In this episode Matt Alder talks to Laszlo Bock SVP of People Operations at Google.
Google’s approach to HR and Recruiting has always been a much discussed topic and Matt was delighted to be able to find out directly how Google has built its incredible success on the back of an innovative approach to talent.
In the interview Laszlo talks about his belief that hiring should the single most important people activity in any organization and dispels some popular misconceptions about how Google recruits. He also share his thoughts on culture, the importance of data and why Google focuses on “People Operations” rather than Human Resources
Link to Laszlo’s book:
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes
Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from Monster Worldwide. Monster has two products that are helping to shape the future of Social Talent Bin by Monster, which enables companies to source the best tech talent from the open web, and Monster Social Job Ads, which extends job advertising reach to target both passive and active candidates on social platforms, including on Twitter.
Matt Alder [00:00:41]:
Hi, and welcome to episode 14 of the Recruiting Future podcast. This week’s guest is Laszlo Bock, head of people operations at Google. Google’s approach to HR and recruiting has always been a much discussed topic in our industry. I was delighted to get the chance to meet Laszlo in person and hear firsthand about Google’s approach to people operations.
Matt Alder [00:01:04]:
Hi, everyone, and welcome to another Recruiting Future podcast interview. Today I’m in Google’s offices in London talking with Laszlo Bock. Hi, Laszlo, how are you?
Laszlo Bock [00:01:14]:
I’m great. Thanks for having me on the show.
Matt Alder [00:01:16]:
My pleasure. So many people will obviously know you, but some people might not. Could you quickly introduce yourself and tell us how you got to do what you do?
Laszlo Bock [00:01:24]:
Yeah. So I lead people operations for Google. Most companies call it human resources. We call it people operations for a bunch of reasons, one of which has to do with all the analytics and science we try to put underneath it. But the way I got here was I kind of have had just about every job under the sun. I worked as a waiter, I worked as a teacher, worked as a lifeguard, was on TV a little bit, worked at a startup, started a nonprofit, and eventually found my way into human resources. A few years after that decision, got hired by Google.
Matt Alder [00:01:54]:
Fantastic. That’s a somewhat unconventional path into hr. So you recently published a book, Work Rules. When I read it, I was surprised by the huge amount of detail you went into about Google’s approach to hiring, to culture, to talent management, and even pay strategy. Why did you write it?
Laszlo Bock [00:02:14]:
Well, the biggest reason I wrote it is because I woke up one day and realized that we spend more time working than we do anything else. Nobody works a 40 hour week anymore. So you spend more time working than you do sleeping, more than with your friends, more than with the people you love the most, which is kind of terrible. And then for most people, work is just a means to an end. It’s not fulfilling, it’s not fun. And I thought that was a shame. And so at Google, we’ve done a bunch of things to kind of move the needle on that. And I came across a lot of other companies in all kinds of different places around the world that have also done things. And I wanted to share that.
Matt Alder [00:02:45]:
Fantastic. You say in the book, this is kind of really interesting to me that hiring is the single most important people activity that any organization should undertake. Why is it so important to Google?
Laszlo Bock [00:02:59]:
The reason it’s the most important thing is because if you’re doing hiring right, then you’re able to hire people who are way better than average. So let’s imagine instead of hiring average people, you can hire 80th or 90th percentile quality people. If you’re doing that right, all the other HR stuff companies do, you kind of don’t need to invest a lot in and you don’t need to invest a lot in management because if you’re hiring exceptional people who are smart and curious and motivated and want to do the right thing, they’ll figure most of this stuff out for you and they’ll reward you, your customers and your company.
Matt Alder [00:03:28]:
Yeah, it’s interesting. I thought it was very interesting when you said that if you spend so much time on hiring, then people are affected from day one because you’ve hired the best people. You also say you spend twice as much money as a percentage of your people budget on hiring than the average company. What’s your approach to hiring in the process and how has it evolved over the years?
Laszlo Bock [00:03:51]:
Well, so our hiring approach used to be we get 2 to 3 million applications a year. We comb through all of those. We have a bunch of recruiters who do this and do great work doing it. And we would focus historically a lot on where you went to school, what your grades were, what your test scores were. Because the idea was we wanted the smartest people we could find. What we since learned was that none of that predicts performance. It’s helpful when you’re just out of college, but after a year or two, doesn’t matter where you went to school, it doesn’t matter what your grades were. So we look beyond that. And what we now look for is four things. General cognitive ability, so smarts and problem solving. Emergent leadership. And I can talk about that if you wish. Yeah, please. Well, so briefly, emergent leadership is so traditional. Leadership is. Were you president of a club? Were you captain of a team? Were you a vice president? Did you get promoted? We don’t care about any of that.
Matt Alder [00:04:34]:
Yeah.
