
Google to Make Security Guards Employees, Rather Than Contractors - adidash
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/03/google-to-make-security-guards-as-employees-rather-than-contractors/
======
JeremyMorgan
I think this is a good move.

I understand the tax incentives/accounting behind it, but I still feel it's
kind of shady to hire "contractors" for positions that are indefinite. I think
contractors should be for the time you need a bunch of hands or brains to get
something done for a few months, but using contractors for years on end is
just abuse of the system and demeaning for the person.

Who do you think is going to be more loyal and do a better job with your
security, someone who always feels like an outsider, or someone who is
protecting "their" own company?

~~~
sidcool
That exactly was my first thought...'What's in it for Google?'. Not doubting
their good intentions, but whenever any corporate portrays an altruistic
thing, it rings the skeptic bell in my head.

Good move Google.

~~~
bostik
I don't understand the downvote, because I can easily think of non-altruistic
reasons for this move.

1) I have no doubt Google already tracks their contractors' staff turnover.
_Every_ industry has institutional knowledge, and if staff turnover is high,
not enough of the knowledge gets transferred. If the prestige of being a
Googler is enough to counter that trend, it may be well worth a lot more than
the monetary cost.

2) Assuming the detail about "gbus" access is true, the security guards
traveling on the buses will have personal incentives for keeping them safer.

3) This move may attract the kinds of people Google wants for their physical
security. (Related to point #1.)

So while Google may well be riding the social awareness wave for PR purposes,
there are bound to be real corporate reasons behind the move too.

~~~
wavegeek
You might find it also makes their stats look better ie % African American
employees.

Don't be evil.*

*Unless it's profitable.

------
ghshephard
Note - that this sort of thing usually lasts while a company is profitable.
Once things get tight (if they do), then everything is back on the table, and
Security Guards, Cleaners, Kitchen Staff, Groundskeepers - basically anybody
who doesn't have proprietary knowledge, training, or skills is replaced with a
contractor.

I remember when my University (SFU) fired all their cleaning staff - some of
whom had been working their for 20+ years and replaced them with contractors
(who (ironically?) actually did a much better job for a _lot_ less money) -
students went on a mini strike, but, at the same time, the University was
being forced to raise tuition to cover the bills - so they were trying to find
every way they could save money possible.

~~~
rodly
This isn't always the case. Zappos had always hired people to prepare
breakfast and dinner and then flipped and used a contractor for food prep and
service when they moved to their new HQ in downtown Las Vegas. Zappos is
definitely not tight on money and is very well run (from what I could tell).

Perhaps they're just an outlier though.

~~~
walshemj
It's a sign that hr and accountants have taken over and the tail is wagging
the dog

------
ChuckMcM
It gives them more control over who they hire, it makes it harder (if not
impossible) for the SEIU from unionize them, assuming they have to sign the
employment agreement it allows them to install surveillance on any of their
computers, and it will probably make for a much better experience for
employees.

One of the saddest things they did during my time there was switch the
TechStop folks from employees to contractors and that was, in my opinion of
course, a huge mistake. Having these folks be contractors totally changed the
dynamic with respect to the other employees.

~~~
flomo
The big opportunity here is to hire and train people who actually care about
"Google security", versus people who care about wearing a uniform and applying
for real cop jobs. Sorry if I'm going back to my blue-collar days, but I've
never met a security guard who really took his job seriously. They're there
mostly for show and they recognize that.

~~~
AJ007
It is possible they are transitioning to a more automated force:
[http://knightscope.com/](http://knightscope.com/) (math I did came out to
about $4 per hour, 24/7.) If that is the case you want a smaller number of
higher quality security workers in house.

I can't speak for the Bay area, or Google, or the contracting firm, but
security guards typically have a turnover exceeding 100%. Makes a lot of sense
to have any firm deal with the bullshit that arises from having turnover that
high.

------
wodenokoto
I'm actually quite surprised by this.

Having worked as a contractor for Google, my impression is that they consider
being an employee at Google as a brand in and by itself.

My contract stated several times that I was not a Googler, and I was not hired
by Google and I was not allowed to say "I work for Google"and if I start a
company I am definitely not allowed to send out a press release saying "Ex-
googler makes new start-up to solve ..."

~~~
a3_nm
> I was not allowed to say "I work for Google"

Seriously? That's frankly ridiculous. Performing tasks for someone in exchange
for payment seems to me like a reasonable use case for the verb "work", no
matter whether your status is employee, contractor, moonlighter, intern,
teenager looking for pocket money, etc. It seems impressive to me that they
would feel entitled to forbid you from saying so.

~~~
psykovsky
Should they even have the right to do that?

------
joelrunyon
> The August think tank report found that the median hourly wage is $14 an
> hour for security guards in Santa Clara County – home to Google and scores
> of other tech companies. By contrast, the median wage for software
> developers is roughly $63 an hour.

Obviously - $14/hour is quite low and there's a certain increased level of
security that comes with paying guards more (it won't be so easily for them to
consider _alternative_ income sources), but does anyone really think that that
gap needs to be closed completely? I think they'd be hard pressed to
demonstrate that a security guards warrants equal pay with a software
developer.

