Work Rules!
by Laszlo Bock · first published 2015
47% recommend53% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Insider look at how Google ran hiring, performance, and management, drawing on its internal experiments like Project Oxygen and interview validation; useful for HR folks and managers wanting concrete practices to test.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…hear from people who are working in a Teal environment. If you're interested in other books that talk about the future of work I would recommend Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull (about how Pixar works) and Work Rules! by Laszlo Bock (about how Google HR works). They're both fascinating insights into how two modern companies try to do their best work. Would love some recommendations if you have any as well.
on “Zappos’ experiment to end the office workplace” ↗> conduct an RCT in which you hire some percentage of people who fail the test as a control group You might enjoy Work Rules by Laszlo Bock. They actually did do this at Google to validate their interview approach.
on “In defense of coding interviews” ↗Suggest reading Laslo Bock's book- Work Rules! One rule stands-out, hire only people who are better than you. And importantly, “hire by committee.” > http://www.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-Transform/d...
on “Ask HN: Learning to conduct an interview?” ↗Well, I've written my own career course for developers, but two notable books include: https://smile.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp... https://smile.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-Transfor...
on “Articles and books about the software engineering labor market?” ↗Laszlo Bock's Work Rules! highlights many things that have been tried and implemented at Google to improve recruiting and retention. It might be a bit effusive, but I think the insights generally do apply to many workplaces.…
on “Ask HN: Why does Google get away with such bad recruiting practices?” ↗Laszlo Bock, Google's former head of HR, covered this idea in his book "Work Rules" [1]. It's a good read. (disclaimer: I work at Google, although I read the book before I joined. I remember initially thinking the book was just corporate PR, but later I had the opportunity to see firsthand…
on “Alphabet Q1 2018 Earnings [pdf]” ↗Project Oxygen is worth checking out. It was mentioned in "Work Rules" by Laszlo Bock https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/the-evolution-of-project-...
on “Ask HN: What are the signs that you have a great manager?” ↗…Stephen A. Miles) People Performance/HR/Culture - Powerful (Patty McCord) - No Rules Rules (Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer) - Netflix culture deck - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni) - Work Rules! (Laszlo Bock) - It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work (DHH and Jason Fried) - The Culture Map (Erin Meyer) - The Talent War (Mike Sarraille and George Randle) - Great People Decisions (Claudio Fernández-Aráoz) -…
on “Ask HN: What books helped you in your entrepreneurship journey?” ↗…conducted N interviews in the quarter and that is just barely enough to not get docked some Ⓟ for being a shut-in. I am giving somewhat of a negative portrait and it is not all negative, see Laszlo Bock’s Work Rules for the better parts. I'm just saying that the culture of not-my-department has been created by, and is sustained by, incentivization.
on “Google has another secret browser” ↗…level may be getting paid more or less? To get a balanced perspective it would useful to read up on both sides of the approach. For example, on one end you have Google's Laszlo Bock arguing in his book Work Rules, that its good that Google "pays unfairly" (https://goo.gl/3hWbQw). On the other end, are the Scandinavian countries like Norway where you can walk into a tax office and see anyone's tax return (https://goo.gl/P5WqW1)…
on “Ask HN: Why are compensation tiers secret?” ↗If you read the book of the book Work Rules! of Laszlo Bock (HR in google) you will learn that parties and group binding is appreciated more than salary by workers. So if you see from the money side of things, you can get/keep (more) highly talented…
on “Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation” ↗…easily. It's not a good thing to incentivize :) Also if I were a manager sifting through some kind of peer bonus app I'd too be tempted to mark all as rejected after a while. There was a book recently, Work rules! by Laszlo Bock who happens to be a head of people operations. He describes exactly those inequality patterns. It's nothing unusual, some of it is accepted (some people earn more for their higher value)…
on “What happens when you talk about salaries at Google” ↗Having read Work Rules! by Laszlo Bock, It does not seem that strange to me... The Google culture and leadership, right or wrong, hold on to the belief that the spaces they cultivate, do more than just enhance productivity.…
on “Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit” ↗They looked at the data. In Work Rules!, Laszlo Bock (head of People Operations at Google) writes: « So in 2007 we started looking for themes across the ten thousand or so people we had hired, as well as the millions we didn’t. In addition…
on “CS183C Session 8: Eric Schmidt” ↗I haven't read it myself, but I heard that's what Laszlo Bock said in Work Rules.
on “Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test” ↗