This group expressed preferences like “It is often difficult to tell where my work life ends and my non-work life begins.” Of these Integrators (69% of people), more than half want to get better at segmenting. (To be precise, people fall on a continuum across these dimensions, so I’m simplifying a bit.) They not only find themselves checking email all evening, but pressing refresh on gmail again and again to see if new work has come in. Segmentors reported preferences like “I don’t like to have to think about work while I am at home.”įor “Integrators”, by contrast, work looms constantly in the background. We call them “Segmentors.” They draw a psychological line between work stress and the rest of their lives, and without a care for looming deadlines and floods of emails can fall gently asleep each night. Our first rounds of gDNA have revealed that only 31% of people are able to break free of this burden of blurring. Technology makes us accessible at all hours (sorry about that!), and friendships and personal connections have always been a part of work. For most people work and life are practically inseparable. But the idea that there is a perfect balance is a red herring. What do we hope to learn? In the short-term, how to improve wellbeing, how to cultivate better leaders, how to keep Googlers engaged for longer periods of time, how happiness impacts work and how work impacts happiness.įor example, much has been written about balancing work and personal life. Critically, participation is optional and confidential. We then consider how all these factors interact, as well as with biographical characteristics like tenure, role and performance. We ask about traits that are static, like personality characteristics that change, like attitudes about culture, work projects, and co-workers and how Googlers fit into the web of relationships around all of us. The survey itself is built on scientifically validated questions and measurement scales. Here’s how it works: a randomly selected and representative group of over 4,000 Googlers completes two in-depth surveys each year. Since we know that the way each employee experiences work is determined by innate characteristics (nature) and his or her surroundings (nurture), the gDNA survey collects information about both. We’re already getting glimpses of the smart decisions today that can have profound impact on our future selves, and the future of work overall. Under the leadership of PhD Googlers Brian Welle and Jennifer Kurkoski, we’re two years into what we hope will be a century-long study. Inspired by the Framingham research, our People Innovation Lab developed gDNA, Google’s first major long-term study aimed at understanding work. We all have our opinions and case studies, but there is precious little scientific certainty around how to build great work environments, cultivate high performing teams, maximize productivity, or enhance happiness. After more than a decade in People Operations, I believe that the experience of work can be - should be - so much better. Upon reading about the study, I wondered if the idea of such long-term research could be attempted in another field that touches all of us: work. The Framingham Heart Study, which started with more than 5,000 people and continues to this day, has become a data source for not just heart disease, but also for insights about weight loss (adjusting your social network helps people lose weight), genetics (inheritance patterns), and even happiness (living within a mile of a happy friend has a 25% chance of making you happier). More than 65 years ago in Massachusetts, doctors began a longitudinal study that would transform our understanding of heart disease.
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