TecHR Interview with Geraldine Osman, CMO at StaffConnect

Know My Company

How did you start in the Marketing  space?

I am actually trained and qualified as a graphic designer but found the commercial reasons behind the design requirements, so I switched over to marketing quite early in my career.

What galvanized you to start at StaffConnect?

I was one of the first investors in the business and always had a strong belief that space would emerge quite quickly to become strategically important in the wider HR tech ecosystem. Once the product developed to the point where StaffConnect was ready for rapid growth. This was the right time for me to get more involved.

How is Marketing in an HR Technology different from traditional digital/ SaaS business?

I have focussed on most of my previous roles on technical infrastructure SaaS – file sync and share, security, etc. So, HR technology is selling to a really different audience, it’s a much more “human” sell and far less about the technical side.

What is StaffConnect and how does it fit into the current HR Technology landscape?

StaffConnect is a mobile-based solution which is specifically designed for the purpose of reaching and engaging an organization’s entire workforce, including their deskless workers. Our employee app connects the employees to information, systems, content and each other especially the large numbers of deskless, frontline & field-based employees that are often left out of internal communications and struggle to access the same information and employee systems that office-based employees take for granted.

The StaffConnect platform provides HR and communication leaders with the means to consistently, frequently and effectively target their workforce and gain granular insights into engagement across their organization.

We specifically designed our solution to engage employees by giving them a voice and enabling a process of constant feedback on initiatives, goals, and culture from the entire workforce. Engaged employees deliver better customer experiences, become powerful brand advocates, are proven to be more productive and less likely to churn.

In addition, we deliver a customer success program designed and implemented by HR and Communication experts to help organizations at all phases from planning, designing to launch and ongoing success.

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What does your ideal customer profile look like? Which businesses are the fastest to adopt your HR Technology products?

Globally dispersed organizations with high proportions of deskless workers. Typical industries are Healthcare, Manufacturing, Transportation, Hospitality, Retail and Non-profit sectors as they typically have a lot of field-based employees. These types of early adopters are progressive, forward-thinking organizations looking to provide exceptional employee experiences and establish winning cultures which attract top-class talent.

What is Employee Engagement? How can Staff Managers leverage technology to better measure the human-side of engagement at the workplace?

Employee engagement is an emotional connection between the employee and the company where there is mutual respect, understanding, and pride.  We believe that real engagement can only be achieved via two-way communication which is why we designed StaffConnect to give employees a voice as well as facilitate top-down communication and information access.

Leveraging technology to measure engagement in a meaningful way has to involve the use of mobile and cloud-based platforms. Mobile is the only way to reach the entire workforce and unless you can measure all of your employees in the same way, then you will never get a true picture of how engaged they are. It’s also important to look at subsets of the organization to understand the dynamics of different regions, functions, locations, and roles, so you need a technology which can mirror the way your organization is set up as well as being able to isolate different teams or task forces. By having granular insights HR leaders can then start to build an engagement “heatmap” which can guide them on their global strategy and cultural initiatives to ensure a positive employee experience.

What are the key components of Employee Engagement?

• Creating a connection to the goals and purpose of the organization
• Making sure your employees feel valued
• Rewarding and recognizing performance, celebrating successes
• Creating powerful employee experiences – not just holistically but daily
• Install a sense of common purpose, for the organization, leadership, teams, and individuals
• Communicating to the workforce equally regardless of role, location, department, function
• Giving employees a voice

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How do you see new emerging trends of AI, Machine Learning, Automation, and Robotics impact employee performance?

As workforce data touchpoints increase then predictive analytics start to have a role in being able to identify retention risks, productivity issues, etc. Overall, organizations need to view the human and the technology as a combined team and communicate how automation improves the roles and prospects of the employees as well as the company. Engaged workforces tend to embrace progress and change far better as they have trust in the company and belief in the common purpose.

How can customers connect your technology to HRMS? What are your integrations and technology partnerships with other platforms?

We integrate to the HR technology stack through APIs as well as through our “feeds” function which can give employees access to any web browser based system like payslips, shifts, etc. We also use APIs to integrate to content-based systems like corporate intranets

How do you play a part in the Digital Transformation of such culture-driven organizations?

We’re transforming the employee experience through our mobile platform, democratizing internal communications, so all employees can have the same access to information and receive the same communications in real-time. With our mobile platform, our customers are able to effectively cover multiple use cases like onboarding, training, employee engagement, cultural change initiatives, crisis communications, health, and safety, etc., – all through a single digital channel which reaches their entire workforce.

Which Marketing and Sales Technology solutions do you use at StaffConnect?

We use Pardot, Salesforce, Outreach, Linkedin Sales Navigator, Vidyard,

The Crystal Gaze

Which start-ups in the tech industry interests you the most and why?

I think one to watch is Humu to see if they are able to realize the vision of marrying nudge theory and technology.

What technologies within AI and HR Technology are you interested in?

Anything that is able to provide predictive analytics on the workforce. Mobile LMS and coaching. Nudge engines.

In HR Technology, what are the new emerging markets that you see providing the biggest opportunities?

I think the biggest emerging markets are deskless employee software and mobile employee communication applications.

What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?

Content repurposing – we turn our e-books into audio books, break them down into blog posts, reuse them for editorial. In a model where content drives our digital channels, utilizing and repurposing content to make it go further is something that we always do.

Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:

Josh Bersin

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