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Chapter 9 People, jobs and organization 237
Figure 9.3 Human resource strategy
the operations function generally, people issues are inter-reliant. There is little point in
attempting to, for example, develop a more egalitarian team-based structure and then fail
to change the organization’s training or reward procedures. This is why a strategic perspective
aimed at identifying the relationship between all four roles is necessary, and why
the first step in developing an HR strategy is to understand the organization’s overall
strategy. In particular, key questions are what are the implications of the strategy for human
resources? And how can the people in the organization contribute to successfully achieving
the strategy?
Short case
Is it ‘googley’? 4
Do a company’s resources, particularly its people,
come to reflect the vision and culture of the company?
Some companies are keen to make sure that they do.
For example, drivers on Highway 101 that passes through
Silicon Valley, if they were paying attention, would have
notice a billboard that read ‘[first 10-digit prime found in
consecutive digits of e].com’. Those drivers with both the
intellectual curiosity and the mathematical knowledge
would have realized that the number in question is
7427466391, and is a sequence that starts at the
101st digit of the constant e (the base of the natural
logarithm). Those that looked up the web site then found
a mathematically more difficult riddle to solve. Solving
that led to another web page where they were invited to
submit their CVs to Google. It was one of Google’s ideas
for attracting the type of clever but inventive staff that
they need, and also a way of further establishing Google
as the type of company that has the quirky vision to make
it attractive to such people. The tone of the billboard was,
as its employees like to say, ‘Googley – something that
evokes a humble, cosmopolitan, different, toned down,
classiness’. At a recent conference, instead of the rock
music and flashing lights used by most firms to introduce
their speakers, Google played Bach’s Brandenburg
Concerto No 3 and had a ‘thought puzzle’ placed on
every seat. Whatever else it is, Google is an organization
that thinks hard about what it is, what it wants to be, and
how its people can sustain its position.
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