How people-first cultures and HR tech support business resilience

Businesses around the world spent the last two years navigating the challenges of hypergrowth alongside a skills shortage. Today, signs are pointing to the possibility of a market slowdown and even more unpredictable changes and challenges ahead.

It’s not easy to find the right people with the right skill sets, experience, and culture fit to grow the business. In times of change like these, it’s more important than ever for us to be able to help our customers stand by the investments they’ve made in their people.

Our customers’ needs evolve all the time, and supporting this is in HiBob’s DNA. We’ve built Bob–with the help of our customers’ feedback–to be bidirectional and agile enough to support businesses through radical market ups and downs.

People-first cultures supported by flexible HR tech are the key to dynamic business management in unpredictable times

The key to success and coming out on top no matter what’s going on in the market is a people-first culture and business strategy. Culture is critical in times of change. According to PWC’s Global Culture Survey 2021, “[w]hen aligned with strategy, purpose, and the operating model … can be a powerful force that supports retention and acts as an insurance policy against future crises.”

Although it’s natural to be concerned about the global economy, people are resilient, and it’s critical to continue prioritizing your people as your business’s most valuable assets. This is precisely why we continue to develop Bob with a people-first approach. Your business agility relies on your workforce’s skills, creativity, and experience, and it’s why providing a culture that supports them is essential.

The right HR tech can help you tap into people’s innovation, motivate them, and help your business “identify areas where [you] can maximize profits without increasing costs,” all while retaining your top talent. Our goal is to deliver a flexible and configurable HR platform that keeps our customers ready for whatever comes next.

Trust and communication are fundamental to business resilience

Nothing powers a healthy culture, business strategy, and employee engagement more than frequent and honest communication, especially if you’re managing globally dispersed teams. We hear this from our customers all the time and know this from our own experience in growing our own business.

No matter what decisions you may have to make, being transparent about what’s going on in the market today and how it can affect the business and every team member builds trust. Trust helps keep attrition low and retention, innovation, and productivity high. It’s the cornerstone of healthy company cultures and business resilience.

Bob’s 1-on-1 meeting feature can make frequent and transparent communication easy and can help you nurture healthy and supportive company cultures built on trust. Shoutouts and Kudos also help businesses show appreciation and build a community across global sites.

But, even in an open and communicative work environment, people may not always feel comfortable voicing their opinions and ideas out loud. And if you don’t know what (or if) something is wrong, you can’t fix it. To answer this need, we built customizable pulse surveys and an anonymous reporting tool, Your Voice, right into Bob.

These powerful tools empower people to bring their voices and innovations to the table. At the same time, they help companies understand who their people are, where they can improve, and how they can support their people now and in the future.

Know your people

Talent management tools are essential, and the best ones are bidirectional, supporting businesses in times of growth and cool downs. Retaining top talent is just as–or even more–important now than ever. Businesses need top talent’s innovation, resiliency, and enthusiasm to thrive.

At HiBob, our commitment to helping our customers stay ahead of market challenges inspired us to build bidirectional talent management features from the beginning. Every talent tool must help companies answer tough questions, find practical solutions, and keep their best talent happy and motivated, ultimately supporting a healthy culture and business agility.

Knowing your people, the value they bring, and how their skills help propel your business forward is the foundation of an intelligent talent management strategy in any market climate.   Bob’s compensation, performance, performance mapping, and reporting tools provide insights into all your people by answering questions like:

• Who’s meeting their goals, and do the goals align with market and company benchmarks?
• Are your people being compensated fairly, and where can you improve to boost employee retention and satisfaction?
• Does people’s compensation fairly match their performance? 
• If your company has instated a hiring freeze, leaving critical positions empty, how can you leverage internal mobility to your advantage?

Lower your costs, not your headcount

Working with the talent you have to improve employee efficiency and business processes is essential, especially in uncertain times. We’re committed to keeping our product people-focused to help our customers cut down on overhead costs while continuing to invest fully in their workforce. It’s why Bob has and always will be a people-first product.

Our KPI dashboards with rich HR analytics provide quick, detailed insights into your people, their goals, compensation, and more. Automated workflows, task lists, progress tracking, and other people data essentials also help our customers cut down on the hours spent pouring over admin tasks and reduce overhead costs. Best of all, they help companies make data-based decisions so they can invest more time in strategy, building programs and policies that drive retention and workforce development.

We’re in this together

At HiBob, our one-of-a-kind CS team works hand-in-hand with our customers to build strategies and the HR tech that supports them. The current economic slowdown is just one more challenge that we will work together to power through. Slowdowns can be an excellent opportunity to find creative ways to run a leaner and more efficient business.

Companies spent the last two years investing heavily in people. Wherever the market might be headed, there’s still a huge shortage of skilled professionals. Now is not the time to let your investment in talent go to waste.

Success can only be achieved together, and I’m so proud to be a part of this organization and help provide our customers with solutions through every challenge. As we say here at HiBob, “we grow through what we go through.”