How could Google improve the ethics of their operations whilst meeting their objectives and ensuring good employee/employer relationship?

Question

How could Google improve the ethics of their operations whilst meeting their objectives and ensuring good employee/employer relationship?

Answer

Google could employ numerous mechanisms to improve their ethics of operation while meeting objectives and ensuring good employee/employer relationships. Lee (2016) points out that Google’s motto, ‘Don’t be evil’ helped shape many of the company’s structures and values, as well as the market and employee perceptions about the company’s commitment to ethical practices. Although it was revised in 2004, the motto still bore considerable influence on Google’s approach to ethics and the market perceptions (Lee, 2016). However, in the face of the many concerns over the unethical practices in the company, and especially, after Google’s change of user tracking regulations in 2012 (Edelman, 2015), the motto completely lost its value (Lee, 2016). Presently, Google lacks a motto that directs its employees and the market to its commitment to ethical practices. As suggested by Pathak & Sharma (2016), a company motto influences almost all aspects of businesses including the employee performance. Accordingly, one of the most effective ways of improving Google’s operations ethics while meeting objectives and ensuring good employee/employer relationship is developing a company motto that directs the workforce to ethical practices. Equally, while Google has been involved practices aimed at improving their employee conditions, for instance, covering the special tax cuts for gay and lesbian employees and increasing female recruitment opportunities (Phelps, 2016), other more pertinent ethical issues remain unaddressed. One of the areas is the pay gap between the company’s female and male employees, in which for the same job title the gap ranges between $5000 to $20000 (Bishop, 2016). Accordingly, to improve the ethics of Google’s operations while meeting objectives and ensuring good employee/employer relationship, there is a need for the company to address the huge gender pay gap and develop programmes that promote equal pay and more female representation.

References

Bishop, T. (2016). Stats: This is the gender pay gap at Microsoft, Google, Facebook and other tech companies. [online] GeekWire. Available at: http://www.geekwire.com/2014/stats-gender-pay-gap-microsoft-google-facebook-tech-companies/ [Accessed 24 Nov. 2016]. Edelman, B. (2015). Does Google leverage market power through tying and bundling?. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 11(2), 365-400. Lee, N. (2016). To Google or Not to Google. In Google It (pp. 3-52). Springer New York. Pathak, R., & Sharma, M. (2016). Employee Sovereignty:“More You Own The More you Perform”. International Journal of Management, IT and Engineering, 6(2), 193-203. Phelps, S. (2016). Learning From Google: 15 Ways To Drive Employee Engagement - Purple Goldfish -. [online] Purple Goldfish. Available at: http://purplegoldfish.com/learning-green-goldfish-google-15-ways-drive-employee-engagement/ [Accessed 24 Nov. 2016].