EMPLOYEE INCENTIVES IN IT COMPANIES: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM GOOGLE? Fernando Belfo Algoritmi Research Centre, Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra Quinta Agrícola, Bencanta, 3040-316 Coimbra, Portugal, fpbelfo@gmail.com Rui Dinis Sousa Algoritmi Research Centre, Information Systems Department, University of Minho Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal, rds@dsi.uminho.pt ABSTRACT Attracting and retaining IT professionals have emerged as top management concerns in the last years. This is particular relevant for companies with core business processes in IT that have much to gain from talented IT professionals. Google is one of those companies. Showing a considerable growth in recent years and pointed out as one of the best companies in US to work for, Google presents itself as an interesting case for studying employee incentives policies in IT companies. Using a netnographic approach to look into a work life blog discussion with the participation of present and past Google employees, a total reward strategy framework is used to analyze the data and generate new insights. Work life topics suggested upfront such as community involvement, health and wellness, work flexibility and cultural environment are particularly important. Administrative efficiency, workplace stability and equipment and technology are some new topics that may be worth to consider in a framework to guide incentive policies for a total reward strategy in IT companies. KEYWORDS Incentive, IT Company, Google, Netnography, Total Reward Strategy. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Incentive policies for IT professionals Attracting new IT (Information and Technology) professionals and retaining the talented ones have been top management concerns in the last years (Luftman et al. 2009). Even if the recession and crisis climate nowadays is throwing concerns with business productivity and cost reduction to the top apparently lowering the concerns with human resources (Luftman and Ben-Zvi 2010), no organization can survive for a long time without paying close attention to such an important asset. And this asset frequently requires motivation to be effective at the workplace. Many IT projects fail although ―there was not a single technological is sue to explain the failure‖. Motivation is frequently at the root of IT project failure rates (DeMarco and Lister 1999). Thus management should develop incentive policies following a total reward strategy to keep human resources motivated at work. 1.2 Total Rewards Strategy Reward, satisfier, job satisfaction, career satisfaction, career success, intention to stay or motivation state are often associated with incentives policies. Each one of those concepts may be taken into consideration to guide human behaviour at workplace. (Baroudi and Igbaria 1994; Beecham et al. 2008; Igbaria et al. 1991; Igbaria and Guimaraes 1992).