Jeff Immelt Wants To Change GE's Corporate Culture

General Electric Company GE CEO Jeff Immelt recently penned an article for LinkedIn in which he discussed the company’s new approach to its corporate environment. According to Immelt, GE is taking an aggressive and progressive approach to its internal culture.

“We may be a century-old company, but we need to move quickly, take risks, fail fast and behave like a startup to keep winning,” Immelt wrote.

One of the biggest new initiatives involves corporate communication and decision-making.

“We have to embrace decentralization and use technology to help our people stay connected and allow more automated decision-making so you can look at an app and see what’s going on inside the company.”

GE’s workforce is changing as well, starting with a brand new set of 21st century skills.

“If you are joining the company in your 20s, unlike when I joined, you’re going to lean to code. It doesn’t matter if you are in sales, finance or operations,” he added.

Related Link: GE Finally Stabilizing After Post-Earnings Slide

GE is also changing the way it evaluates employees. Instead of the traditional quarterly or annual evaluations, the company will be aiming for more real-time performance feedback.

“Instead of an annual review, we have an app PD @ GE where our people are getting continuous insights from their colleagues that they can use to get better every day,” Immelt explained.

Time will tell whether GE’s corporate culture initiatives will lead to a better work environment for employees and more profits for investors.

Since Immelt took over as GE’s CEO in September 2001, GE’s stock is down 21.1 percent. The S&P 500 is up 100.8 percent in that time.

Disclosure: The author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.