A roundup of HR and HR tech updates in February 2021.
After organizations realize that the evolution of the digital workplace will continue in 2021, they are flocking to make strategic acquisitions and partnerships to stay relevant. Also, they are keen on getting the best talent on board to navigate through the crisis time with the right investments in remote workforce and diversity and inclusion software and tech.
Table of Contents
HR Tech Partnerships, Funding Updates
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- Orka Raises $40.8 Million for Job Board Marketplace
- Saltmine Gets Funding, Enters into An Agreement With JLL Spark
- BetterUp Achieves $1.73 Billion Valuation After Raising $125 Million
- Phenom Acquires Talentcube To Optimize Remote Workforce Support
- EngageRocket, IHRP & SHRI Join Hands To Help Companies With Employee Experience
- Tribepad, IPC Europe Come Together To Support Recruiting
- Sympa Joins Hand With Recruitee To Create Digital HR Solutions Offering
- Globalization Partners and ADP TotalSource Combine Forces To Help Small Businesses
HR Tech Funding Update
Orka Raises $40.8 Million for Job Board Marketplace
Orka, a startup known for providing tech-based solutions for shift workers, has raisedOpens a new window a $40.8 million round of venture capital for its job board marketplace, targeting regulated industries and shift workers. Nowadays, the responsibility of job boards goes far beyond matching candidates. Rather, the marketplaces are emerging with capabilities like providing on-demand pay. Orka is also geared up to launch its third core product, Orka Check.
Saltmine Gets Funding, Enters Into An Agreement With JLL Spark
Saltmine has announcedOpens a new window that it has raised $20 million in Series A round funding. The investors were JLL Spark, the strategic investment arm of commercial real estate services firm JLL and Jungle Ventures and Xplorer Capital. The last two firms have already invested in Saltmine. The leading end-to-end digital workplace platform, known for helping the world’s largest corporations seamlessly optimize their office space, has also entered into an agreement with JLL, allowing the latter to sell Saltmine’s software directly to its customers.
BetterUp Achieves $1.73 Billion Valuation After Raising $125 Million
BetterUp, known for democratizing coaching across the enterprise, has recently raisedOpens a new window $125 million from a Series D funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.73 billion. Hailed as the global leader in mobile-based coaching and counseling, BetterUp combines AI technology and human interaction with behavioural science with the aim to optimize personal growth and professional development. The interesting part is that this would be done in support of the person’s whole health, at work and in life.
Phenom Acquires Talentcube To Optimize Remote Workforce Support
Phenom has acquiredOpens a new window Talentcube, a German experience-driven video technology company. The acquisition, which is Phenom’s third in five months, is expected to optimizing support of a post-COVID, remote workforce by accelerating the adoption of video for candidates, employees, recruiters and hiring managers. Mahe Bayireddi, co-founder and CEO at Phenom said, “Talentcube’s video platform inspires mutual trust throughout the talent lifecycle. Organizations can convey their mission through their employees’ own voices, while job seekers can narrate their journey in a context that relates to recruiters and hiring managers. Stories resonate more deeply when we tell them face-to-face — in real-time or through automated video prompts. Our acquisition of Talentcube will cultivate a stronger understanding between company and candidate.â€
EngageRocket, IHRP & SHRI Join Hand To Help Companies With EX
EngageRocket has forgedOpens a new window a deal with the Institute for HR Professionals (IHRP) and the Singapore HR Institute (SHRI) to give companies and leaders insights and help them understand how workplaces and employee experience (EX) have evolved amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The three entities are looking forward to equipping local organizations with a digital analytics program to help their employees thrive. The program, which is known as National Employee Experience Transformation, will be complimentary to all participants.
Tribepad, IPC Europe Come Together To Support Recruiting
Tribepad has partneredOpens a new window with IPC Europe to automate recruiting. IPC Europe, which provides support services to over 4,500 Subway Franchisees across Europe, will now use Tribepad’s applicant tracking software (ATS) to help Subway stores attract and retain the right talent. Dean Sadler, CEO at Tribepad, said, “By automating the hiring process through our ATS, Subway is able to manage this influx of applications, and provide a unified, easy-to-use hiring experience across a number of European territories, to find the best talent out there for them.â€
Sympa Joins Hand With Recruitee To Create Digital HR Solutions Offering
Sympa has partneredOpens a new window with Recruitee, a provider of applicant tracking systems (ATS) in central Europe and the USA, to create a premium digital HR solutions offering, which will provide companies with a full suite of advanced tools for automating HR tasks. The new group will have over 4,000 customers across Europe and the USA, and a team of over 250 employees. Keijo Karjalainen, CEO and co-founder of Sympa, said, “We are excited to partner with Recruitee, one of the leading ATS providers to be able to offer a comprehensive suite of products to our customers. We’re thoroughly enjoying working with the teams at Recruitee and PSG and can’t wait to continue this strong partnership on what will be an exciting – not to mention fun – journey.â€
Globalization Partners and ADP TotalSource Combine Forces To Help Small Businesses
Globalization Partners has partneredOpens a new window with ADP TotalSource, a professional employer organization, to give small and midsized businesses the benefit of a PEO. The companies will also work together to help the business to employ people quickly, compliantly, and cost-effectively in multiple countries without the need to set up an international subsidiary. Nicole Sahin, CEO at Globalization Partners said that small businesses now have a powerful way to build and support their global teams, enabling them to get to market quicker and grow exponentially.
