‘It’s a very exciting time for HR,’ says Google Cloud’s Head of HR on the future of work

The corporate world is rapidly evolving – whether that be the HR sector, the advancement of technology, or the need to expand knowledge through upskilling employees or increasing headcount.

And with this acceleration showing no signs of slowing down, businesses need to ensure they keep pace.

To find out how tech-giant Google – arguably one of the most well-known brands on the planet – is not only doing so, but also pioneering the way for other businesses to follow, UNLEASH spoke to Tracey Arnish, Google Cloud’s Vice President and Head of HR.

During this exclusive conversation, Arnish discusses how HR has become a strategic business partner, how the business navigated the challenges of rapid scaling while still maintaining an authentic company culture, and more.

HR's role in strategic business, leadership development, and inclusive cultures

Like many, Arnish believes that HR professionals deserve a seat at the table, particularly as the role has slowly but surely moved away from traditional personnel management and towards becoming a strategic business partner.

Expressing that this is a topic she is incredibly passionate about, Arnish believes that the recent developments around AI, as well as the significant shift that it's going to have for each and every organization, positions the role of the CHRO to be more critical to an organization's future than ever before.

“It's where I feel so fortunate to be part of an organization like Google and Google Cloud,” she says, “because we're getting to see this firsthand.

Hopefully the work that we are doing right now is actually not only benefiting Google, but it's benefiting our customers, and others around the world.Hopefully the work that we are doing right now is actually not only benefiting Google, but it's benefiting our customers, and others around the world.

“That's a really privileged place to be able to be from an HR perspective. What I want to see more is for CEOs to say: ‘Hey, we have a technology revolution in front of us, and we must have the talent that we need in the organization to be able to take advantage of this.'"

To achieve this, Arnish highlights that although the right people need to be brought into the company, one of the more challenging jobs is to actually find them.

This has become a priority for Google Cloud – especially since the business underwent rapid growth where 10s of 1,000s of employees were onboarded during COVID.

“We had this wonderful benefit of a very diverse set of new talent coming into the organization, which is a huge benefit for us, but at the same moment in time, you also are focused on, how to have new teams come together and form relationships that are needed to be able to sprint and move quickly in an environment like Google Cloud,” Arnish shares.

And for her, this comes down to a couple of things.

The first being to create a rigorous focus on culture, to cultivate a sense of belonging in the organization.

“We don’t just want to hire for fit at Google, because when you do that, you tend to hire everyone,” Arnish says.

We are actually always looking for how we can bring individuals into the organization who are additive to our culture, and at the same point in time, how we can connect them so they have a sense of belonging with their peers.We are actually always looking for how we can bring individuals into the organization who are additive to our culture, and at the same point in time, how we can connect them so they have a sense of belonging with their peers.

“We did that with a clear definition of our culture, which is centered around customer empathy. How do we put our feet into the shoes of our customers, and truly understand the problems that they are trying to solve?

"Many of our programs are built around really reinforcing this culture – recognizing it and developing it. It has become part of our recruiting process – to understand how individuals are going to contribute to this culture.”

The second aspect is to focus on great leadership.

This is especially important with remote employees who are in a hybrid situation and have very different needs and responsibilities post COVID.

Arnish sympathizes that leaders today are “probably managing in one of the most complex environments” that they have ever had to lead in, so ensuring they have the lead of a diverse, global workforce is incredibly important.

She adds: “Leaders have gone through a lot in the last few years, and many of them are new to Google as well. So, we need to be very intentional about how we're creating opportunities for them to build their skills and get the support they need on an ongoing basis.”

To achieve this, Google Cloud offers Manager Development programs, which are focused on providing different ways of building capabilities. Leaders therefore have access to external coaches who have been hired to support them.

However, with this being said, Arnish reiterates the importance of intentional hiring: “We’re at a moment where we're saying, we need to pause and be very intentional and understand how we want to continue to grow. It's a very exciting place to be,” Arnish beams.

"We're having to look and think very differently about where talent might be found as well.”

Maintaining company culture through rapid growth with microcultures

For Google, one important aspect to focus on is how to allow culture to grow and change as the business evolves. To nurture this, it maintains a set of core, foundational cultural tenets.

However, Google Cloud has found that the enterprise business it operates in differs somewhat from Google's core business as it focuses on the enterprise customers and organization, whereas Google has always prioritized the consumer and the end user.

“Things that we needed to think about from a Cloud perspective, looked a little bit different from the rest of Google,” Arnish explains.

“So we evolved a little bit of a microculture, where we still live to Google cultural principles – this was actually very important for the organization because it helped us get clear on what our vision was.

“Had we not made the decisions to get really clear on the culture that we built out, I think it would have been more challenging for all of the new employees coming in to be able to have that line of sight from the work that they're doing each and every day.”

Similarly, Arnish continues to share that the number one discussion she’s having with the CEO is: Does the business have the talent needed that's different from the conversations that were being had a couple of years ago?

“Bringing people in as fast as you can is no longer the driver anymore,” she adds. “It's actually to truly understand who we need to be driving this forward for – and where are they? How do we develop them?

"So it's a very, very exciting time for HR.”