human resources

A new policy  has been implemented in Google  promoting engeneers to spend  20% of their working hours (one day a week) developing self-interest projects. Some of the newest services in Google, like Gmail, Google News, Orkut and AdSense are a consequence of  own initiative projects. Marisa Mayer, vice-president  for New Products and User Experiences, said that half of the new products come from  this 20% of the working hours.

Thinking about this policy, I find it great for being a perfect synthesis between the  firms and the Y generation needs. According to José Ramón Pin Arboledas,  teacher in the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE), the Y generation enphasize personal over professional life, and looks for a personal career: ”Companies looking for loyal Y generaltion talents, must be opened to both  interests”.  In the engagements field, Monserrat Ventosa, general director of Great  Place to Work Institute in Spain, says: “They don´t understand the effort as a sacrifice, they do it as improvement and self demand, so their compromise and implication are different than the previous generations ones. It doesn´t mean that  they are not  involved, just that it´s not a sacrifice as it is for the X generation and others before. Still, is true that they show  low tolerance to face frustration, which requires more support”.

Reading about these caracteristics that define the Y generation, makes me think about  the originality of the 80/20 Rule in Google.  They have been able to satisfy the needs of new generations through a policy based on the win-win. The employee feels professional and personally fulfilled, feeling his/her job like something flexible, which make personal and professional interests compatible. At the same time feels involved with the company, compromised based on improvement and demand, and not on sacrifice. On the other hand, the company also gets favoured. According to Fortune, Google is the best company to work in the world, and its value increases in a much higher grade than the averaged revaluation for the world stock markets  indicators.

I applaud Google for having adapted the social requirements for the company ones, and for making of it a tool for growing and rentability.

When we think about innovation, different terminology comes up to our mind like R&D, technology or big ammounts of money. Innovation is usually linked to progress in technology.

But this is not the right order. This is like starting the house by the roof. I prefer to think about innovation as the way to improve what we already have. For example, innovation in management goes through improving and speeding up the existing processes. In order to get this, intelligence is the best sword, and usually the cheapest and most effective one, even more than huge budgets for R&D. 

We are now slaves of the numbers, and we must manage to maximize resources innovating to minimize the costs in this area. We can achive it using the intelligence which is the most demanded commodity in the XXI century. This is a demonstration….

Koldo Saratxaga, responsible for rescueing from the crisis the transport company Irizar. He explained in an interview to a journal the key points for that success: ´It´s all about growing people and get the best of them´, Sounds simple,  easy, kid´s stuff… who doesn´t know how to make it?, believe in people?, get the best from them?, bah!, every guru would give you 1000 advices about how to make it easily.

´Economic growth gets to a point where quality life is damaged´. Chilean-german economist Manfred Max-Neef is the author of the polemic threshold theory, which defends that the developed countries have been modernized without satisfying most of the people requirements to be happy.