Organizational Communication at Google

Defined in the simplest form, organizational communication is the exchange of information within the organization’s departments and or the communication between the various departments of the company and other organizations or customers (Johansson & Heide, 2008). Google Incorporation has been described as a career paradise by professors, politicians, presidents and even great business men, which motivated me to eye for a job position in the organization since I was a freshman. I was then prompted to research deeply about the various issues, benefits and the downside of working with the giant company that focuses on the advancement of technology and leveraging on its wide internet presence to impact lives far away. Today, I will discuss the organizational communication strategy adopted by Google through analyzing how their communication policy is implemented, the different communication approaches and their impact on the organization’s performance.

Google communication culture has sometimes been messy and dynamic, but rooted in a strong code of ethics and it has always been affected by an aspirational ecosystem. Despite a relatively flawed communication policy at Google, one of the most spectacular actions that the organization has adopted to encourage higher employee performance is the manner in which employees are encouraged to explore ideas to foster innovation, sustainable problem solution and the maintenance of status quo; the dream company for career growth. Google uses a “bias for action” approach for decision making processes where all employees are encouraged to give their views on the various issues within the company. The direct communication between employees and the management groups foster better relationships and free interaction.

One of the most important aspect of the communication policy at Google Inc. is that the policy is designed to maintain high and close relationships with the consumers of the services and products produced. As noted by Miller (2008) consumers are the greatest assets of a company as they are responsible for the success and market drive enjoyed by Google. The relationship is made stronger between consumers and the Google Company through constant newsletters, occasional consumer-producer workshops and regular consumer satisfaction reports. Products and services are constantly modified to increase the level of consumer satisfaction and some products may be manufactures based on consumer specifications such that every consumer feels that the organization takes into consideration their feedback of the quality of services and products. Improvements made to the Google Map application were made due to increasing consumer feedback on the quality and usefulness of the app, which demonstrates the strong relationship ties between the company and its consumers.

Productivity through people is another strategy employed by Goggle Inc. through its communication policy. Evidently, the quality of communication between employees and officers in the management ranks affects the performance and productivity of the workers. In order to leverage on the high productivity of employees, constant interaction, communication and team work is encouraged to share ideas and skills in the completion of various projects. Motivational talks and social events held within the business premises are aimed at encouraging regular communications and interactions for better job performance. Joint problem solving strategies are designed to increase meaningful communication between individual employees and different departments in the organization to make sure that a decision made by one department does not adversely affect another department thus ensuring continued communications culture within the organization.

However, the organization faces numerous barriers in the implementation of its communication strategies. The core structure of the communication strategy adopted is the up-down communication whereby communication is first initiated from the top management ranks to the low ranking officers (Paulraj, Lado & Chen, 2008). During such communications, discussions about the issues raised must take place at the lower ranks of employee positions before sending feedback to the managers for consideration. In this manner, a lively communication channels are maintained where employees actively participate in the decision making process, which makes employees feel that the organization values their opinions on the organization’s pertinent issues. The greatest challenge for high ranking organizations such as Google is that it is difficult to monitor their core organizational strategies such as the communication policy as there exists no central administration center. Despite these challenge, it is marvelous that the main organizational objectives are always met and this is a common observation for all big companies such as Coca-Cola.

Google shows more concern on the employee communication and engagement as they are the sole drivers of performance in the organization. Communication management can have a positive or a negative impact of the performance of the workers and thus the organization seeks to maintain high communication management standards that can translate into motivated employees. The communication policy at Google is also designed to act as a drive for change within the organization as constant communication ensures flow of ideas, development of innovative solutions to problems and sharing of skills.

References

Johansson, C., & Heide, M. (2008). Speaking of change: three communication approaches in studies of organizational change. Corporate communications: an international journal, 13(3), 288-305.

Miller, K. I. (2008). Organizational communication. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Paulraj, A., Lado, A. A., & Chen, I. J. (2008). Inter-organizational communication as a relational competency: Antecedents and performance outcomes in collaborative buyer–supplier relationships. Journal of operations management, 26(1), 45-64.