PROFILE
Searching for the real
One of the prime reasons for wanting lower corporation tax in Northern Ireland is to attract global companies such as Google and Facebook to Belfast. Symon Ross got the inside track on what it’s like to work for them on a tour of their Dublin offices.
T
hey call it the Google ghetto. The area surrounding the three huge offices the internet search giant occupies on Dublin’s Barrow Street is so named because more than half of its 2,500 staff walk to work from nearby apartments. Counting contractors, suppliers and staff in its data centres the employment numbers are nearer 4,000, so talk to any hip young thing under 30 in the area and there’s a good chance they work for Google. The company has been in Ireland since 2003, when it started with five employees. Now, Dublin is the EMEA headquarters from which it sells to customers in 40 countries. So, when invited by the team behind the forthcoming Digital DNA event in Belfast to see behind the scenes of the internet giant, I was intrigued. I’ve heard the crazy stories about the
super laid back workspaces of California-born tech companies and wanted to see whether those tales of skate-boarding CEOs, staff bowling alleys and in-house video game arcades have been exaggerated to make them seem cooler than they really are. A quick bit of Google research (really, how did we find information before it existed) tells me Google is the basis for many of the stories. Its office in the Netherlands has an indoor cycle lane running between desks; headquarters in Mountain View is home to a replica T-Rex and edible flower garden; there’s a slide between two floors in Zurich; and a very appropriate climbing wall in Boulder. So, does Dublin live up to the hype? As it turns out, yes it does. From the moment you enter reception there are interactive screens everywhere, colourful sofas dotted around and
fridges offering free drinks and snacks, which we’re told are on hand across every one of the 13 floors. Arriving at floor 11 we enter an oh-so trendy café area with quirky, comfy seating, good coffee, a pool table, a fussball table and stunning views across Dublin to the Aviva Stadium. So far, so what, I hear you say. Well that’s just the tip of the ice-berg. In the restaurant areas chefs prepare a selection of high quality meals from around the world for employees. Each station is colour coded to indicate how healthy the food is, and, even better, it’s all free. Anyone feeling a bit stressed before lunch can amble down the corridor to one of the waiting masseuses for a neck and shoulder massage. A high-spec gym occupies half of the second floor and a pool will open in the basement this month. Across the road in the graffiti-daubed office known as The Garage, we’re given a sneak peak at The Foundry, a plush, state-of-the-art, 380-seater auditorium that will be used for customer events and training. Then we were led through one of the bright, airy offices buzzing with multi-lingual chatter to The Playground, a colourful outdoor rooftop area complete with swings and see-saws, where employees chat over ice-cream and cold drinks in the sun. The working environment is designed to keep staff comfortable and focused, says Dave Geraghty, Director of SMB Sales at Google Ireland: “Larry (Page) and Sergey (Brin), when they formed the company back in a garage 15 years ago, they built this culture. The idea is that if you make people very comfortable in their work environment you don’t have too many concerns. Like everywhere there are challenges, but we try not to make the basics challenging. If you’re hungry you don’t need to go down 12 floors, go out to the Spar to buy something, come back having lost track of what you’re doing. You grab some fruit or a chocolate bar, you come to the kitchen area.”
A googler gets a neck massage
30 AUGUST 2013