D ing their first ve their first year and another 100 hours during their sec- sand year. That compares with 31 hours of training for the ge U.S. worker, according to the American Society of ning and Development. Training for Container Store I LI JIUL, Ulla Place to Work, http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com, accessed May 7, 2016; Sarah Halzack, "The Container Store and the Challenge of Building a Business for Neatniks," Washington Post, July 8, 2015. https:// www.washingtonpost.com: Susan Berfield, "Will Investors Put the Lid on Container Store's Generous Wages?" Bloomberg Businessweek, February 19, 2015, http//www.bloomberg.com MANAGING TALENT How Adobe's People and Rewards Contribute to High Performance Adobe Systems is probably best known as the company vice president of innovation, Mark Randall, wanted to cre- behind the software for creating and reading PDF docu- ate "a whole culture of experimenting," so he equipped ments. What users don't see when filling in a PDF form employees with a set of software tools called Kickbox, as are the ingredients a company needs to succeed in the well as the opportunity to participate in workshops on how competitive, fast-changing software industry. And Adobe to use it. Kickbox leads the user step by step through the is succeeding, as measured by one-year revenue growth of process of creating and developing an idea. Any employee 25% and profit growth of 48%. may use Kickbox on company time, so the company is in One ingredient of that success is that Adobe designs and effect supporting projects without the bureaucracy of an rewards work in ways that promote innovation. Adobe's approval process. Randall acknowledges that this means it 286 PART 3 Assessing and Improving Performance Adobe employees are enthusiastic about their com pany. In fact, when Adobe's leader of Social Business analyzing data, he discovered that some of the great social-media impact on revenues was coming from emne ees, not company-sponsored posts. Adobe has there equipped its employees with guidelines and encouragem to become brand ambassadors on LinkedIn, Glassdoor the Adobe blog. Most likely, they will have plenty of news to share. is paying for some failed ideas, but he insists that failure Yeaches people how to respond to what customers need or want." And as they learn, successes follow. An exam- ple of an innovation that emerged through this process is DeepFont, pattern recognition software that helns desien- ers select the perfect type font for a project by analyzing photos of ideas. Another ingredient is a set of practices for bringing loyal employees onboard, despite the demands of business growth (adding 4,000 employees per year) and the talent poaching that is rampant in the industry. Jeff Vijungco, Adobe's vice president of global talent, has a background in recruiting coupled with a passion for employee devel- opment. He combines the two perspectives to ensure that new employees quickly embark on a path to job suc- cess and career growth. Vijungco directed recruiters to check in with new employees periodically during their first few months and to work with the talent develop- ment team to ensure that talent needs are being filled and employees have the resources they need to meet their responsibilities. This coupling of recruitment and devel- opment supports Adobe's goal of creating a culture of Questions 1. Would you consider Adobe a high-performance on zation? Why or why not? 2. How do the practices described in this case relate to principles of empowerment, knowledge sharing, and employee engagement? Sources: Sarah Fister Gale, "Creating a Recruitment Process That Sticks." Chief Learning Officer, May 2016, pp. 48 49: Anne Fisher, "How Adobe Sparks Innovation by Paying People to Fail," Fortune, April 5, 2016, http:// fortune.com: Ashish Valentine, "Wang Develops Font Recognition System for Adobe," University of Illinois Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, December 3, 2015, http://www.ece.illinois.edu: Lydia Abbot "How Adobe Empowers Its Employees to Be Brand Ambassadors," LinkedIn Talent blog, June 3, 2015, http://business.linkedin.com. learning HR IN SMALL BUSINES