Google Case Study
Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to analyse the problem Google is facing in order
to anticipate serious threats to its future performance and provide suitable
solutions and recommendations. Google is facing a diversity and
discrimination problem towards female, black and Latinx. Also, Google has a
gender discrimination problem, as women make less profit than men that
have the same position within the company. There are three possible
solutions to these: expand its points of entry by doing an internship program,
giving opportunity to females, black and Latinx, encourage women to take
courses that are useful to what the company is looking for and finally pursue
pay equity, to ensure women get paid the same as a man in their same
position. It is recommended to start pursuing pay equity as it is something
elemental and continue with the internship program to increase diversity,
solving both diversity and gender discrimination problems.
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Google Case Study
Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.................................................................................................................... 2
1. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION.......................................................................................................... 2
2. GENERATION AND EVALUATION OF SOLUTIONS..........................................................................3
2.1 EXPAND POINTS OF ENTRY AND TRY TO MEET THE INCLUSION TARGETS.........................................................3
2.2 ENCOURAGING SOFTWARE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY COURSES FOR WOMEN......................................4
2.3 PURSUE PAY EQUITY.............................................................................................................................5
3. RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................. 5
4. REFERENCES................................................................................................................................ 6
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Google’s Diversity Problem
1. Problem Identification
According to Wakabayashi (2018), staff at Google are mostly white or Asian
males, which leads to a diversity and inclusion problem. Nowadays, diversity
has a positive effect on the performance and development of the company,
according to Sakpal (2019) having teams of age, gender, race and ethnicity
diversity will allow the business to better serve its consumers. Therefore, to
see better results Google should improve its workforce diversity. Google has
been sued numerous times because of diversity related problems. According
to Wakabayashi (2018) Google employees have presented charges against
the organization stating that it goes too far with diversity and others arguing
that it should have a more diverse work force, including females, black and
Latinx members. A recent article based on the company’s diversity report,
shows little progress for women and black. The number of people of color
employed in the U.S. grew from 4.8% in 2018 to 5.5% in 2019, rose by a 7%,
the biggest growth of people of color hired since Google started publishing
diversity data (Umoh, 2020). In addition, according to Google’s Diversity
Annual Report (2020), female employees dropped from 33.2% of global hires
in 2018 to 32.5% in 2019, which makes clear there has been little progress. It
is also noticed that in 2020, there are more than double male employees
(67.5%) than female (32.5%), showing that women continue to have overall
attrition rates lower than the average. Furthermore, a report by ‘The Guardian’
revealed that as a result of pay discrimination, women at Google lose out on
thousands of dollars (Paul, 2020). The calculations show that they may be
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losing out on $17,000 a year, even though some are software engineers and
might have higher positions than men, providing strong evidence that there is
a gender discrimination problem.
2. Generation and Evaluation of Solutions
After reviewing the diversity and gender discrimination problems, there are
three potential solutions that could benefit the company which are detailed
below.
2.1 Expand points of entry and try to meet the inclusion targets
Firstly, Google’s organisational culture focuses on innovation and excellence.
Although a big part of innovation is diversity and inclusion, the company does
not take this enough into account. Expanding points of entry within the
company with strategies such as internships and rotational programmes will
help acquire people from different backgrounds and achieve a more diverse
workplace (Slocum, 2019). Additionally, if all employees have similar
perspectives and backgrounds, they are more likely to share the same points
of view and blind spots, having as consequence only focusing on a way of
thinking and lacking innovation. While trying to hire and giving opportunity to
different people, the company should focus to meet the inclusion targets and
have a better performance than the year before.
Applying this solution would improve the diversity within the company as well
as the performance of it, by having a variety of culture and thoughts. The
drawback of this strategy is making the company overcrowded and
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experience difficulties to finance the old plus new employees, generating a
new problem.
