Please help me with the Take Home Assignment. Thank you very much.

Case Scenario : Paradise Lost Or Gained?

A massage every other week, on-site laundry, swimming pool and spa, free delicious all-you-can-get gourmet meals. What more could an employee want? Sounds like an ideal job, doesnt it? However, at Google, many people are demonstrating their decisions to leave the company that all those perks (and these are just a few) arent enough to keep them there. As one analyst said, Yes, Googles making gobs of money. Yes, its full of smart people. Yes, its a wonderful place to work. So why are so many people leaving?.

Google has been named the best company to work for by Fortune magazine, but make no mistake: Googles executives made the decision to offer all those fabulous benefits for several reasons: to attract the best knowledge workers it can in an intensely competitive, cutthroat market, to help employees work long hours and not have to deal with time-consuming personal chores outside work, to show employees they are valued, and to have employees remain Googlers (the name used for employees) for many years. But a number of Googlers have jumped ship and given up these fantastic benefits to go out on their own.

For instance, Sean Knapp and two colleagues, brothers Bismarck and Belsasar Lepe, came up with an idea about how to handle Web video. They left Google in April 2007, or as one person put it, expelled themselves from paradise to start their own company. When the threesome left the company, Google wanted badly for them and their project to stay. Google offered them a blank check. But they realized they would do all the hard work, and Google would own the product. So off they went, for the excitement of a start-up.

It was an isolated occurrence, it would be easy to write off. But its not. Other talented Google employees have done the same thing. In fact, so many of them have left that they have formed an informal alumni club of ex-Googlers turned entrepreneurs.

Questions 1. The right organizational culture with the right values will always produce the best organizational performance. Do you agree it is applicable in Google? Why?

Questions 2. Google is doing a lot for its employees, but obviously its not done enough to retain several of its talented employees. Using what you have learned from studying the various motivation theories, what does this situation tell you about employee motivation?

Questions 3. What lessons about human resources management can managers learn from the paradise lost in Google?