In an aggressive market move, LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, reached an agreement to purchase Glint, a company that provides employment engagement services for businesses and organisations.
Firstly, what exactly are ‘employment engagement services’? Well, Glint offer a range of products, amongst them its ‘People Success Platform’. This platform uses anonymous surveys to gauge employee opinions on a variety of topics, such as job satisfaction, management effectiveness, perceived opportunities for progression and co-worker compatibility. It can also track other factors, such as how long employees stay at the company for, how successful promoted employees are in their new roles and how effective the employee on-boarding process is.
The platform then collates and presents this data in concise reports so HR teams can get snapshots of honest opinions from the workforce. This data can then be used to pinpoint any problem areas, such as teams that are hemorrhaging staff, or departments that are under trained or under-supported, as well as highlighting areas where the company is performing well, such as the excellent performance of certain teams or managers.
It’s the combination of this type of data collation and analysis, along with LinkedIn’s astronomical wealth of information (an estimated 500 million profiles and counting), that’s been causing speculation as to what LinkedIn has planned. Daniel Shapero, Vice President of Talent Solutions, Careers and Learning at LinkedIn, touched on this in his post announcing the purchase;
Now imagine, through our combined offerings, that we can translate the specific feedback a manager gets from their employees on Glint into a personalized LinkedIn learning experience focused on the topics that will help them improve, thus making the feedback much more actionable…
Add this to the announcement of LinkedIn’s first stand-alone ATS, TalentHub, and we are seeing an emerging picture of LinkedIn moving away from its traditional area of networking, and moving towards being the sole platform used during the whole lifecycle of the recruitment process and beyond.
It’s not unreasonable to think that LinkedIn is setting the stage for something that could redefine the way in which companies and organizations attract, recruit, manage and part ways with employees.
You can read the full announcement here.