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Plum Named a Top HR Product of the Year by Human Resource Executive®

Revolutionary talent assessment platform Plum today announced the selection of Plum Leadership Potential as a Top HR Product of 2022 by Human Resource Executive® magazine and the HR Technology Conference & Exposition®.

Every year, the editors of Human Resource Executive and program chair of the HR Technology Conference review Top HR Products of the Year submissions with the goal of highlighting new solutions that improve and enhance the work of HR leaders in today’s ever-evolving business landscape. Submissions were judged on product innovation, value added to the HR function, intuitiveness for the user and the ability to deliver on what they promise. Winners represent six critical HR competencies, with Plum selected in the Talent Management category.

“For more than three decades, Human Resource Executive has recognized the groundbreaking technologies that offer real value to HR leaders. This year, our judges reviewed many innovative solutions, with the difficult task of selecting only a handful of winners,” said Elizabeth Clarke, executive editor of Human Resource Executive. “Plum stood out for its Leadership Potential offering, which brings a new approach to talent management and makes it easy for employers to identify their next generation of leaders.”

Plum Leadership Potential enables organizations to identify high-potential talent using proven science combined with scalable technology. Leveraging the results of Plum’s single assessment, organizations gain the ability to measure leadership potential in every employee instantly. This ensures all members of the workforce get considered equitably for their aptitude. Using objective criteria, Plum Leadership Potential helps organizations strip away bias and build more diverse leadership pipelines. By surfacing employees with leadership potential – regardless of race, gender or background – employers can engage, develop and retain future leaders who will be critical to their organization’s success moving forward.

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Talent Development Platform GrowthSpace Announces $25 Million in Series B Funding

GrowthSpace, the world’s first outcome-focused talent development platform, today announced $25 million in Series B funding led by Zeev Ventures. Existing investors M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund) and Vertex Ventures participated in this round, which brings the total amount raised to $44 million.

“We’re thrilled with the Series B investment led by Oren Zeev, that enables us to continue partnering with hundreds of forward-thinking companies looking to strengthen investments in the future of their employees, who will be able to drive business KPIs and impact performance through our outcome focused talent development platform,” stated Omer Glass, CEO and Cofounder of GrowthSpace. “The demand for our solutions is strong as we achieved a 5x ARR growth in the last 12 months. Additionally, we have built a network of 1,500 experts in over 50 countries, and look forward to expanding our reach and impact even further.”

The funds will be used to scale global operations to help meet the rapidly accelerating demand of the G2 category leader. The GrowthSpace talent development platform connects employees to relevant experts at scale, solving a major challenge in a $360* billion+ market.  As a market leader in supporting employee professional growth, Growthspace platform understands the challenge of an individual or a group and leverages sophisticated algorithms to match them with a proven, relevant expert for a development sprint. This can then be implemented dynamically and at scale, across an entire organization.

The platform can be implemented modularly to address specific requirements or set up as a comprehensive solution, enabling companies to plan and execute various talent development programs. Customers can utilize individual and group coaching, mentoring (internal & external), training, workshops, and lectures. GrowthSpace enables HR and organizational development executives to dynamically allocate resources and funds between different types of programs based on corporate goals and people requirements. This enables a centralized wallet powering a decentralized system that can be driven by each individual and team.

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Mentor Spaces Makes DEI Personal: SAP.iO Foundries Sustainability Spotlight

Chris Motley wasn’t set up to succeed. Born to an eighth grader on Chicago’s south side, the African-American boy was bright but given few advantages by society. Until, that is, a family friend mentioned to his mother the nonprofit A Better Chance, which aims to help gifted children of color get great educations. That was the break that led to opportunity. Before long, the teenaged Motley—a star student—found himself telling his story to donors at a Manhattan dinner at Cipriani that was presided over by 60 Minutes’ Ed Bradley.

“This guy approached me and said, ‘My boss and I are really interested in you working at our company,’” Motley recalls. “I said, ‘Well, what is your company?’” It was no less than Goldman Sachs. What followed was a series of big successes: a degree from Columbia, an MBA from Northwestern, and successful runs as a commodities trader and international businessman. But Motley’s latest venture may be his most challenging and rewarding: Giving other young people their own better chances.

