Imagine your company receiving a resume every twenty-five seconds and the executives telling you their hardest task every day is finding great people. In fact they have more open jobs than they have people to fill them. What is going on here? This is the smallest peek behind the challenge at Google, recently ranked by Fortune magazine, as the Best Company to Work For in America.

they operate not just as a company, but as a community

It’s apparent that the founders profoundly believe in the utmost importance of organizational culture — to the degree of extravagance. We’re talking about eleven free gourmet cafeterias, on-site car washes, laundry, dry-cleaning, notaries, massages, and doctors…to name a few of the perks. They believe a culture that benefits employees is not an expense, but a cost-savings to the company because of the highly-increased productivity.

As I read the various reports on Google, I was struck by how they operate not just as a company, but as a community. From a biblical perspective, oikos — the household — is the center of economic activity. We get our word, economics, from the Greek, oikonomia, the management of a household.

The Ancient Concept of Household

Scan the New Testament and you'll see the term household over and over. We tend to translate this as the nuclear family, but the ancient concept of household is more than just Mom, Dad, and 2.2 kids. It encompassed the entire network of extended family, friends, neighbors, and partners.

the ancient concept of household is more than the nuclear family

In this intensely competitive and hyper-volatile global economy, the best way to view your company, manage your company, and treat your employees is through recovering an ancient and biblical idea — treat it as your oikos, your household.

the best way to view your company is through recovering an ancient and biblical idea — oikos

Study each of the five reports presented here. Begin by viewing the video, A Day in the Life of a "Googler". Take notes. What ideas can you glean that will help you improve
the culture of your company? How can you make it more like a community, your household?

And after you've studied Google, study the rest of the top ten. Discuss them with your colleagues. What assumptions and practices do you have that are keeping you from being one of the best places to work for?

Click the image below to play A Day in the Life of a Googler