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Major HR Hiring Watch
Navient Makes New Crucial Appointments
Navient has appointedOpens a new window Mike Maier as chief information officer and Mike Smith as chief human resources officer. Maier, who is known for successfully implementing enhancements that support customer success, has already integrated automated solutions and customer experience enhancements into Navient’s loan servicing operations. He will now be responsible for delivering improved and more efficient solutions. Meanwhile, Smith has led key components of the Navient human resources team and function for 15 years. It is expected that he will be applying his knowledge and leadership in HR practices to his new responsibility.
Kaplan Partners Appoints Kyle Kane As CHRO for Northwest Bank
Kaplan Partners has recently appointedOpens a new window Kyle Kane as chief human resources officer of Northwest Bank. Ronald J. Seiffert, president and CEO at Northwest said that Kane’s proven leadership in managing HR strategy would be valuable for the company as it looks forward to evolving its culture and customer experience. He will now be responsible for the development and execution of the bank’s strategy for talent acquisition, development and retention and will manage all key functions of its human resources department. Kane has previously served as VP of global HR for Diebold Nixdorf.
Rockwell Automation Hires Bobby Griffin as Its First Chief DEI Officer
Rockwell Automation hiredOpens a new window Bobby Griffin for the newly created role of vice president, human resources, and chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer. He comes with experience of 25 years in diversity and inclusion strategy and leadership at Fortune 500 companies. Before Rockwell Automation, Griffin served as vice president of diversity and inclusion at CBRE. He will now report to Griffin’s senior vice president, chief people and legal officer Becky House.
Jensen Hughes Gets New Chief People Officer
Jensen Hughes has recently hiredOpens a new window Heather Sanchez as its new chief people officer. Sanchez is known for her work in building powerful, fulfilling employee experiences, and driving sustained growth. Jensen Hughes CEO Raj Arora said, “We are fortunate to have to found Heather. She brings the experience, skillset and values critical to our strategic focus on our people, purpose and culture.†Before Jensen Hughes, Sanchez worked in Western Digital, Jacobs, The Alpert Group and Technicolor.
Christine Mellon Joins Omnicell as Chief People Officer
Omnicell has recently announcedOpens a new window that Christine Mellon has joined the company as executive vice president, chief people officer. She has experience of 25 years in human resources, organizational, and cultural transformation leadership. Mellon will also be leading human resources functions, employee environments, and internal communications for Omnicell. Randall Lipps, chairman, president, chief executive officer, and founder at Omnicell, said, “As Omnicell continues to transform the pharmacy care delivery model to deliver on the vision of Autonomous Pharmacy, Christine’s role will be pivotal to shaping our people organization to support our business transformation to a technology-enabled services offering.â€
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HR Tech Product Launches
ADP Launches Payroll App Called Roll
ADP has launchedOpens a new window its new payroll app called Roll with the aim to cut costs and save time. The small business payroll app will enable small businesses to run payroll anywhere, anytime and that too quickly and with no experience. Busy entrepreneurs can also effortlessly complete payroll in less than a minute on their device by giving simple commands like “Run my payroll.†Don Weinstein, corporate vice president of global product and technology at ADP, said, “ADP’s growth has always been fueled by anticipating change and leading the way through evolving technological advancements.â€
ADP Launches Payroll App Called RollQualtrics Announces Class Apart DEI Solution
Qualtrics has releasedOpens a new window a new solution with the aim to help organizations uncover critical insights about diversity, equity, inclusion. The Qualtrics DEI solution has a validated model that measures drivers of inclusion like equitable processes, individual belonging and authenticity, and psychological safety across the entire employee experience. Qualtrics has also partnered with Korn Ferry, to extend this DEI solution. Jay Choi, chief product officer, Qualtrics said, “With Qualtrics DEI solution organizations will have the data they need to create more diverse teams that perform better, are more engaged, and stay longer.â€
Beeline Launches AI To Curb Spending Caused By Ineffective Job Descriptions
Beeline has partneredOpens a new window with Brightfield to co-develop and launch SmartBuyer to tackle the challenge of overspending, which caused uninformed buying behavior and ineffective job descriptions. The first AI-enabled, embedded solution is expected to change the vendor management system from “a system of record to a system of intelligenceâ€. Doug Leeby, CEO at Beeline said, “Companies need models that predict and prescribe how to make decisions in the future with the benefit of past successes and failures. The partnership with Brightfield was the obvious choice to help us unlock the collective wisdom of the Beeline customer base.â€
Praxis Labs Announces Launch Of D&I Learning Platform
Praxis Labs has launchedOpens a new window its virtual reality-based diversity and inclusion learning platform and flagship curriculum, Pivotal Experiences. The platform aims to redefine work cultures, develop inclusive leaders as well as drive sustainable change for both individuals and organizations. According to the report, the Pivotal Experiences platform is different from traditional diversity training programs as it enables employees to practice responding now, reflect on the incidents and even provide anonymous feedback on their experience. Praxis Labs also provides employees with a dashboard where they not only can set commitments to practice behaviors or interventions but can also revisit certain incidents and review their progress on being a “conscious leaderâ€.
