HUMAN CAPITAL PULSE: TECHNOLOGY · ISSUE 2 · FEBRUARY 2026
A monthly Human Capital benchmark for HR and People leaders in Technology: the sector's talking points and how culture, workforce and talent compare across your peers, built on Deltabase data covering 5,500+ companies and 11M employee reviews.
February was about who leads. Salesforce cut close to 1,000 roles while replacing senior leaders, IBM said it would triple entry-level hiring to protect its future management bench, and OpenAI appointed a new Chief People Officer. Our data shows why leadership is the theme to watch: Supportive Leadership sentiment fell at seven of ten Technology Top 100 companies in 2025. This month's Spotlight compares Apple and Amazon.
Leroy Hall, Deltabase
What happened: Salesforce laid off nearly 1,000 employees in February, according to Business Insider, including staff in marketing, product management, data analytics and teams tied to its Agentforce AI product. It also appointed six new executives to replace five senior leaders who had announced exits since December.
The Deltabase lens: Culture: Salesforce's Supportive Leadership NSS fell from −19.6% to −27.0% in 2025, and Empowered from −28.2% to −36.0%. Talent: 34.7% of its workforce list AI skills, the highest share in the peer set. Workforce: monthly turnover was 1.06% in January 2026, below its 2025 average of 1.34%.
So what: Cutting teams on a flagship product sends a leadership message employees read before the strategy.
What happened: IBM's Chief HR Officer Nickle LaMoreaux said the company is "tripling" entry-level hiring, including software developer roles that AI is often said to be able to do, and has rewritten junior jobs around AI fluency, Fortune reported. Her reasoning: cutting junior hiring now risks a shortage of mid-level managers later.
The Deltabase lens: Culture: IBM's Career Progression NSS fell from −48.5% to −56.4% in 2025, even as Learning & Development scored +70.4%. Workforce: Tech roles make up 44.6% of IBM's workforce. IBM made 5,030 hires in January 2026, against 4,163 in January 2025, and its median tenure is 5.5 years.
So what: Graduate pipelines only build a management bench if career paths are visible. IBM's employees rate learning far above progression.
What happened: OpenAI named Arvind KC, previously Chief People and Systems Officer at Roblox, as Chief People Officer, overseeing hiring, onboarding and workforce policies and helping the company manage its AI transition. "This is a moment where every organisation is being asked to rethink how work happens," he said, according to Business Today.
The Deltabase lens: Talent: the capability base for that rethink varies: 25.8% of Salesforce's workforce and 22.7% of Microsoft's list Learning & Development skills, against 9.6% at Amazon. Culture: Learning & Development is the sector's most consistent strength, scoring above +50% at all ten peers in 2025, led by Arm Holdings at +77.8%.
So what: The CPO agenda in Technology is moving from scaling headcount to redesigning work, and learning is the strength to build on.
7 of 10: Technology Top 100 companies where Supportive Leadership NSS fell in 2025; Microsoft and Meta Platforms each dropped 14.4 pts.
| Company | Culture: Supportive Leadership NSS 2024 | Culture: Supportive Leadership NSS 2025 | Talent: share with change management skills |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | −10.2% | −24.6% | 6.7% |
| Meta Platforms | −32.4% | −46.8% | 1.7% |
| Salesforce | −19.6% | −27.0% | 7.1% |
| SAP | −10.1% | −12.1% | 7.5% |
| Apple | −29.2% | −27.0% | 2.0% |
| Alphabet (Google) | −29.2% | −16.3% | 2.8% |
Source: Deltabase Culture data, Employee Net Sentiment Score (−100% to +100%), Supportive Leadership topic, 2024–2025; count across Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and Arm Holdings (Alphabet culture figures are based on Google LLC reviews). Deltabase Talent data, share of workforce listing change management skills.
Two consumer-facing giants with similar sentiment and different shapes. On Culture, Apple slipped from +8.5% to +7.8% in 2025 (3,916 reviews) while Amazon edged up from +5.6% to +6.2% (18,337 reviews). Both score poorly on Work-Life Balance (−42.5% and −33.2%), but Apple's Supportive Leadership improved to −27.0% as Amazon's fell to −33.3%. On Workforce, Deltabase Employee Turnover data puts Apple's headcount at 185,702 in January 2026 against about 800,000 at Amazon, with median tenure of 4.1 years at both and January turnover of 1.83% and 2.05%. On Talent, 17.6% of Apple staff list customer service skills and 17.8% software development, against 10.9% and 10.3% at Amazon.
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Sources: Outlook Business, citing Business Insider (10 February 2026); Fortune (13 February 2026); Business Today (25 February 2026); Deltabase Culture data; Deltabase Workforce data; Deltabase Talent data; Deltabase Employee Turnover data.