In 2020 Motley launched a virtual mentorship platform, Mentor Spaces. Its aim: To give those traditionally shut out of top employment opportunities a way in, via meaningful conversations that build confidence and social capital. The startup also hopes thereby to help companies deliver on DEI promises. Corporations and universities are responding. UBS and T-Mobile as well as Howard University and Spelman College are among its founding members, and Motley estimates the average ROI for participating businesses is $1.5 million annually. The platform’s community includes young graduates as well as executives, HR professionals, and college administrators. Mentors and mentees are matched by interest, and interact via group sessions, one on one conversations, and threads where members are able to ask questions, advise each other and ultimately hire or get hired. A sample question company executives might receive: “What impresses you the most when you are hiring for your team?”

It’s not hard to see why Mentor Spaces appealed to SAP, whose sustainability mission includes achieving zero inequality in the workplace. It practices a “no boundaries” policy with its accelerator program SAP.iO. According to Kange Kaneene, vice president for SAP.iO Foundries in North and Latin America and the Caribbean, “that means we prioritize companies founded or led by people whose share of venture capital funding in the technology industry is proportionally less than their share of the population.” The accelerator offered Motley a spot in an SAP.iO cohort called “Future of Work,” in San Francisco.

For Motley, the program was valuable not only for the months-long, ahem, mentorship opportunity, but because it’s designed to create a longer-term partnership between SAP and Mentor Spaces. Kaneene explains: “We’re building an ecosystem of startups that extend the value of our solutions to drive sustainable impact.” How that looks in practice: Upon completion of the accelerator, each startup is integrated into an  SAP solution best suited to it, so SAP clients can gain seamless access to the startup’s products or services. The Foundry experience wasn’t always easy, Motley says. “We do what they call Dolphin Tank, which is the nice version of Shark Tank. You have three minutes to pitch to huge SAP clients like PepsiCo, and everyone gives you feedback on what could have been improved. Ours was, ‘It’s great to know what you do. But what would be better is if you gave us a case study. Your whole pitch should be in the form of showing us what you did for a customer.” Today, he says, “That was tremendous feedback. Because our ratio of show versus tell was inverted, and now it’s not.”

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Crosschq Earns Cloud Wars Win at Recent Cloud Expo

Crosschq, pioneers of the Talent Intelligence Cloud™ that is powering a revolution in data-driven hiring and people analytics, won a spot on the Cloud Wars Shortlist with unique cloud-based business solutions. Held June 28-30, 2022, in San Francisco during the Cloud Wars Expo, Crosschq was vying for recognition of its ability to solve today’s most pressing universal business challenges.

Through its unique Quality of Hire platform, Crosschq supports the talent acquisition requirements of more than 450 customers, including Snowflake, Box, HubSpot, Palo Alto Networks, GoPuff, Glassdoor, Upwork, DISH, Roblox, Flexport, Cloudflare, Reddit and more.

During the competition, Crosschq’s VP of Customer Success, Kelsey Peterson, delivered a three-minute pitch of its solutions, which was judged by real-world CXO analysts. Participating companies were evaluated on if they optimized the digital future, reimagined business models and their ability to dazzle customers.

Mike Fitzsimmons, CEO of Crosschq, said, “We’re honored to receive this acknowledgment from the Cloud Wars, especially given the impressive roster of competitors. At Crosschq, we’re committed to ensuring our customers can significantly improve their hiring workflows and results through our cloud-based, data-driven solutions. Having our team’s innovation recognized among the best in the industry is really gratifying.”

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How Landit Aims to Help Women and Diverse Groups Grow Their Careers

Landit is part of a profile series featuring startups participating in the Innovation Path at Cloud Wars Expo, that took place June 28-30 in San Francisco. several companies on the Cloud Wars Expo Innovation Path have developed software to automate and improve employee recruitment and retention. Landit has a system that’s unique for the level of focus it has taken: It’s designed to increase engagement, retention, and mobility for women and diverse talent populations.

According to Lisa Skeete Tatum, the company’s founder and CEO, these groups are underrepresented when it comes to career growth opportunities — specifically, access to those opportunities and the people who can make them available.

“So many organizations are focused on intake but equally, if not more, important is what happens once people get in the door,” Skeete Tatum says. “Do they stay? Thrive? Progress?”

Landit’s objective is to “democratize and drive performance and career success so that work is working for everyone,” she adds.

The company develops SaaS software and offers personalized career coaching services. It offers both to corporate customers and individuals.

