Google ?s Employees

Google announced a 10% pay raise supposedly starting in January to all of its employees and then a source promptly leaked the memo to the press. The culprit was fired and Google declined to comment calling it “personal”. In a prepared statement a spokesman for Google said."While we don't typically comment on internal matters, we do believe that competitive compensation plans are important to the future of the company."

Recently Google has had a large turnover of innovative employees including the loss of YouTube co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley, AdMob co-founder Omar Hamoui, and Google Maps and Wave creator Lars Rasmussen. Upon leaving Rasmussen cited the company’s size as an obstacle to productivity. He’s headed to Facebook where the staff numbers around 2,000 whereas Google employs approximately 25,000 workers.

Because of their numbers Google feels a responsibility to their employee. Sometimes that means taking the cautious route of long approvals and layers of sign off. This process can leave products in beta testing loops which is frustrating to developers who want to push forward. Google is telling their workers they hear their concerns and appreciate the assets that they bring to work every day.

While some employees are out of there, others on their way in. A large number of new talent was acquired recently with Microsoft, IBM, or Yahoo as previous employers on their resumes. Referring to the competitive companies in Silicon Valley analyst Joel Achramowicz of Blaylock Robert Van says, "In the Valley, that's always been part of the drill. Everyone's losing people to everyone. It's part of the cross-fertilization that occurs."

Google is also in the habit of picking up start ups and is known to invest in forward thinking projects like robot cars. In the past month alone SocialDeck, a mobile social gaming company; Angstro, a social networking search application; Like.com, a social fashion store; Jambool, a social gaming virtual currency; and Slide, a social game maker have been acquired. Analysts aren’t sure if Google is as interested in the products their new purchases offer or if it’s all about the people that developed them.

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By Heather Fairchild - Heather is a multimedia developer, business owner and work-from-home mom.