~~~
mentat
The value of software development is the multiplicative application of
innovation / creation. Security guarding will never have that (without
adjacent technological innovation.)

------
mark_l_watson
I worked as a contractor at Google last year as a software engineer. All of
the people I interacted with who were non technical contractors, like security
guards, office supplies, etc. seemed to have a great attitude and acted like
they appreciated their jobs. Same comment applies to almost all of the
technical contractors I met.

Unless companies need to lock in key employees, using contractors makes a lot
of sense, and with the affordable health care act, one of the big reasons for
wanting to be an employee vanishes. I have worked as an independent consultant
for 15+ years, so I am biased in favor of flexible working arrangements.

BTW, I hope the current contracted security guards get some preference in
being hired as employees.

~~~
crpatino
Security "contractors" are not the same as real contractors. They are
themselves employees of a different 3rd party company that "hires" them to the
paying customer for a (usually much) bigger bill than the contractor's wage.
The flexibility from the point of view of the customer is that they can let go
such "contractor" on a wimp and expect to have a replacement lined up in a
short time if needed. The 3rd party company probably manages this by swapping
its employees from one customer to another, at least in the short term.

Strategically speaking, the reasons for resorting to this type of arrangement
range from the legitimate (you really don't care about developing the core
competencies required by the position in-house) to the borderline fraudulent
(you want to hide a big fixed cost in your accounting books and make it pass
as a variable cost, so your company's finances look healthier than they really
are).

------
boulos
This wasn't mentioned in the article but this will also mean they can ride the
shuttle for free (the IRS considers this a benefit with some specified dollar
amount). I'm glad the security guards won't have to choose between driving or
paying the "gbus fare".

------
a3_nm
The article says "more than 200 security guards". Any clue about how this
compare to the number of security guards working as contractors for Google?
I'm curious about whether "Security Guards" in the title means "all security
guards", or "a small proportion of security guards, as an experiment".

------
krick
I see many comments here be like "security is important for google, so paying
guards more is a wise move". That isn't really true. If you want to keep
something safe the real question isn't if your employee wants to abuse you,
but if he _can_. Security is about being sure that damage that can be made by
every single person you entrusted with access to something is reasonably low.
Because if somebody can blow you up, him being your own employee and not a
contractor, or paying him nice wage doesn't guarantee enough. Consider
Snowden.

Now about wages. I'm not sure why I'm saying such obvious things on HN, but
there's some visible ignorance in comments on that topic. Developers aren't
paid more than cleaners because being developer is somehow better by itself.
Wages are dictated by market, so the question is if you can find somebody who
can do the same work while being paid less. Of course I don't know what
specific purpose will serve these security guys hired by google, but if we're
talking about something like sitting all day long watching nobody enters using
other tools than his NFC card then answer is definitely yes, finding a guy who
can do _that_ is easier than finding a guy who can write efficient js or
something like that.

I _do_ think that hiring your own security staff is convenient (and I'm a bit
surprised it wasn't the case before — I suppose it isn't like they are
founding their own Blackwater), but it doesn't seem to be as important as some
journalists are implying and sure it isn't about social equality.

~~~
smileysteve
> If you want to keep something safe the real question isn't if your employee
> wants to abuse you, but if he can.

This assumes that 100% safeguarding is something that you are 100% capable of
doing. If Google had that, they may not even need security guards (hyperbole).

> Consider Snowden

In the case of Snowden, we know that he attempted to raise the issue
internally. Many argue that Snowden actually did serve his _drive_ and oath
comparatively to Manning.

 _Drive_ goes into these aspects that inspire people. It suggests that
autonomy and purpose matter much more than pay - and Google having greater
control over this could certainly help control.

------
mianos
Coincidentally until this week I never saw the security people in the lift (we
share a building). This week I have seen them many times inside and outside
wearing Google Security logoed shirts.

------
davidf18
Given the importance of security and worry over theft of intellectual property
by accessing servers on-site, etc., I am really surprised that hi-tech firms
(Google, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, ...) don't hire their own security. Also,
for people that store data on Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon servers, I'd
want security to be vetted by the firm (Google, etc.) that is accountable for
providing the secure service.