TCP Launches Demand-Driven Scheduling Solution
TCP (TimeClock Plus) has come upOpens a new window with demand-driven scheduling with the aim to allow companies to integrate vital business drivers within the scheduling process. The scheduling product is built by Humanity, which is TCP’s industry-leading cloud-based employee scheduling platform. Chris Amani, general manager, humanity scheduling at TCP said that their customers had a lot of complaints in terms of user experience, functionality, and flexibility. “From there, we realized there was a larger market challenge to be solved, and Demand-Driven Scheduling was born,†he added.
HR Surveys
COVID-19 Giving Rise To New Forms Of Employment, Says Randstad’s New Report
The 2021 editionOpens a new window of Randstad’s Flexibility@Work: Embracing Change report revealed how disruption in the world of work during the COVID-19 pandemic led to new forms of employment that are replacing the traditional full-time open-ended contract model. The report also highlights how individuals who did not fit in the traditional 40-hour, nine-to-five work-week format are now finding more jobs according to their needs.
The report also highlighted that as discussions around diversity and inclusion are getting stronger, encouraging equity in the workforce will be a major consideration for organizations. “A firm’s ability to overcome discrimination and exclusion will better position it to build a sustainable workforce that successfully meets and exceeds business goals,†it added.
Workhuman’s Survey Explores Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Employees
A new report by WorkhumanOpens a new window explored how recognition impacts employee retention and how companies can better support their employees. After studying responses from over 1,000 U.S. workers, the report concluded that at least 50% of respondents want their employers to incorporate more human moments in the workplace.
The report also highlighted some interesting observations. 56% of surveyed employers said their companies do not celebrate Employee Appreciation Day, while 25% said that they rarely or never deploy feedback surveys.
Moore than 53% of employees said that they would like to see employers incorporate more human moments by offering recognition for their hard work. Another 31% of employees say recognition directly impacts their motivation to succeed. Women have it worse. The study said that over 25% of men stated they always receive thank yous, compared to less than 19% of women.
2021 Will Witness More Voluntary Job Changes, Says IBM Study
A new studyOpens a new window from the IBM Institute for Business Value revealed how employees are planning to change jobs in 2021. At many as one in four consumers surveyed globally plan to switch employers this year.
The study, which considered more than 14,000 adults’ response, said that One in five employees surveyed voluntarily switched employers in 2020. “Of those surveyed who said they switched employers, more than half were generation Z (ages 18-24) (33%) and millennials (ages 25-39) (25%),†it added.
Also 28% of surveyed employees who plan to switch employers in 2021, said that they are looking for a more flexible work schedule or location and increased benefits and support for their well-being.
Only 28% of Organizations Have Right L&D Tools, Reveals Inkling Survey
Inkling has recently conductedOpens a new window a survey among learning and development (L&D) professionals on the state of the industry and outlook for 2021. The results revealed that while a majority of companies have witnessed a digital transformation in their L&D practices, only 28% have the right tools to address employee needs.
In the webinar “Putting 2020 in the Rear View: What’s Ahead for Learning?,†Inkling and Brandon Hall Group shared some interesting insights. Reskilling and training on new products, and new services launched as a result of the pandemic ranked the highest among the priorities of organizations in the post COVID world.
The survey also highlights the fact that more investment is likely to go towards virtual instructor-led courses and eLearning. They will involve modern technology, including microlearning, video, mobile technology, gamification, adaptive learning and virtual reality/augmented reality.