Google Makes Employees Go to GoogleEDU

Google is making its employees go to college -- Google's college.

GoogleEDU is a learning and leadership development program offered by the tech giant in an effort to stave off poaching from Apple and Facebook, according to the Wall Street Journal. The employee-learning program has also gone through a major revamp and about a third of its 33,100 employees have attended classes.

The program creates loyalty among employees and a more Googley environment. One class teaches newbies how to make friends and influence others, and another talks through the reasons why someone would leave the search titan to helm a startup.
 
The idea of a leadership program isn't unusual. Apparently U.S. companies spent $171.5 billion on classes for their employees. However, the education doesn't always work. That's why Google asks its employees what classes they want to attend or see on the class schedule. Google uses the statistics to create classes for employees in different branches of the company and at different levels of an employee's career.
 
We were surprised to find such interesting and useful classes from Google: how to negotiate salaries, improve presentation skills and leaving to join a startup. It seems that Google is coaching both employees and its managers to handle many different situations, some of which may not directly benefit Google. We find that Google seems to care about its employees and wants them to stay -- but if they do leave, it wants them to leave with a good feeling about the company. That's unusual in these times.
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