Landit is part of the sap.io startup accelerator program. It has $19 million in venture capital funding and was launched in 2015. Landit is headquartered in New York; the company does not disclose its number of employees.

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Anthill Helps Firms Embrace and Retain Deskless Workers

Those of us who work in the tech field may have a tendency to think about the global workforce as being similar to us: always connected, equipped with the latest computer, cellphone, and Internet technology, and technologically savvy.

So it may come as an eye-opener, as it did for me, to learn more about the “deskless” workforce – and its scale. A deskless worker is one that doesn’t:

  • Work in an office
  • Have an employer email address
  • Have computer access through an employer
  • Necessarily have a smartphone

The number of workers globally who have the characteristics cited above is 2.7 billion, or 80 percent of the global workforce.

Startup company Anthill aims to help companies manage and retain deskless workers more effectively. Its value proposition: Since companies are already investing in deskless workers with training and other resources, they should proactively engage them and retain these workers as well as they treat their knowledge workers. The company also aims to bring new possibilities (such as growth opportunities) to the deskless workforce.

Anthill’s solution is built on a simple premise: using text messaging (which is available even to those without smartphones) as a means to engage these workers, build more of a relationship with them and, ultimately, retain them.

With $4.4 million in venture capital funding and 23 employees, Chicago-based Anthill is part of the SAP.io startup accelerator program.

The CEO of Gapsquare, Dr Zara Nanu, receives MBE

Dr Zara Nanu, CEO and Co-Founder of Gapsquare, part of XpertHR, has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours list for services to tackling global workplace inequalities and promoting fairness and inclusion.

 

Zara’s commitment to ensuring diversity and inclusion began in her native Moldova. It was here that she worked to bring an end to exploitative people trafficking rings which forced women into sweatshops. It’s with this same determination that Zara has sought to bring equality to the workplace by founding Gapsquare in 2016; harnessing data and AI technology to help organisations put a stop to biases and prejudicial practices preventing equality.

Gapsquare provides business leaders with actionable insights about their company’s existing pay gaps through their flagship software FairPay® Pro. The organisation has helped over 80 organisations across the UK create fairer workplaces, including working with Wieden + Kennedy, Condé Nast and Accenture.

Zara is taking Gapsquare’s mission to end pay inequality global, working with business leaders to get pay equity on the agenda and implementing the pay technology in the United States.

A leading voice in the campaign for positive change and action, Zara is Chair of the Women in Business Task Group and a member of the Global Future Council on Equity and Social Justice at the World Economic Forum. She has also been recently appointed to the Shinkwin Commission focusing on diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Zara Nanu, CEO and Co-founder at Gapsquare, from XpertHR, comments: “From my work in Moldova to using technology to tackle inequality with Gapsquare, I have been focused on creating a better world of work, one that has fairness at its core and is not held back by patriarchal structures. It is an honour to have this work recognised and I am incredibly grateful for the nomination. It’s heartening to see this work, and the values it represents, placed firmly on the national agenda.

“But our work is by no means complete, the impact of the pandemic means that the time it will take to close the global gender gap has increased by a generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years. That is why I am focused on change at a global level, bringing Gapsquare to the US, and continuing to work with our leaders in the UK to deliver meaningful change for a fairer and more inclusive future of work.

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Automated Coaching Platform Cloverleaf Raises $9M in Series A funding to help organizations retain and grow teams

Cloverleaf, an automated coaching technology designed to bring out the best in workers and teams, has closed $9M in Series A funding. The round was led by Origin Ventures with the participation of ScOp Ventures, Mucker Capital, Queen City Angels, Airwing Ventures, 1809 and the JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund.

“Since we debuted in 2018 we’ve seen tremendous positive feedback from teams that use Cloverleaf – over 94 percent of our users reported improved performance,” says CEO Darrin Murriner. “With this new round of funding we can continue to build on that momentum and scale up on both our offerings and functionality, which will help grow our userbase and create more diverse and well-rounded coaching products for current and prospective Cloverleaf users.”

The Cloverleaf team, led by co-founders CEO Darrin Murriner and COO Kirsten Moorefield, is on a mission to help companies develop and retain staff and teams by unleashing their best work. By leveraging respected psychology data from behavioral assessments such as DISC and Enneagram, Cloverleaf helps coach team members through communication and collaboration tools they use every day, including Google Workplace, Microsoft 365, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

Major organizations like Monster Energy, HP Enterprise and Kroger have turned to Cloverleaf to scale coaching and maximize employee talent. The platform also helps workplace consultants and coaches access unique insights to the way people and teams work, and helps sustain and scale their practice.

