What’s New…In Talent Management
Talent Management News
More Consolidation
While acquisitions of SuccessFactors, Taleo and Kenexa in the last few years made the biggest splashes, there has been no shortage of investment in the Talent Management space. The last few months have been no exception with PeopleAnswers, Kaisen Cosulting, and Knightsbridge being acquired by Infor, Deloitte, and Lee Hecht Harrison (Adecco) respectively.
Read more about the PeopleAnswers / Infor Deal
Read more about the Kaisen Consulting / Deloitte Deal
Read more about the Lee Hecht Harrison / Knightsbridge Deal
While there are certainly benefits of scale to the organizations, it remains to be seen whether the client will benefit from the reduced competition in the industry.
No More Performance Appraisals?
Accenture got the blogs-a-buzzing in July by announcing that they were ditching performance reviews starting in September. According to the Washington Post, “The firm will disband rankings and the once-a-year evaluation process starting in fiscal year 2016, which for Accenture begins this September. It will implement a more fluid system, in which employees receive timely feedback from their managers on an ongoing basis following assignments.”
It is easy to stop at the headline and assume that reviews are going the way of the dinosaur. However, Accenture joins Deloitte and Microsoft in “transforming” their traditional process into something that delivers more value to each employee.
Everyone will still be evaluated. Just more effectively than the traditional annual review.
Read more about Accenture Getting Rid of Performance Reviews.
Amazon is Mean!
If you missed the New York Times article, Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace, you must have been relaxing at the beach all month (good for you…I am jealous).
Any article about America’s largest retailer not being very nice to their employees is going to garner a boatload of interest and even more commentary (see below for links). It is a juicy read chock full of stories of people crying at work, backstabbing, and unrealistic demands. Is Amazon based in Seattle or Genoa City?
“I would see people practically combust”, and, “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk” are just to that attempt to capture the Amazon environment.
Jeff Bezos is not known as being the warmest and fuzziest and even acknowledged to shareholders way back in 1997 that “Amazon is not an easy place to work”. So, none of this should come as a surprise.
But, it is sure fun to read about.
For those of you who can’t get enough, here are some links so you can dig in to more on the Working at Amazon.
Don’t Try This At Home: Why Amazon’s Culture Isn’t Right For Your Business – Forbes
Amazon: Is Workplace Happiness Overrated? – Talent Management
Jeff Bezos Assures Amazon Employees That HR Working 100 Hours A Week To Address Their Complaints – The Onion
Amazon’s Use of ‘Stack’ Ranking for Workers May Backfire, Experts Say – NBC News
Are Donald Trump And Amazon Changing The Face of Leadership? – Forbes
A great discussion on This Week in Tech:
Until next time…
