Workgrid Software
Simplifying the Workday

Employee expectations of technology are higher than ever before, and organizational cultures are having to adapt to the rise of a multi-generational workplace, flexible scheduling, better-enabling frontline workers, freelance (gig) markets, and remote work. HR professionals are trying to quickly adapt to this increasing complexity, devising strategies and implementing new technologies that can support maximizing employees’ productivity and engagement. Enter Workgrid Software. The company is unique as it’s designed with a zealous focus on employee needs, creating personalized and contextual experiences that make the workday easier and giving employees more time to focus on high-value work.

Following is the conversation that CIOApplications had with Brett Caldon, the CEO and co-founder at Workgrid Software on how his company offers intelligent software solutions built to simplify the workday and improve the employee experience.

What are the market pain points of Workgrid’s customers that have manifested as opportunities for your solution and approach?

Organizations are facing a handful of specific issues that represent significant opportunities for Workgrid:

Frustrating Employee Experiences: Today’s fragmented digital work experience causes significant engagement, communication, and productivity issues in the workplace, and it’s hindering employees’ ability to be effective. Workgrid addresses this issue by providing solutions that give employees more time to focus on high-value work, simplifying interactions with enterprise systems and consolidating tasks and communications into a central location that’s available via desktop, web and mobile – giving employees anytime, anywhere access to everything they need to be more successful.

Fragmented HR Experience: Although many companies have recently made big transformations to robust new HCM technologies such as Workday, Successfactors, Oracle, etc., organizations still struggle to achieve the simplicity employees need because HR technology can span across multiple systems and disparate applications that don’t speak with each other. Add in the landscape of other systems across the enterprise beyond HR (ITSM, finance, line of business, etc.) and the complexity compounds.

Workgrid addresses this issue by seamlessly integrating with existing HR technology investments (HCM, LMS, WFM, ERP) and delivering a modern, unified experience—including personalized and contextual notifications, intelligent workflows, automated processes, etc.—that meet the consumer-grade expectations of employees. It also creates a more intelligent, personalized, and engaging experience.

Lack of clarity and transparency about Learning & Development Opportunities: Having a culture of learning, where organizations are committed to employee development, is critical to business success. But employees are already busy with their work and don’t always have time to seek out new training and learning opportunities.

Workgrid helps organizations keep workers apprised of development opportunities by integrating with existing tools being used and sending personalized alerts to employees about relevant job opportunities, learning management modules, etc. This not only enhances employees’ skillsets, it also fosters a culture of learning and development where workers can create learning paths of customized content.

Inefficient Engagement with Frontline Workers/Remote Workers: Deskless frontline workers are often a company’s biggest first impression, either in customer-facing roles or delivering products or services for the business. But they often don’t have the tools they need to feel connected, such as a dedicated computer or email address.

Workgrid bridges that gap by providing these workers with improved communication and engagement, anytime/anywhere access to core enterprise systems with integrations to the backend system, and simplified task management.

Siloed Onboarding Process: Employees have high expectations of potential employers, and that makes attracting and retaining top talent a major challenge for organizations. Workgrid makes it easy to ensure success with new employees from the very start by consolidating the full complexity of the onboarding process into a centralized experience that’s easy to navigate.

How does your Digital Employee Experience Platform help clients unleash the power of their workforce and improve the employee experience? Please elaborate.

Every employee has purpose, potential, and passion. But all too often, a large portion of the workday is spent on needless administrative tasks, which prevents workers from reaching their full potential. Workgrid eliminates those distractions and gives employees more time to focus on meaningful, high-value work in a number of different ways:
1. Enabling improved communication and engagement with personalized and contextual messages elevated outside of email.
2. Delivering anytime, anywhere access to critical information and self-service tasks with a conversational chatbot interface. Streamlining access to core enterprise systems with integrations to backend systems such as HR, IT, or finance that abstract the important tasks, notifications, and information workers need.
3. Providing simplified task management by aggregating tasks from core enterprise systems so teams can effectively share and assign them.

Let’s discuss the underlying concepts of your HR Tech Solution and delve into some of the unique features and functionalities you provide in it that drive benefits to the customer.

Firstly, the Workgrid platform provides Microapps that simplify interactions with complex enterprise systems and ease the workday for employees by providing streamlined access to personalized information such as time-off balances, payroll information, and more - all from a central location. Microapps can be integrated into any web application such as a employee portal or intranet, a desktop application, or a mobile application--ensuring all employees have the information they want and need, exactly where they want to view it. Next, the platform has a smart notifications feature that delivers an integrated employee experience, boosting productivity and eliminating cognitive overload with a centralized view of everything employees need to know and do.

Finally, Workgrid’s centralized workplace chatbot offers a personalized conversational interface for answering questions and completing tasks. It puts power in the hands of employees with 24/7 access to critical information and self-service functionality. Further, its workflow, task assignment and management functionality creates a single place for the collection of related tasks for functions like onboarding, team projects, etc., enabling employees to easily find everything they need to know or take action on.

What impact does Workgrid Software’s work culture have on its employees and clients?

Our mission at Workgrid is to make work simpler, as well as more effective and engaging. Our entire team is focused on empowering people to fulfill their purpose, potential, and passion through the intelligent use of technology. That purpose is evident in every aspect of our culture. It started with our first mission when we were tasked with transforming a Fortune 100 company into an organization with an award-winning employee experience. Over time, we’ve continued to add passionate people to the team who are driven to make the workday simpler for employees. We work hard, we play hard, and everything we do is focused on meeting the needs of employees, both within our own company and for other organizations.

Can you provide us a sneak-peak as to what lies ahead for Workgrid?

Out of all the employee experience technology solutions that are flooding the industry these days, Workgrid is the only one that truly puts employees at the center of the design process. Other vendors natively started as something else (ERPs, CRMs, intranets, etc.) and are focused on building functionality for power users in HR, IT, finance, etc. Workgrid, however, starts with an employee-first mentality to deliver intelligent solutions that eliminate complexity, simplify the workday, and give employees more time to focus on their high-value work. Out-of-the-box ERP, CRMS, and HCM solutions can’t do that.

We’re continuing to expand our platform with features and functionalities that extend the capabilities for organizations to build engaging digital experiences. The new functionality will include additional integration with key enterprise systems. This will allow for more self-service capabilities and will provide employees with streamlined access to the information they need when and how they need it, particularly on mobile devices. We are also focused on adding more advanced workflow and task management, analytics, and scaling for language support.