Fidello
Modular HR for Modular Business

Fidello is a human resources company that consults and then develops and implements modular systems for enterprises. In a recent interview with Christopher L. Bjorling, CEO of Fidello, we discussed how the company’s, 'One size does not fit all' mantra has helped it craft solutions for clients that need to achieve their strategic vision through people processes.

What are the challenges in the HR industry?

One of the things that we've seen over the years is that most of the time, our clients don't have unique needs by industry. Our clients have certain common core aspects based on talent management concepts. The HR department should run processes to engage employees and to manage their performance, organize their structure and create a workforce plan that addresses retirements and business growth. Each company and its unique culture drive their needs. Understanding the uniqueness around that level of cultural personality and inherent qualities of its people allow us to craft better solutions for any organization that's out there.

How does Fidello address these challenges?

Our products are modular and are configurable based on the understanding of need, culture, and maturity of the organization. We then align the appropriate modules or sub-modules and refine how they interact with each other to benefit both, employees and managers. We start with a consulting activity, which helps define those pieces that are needed. We then set up a preliminary flow that we go through. We focus on making our modules as user-friendly as possible. Creating an internal roadmap and process is critical before we start, as we go through an understanding of their basic needs and vision of where they want to go. We apply it against criteria of culture and maturity, allowing us to create a roadmap.

We use this as a blueprint for the way the application needs to be configured and structured for each client's needs. The modules are highly flexible; so that language, look and feel can be modified to better resonate with the employees or the users in the organization.

Can you give us a case study to illustrate the workings of your solution?

We have a multinational conglomerate that has a lot of different sub-groupings to it. They own different companies that have different focuses and needs, and they want to provide to everybody, in this case, a performance management system. Each one of those entities has a different branding, culture, feel and want. Their Chief Talent Officers have different philosophical beliefs and understandings. The conglomerate as a whole pulled us in and said, "We want to give every one of our sub-groups the opportunity to work with you. We don't want to mandate anything to them. They can have whatever they want." From that point, we created approximately 10-12 different implementations that provided that type of service to them. Each one was branded, looked and felt like the organization they were representing. Each one had the process steps that their Chief Talent Officer and their team had drafted as being strategically relevant for what they needed to do and how they needed to capture data. Despite this, the master organization could look at the data points from all those groups, and while they had different labels for performance values, the highest value still meant the best producer in each instance. While they were tailored to be unique, they still had a common language on the back-end that allowed the organization to look at and manage their people moving from Group 'A' to Group 'B' to Group 'C' to Group 'D.'

What does the future look like for Fidello?

Due to our flexibility, we don't necessarily do version launches. Our modules continue to evolve as the pieces are added to it; it is more of a toolbox as it goes forward. We're going to continue to enhance that toolset and module-set with varied flexibility. We are looking to implement more of an outward product that will have more mass appeal for some of the smaller, mid-range organizations. It is for those that don't want to get into a fully tailored solution but would still like some tailored activity. The larger providers don't give them any chance to be heard or have input on because of the small size of the group. We're looking to create a version that is very configurable at the administration level of turning activities on and off, making it visible and still maintaining an easy to use interface. It won't be the fully integrated, branded solution that is a 100 percent cultural fit like we normally do, but it will allow the smaller groups to have a lower cost alternative and a more structured intelligent system for their needs.