Laszlo Bock [00:04:35]:
What we care about is that when you see a problem, you step in, whether it’s your job or not, to help solve it. And just as importantly, when your role is kind of done, you relinquish power and let somebody else step in and you step out. So we look for that. The third thing is what we call googliness. And simply what that means is kind of cultural fit, but not are you like us? We actually want people to bring something different to the party, something new. We also want intellectual humility and conscientiousness. And then the last and least important thing is expertise. Do you actually know how to do the job? Okay, interesting, because again, going back to. If you’re hiring the right kind of people, bright, curious people, and they meet these other three attributes, they’ll figure the rest out.
Matt Alder [00:05:13]:
Cool. When I was reading the book, I was interesting because there’s so much gets written about Google’s hiring process, mostly by people who have never worked in it or never gone through it. And it’s all about 20 interviews and crazy brain teasers. Is that true or is that.
Laszlo Bock [00:05:30]:
No, that used to be true. That used to be very true. I remember when I interviewed, I had something like 25 interviews before I got the job. And they wanted me to come out for more, from New York to California, do even more interviews. And I actually said, you know what? Enough. You know me well, enough already. I know you. Just make a decision. So now the average is just over four interviews per person. Hiring time went down from six to nine months on average to about 45 days on average. We’re working to get that down a little lower. And it’s. And we’ve banned brain teasers now. Some interviewers will still ask the questions. And basically what happens is when they get to our senior review, we just ignore those questions. So if you blew it on a brain teaser, don’t worry, you’ll be fine.
Matt Alder [00:06:07]:
That’s good news. Talking about your senior review, you say in the book that as CEO Larry Page reviews every single hire you make. Is that true?
Laszlo Bock [00:06:15]:
It is true.
Matt Alder [00:06:16]:
Wow. I mean, how many is that a week? How does that work in terms of timescales, things like that?
Laszlo Bock [00:06:22]:
Well, the way it works is, so we’ve. Part of the reason the hiring process takes 45 days is we have a series of reviews. At the end, there’s a hiring committee that actually makes the initial hiring recommendation, and the hiring manager doesn’t sit on that committee. Then it goes to sort of. We don’t have a name for it actually, but sort of senior review. So, for example, for sales and GNA, I&A colleague review everyone each week. And then all of those hires, plus the technical ones get compiled into a spreadsheet which goes to Larry. Google tricks spreadsheet with links to all the detail and he gets it every week and takes a look at it.
Matt Alder [00:06:50]:
Cool. So I think another common perhaps misconception, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, it’s a real truism that people say everyone wants to work at Google. And you kind of mentioned that you have millions of applications. Does everyone want to work at Google or do you have recruitment challenges?
Laszlo Bock [00:07:07]:
Well, I like to think deep down in their soul everyone does.
Matt Alder [00:07:10]:
Well, of course.
Laszlo Bock [00:07:11]:
Of course they do. They may not know it yet, but no, actually most of the best people are not even thinking about working someplace else because they’re working at companies where they’re doing great work and they’re valued, so they’re rewarded. They feel good about their work, they enjoy their manager, they’re happy because high performers tend to do well and tend to be valued. So the trick is we actually have to invest a lot in going out and finding those people and we try to sort of call them when they’re having a bad day and get to know them over time and entice them.
Matt Alder [00:07:38]:
Cool. Do you know they’re having a bad day? Is that on Google’s kind of data set somewhere?
Laszlo Bock [00:07:43]:
No, that’s just a volume game.
Matt Alder [00:07:46]:
That’s fair enough. I mean, talking about data, I mean, reading the book of, and you mentioned it at the start, it’s very clear very quickly that data is vitally important through kind of all of your people strategy. What’s unique about your approach, do you think? And is everything data driven?
Laszlo Bock [00:08:02]:
Not everything is data driven. Some things we just do because it’s the right thing to do.
Matt Alder [00:08:05]:
Yeah.
Laszlo Bock [00:08:06]:
So for example, we years ago introduced this death benefit where if you pass away, you know, when somebody dies, it’s an awful, awful, horrible, traumatic thing, particularly when somebody dies sort of in the middle of their working career. And we introduce a death benefit, which we’ve got here in the UK as well, which is all your stock vests immediately, which is substantial. And your surviving spouse or domestic partner gets half your salary for the next decade. If you have children, the kids get $1,000 a month until they turn 18 or 24, depending whether they go to college or not. We did that purely because it was the right thing. And in fact, when we did it, we didn’t tell people about it. Nobody knew. We had this policy until two and a half years after we’d rolled it out to Googlers. So it’s not all data, but we do use data to sort of measure and test almost everything because so much of HR practices. Here’s my gut, here’s what I think, here’s what this or that company did. And the reality is there’s no evidence that that stuff actually works. Okay, so we want to prove what does.
Matt Alder [00:08:59]:
Yeah. Fantastic. Now, one of the questions that everyone who comes on the show seems to. I seem to ask, and everyone has an opinion on, can you replace a good recruiter with an algorithm? Do you think, sort of leading on that data?
Laszlo Bock [00:09:12]:
I don’t think you can. I don’t think you can. There’s a lot of startups that say they can. Yes. But the reality is we, you know, we tried this, we did one day hiring processes in some countries and what we found was that candidates would say, I don’t trust your process. There’s no way you could have gotten to know me in that time. And so you need that human interaction.
