Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO, just rewarded every employee with an iPad Mini; now everyone wants to work for him. It’s Christmas in February for the lucky employees because their boss is feeling extra generous, as a reward for the company’s strong performance in the last quarter of 2012.
The CEO’s generosity is fitting, considering that their Q4 performance was up by 105%, raking over $167 million in revenue for the quarter alone. Still, getting a new iPad Mini as a gift on the second month of the New Year is something that would put a big smile on your face if you’re a LinkedIn employee.
LinkedIn’s deep pockets
LinkedIn has more than 3400 full-time employees, and all of them received an iPad Mini. So at around $330 each, Apple made well over $1.1 million from LinkedIn’s purchase alone. Well, I guess that gives Apple’s 2013 Q1 sales a good headstart. To give each employee a piece of the latest tech is a generous reward that we would rarely see in any company. Facebook, even after its $90 billion IPO, never made the headlines about getting all their employees a token for a job well done (or in their case, extreme luck for getting overvalued by that much).
The top employees were rewarded generously with what they got from the stocks, but not everyone received something. An iPad Mini is far from the thousands of dollars that an employee could cash in from the stocks, but at least, everyone received a new toy.
Boosting employee morale
LinkedIn is a continuously growing network, with a user growth of more than a hundred new members per minute. With well over 200 million members from almost all the countries in the world, we can expect that the LinkedIn employees are a busy bunch. Rewarding these hardworking drones with something new and coveted by any member of the workforce and the society (the iPad is undisputedly the king of the tablets) is a morale boost that will keep them happy, at least until the next iPad comes out.
Employees were all ecstatic, sharing their happiness to various social media networks. If they’re not answering any of their business phones at that time, perhaps they’re all on their new iPads, giving them a test run!
A change in direction
But giving these employees a perfect time waster wouldn’t mean that they’d simply slack off and be on their tablets all the time. Considering the possible direction that the company is taking, the iPad they received could even be an added tool for their respective jobs. LinkedIn is a darling of investors, that’s why it is eager to prove that it’s more than just a social network. It’s hard to be an emerging social hub when you are always in the shadow of Facebook, with more than a billion registered users all at their mercy.
The generous CEO announced that LinkedIn’s focus this year will content marketing, becoming a publishing hub for professionals that would undeniably bring in lots of money. Having a network of 200 million professionals, most, if not all are employed or seeking better employment to more than two million companies using the service, is much better than having a billion different users whose willingness to part ways with their money for your service is uncertain.
At this point in time, it’s still too early to tell if LinkedIn will indeed push through with the content marketing idea. Their Q4 2012 blowout is still their biggest achievement so far, and that’s enough to keep their investors interested in the company.
With more than 10 months till their next Q4 performance report, we can only assume that LinkedIn is pulling all the stops not only to make their employees happy, but also to become an even more profitable company.
Apple iPad Mini hands on by T3Channel