Incidentally, this also holds true for hospitals, etc. that have secure
medical data.

~~~
raincom
All these companies have security teams (not network security). Most of them
are retired cops, retired detectives, sometimes these companies hire local
cops for big bucks as their VP of security. But they also hire managers of
security for local sites.

But at the bottom level, they have contracted out to Securitas, Guardsmark,
SIS Security, etc.

Patrolling, monitoring cameras from a central site, checking locks of all
doors, badging, etc--all these have been contracted out.

Hospitals are better in this aspect: they hire full timers for the bottom
layer, and they also keep contract security firms. Stanford hospital is a good
example: they have 70% full time security guards, and 30% is contracted out.

------
usernamepc
Maybe it was to preempt something like this. Seattle City council calling out
Amazon to treat its security guards better and to let them unionize.
[http://www.geekwire.com/2014/seattle-city-council-amazon-
sec...](http://www.geekwire.com/2014/seattle-city-council-amazon-security-
guards/)

------
jgalt212
Given how security conscious Google is, I'm surprised the security personnel
were ever outsourced.

------
josephkern
I am very glad to hear this, google employs (or _ahem_ contracts) some very
good security personnel. I do wonder though if the current security personnel
will be converted to full employees or if they will be sent back to the
contracting company ...

------
billpg
I wonder if they get to use 20% of their time providing security for their
personal projects.

(b'dom ksh)

------
choppaface
The _median_ salary for software engineers is $130k??!? At Google or in all of
SV???

~~~
icelancer
Hmm? This doesn't seem impossible at all at Google. My last job in Seattle as
a Data Scientist was approaching that in salary alone, and I'm not good enough
to work at Google. Those who are should make about that much.

~~~
judk
You are not not good enough to work at Google.

~~~
nerfhammer
This is a roundabout way of saying that google's hiring standards are often a
total mystery

~~~
icelancer
True. But I am a college dropout with no experience in formal Computer Science
and my professional developer skills are quite lacking. I am good at hacking
data and statistics research. Not really what they are looking for, from what
I can tell.

~~~
zaphar
Don't sell yourself short. I also am a college dropout with no formal Computer
Science education and had limited professional developer experience and I
worked at Google for 7 years.

Google's whole business is built around hacking data and statistics. You may
very well be exactly what they are looking for.

~~~
nerfhammer
I know someone with a data science degree from a top school whom google
recently passed on. No idea what they may have been really looking for.

------
scottlocklin
I guess the EEOC is finally breathing down their necks. Funny how long
companies like google can get away with it....

Vote it down if you like: it's the obvious reason Google is hiring its
security guards.

------
rasengan
We have had our security guards as employees (not contractors) since the
beginning. Not sure how this is news and how this isn't the norm.

------
SilentDirge
Doesn't this reduce their ability for overtime pay in certain situations?

~~~
flomo
Doubtful.[1] California has limited exemptions for overtime that can't simply
be avoided by paying salary. Even a significant number of 'IT professionals'
should be paid overtime. [2]

[1]
[http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtimeexemptions.htm](http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_overtimeexemptions.htm)
[2]
[https://www.dir.ca.gov/oprl/ComputerSoftware.pdf](https://www.dir.ca.gov/oprl/ComputerSoftware.pdf)

------
imswapnil
Good move I've seen some really bad contractors

------
journeeman
Google's getting its own army. ;-)

~~~
praptak
Naah, that's what robots are for.

~~~
TeMPOraL
For a second I actually imagined that this might be the start of what in 10
years will become Google Security Forces, people safegurading Google
micronation/underwater colony/Mars establishment.

------
DonnyV
I wonder if Google has caught a contractor that was working for NSA.

------
seivan
I've always wondered why we outsource cleaning and janitorial staff? It's so
unnecessary and cruel. Make them part of the team.

~~~
pcurve
Same reason why many companies (including probably Google) outsources
landscaping work even though there's work to be done every year around. The
subcontracted companies have foreman and managers who are much better equipped
to train people in janitorial, cleaning, and landscaping work than Google.

Whatever the motive, I applaud the move.

------
piokoch
That's strange. Google will have to go into bussines of security services. Why
they just don't negotiate with the contracted security company better terms
for the employees working for Google?

~~~
judk
Probably because they couldn't find one.

------
frozenport
>>SIS told The Journal the change was a business move on its part. “The
decision to end this contractual relationship was made by SIS as part of its
normal business operations and then conveyed to Google,” said SIS Chief
Financial Officer Tom Seltz in an email.

Um, so who made the choice SIS or Google?

~~~
raincom
Who made the choice: Definitely, Google. On the paper, it is SIS. I worked for
SIS a decade ago: yes, they are nice folks, they did not provide health
insurance. They had some $120/month insurance, which covers like $10K a year--
and this is not an insurance at all. That's why I did not buy that insurance.

SIS won lots of security contracts based on the price alone. Guardmark, one of
its competitors, provides a good health insurance for its employees; but they
can't compete with SIS, which does not provide any benefits.

