Google's best practices: valuing workers
| February 24, 2008 |  View for printing |
Engineers in bluejeans glide by on scooters at the Manhattan office of Google, the absurdly young and wildly successful pied piper to a changing work force.
There are cafes for 24/7 snacking, and gourmet cafeterias serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Of course, the food's all free.
There are spaces to lie down for a massage, stretch out on a yoga mat, pump breast milk or curl up in front of the basketball finals. The game room has Ping-Pong, Foosball, air hockey, aerobics and weights. Happy hour — beer, wine, snacks — is Thursday at 5 p.m.
The amenities at Google's West 16th Street office in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood mirror those at the Mountain View, Calif., headquarters of the world's leading Internet search company.
The stir-fry of fun, food and work is central to the eccentricity of Google, which went public in 2004 with a prospectus that began:
"Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one."
By Beth Fitzgerald
Newhouse News Service
Full Story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm ... ogle24.html
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