t seem to think that private offices are valuable for technical staff. They’re wrong.’

4. Low Payscale: It was found that actually Google is not a paymaster. It only looked as if it payed well but after some research we found that the payscale was only good for freshers and some Top Execs but not for Middle Level Managers and Techies. The only thing they did were to provide a nicely crafted titles for employees that sounded good and different to pump in some pride in employees.
‘It took two months(lesser than others I guess) for my hiring process
to complete, and I made it clear that I had an offer from IBM in hand
which was paying me good … but I was offered the same salary as my
previous employer … which always kept me de-motivated throughout my
tenure. I joined the job due to company’s name and reputation as well
as I had the option to work in day shifts.’
5. Too much pressure on Employees: Google employees says that there to much pressure on them to be innovative and creative all the time and they say that Managers feel that all individuals should be equal in their competency and innovation without respecting their individual capability in consideration,
‘There was no proper mentoring for 6 months and within 9 months of my
tenure my manager was not happy with my performance, and mgmt always
stressed on “Putting some Extra Effort” - in other words “Spending
some extra hours” … this may not be the case at Google-MV but this
is what it is in India.
If you don’t put extra hours then you won’t get promoted, no promotion
means no salary hike.
I feel sad about my decision on choosing Google over IBM … Small
pay, No work, No Team spirit, No Hike in 12 months, No balance between
Family Life and work are few things which motivated my move out. I am
still jobless after 5 moths of leaving Google, but I am happy with my
decision(I feel like it is better be jobless than work for google as a
Field Tech).’
6. Too much informal culture: The ex googlers feels that the culture is only suited for Freshman and is too much casual which actually bugs people with Work Experience. Actually we found that all thius is because of the perks provided to the employees that actually make them stay at Googleplex for longer than required . Freshman kinda like it as they can lay on couches and surf net for free and have 3 meals a day. It all discourages them to go back home and they develop a habit to stay at the office unnecessarily which is not a good culture to promote.
‘College kids tend to like it because it’s just like college – all of their basic needs are taken care of. In fact, even most of your personal-life can get tied up in Google benefits. Google provides free or subsidized broadband to every employee. Google runs its own, private, bus lines in the Bay Area for employees. Google provides free or subsidized mobile phones. A college kid can literally join Google and, like they did as freshman at university, let Google take care of everything. Of course, if Google handles everything for you, it’s hard to think about leaving because of all the “stuff” you’ll need to transition and then manage for yourself.’
‘I think a lot of people
spent quite a bit of time either just before or just after dinner
hanging out and not really being all that productive, which is nice
for the mostly 20-something crowd, but I can sympathize with the
people who have families that didn’t fit in. I had my own reasons for
not wanting to hang out at work, so I never really got that far into
the Google social scene. And my experience was that the people who
spent all their time at Google were the ones that ended up on the
sexier projects or in charge of things. ’
7. Overqualified Employees: Now heres what this company always boosted about having quiet a qualified employee but in their perspective they were overqualified for the job they were doing. Now this always leaves a reason for them to quit.
‘There’s a huge
discrepancy between engineers and non-engineers. Most of the adwords
support people I talked to complained a lot about their situation.
Not only were they generally overqualified for the jobs (given what
the work actually was, but Google has always prided itself on having
people with extra education) but they could fairly easily have gotten
higher-paying jobs elsewhere. The usual reason for sticking around
that I heard was that after a few years at Google, their resume would
look a lot better on the job market.’