Canadian HR Strategy

24 Executive Series Digest hrreporter.com Hurwitz. "It produces a really positive mood with your leader." Strategic goal-setting is very important for Google's innovation and creativity. Employees get together weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly — at the team level or organizational level — to set goals. "It's a completely open environment that allows everyone to go back to their desk and fi gure out what they're doing and how important it is with respect to those strategic goals," said Anastasiadis. And the goals are always changing. It's important to be fl exible and adjust the goals as needed — which usually comes from the ground up, he said. Encouraging intellectual property (IP) generation is very important for innova- tion and creativity at Google. Employees are given time to master their skills, work with other teammates from around the world and develop new products. "It might be completely irrelevant to what Google is doing now, it might be a crazy idea. But people are encouraged to take risks and potentially get products out the door — that would never happen in a normal company," said Anastasiadis. "We just let people do this work — it's not that they have to do it at a certain time." Google has multiple rewards for IP such as status and advancement at the or- ganization — which is important because you get what you reward, said Hurwitz. "You have to fi gure out all the ways you can reward IP in your organization and encourage ideas, even if they may not work out," he said. e fourth major component of foster- ing innovation and creativity is environ- ment. Every Google location around the world is focused on balancing work and life and having fun, said Anastasiadis. "It makes it much easier if you know a bus is going to come and take you to work where you're given breakfast, lunch… you don't need to worry, 'Where do I get my breakfast? How do I get lunch? How do I get from work to home?'" From a facilities perspective, employees INNOVATION "IT MIGHT BE COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO WHAT GOOGLE IS DOING NOW, IT MIGHT BE A CRAZY IDEA. BUT PEOPLE ARE ENCOURAGED TO TAKE RISKS AND POTENTIALLY GET PRODUCTS OUT THE DOOR — THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN A NORMAL COMPANY." PHOTOS: MARK BLINCH / REUTERS

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