Okay so today was interesting and I learned even more about the history of Dublin which I didn’t think was possible after going on two pretty long tours. In the morning, we met with Dr. Kelly at the Docklands and learned about the history of education in Ireland. He explained that students didn’t have access to many opportunities, such as college, and if you were lucky enough to go to one of the few universities, you most likely scored perfect grades (if that was the case in the US, consider me a dropout).
Learning this, it made me reflect on old vs new business models. In the past, face to face interaction was the only way to do business and hard skills, such as grades, mattered a lot more. Now, we open up to a more virtual world which gives us more opportunities to stay connected with our colleagues. The new world of business also allows for more customization for each worker, allowing employees to basically pick their environment, clothing, etc… This will be important as we discuss our next stop: Google.
Google was our first official site visit on the trip, the HQ was composed of nine buildings with a total of 8000 employees, so it was huge. To my surprise, 70% of employees at Google were focused on sales and marketing, much more than I thought for a tech company. Within the Google buildings were multiple restaurants and cafes, a bank, a gym, a playground, a swimming pool, a dentist, a hair salon, and many more spaces where employees have full creative freedom. Our tour guides spoke a lot about employee-lead classes such as yoga or robotics, the free food that comes along with being a ‘Googler,’ and early access to tech advances.
All of this sounds great: free food, extra classes, early access to beta tech advancements, and the facilities on site… but it is not the place for me. It is good to give your employees benefits to make work a comfortable environment, but the extent Google went is too far. Encouraging free thinking and having activities aside from work is great, but could also be a distraction from the actual work that needs to be done. In my opinion work should be an environment that is professional above all, you can play on a playground or go swimming after work.
This also brings me to the topic of work-life balance. Having these amenities make the line between work and life blurred, almost encouraging employees to stay in the office longer than need be which is not work-life balance. Having everything someone needs centralized around work can also inhibit people from having a life outside of work. In my future, I want a live outside of the office. Not only for social reasons, but to build my network. If I worked at a place like Google, and took full advantage of the on-site benefits, I would mainly be interacting with my colleagues. This is unfavorable to me because I would like a diverse and expansive network of people with different experiences, professions, and expand my horizon to other opportunities (plus I might get sick of them and get annoyed).
Overall, today was great. Dr. Kelly was insightful, the site visit was awesome, and the Google buildings were phenomenal. But, I think I will stick to my hair lady back home instead of getting it done where I work.
See ya!
PS: I wish we got to keep the personalized Google guest pass and the little clip.