Google attracts talent by ... bus

Working at Google and enjoying a number of other incentives that are jealousy are often reserved for Silicon Valley's No. 1 search employees. Not to mention that free food is served continuously during the day, volleyball court, swimming pool, car wash, oil change, haircut, free health care, etc. the biggest benefit of the staff at This is to be taken back and forth in the working day.

A hit arrow . two, three targets

The ancient Silicon Valley is famous for being the most battered area in the United States. In response to this, the online search and advertising giant has managed to turn itself into a transportation provider.

The shuttle bus arrives at Google's main office in Mountain View, California.About 1,200 employees use this type of vehicle.

In addition to the purpose of reducing unnecessary difficulties in traveling for 'pet' employees, the strategy of attracting a large amount of gray matter in the fiercely competitive IT human resource market is also a problem. The focus of this giant is. That is not to mention, to handle well the delivery of employees, Google also 'enlisted' many hours of "golden" labor of the workforce when they do not have to waste time in traffic.

Currently, every day the bus program for the staff to take away and pick up about 1200 people, nearly a quarter of them are local people. To serve a large number of them there are 32 buses equipped with leather seats, wireless Internet. Those who ride bicycles can park their vehicles to the racks on the outside of the car, including seats for puppies, but in the case of overloaded vehicles, they can be 'seated' right in the master's lap.

For the convenience of everyone, anyone who rides a bicycle can sign up for a notification via laptop or mobile phone when the bus arrives late. All buses use biofuels and are completely free.

Professional operation, enhance attraction

Marty Lev, Google's chief of security and security, and in charge of the modest bus project monitoring, said: ' Basically, we only run a small transport unit. '

But obviously it is not small. Each of these buses can accommodate up to 37 passengers, each day they run about 132 turns, pick up and drop off passengers at 40 different points of more than 12 cities, across six counties in the Bay Area (San Francisco) and runs about 4,400 miles.

They take far-off employees as far away as Concord, about 54 miles northeast of Googleplex or in Santa Cruz, 38 miles south.

The schedule to pick up the staff in the morning usually starts with some routes at 5:05 pm, sometimes carrying the chefs of Google, the last one is at 10:40. The staff transfer to the evening started from 3h40 to 10h05. Meeting peak times, the frequency of pick up and drop off is up to 15 minutes.

And yet, at Google's headquarters, there is a team of traffic experts who monitor the situation of travel in the area, make a map of the accommodation of some new employees to recruit and outline the New roadmap to respond promptly to increasing demand. Usually, there are 10 more routes to be opened every 3 months.

According to the evaluation of many traffic experts, the shuttle bus system set up by Google can be considered an excellent transport service network. Mr. Tad Widby, project manager and transportation system researcher throughout the United States, said: ' I have not seen in the Bay Area as well as in urban areas across the country which projects are bigger than that. '.

Google's employee shuttle program besides being a generous form of subsidy, an environmentally friendly move is also a sharp competitive weapon in Silicon Valley during the recruiting seasons.

One of the top challenges facing Google is to constantly attract the most talented human resources, even though each year has passed, the number of employees working for the company has nearly doubled. Google's bus project hit the hearts of many talented candidates in the IT field.

' That is the most useful part of Google's allowance. It has dramatically changed my life , 'commented Wilt Carpenter, a 45-year-old software engineer. In fact, Mr. Carpenter has just joined Google for a few months, but before that, he had to take a bus from San Francisco to Highway 101 since 1992 to work at Silicon Graphics and Microsoft, the two neighbors of Google.

Hit the psychological

Stephen Weis, Google's software engineer, parked a bicycle on a rack outside the bus.

On a one-way winter afternoon, about 20 Google employees are relaxing on a bus at 4:40 pm returning to the Mission and Noe Valley districts in San Francisco. In the car at the moment, all people show their strict compliance with the conventions. It is only allowed to listen to a cell phone if the call is related to work and yet must be whispered. Of course, noisy private calls are not accepted. In addition to couples who can sit close together, in general, no one sits close together. Most entertained with iPods, others took laptops to work, surf the web or watch movies. Everyone respects the most relaxed moments of each other after a hard working day.

Google has not disclosed the amount of money paid for this employee treatment. But indeed, that policy had a clear impact on its recruitment. Rookie Michael Gaiman, a 23-year-old Web programming engineer, lives in San Francisco, said he declined Apple's offer before accepting to work at Google, he said, certainly bus policy. The search giant is one of the factors that made him come to that decision.

Colin Klingman, 38, who works as a free software trader in Google, knows he will wait until Google opens a bus stop near his home in San Francisco to apply.

Race to learn Google

Of course, it is not possible for Google rival to "single-handedly cover the sky" as such, Yahoo also began deploying a bus project for its employees in 2005. On peak days, Yahoo's bus also offers Acquired about 350 employees in San Francisco as well as Berkeley, Oakland, etc. These buses also run on biofuels and have Wi-Fi network coverage. But Yahoo 's bus project coordinator Danielle Bricker also acknowledged that the program was "inspired" directly by Google's initiative.

Along with that, eBay recently also implemented a pilot bus shuttle program at 5 points in San Francisco. Some other corporations also have the same ideas of treating employees well. Facebook, for example, instead of facilitating employees away from the workplace, the company helps people close by subsidizing an additional $ 600 per month for people living within the office. Palo Alto about 1 mile.

Do Duong