Google is popularly known to be a flat company, with smaller number of middle managers

and an upper management taking charge and being the authority figures.
This structure allows employees; teams or groups can bypass middle management and report
directly to CEO Larry Page. Employees can also meet and share information across teams.
In 1998. The founders emphasized that their initial public offering (IPO) would not change
their culture and they would not introduce more rules or change the way things are done in
Google to please Wall Street.
Google has a cross-functional organizational structure, which is technically a matrix
organizational structure with a considerable degree of flatness. The companys organizational
structure has three main characteristics:
Function-based definition
Product-based definition
Flatness
Google uses function as basis for grouping employees. - the company has a Sales Operations
team, an Engineering & Design Team, and a Product Management Team, among others.
The firm also uses products as basis for grouping employees- the company groups employees
for developing Nexus devices, employees for its Fiber business.
The lack of top-down hierarchy cultivates a more open atmosphere for employees to voice
their opinions and new ideas in various ways like employee engagement surveys and
Google's upward feedback survey
The Companys Hierarchy

Googles Culture is that anybody can make their case if they have "compelling logic and rich
supporting data," and rarely "do employees accept top-down directives without question."
In 2002 they wiped away their management layer in an attempt at becoming a totally flat
organization. The idea was to strip away barriers to idea development and allow for a more
grad-school type collegiality. But the experiment soon ended as employees started coming to
Larry Page with questions about expense reports and interpersonal conflicts.
The problem with Google's flat structure is that it makes it hard for teams to get promoted. So
Google focuses on providing career development beyond promotions. Google encourages all
engineers to spend 20% of their time working on their own ideas.
They consider HR as science and using employee algorithms they analyses why things
happen. For example, they solved the retention problem with female employees.
When they found that women were leaving the company at twice the rate, their HR
department identified the main issue to be the maternity leave plan for new mothers.
When they changed the plan so new mothers could get 5 months paid time off instead of 12
weeks, Googles attrition rate for women dropped by 50%!
Googles Chief culture officer Stacy Savides Sullivan characterize the culture as one that is
team-oriented, very collaborative and encouraging people to think non-traditionally, different
from where they ever worked beforeworking with integrity and for the good of the company
and for the good of the world, which is tied to our overall mission of making information
accessible to the world

In 2016 Google announced a brand

new operating structure. It is now a
subsidiary of a company called
Alphabet, which has Larry Page as
CEO. The CEO of Google is Sundar
Pichai
Google believes that over time
companies tend to get comfortable
doing the same thing, just making
incremental changes. But in the
technology industry, where
revolutionary ideas drive the next big
growth areas, one needs to be a bit
uncomfortable to stay relevant.

This new structure proposes to keep

focus on the extraordinary
opportunities inside Google. It looks at
Getting more ambitious things done.
Taking the long-term view.
Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
Improving the transparency and oversight of what we're doing.
Making Google even better through greater focus.
Googles strength comes from their small company values that emphasize risk taking,
agility, and cooperation. The fact that they take their hiring process very seriously shows that
they care about the culture and try to find the right fit for their organization.
Google has managed to create a unique work environment that attracts, motivates, and retains
the best players in the field. It encourages employee to take risks and be innovation. Googles
culture is reflected in their decision making as well. Decisions at Google are made in teams.
It is believed that the the company management is in the hands of a triad: Larry Page, Sergey
Brin and Eric Schmidt who reportedly lead the company by consensus.
The Idea behind google is synthesis of understanding of values, symbols, meanings,
assumptions, and expectations that can provide solutions to the growing factors outside the
organization and able to be the glue for its members. All members of the organization have
the same vision with Google, which is trying to promote innovation and passion to advance
the organization to become a leader in the world of dot-com.