Are Google employees more productive because of company perks? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#31

Post by muzz » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 11:42 PM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #28

I don't work at Google, but I think their productivity comes from not wasting time. I had some interactions over the years so here is what I have noticed (might not be true, might not be all, might depend on the teams I interacted with). There seems to be a lot of effort to remove day to day time wasters in small things. Then, if you think about it, having subpar teammates is also a waste of time. They are not only w…

I was surprised at how much time _is_ wasted. Lunch is free of cost, but because there are long lines at times it can take easily 15 minutes of wait time, and that doesn't even count time spent going to a cafe in a farther building, rounding up coworkers to go with, etc.

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#32

Post by lmilcin » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 11:49 PM UTC

muzz wrote: post #31

lmilcin wrote: post #28

I don't work at Google, but I think their productivity comes from not wasting time. I had some interactions over the years so here is what I have noticed (might not be true, might not be all, might depend on the teams I interacted with). There seems to be a lot of effort to remove day to day time wasters in small things. Then, if you think about it, having subpar teammates is also a waste of time. They are not only w…

I was surprised at how much time _is_ wasted. Lunch is free of cost, but because there are long lines at times it can take easily 15 minutes of wait time, and that doesn't even count time spent going to a cafe in a farther building, rounding up coworkers to go with, etc.

Time is wasted when a team works for years on something that ultimately is not bringing value to the company because the vision was not clear or execution was pitiful. Time is wasted when everybody repeats same thing without enough benefit. Time is wasted when you are working on a project while you could do something else with better return for the company.

That 15 minutes in line? Well, you probably had to stand up and socialize anyway...

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#33

Post by draw_down » Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 11:52 PM UTC

My company has lots of these kind of perks... as well as a thousand people packed into an overstuffed office. (Open-plan, naturally.) There are two toilets in each bathroom.

I'd get rid of the snacks and so forth in a heartbeat if I could just use the restroom easily, without searching to find the one that isn't full or being cleaned. I need to go to the bathroom sometimes! And I don't need PopChips or whatever!

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#34

Post by Daishiman » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 12:06 AM UTC

lainga wrote: post #25

eitally wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you have no idea that you wouldn't be able to continue with your 40hrs and some days remote if you had a job at Google. There are lots of people who have a positive work/life balance at Google. Some take advantage of some perks, some others, and some don't use very many at all, but the fact is that there are many perks available catering to a huge spectrum of desires, whether that means fitness, food, social, cul…

Do people who work 40 hours a week get promoted?

Working long hours has zero to do with getting promoted.

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#35

Post by fzeroracer » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #28

I don't work at Google, but I think their productivity comes from not wasting time. I had some interactions over the years so here is what I have noticed (might not be true, might not be all, might depend on the teams I interacted with). There seems to be a lot of effort to remove day to day time wasters in small things. Then, if you think about it, having subpar teammates is also a waste of time. They are not only w…

Having a high IQ is less important than ensuring people can actually work together. Some of the worst people I've worked with were incredibly smart but were absolutely demoralizing to actually be on a team with because of their behavior.

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#36

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 2:54 AM UTC

lainga wrote: post #25

eitally wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you have no idea that you wouldn't be able to continue with your 40hrs and some days remote if you had a job at Google. There are lots of people who have a positive work/life balance at Google. Some take advantage of some perks, some others, and some don't use very many at all, but the fact is that there are many perks available catering to a huge spectrum of desires, whether that means fitness, food, social, cul…

Do people who work 40 hours a week get promoted?

[deleted]

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#37

Post by choxi » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 3:17 AM UTC

Spellman wrote: post #18

choxi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did that come to be a best practice? I like titles with questions because they can frame the scope and objective of the article really well.

In journalism, the argument is as follows: If the answer to the question is "yes," it is a stronger/more authoritative headline to simply assert instead of pose a question. Therefore, any headline that poses a question will result in the answer being "no." It doesn't apply in this case because it's a Quora question and not an editorialized piece of journalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headl…

Interesting, thanks

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#38

Post by ridiculous_fish » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

Xoogler here; this information is circa 2015.

The infamous perks are low-order bits for personal productivity. For example, on-site food is nice, but making it free actually hurts productivity: larger crowds so you spend more time waiting, you are more likely to travel between different cafes just to sample things, etc.

However company-wide these are much more valuable because they improve recruiting and especially retention. Nothing hurts productivity like employee turnover! This is why they are a smart investment for the company.

As for personal productivity, these were the biggest perks:

1. The shuttle. This gave me effectively two additional hours working instead of driving.

2. Fast hardware. I had a 64 GB Mac Pro, plus laptops and dev servers. Sweet!

But there were also "anti-perks" that hurt my productivity:

1. Cramped and ghastly loud open office (building 40). It was difficult to focus.

2. Insufficient physical space. My job required wiring up a lot of PCBs and prototype hardware, but I had the same desk as someone just writing code. I had to "swap" my physical setups.

3. Highly distributed team. Having key team members in Asia meant ~16 hour cycle time for questions, code review, etc. (Plus expect to spend a portion of each meeting fighting with VC.)

However if we take productivity as literally "producing valuable things" and not false metrics like LOC or bug fix count, then IMO these were the highest company-wide productivity killers:

1. Leadership churn, leading to project churn and cancellation. Not the healthy reevaluation of underperforming projects, but rather arbitrary "make a mark" changes associated with new directors/VPs.

2. Performance review over-weighting "creating something new" leading to unnecessary duplication. A Googler who creates a (say) new build system excels the one who adapts an existing build system. This is visible all the way to the product level, e.g. their many chat apps.

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#39

Post by millstone » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 4:13 AM UTC

shanxS wrote: post #24

Does anyone else thinks this question is not well defined? Because, 1. How do you define employee productivity? 2. How do you know that Google employees have more productivity as opposed to other companies? The analysis becomes even more convoluted when "employees" encompasses everyone from engineer to janitor to executive.

"Do Google's incredible perks make employees more productive or just way, way, happier?"

Re: Are Google employees more productive because of company perks?

#40

Post by abhorrence » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

some_account wrote: post #13

nailer wrote: post #3

Not covered in first answer: you could leave at 6, but if you stay till 7 there's a roast dinner. I suspect people who still work at Google are sometimes a little blind to their own behaviour.

Young, brilliant programmers but still totally dependent on the approval of their peers - to the degree that they not only work very late to get food, they stay even longer to avoid someone judging them. I bet they even make excuses before leaving at 8 pm... Its really very sad that smart human beings act like that due purely to social pressure.

I've worked for a company that offered dinner significantly before 8pm. The number of employees actually staying that late, or eating dinner was not particularly high. Primarily it was the people who didn't show up until quite late in the morning, or sometimes not until early afternoon.