OB in Action Case Study
Google’s “ThreeThirds”
HR Team
If you’ve ever imagined a “dream team” of human resource professionals, a collection of diverse talent
drawn up to have maximum impact on organizational results, it may have had similarities to the People
Operations department at Google, the fastgrowing
technology company in Mountain View, California.
Google’s HR team is built on what Laszlo Bock, vice president of global people operations, calls the
“threethirds”
staffing model. Roughly onethird
of the team’s employees have HR backgrounds and
bring expertise in client relations as well as specialty skill areas such as employment law and
compensation and benefits. This group also has what Bock calls highlevel
“pattern recognition” skills,
or the ability to identify organizational trends and anticipate issues even before they’re on line units’
radar. An example would be predicting ebbs and flows in hiring and attrition.
Another third have little or no human resource experience and were recruited from strategic consulting
firms or Google line functions such as engineering or sales. Most in this group are embedded within
business units. Staff in this subgroup have “tremendous problemsolving
skills and knowledge about how
everything outside of HR works,” Bock says. “If you can find people with that skill set, plus an aptitude
for peoplerelated
issues, we’ve found they partner very well with traditional HR employees.”
The final third is a workforce analytics group featuring people who hold doctorates in statistics, finance,
organizational psychology, and other areas. These analysts help make determinations on matters such as
setting compensation levels that will retain top talent for maximum periods and conducting the right
number of interviews to ensure selection of the best job candidate.
Subteams within this third group also conduct more esoteric research. For example, they explore
cognitive heuristics—the mental shortcuts that people use in making decisions or solving problems but
that can also lead to biases.
This group also examines ways to counter influences such as the halo effect—a job candidate considered
good or bad in one category is assumed by hiring managers to be similarly good or bad in other
categories—and the recency effect, in which too much weight is given to an employee’s most recent
performance in yearly evaluations.
Analytics specialists also focus on predictive modeling, or using principles of mathematics and
psychology to determine the profiles of people who will be most successful at Google and those likely to
leave the company prematurely based on their changing behavior patterns.
“This group helps us prove what we do in People Operations works and contributes directly to Google’s
business results,” Bock says.
Page 327
While the threethirds
model might appear to set up walledoff
silos in the department, Bock encourages
regular interaction and knowledge sharing among HR team members.91
Using your readings from this module, and at least two additional resources, evaluate group/team development by considering the following:
• Using Table 11-1, what must be done to turn Google’s HR group into a team?
• Explain how Google’s HR team members could have been instructed in the teamwork competencies from Table 11-3.
• How important is trust to a cross-functional team? Describe how managers can build trust among cross-functional teams, which comprise diverse backgrounds and differing perspectives.
• Explain which type of cohesiveness, socio-emotional or instrumental, is more important in this type of cross-functional team.
• What strategies would you offer Google’s Laszlo Bock to help in creating, developing, and leading effective cross-functional work teams?
To understand the expectations for the activity, please review the Guidelines for Case Analysis [PDF file size 34.0 KB].
Your paper should be 2-3 pages in length, not including the title and reference pages. Format your paper using APA 6th edition style, using double spacing, Times New Roman, 12-point font, with one inch margins.
