Are Google’s Employee’s Disloyal?

Google has topped Fortune Magazine’s list of best companies since 2007. It’s not surprising when they offer their employees 5 months paid maternity leave, an incredible health insurance plan, available gourmet food all day free of charge, accessible gyms and crèche’s within the work place, the allowance to work on your own projects 20% of the time and even go as far as offering death benefits. So with all these outstanding offerings, why is the turnaround at Google so short?

Despite the short turnaround, 84% of Google’s work force has a high job satisfaction level. This is one of the highest results in the Fortune 500. The growth of employees within Google has massively increased since 2007. The workforce has more than doubled from 9,500 to 28,500 worldwide. Employees at Google have a median age of 29, meaning they have relatively low tenure.

Google has been renowned for its strict testing of employee’s on entry. Potential future employees are asked questions such as ‘You have a school bus, how many golf balls do you think you can fit in there?’

 “ "It is a hot job market," says Bardaro. Tech companies overall have some of the highest median salaries in the Fortune 500, and some of the lowest employee tenures. Yahoo!, like Google, pays its average employee $107,000, compared to ExxonMobil's $97,700, yet the median employee tenure is 2.4 years at Yahoo! and 6.5 years at ExxonMobil, according to PayScale.” - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-29/why-are-google-employees-so-disloyal-.html

In a more recent survey of companies who have the highest rates in employee turnover, California’s Mountain View is one of the leaders. According to PayScale, the average tenure for Google’s employees is just over a year. Google had no comments on this data.

The older Tech firms have a much longer employee tenure despite the fact their employees are almost as young as Google’s. Intel and Microsoft employee age averages around 33 and the average tenure for both companies in between 4-4.3 years. They offer the same high salary as Google and Yahoo! along with the same incredible perks, but somehow manage to keep hold of their employees for much longer.

 Despite the low tenure of their employee’s, the company’s impressive performance shows that these employees have not been a waste of money or time for the tech giant.

The PayScale report shows that the Fortune 500 Company that has the highest employee tenure, being 20 years, is Eastman Kodak. Over half of their employees are in their 50’s or older.

“Over the five years through 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, it delivered an average return on assets of negative 12 percent.” - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-29/why-are-google-employees-so-disloyal-.html

If a company like Google struggles to keep hold of its employees, even with all the generous benefits and high pay, what can we do as smaller business to gain loyalty from our employees?

Information sourced from- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-29/why-are-google-employees-so-disloyal-.html