“At the heart of Cloverleaf’s mission is to provide managers and teams with tools to help them develop team cohesion, efficiency and understanding,” says COO Kirsten Moorefield. “Cloverleaf is designed with every aspect of the employee life cycle in mind – from hiring to mid-career and even at the end of an employment arrangement. We’ve found that with just one minute of engagement daily, the platform allows everyone to discover their unique talents and skills, and then allows for managers to leverage those skills in ways that are mutually beneficial for employees and team leaders.”

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5 SAP.iO Startups Identified as Leaders in Hourly Employee Management Tech in Consumer & Retail by CB Insights

Congratulations to SAP.iO startups Mercaux, Paradox, Skill Note, RealWear, and 360Learning who were identified by CB Insights as companies helping retailers and brands recruit, train, and retain their hourly employees.

CB Insights identified 170+ hourly employee management tech companies addressing 13 technology priorities, from communications and task management to augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) training, that retailers and brands face. The purpose of the analysis is to provide technology buyers with an overview of the technology landscape and its market participants.

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Sounding Board Wins 2022 HR Tech Award For Talent Development

Leader Development Platform Named Best Innovative or Emerging Tech Solution by Lighthouse Research & Advisory

Sounding Board, Inc., the first Leader Development Platform designed to bridge the leadership gap,shared that it has been named Best Innovative or Emerging Tech Solution for Talent Development by the Lighthouse Research & Advisory HR Tech Awards.

The annual program seeks to help buyers and employers learn about the best companies in the industry for technology selection purposes. An independent judging panel reviewed each submission and selected winners in six categories: Core HR/Workforce, Employee Experience, Talent Acquisition, Talent Development, Talent Management and Total Rewards and Employee Wellbeing.

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Mathison Raises $25 Million in Series A Funding

Mathison, a NYC-based provider of an end-to-end Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) hiring and retention platform, closed its $25m Series A funding.

The round was led by F-Prime Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, SemperVirens, ANIMO Ventures, GTM Fund, Gaingels and JP Morgan.

The company intends to use the funds to continue to build out its data and analytics capabilities, scale its go-to-market team and increase its collective impact with employers. As part of the round, John Lin of F-Prime Capital joined the board.

Led by Dave Walsh, CEO, and Arthur Woods, Mathison provides a DEI Operating System to give employers a single place to manage their:

  • DEI measurement, benchmarking and reporting
  • Diversity sourcing to expand the hiring pipeline
  • DEI training and tools to shift behavior and reduce bias

Designed to integrate into employers’ existing systems, the platform features DEI tools that can be implemented into every employee’s daily workflow and a comprehensive dashboard of DEI metrics for leaders.The solution has made a measurable collective impact, sourcing over 50,000 underrepresented candidates for employers, supporting the development of hundreds of new equitable talent policies across over 30 industries, and engaging more than 10,000 employees in DEI training to date.

Mathison works with a wide range of employers of all sizes including companies like Sonos, TripAdvisor, 23andMe, HelloFresh, Bowery Farms, Bristol Myers Squibb and non-profits from Sundance Film to The World Economic Forum.

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SAP.iO Foundry Shanghai Kicks-Off Future of Work Program

May 9, 2022SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) launched a Future of Work program in its SAP.iO Shanghai location. Launched in partnership with SAP SuccessFactors, the cohort scouted startups that have synergistic effects with human resource management in Greater China. After several rounds of selection, a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers, and investment funds selected 8 startups to join the spring program.

The Future of Work cohort has two themes this spring: intelligent recruitment and talent management. Over the next 16 weeks, the startups will have access to curated mentorship from SAP executives, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world.