Matt Alder [00:09:28]:
Okay, that’s very good to know. You mentioned that your division is People Operations. Now that’s opposed to hr. What’s the difference between People Operations and hr?
Laszlo Bock [00:09:42]:
Well, two things. One is we apply, as you’re asking, a lot of data to what we’re doing. So the operational part is trying to apply data to prove what we do, but also making sure every year we get more effective, more productive and we have productivity goals and it’s quite tightly managed. But the other piece is that when I joined the company, it was actually titled, the title was changed to People Ops purely because we believed the engineers would like that title more and think it was more credible.
Matt Alder [00:10:08]:
Oh, cool. Okay, fantastic. Yeah, because I’ve seen it kind of pops up in other startups and things like that. I think it’s a really interesting.
Laszlo Bock [00:10:15]:
Yeah, it’s been cool to watch other people kind of take it and make it their own.
Matt Alder [00:10:18]:
Yeah, fantastic. So how would you summarize what makes Google so innovative?
Laszlo Bock [00:10:24]:
I think there’s three things that drive innovation at Google. One is a mission that’s meaningful. So organize the world’s information that connects to people, that resonates with people. The second is transparency. Because at Google, we share just about everything. You have access to almost all of our code base. As an engineer, you know everyone’s goals. Our chairman shares. The board of directors report every quarter with the whole company. And the third is voice this idea that you as an individual in the company aren’t just an important. You’re not just a cog in a wheel, you’re an owner. And you have a responsibility that comes with that and you help shape the Company. Those three things are what drive innovation.
Matt Alder [00:10:57]:
And what’s your favorite Google project or initiative? Out of all the things that you’re doing or working on, what’s your favorite?
Laszlo Bock [00:11:05]:
My favorite right now is this program we’re doing around unconscious bias.
Matt Alder [00:11:08]:
Oh, cool.
Laszlo Bock [00:11:09]:
And the idea behind that is most people aren’t explicitly or consciously racist or homophobic or sexist or what have you, but all of us are biased without meaning to, because we just like people who are like ourselves. That’s just natural. You like people who like the same sports teams and what have you. And so it’s this project and piece of work we’ve been doing for three years to make people aware of that unconscious bias. And it’s had this wonderful, wonderful effect inside the company.
Matt Alder [00:11:29]:
Fantastic. You also talk a lot in the book about proving that culture eats strategy for breakfast. Talk us about the culture. You’ve got a chief Culture officer as well. I mean, what’s the sort of approach to culture in Google?
Laszlo Bock [00:11:46]:
Well, it’s actually really grassroots. So our chief Cultural officer is a woman named Stacy Sullivan. She was employee number 50. And she also today leads people operations for sort of all our crazy things like Google X and Nest and Calico and our life extension business, things like that. And she is fantastic. And she’s in charge of culture, but it’s not sort of a formal title where what she says goes. What she’s done is she’s built this grassroots network of people in every one of our offices that she calls her culture club. And basically she finds people, regardless of seniority, who just get it. And she sort of taps them on the shoulder and says, when you see something fantastic, recognize it. And when you see something that’s antithetical to how we believe, call people out on it. And it works beautifully.
Matt Alder [00:12:26]:
Fantastic. Final question. The future. What’s the future in terms of people strategy for Google, for everyone, Future of the workplace. What do you think people in people operations or people in HR in slightly more traditional companies should be looking towards and working on and anticipating?
Laszlo Bock [00:12:46]:
Well, I think if you’re in human resources today, there’s a choice you have to make. Do you want to create an environment that’s kind of high freedom? Google like or like John Lewis? The grocery chain out here or not the grocery, the retailer out here, where people actually feel like they’re owners and can take part and kind of shape the company, or do you want to be more traditional and you have to make a conscious choice? Because it turns out you can make money both ways as a business. You can have a business that just grinds people up and chews them up and spits them out, because there’s a lot of people who need work. But you then have to live with yourself and decide what kind of person.
Matt Alder [00:13:16]:
You want to be.
Laszlo Bock [00:13:17]:
So make a very deliberate choice and then treat people the way you think they ought to be treated. And that’s going to mean things like being more generous sometimes than your economics suggest you could. But you will over time, then attract the very best people because talent’s increasingly mobile, increasingly findable, and the best people will gravitate towards the former kind of company. And you can make money both ways. But you also want to do something you’re proud of.
Matt Alder [00:13:41]:
Absolutely. Thank you very much for talking to me.
Laszlo Bock [00:13:43]:
It’s a pleasure. Thank you.
Matt Alder [00:13:45]:
My thanks to Laszlo Bock. Laszlo’s book Work Rules is out now and goes into a huge amount of detail on all aspects of Google’s approach to people operations. He’s giving all proceeds to charity and I’ll put a link to the book in the show Notes. You can subscribe to this podcast in itunes or on Stitcher, and you can listen to past episodes@www.on that site. You can also subscribe to the podcast mailing list to get exclusive content and find out more about future guests. Thanks for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
