The recap
Fundings
BNX
Shyfter.io - raises €1.1M of capital to better plan personnel
AG5 - raises €1.2M in fresh capital to further expand their skills solution
BCS HRM Software takes over Centric's HR & Payroll activities
Pera (former Seedlink) raises €5M to create impact with unbiased AI decisions in recruitment
Young Heroes raise €400k to coach and mentor young professionals
World
Sprout Solutions (Labor law navigation solution - Philippines) raises $10.7M
Opus (US) raised 6.8M in series A to expand AI powered training for the deskless workforce in the US.
WorkBuzz (Employee engagement - UK) raises $7.9M, led by YFM.
Mercu (Singapore) raises $1.6m seed round to support deskless workers
Humanforce (HCM & payroll - Australia) acquired IntelliHR for $77 M
Highlights
BNX
World
HireVue acquired rival Modern Hire, “representing an investment in ethical AI practices”.
Sodexo Benefits & Rewards Services invests in UK HR Tech scale-up, The Happiness Index
French conversational AI company Clevy was acquired by San Francisco based ATS Fountain
Broadbean (recruitment marketing, multiposting) has been acquired by Veritone.
I’ve probably forgotten some, but these were in my Pocket.
The reflection
Let’s start with the elephant in the room who won’t seem te be leaving soon: Generative AI.
Early in this second quarter, the first ChatGPT-integrations were announced on the HRTech Market. It was bound to happen and these caught my eye:
In the meanwhile, with the release of ChatGPT4 anyone can explore the future of generative AI for GenZ workers and HR Technology and it could soon dominate HR & recruitment because another research says that it could save HR 70 minutes a day.
So far for the research, because even Josh Bersin is releasing an AI-co-pilot for HR and what is even more interesting is the release of Virtual Recruiter Holly. Can you imagine Virtual Head of HR Josh? Just kidding, but the potential of this generation of artificial intelligence and extremely thorough automation seems limitless and its growth unstoppable.
Because of the risks of such a disruption, or I tend to believe that is the reason, the European Parlemaint has come up with an EU AI act.
Nevertheless other applications of artificial intelligence also interesting for HR looking at solutions like Stellar Labs for learning or Vitaminsatwork for realtime people analytics.
Sure the HR function has come to a pivotal point. Anna Ott is asking if HR is willing to seize momentum, or if there is even a drive for organisational change. And she is right.
The data needed for this organisational change is often scrambled, or even unpresent to optimise a data-driven HR strategy based on People Analytics.
According to Unleash, who had a record breaking year, the distributed workforce needs better Tech. Their conclusion is based on a research by SOTI, and they ask themselves if companies are investing in the right technology for that as data-security will become very important.
Luckily the next generation of HR software has arrived, according to Josh Bersin, but for now, HRTech seems to help companies in cost savings, but can’t demonstrate their value.
Moreover, the majority of companies digitize, but underutilize the full potential of HR Technology.
After all, “Pacesetter companies prioritize retention and invest in tech skills.”
Maybe an HR Guide to the Metaverse can help as it could revolutionize workforce training and help employers.
Now the metaverse has been rebranded to Spatial Computing by Apple, it has added the Augmented Reality to one of its components and the hype is on to a revival. It is showing glimps of its true potential for the workforce as the evolution from VR to AR is one from applications to operating systems.
Virtual reality & games can both be used to create a recruitment marketing strategy, an assessment, an learning, a team building, as a wellbeing solution offering brief escape to stressful environments (like “The Holodeck” from Star Trek). One does not have to have a lot of imagination to be creative with this new form of interaction.
Augmented Reality on the other hand could go from a screenless smartphone “hologramming” the home…euh..screen, to utility in manufacturing with operator guidance, like Belgain Startup Arkite is doing.
Finally, everything starts with a decent HR Tech Strategy, to ask the right questions in order to get the answers you desire. Don’t go running into hypes too fast, but don’t become a laggard either.
The Advice
Stop the Asperine Approach!
The Asperine Approach is a struggle.
Companies or HR seem to resolve challenges one by one, whilst they should be a part of an entire strategy.
Treating symptoms is good, curing the disease is better.
My 3 cents:
Everything starts with determining the right KPI's that align with the strategy (...).
Next, asking the right questions or measure the factors that impact the KPI's will be key for curating the dataset you need. The goal is to follow up your KPI's and make strategic decisions based on those numbers, right?
Final: if you want the data to be accurate, the UX has to be top notch to keep the balance between enablement and registration. Maybe you even want to involve a part of the end-users (your workforce) in the decision making process as a part of your HR Tech Strategy. In the end, the outcome matters: having the data to optimize the HR capabilities, improve the employee experience and overall productivity with data-driven decisions and a people focus.
Look at how I.e. Waze "helps" you get to your location on time, whilest curating data for insights. People don't "register" their time or location.
Well, that’s it for now. I hope you’ve enjoyed your read. If you liked it, please share it on your social media so others can subscribe too!
Kind regards,
Hans Mangelschots