People Operations

Google

The Story

Good stories are cohesive. As Google’s staffing organization grew, the need for a unified voice became increasingly clear. As the program manager leading culture and communications, I created content to bring staffing together: a style guide, learning experiences, all hands sessions, multimedia spotlights on people and jobs well done, a mentorship network, and more.

The Strategy

Build a shared vision of who we are. Understand, distill, and memorably describe the spirit of Google People Operations. Help that spirit thrive. Create a unified voice and lexicon for use by staffers and leaders. Elevate extraordinary people and work through stories. Build agile processes and cultural norms that will endure. Keep a sense of fun at the forefront.

The Significance

Stories can unify. Investing in the culture and voice of staffing paid off. New training materials reduced staffer onboarding time by 50% and improved retention. Consistent, compassionate, and sincere touch points with leadership helped bring the organization to a new level of satisfaction and productivity. The unified style guide helped improve the hiring experience for candidates and Googlers.

STORIES THAT CONNECT PEOPLE

Google’s People Operations team connects with tens of thousands of people every year, across companies and continents. As the culture and communications program manager for staffing, I created a style and brand guide to help those connections happen with a consistent voice. I also built improved onboarding material for staffers, hiring managers, and members of hiring committees.

Much of this work is confidential and cannot be shared, but I can talk about some of it. In some cases, I have created mockups to convey the idea without using proprietary material.

Google’s staffers communicate with thousands of people daily. That outreach needed to happen with a unified voice and a cohesive style.

I created a style and branding guide and peripheral content to help staffers communicate in harmony with Google’s established voice.

I tailored the content to be highly relevant, approachable, and memorable for the staffing audience. It addressed tone, voice, inclusive language, preferred terminology, elements of style, and more. I ran a series of internal ads, office hours, and training sessions to socialize and evangelize the new guide.

During my tenure in People Operations, Google’s staffing organization grew to over 4,000 people. Cohesive and clear communication became increasingly urgent.

I drove culture and communication efforts across multiple channels. My work included orchestrating all hands and leadership listening sessions, launching informal weekly communications from the director, and driving a series of story spotlights that featured remarkable colleagues and candidates.

Additionally, I rebuilt staffing’s core training materials to make the onboarding process faster, more effective, and more enjoyable for those joining the organization.

People thrive when they’re able to share and learn from each other’s stories.

I worked with a team of engineers, UXers, designers, and leaders across organizations to launch a highly customizable mentorship service that remains in active use today.

I led the project team, wrote microcopy, and designed a lightweight skill architecture that users could use to build profiles and find the right mentorship fit. I also designed and executed a multimedia internal marketing campaign to drive adoption. Post-launch, we continued to refine the platform to best meet user needs.