Wendi Simpson
Southern New Hampshire University
OL 668 Nimble Storage Assessment (Milestone One)
Nimble Storage Assessment
Introduction
Nimble was founded in 2008 as a hybrid data storage system company. "The company's
mission was to give its "customers the industry's most efficient flash storage platform."
(Bahrami, 2015) Nimble grew rapidly from 2008-2015 with over 5,000 customers by early 2015
and hiring one employee per day between 2011-2013. Nimble quickly grew to having over 800
employees by the end of 2014 and became on of Bay Area News Group's top places to work in
2013. Even though Nimble storage was a fast-growing organization they still faced not being
profitable by the end of 2015 Nimble had lost $32 million due to high operating expenses, sales
and marketing, and administration expenses.
Nimble Storage Assessment
Business Practice Analysis
Gaps Within the Organization
Nimble grew rapidly between 2011 and 2013 hiring 80-90 new employees every quarter
(about 1 new employee per day). With a HR team of only 15 keeping up with the demand of the
growing company during this time. To help structure the HR department Nimble hired Paul
Whitney as VP of HR in 2013. "Whitney partitioned his job into three buckets, the areas around
which Nimble's people strategy was based: 1) supply of talent (internal or external), 2) systems
and infrastructure (provide systems that are easy to work with and were compliant in a public
environment), and 3) culture." (Bahrami, 2015)
The supply of talent on a local level was originally staffed by senior people who have had
a lot of experience in bigger companies prior to Nimble. Recruiting team members was on a
referral bases and employees were given an award of a small monetary amount and a small
amount of company shares. On a geocentric perspective Nimble has staff in 18 countries around
the world, and new countries being added frequently. Doing a referral base hiring system in other
countries may not be as valuable as it is locally. Locally Nimble was able to bring in talent that
had years of experience in the field, on a geocentric level Nimble may not be able to find this
same type of talent which would leave a gap in recruitment. Referrals even though beneficial on
a cost-effective scale can have a impact on diversity in the work place, "the program may create
an unintentional disparate impact on some protected groups if employees refer candidates of the
same race, religion, national origin or any other protected class." (SHRM)
Nimble incorporated managers into the hiring process by educating, training, and
engaging with them to help them understand that hiring was their responsibility. "The specific
hiring and firing-related responsibilities of a manager vary, and are often shared with a huma