Who is the better employer - Facebook or Google?
A critical way that companies compete is through employee engagement - ensuring that employees feel valued through great benefits, reward and recognition schemes and building the right culture and environment. As Richard Branson put it so well, “train your people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t.”
So let’s take a look inside Facebook and Google, regularly named among the best companies to work for by Business Insider and Glass Door, to see what efforts their human resources teams go to in keeping their employees engaged and valued.
Google: Culture and pride
Google’s campuses are designed to encourage conversations. From their pub-style lounge in Dublin, bringing the outdoors inside with ‘a walk in the park’ in London, to their rock climbing tech talk room in Colorado, and bowling alley in California, their work spaces have been described as more of an adult playground.
Google believes that great, creative things are more likely to happen with the right company culture – and that doesn't just mean the free organic gourmet meals, haircuts, dry cleaning and great maternity benefits that it has become known for. There is also an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments that contribute to their overall success.
Facebook: Fun, food and freezing
At Facebook, they are known too for their motivating work space – not only because of the classic video arcade, bikes to ride around campus, and free computer accessory vending machines, but also because of initiatives like encouraging employees to write messages to one another on massive chalkboard walls, and the restaurants which are so good that new employees gain the ‘Facebook 15’ if they’re not careful.
Facebook is also known to be particularly considerate of expecting mums and dads. The company gives four months’ paid maternity and paternity leave – ‘a really big competitive advantage’ according to Facebook's Steve Hatch in a recent interview in The Drum.
Facebook also reimburses day-care and adoption fees, and gives a monetary gift for the new baby. For those wishing to delay having children, Facebook was among the first companies to offer financial support for egg freezing.
Both Facebook and Google clearly place great emphasis on keeping their employees engaged, energised, and feeling appreciated.
Whether you are Facebook or Google is actually irrelevant. What is relevant is whether you as a human resources director are addressing this major challenge. Are you creating the right environment, the right benefits package, the right rewards, recognition and culture? Do your employees feel valued and will they stay with you for the long-term? This is the challenge that we all need to rise to.
Jacqueline Benjamin is co-founder and managing director of Xexec. View her LinkedIn profile here.
In partnership with Xexec
Xexec is the UK's leading Reward and Recognition and Employee Benefits provider.