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry Shanghai Spring 2022 program:

  • ZMBeidiao: Zhima background check is a SaaS platform that makes it easier for employers to obtain job seeker information through big data.
  • Gaia Works: Gaia Works is a labor management cloud service platform, driven by machine learning algorithms, which can provide management labor force forecasting, scheduling, time attendance, working hours and sales performance, etc.
  • Cool College: Coolcollege is both an enterprise-level SaaS learning development platform and a learning management system. It provides enterprise users with an easy-to-use collaborative e-learning platforms and comprehensive corporate training services to promote the joint growth of business & talent.
  • Neufast: Neufast offers a SaaS cloud-based HCM with proprietary AI-powered multi-lingual video interview talent assessment system to help employers identify the right talent, increase recruitment efficiency and enhance diversity & inclusion for the Future of Work.
  • Joyowo: Joyowo is a digital HR service provider that provides a full spectrum of HR services, including Business Process Outsourcing, Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Gig worker management, to 85,000 enterprises in catering, retail, logistics industries, etc. In addition, Joyowo is building a HR SaaS+AI solution matrix to increase the efficiency of close-loop digital process.
  • AI RecruiTas: AI RecruiTas is an intelligent system for talent acquisition management. To be differentiated from the conventional digitalized recruitment ATS (applicant tracking system), AI RecruiTas has at its core the JYI (JinYu Intelliegence) Super Brain which applies end-to-end content & context semantics recognition as well as multimodal algorithms to Human Resources (HR) domain.
  • Mesoor AI: Mesoor AI provides leading integrated and intelligent talent decision-making solutions for medium and large enterprises. Through full-scenario data aggregation, ETL and data transformation, self-developed AI platform and BI data lake system, Mesoor AI has successfully helped HR in many companies including Geely, Taikang and BOE to achieve smart external recruitment decisions and matching between employee full profile and internal job opportunities.
  • Moka HR: Moka HR is a human resources SaaS provider, which can provide enterprises with end to end talent management solutions.

About SAP.iO

SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 400+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

Keep Your Eyes on These SAP.iO Human Experience Management Startups

Since 2017, SAP.iO has been working closely with SAP SuccessFactors in order to help build an ecosystem of innovation for HR leaders. As SAP customers continue to utilize SAP SuccessFactors solutions to ensure that their employees have the tools needed to thrive, they can now additionally access over 25 solutions from SAP.iO startups are integrated with SAP SuccessFactors and are available on the SAP Store for customers to discover, learn, and adopt.

Check out these Human Experience Management startups available on SAP Store that are leading the future of work and HR technology.

Caitlin MacGregor from Plum Featured on The RecruitingDaily Podcast

Caitlin MacGregor from Plum talks about the talent shortage on the latest episode of the RecruitingDaily Podcast.

Plum is a SaaS platform that leverages industrial, organizational psychology to assess people’s innate talents and understand what drives them and gives them a sense of self worth, and what drains them and leads to burnout. The platform can quantify people’s innate talents, like their ability to innovate, communicate, and work well with others.

They work with mid-size to enterprise companies, to help them in everything from hiring through onboarding, as well as employee development, internal mobility, workforce planning, succession planning, leadership potential, and taking this data across the employee lifecycle.

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Getting Into the Right Mindset: Pointers from Paradox to set you up for a successful journey with SAP

SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco graduate Paradox knows a thing or two about navigating the big, blue, bureaucratic ship that is SAP. From the get-go, Paradox considered SAP a strategic partner and came ready to commit to the path early on. From being the only digital recruiting assistant on SAP Store to use AI/ML to becoming an endorsed app in 2021(and a unicorn at that!), Paradox’s grit and mindset have helped them get a handle on the ins and outs of partnering with SAP, despite the various challenges. We sat down with Sylvia Miller, Paradox’s SVP of Alliances and Partnerships to discuss the mindset needed to optimize SAP as a channel partner.

On your mark, get set, learn!

One of the ways to make the most of your partnership with SAP? Come with a “ready-to-learn” attitude; consider yourself a student in the front row of SAP University! Sylvia emphasized the importance of asking questions, and being in a constant learning mode.

Some questions you should work to answer as an SAP Partner:

  • How does the SAP ecosystem function overall?
  • What are the general expectations of such a large enterprise? (from security and compliance to deadlines).
  • Who are the key stakeholders that I must align with, and how do I reach them?
  • What are the biggest needs and challenges of our mutual clients?
  • What tangible tips and nuggets can SAP.iO’s curated mentorship provide to me?
  • How can our startup organization and solution leverage SAP’s technology and open integration platform?

If you can’t answer these questions throughout your partnership journey, you will likely have a lot of difficulty in navigating a fruitful path forward. Once you do have the answers, there will be plethora of action items and follow ups for you to get to work on.

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