2.2 Encouraging software and information technology courses for
women
Secondly, the lack of women is mainly because more men study careers
related to technology and areas focused on what Google’s work is related to
(Paul, 2020). By offering and encouraging women to complete courses of
software engineering or anything related to what the company needs, more
job opportunities will be available for women and as consequence have less
difference between the number of male and female employees. It can be
achieved by motivating women with campaigns or offering conditions women
can take advantage of and feel motivated by it, for instance the first part of a
course free and after they should pay a reasonable amount of money to
finish. Another strategy can be assuring them a position in the company for a
period of time, with the objective of making them feel psychological safety,
meaning they have a safety net after finishing the. studies.
However, the downside of this may be that the company’s profit could be
impacted by offering some free courses and having or hire more personal. In
addition, men could feel discriminated by offering these benefits only to
women.
2.3 Pursue pay equity
Lastly, apart from progressing in hiring a more diverse workforce, an
important part of making progress is retaining new employees. A significant
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complain from women within Google is being paid less than the other gender
(Paul, 2020), pursuing a pay equity will make women feel valued and included
in the work environment.
As consequence this will have a positive influence on the behaviour of the
employees, having as a result a better performance of the organization. This
solution is a simple strategy and might not have any disadvantage.
3. Recommendations
It is highly recommended that the company starts pursuing pay equity, as this
is fundamental in any business nowadays, as both genders in the same
position should have the same rights, these including salaries. Therefore,
there should not be a difference on wages and there is not a downside by
achieving. Secondly, continue with expanding its points of entry with an
internship program, by doing this the company might gain innovation and
improve results. Furthermore, start hiring more diverse people, as having
mixing attributes and different points of view will be reflected within the
performance of the company, although it would increase the expenses of the
business. By following these recommendations, the company should start
seeing an improvement and start gaining benefit from it.
Word count: 920 words
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4. References
Google (2020), ‘Google Diversity Annual Report 2020’ pp 23. Available at:
https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/25badfc6b6d1b33f3b87372ff7545d
79261520d821e6ee9a82c4ab2de42a01216be2156bc5a60ae3337ffe7176d90
b8b2b3000891ac6e516a650ecebf0e3f866 (Accessed: 24 November 2020)
Paul, K (2020), ‘Women at Google miss out on thousands of dollars as a
result of pay discrimination, lawsuit alleges’. The Guardian, 22 July. Available
at:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/22/google-gender-pay-
discrimination-lawsuit (Accessed: 23 November 2020)
Sakpal, M (2019) ‘Build High-Performance Teams’. Smarter With Gartner,
September 20. Available at:
https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/diversity-and-inclusion-build-
high-performance-teams/ (Accessed: December 7 2020)
Slocum, D (2019), ‘The power of difference: How to hire and retain diverse
teams in brands and agencies’. Think with Google, June 2019. Available at:
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-154/future-of-
marketing/management-and-culture/diversity-and-inclusion/-diversity-in-the-
workplace/ (Accessed: November 24 2020)
Umoh, R (2020), ‘Google Diversity Report Shows Little Progress For Women
And People Of Color’. Forbes, 5 May. Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ruthumoh/2020/05/05/google-diversity-report-
shows-little-progress-for-women-and-people-of-color/ (Accessed: 23
November 2020)
Wakabayashi, D (2018), ‘Google Is Trying Too Hard (or Not Hard Enough) to
Diversify’. The New York Times, 10 March. Available at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/technology/google-diversity-
lawsuits.html (Accessed: November 23 2020)
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Reflective Statement
During the past weeks I have been working on the Google case study. It is
the first case study I have written. At the beginning I struggled to start typing, I
did not know how to start. After doing research and planning how I was going
to do it, it was easier. I found the case study more difficult than the report, I
followed some advice from the report such as referencing better and make
clear my ideas, although as it happened in the first report I am lacking formal
academic language which is something I need to improve on. As a business
student, I think this will help me in a future to know the structure of it and how
to aim for the best mark.