Market Watch for Talent & HR- March

Market Watch for Talent & HR- March

Executive Summary

Acquisitions and platforms’ enhancements continues in March with new offerings/tools to reimagine work, provide employee listening, and well-being insights as well as virtual reality and talent platforms to create new experiences. Microsoft Mesh announcement represents Microsoft’s vision for the future of mixed reality in the workplace creating new experiences for employees by sharing holographic experiences in a new virtual reality environment.

Glint’s platform upgrades are bringing a new set of capabilities that will put this solution as one of the leaders in the employee listening and engagement market. We will see a lot of innovation in this space to help organizations to understand how people work, when they work but also whom they work with. Employee sentiment capabilities are on the rise to understand emotions but also AI-enabled micro coaching and behavioral nudges to help people to be better leaders.

Furthermore, we will see investments in the employee well-being space: Happify a global healthcare platform focus on improving employees’ emotional health announced a $73 million capital raise through series D to enhance its AI capabilities to support and engage people with mental health needs.

Axonify acquisition of Mlevel is an interesting move in the learning space bringing together learning experience in the flow of work with data-driven insights to new skill frontline workers and boost performance. 

 Market Insights/Newsroom

• Hitch announced the global release of Hitch 3.0. Built on top of the advanced Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and a mature Skills Graph Ontology to enhance its internal mobility platform. Impact: As organizations move forward with their reskilling journeys, the next logical step is internal mobility. We are going to see a WAR in this market with new solutions entering to compete to position as the best talent marketplace solution. Organizations will need consulting support on vendor selection, integrations and employee experience design as they move to hybrid workforce. See news here.
• Microsoft Mesh  was launched in March. It is a new mixed-reality platform powered by Azure that allows people in different physical locations to join collaborative and shared holographic experiences on many kinds of devices. A tangible example of this new technology is- instead of clicking on a Zoom or Webex link,  people will have a different experience, they will wear headsets and enter in a new virtual space where they will interact via avatars and will feel like “they are in the same place”. Impact: a new employee experience in terms of how we onboard, engage and train/new skill people. See news here.
• Glint made upgrades in this platform for the new world of work. These new offerings/tools address culture, employee behaviors, diversity and inclusion, 360 feedback, learning and growth, and manager’s dashboard. I think the biggest value is the partnership with LinkedIn Learning and Microsoft Viva (currently in pilot). Impact: It will bring together active feedback, via employee surveys, with collaboration analytics to understand how, when and whom people work with. Overall, with these new offerings Glint is making and strategic move to become one the market leaders in the employee listening market to track engagement, relationships, well-being, and virtual work. See news here.
• BetterUp raises $125 Million series D, achieves $1.73 Billion valuation, and expands coaching platform with BetterUp Care. “The global leader in mobile-based coaching, counseling, and mentorship, BetterUp is an all-in-one platform that combines behavioral science, AI technology, and human interaction to optimize personal growth and professional development”. See news here.
• Visier announces embedded partnership with PeopleFluent. Through this partnership, the powerful insights of Visier’s people analytics platform will be available as part of PeopleFluent’s talent management technology platform. See news here.
• Axonify, a leader in frontline employee training and communication, announced this week the acquisition of Atlanta-based MLevel, a data-driven digital learning platform. This is a strategic move to combine digital learning capabilities and learning in the flow of work. Axonify focuses on frontline training that delivers personalized, bite-sized bursts of learning right in the flow of work, for just a few minutes a day. Impact: this could be an alternative solution for organizations that are looking to new skill their frontlines in an agile and engaging way. Mlevel brings the analytics which makes training actionable. This tool can be integrated into the LMS. See news here.
• Happify, a global software-enabled healthcare platform focused on improving mental and physical health announced last week a $73 million capital raise through series D to advance and expand the company’s healthcare platform, focused on digital therapeutics and patient care delivery. Impact: this market will grow exponentially in the next few years, moving from caring about employees to performance insights and rewards programs. See news here. 
• Docebo, a global cloud based LMS with AI superpowers designed to make customers, partners, and employees love their learning experience, announced last week that it has joined Amazon Web Services (AWS) ISV Partner Path. See news here.

Academia

• McKinsey published: The future of work after COVID-19 and The new possible: How HR can help build the organization of the future.
• Harvard Business Review (HBR) published: Reengineering the Recruitment Process
• Human Resources Executive Magazine published: Workplace equality is at risk. HR leaders can turn the tide
• MIT Sloan Management Reviewed published: Developing Future-Ready Skills With Peer Coaching
• Washington Post published: Diversity training steps into the future with virtual reality

AI organization Spotlight

• Remesh allow organizations to have live conversations with targeted employee groups at scale. Using AI, the platform analyzes the opinions and interactions of up to 1000 participants, and helps organizations understand the responses that best represent the group, all in a matter of minutes. Remesh uses natural language processing and employee sentiment capabilities to understand reactions, needs, emotions, and capture feedback in live conversations. Impact: this solution addresses a specific use case in the market: gather opinions on live conversations and use AI to transform data into actions across the employee experience.

Art of the possible

• Neuromorphic Robotics : Israel-based ALYN Hospital is testing a wheelchair-mounted robot arm powered by AI chips designed to mimic the way the human brain works, a technology known as neuromorphic computing, reported by The Wall Street Journal. See news here.
• Virtual Assistants: Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and other AI tech providers, are working on tools to enable voice-activated digital assistants, like Alexa or Siri, to understand users with a stutter and other speech impairments, The Wall Street Journal reports. See news here.
• Virtual Reality: Bank of America is bringing VR instruction to its banks. They announced last week that they’ll be working with Bay Area-based VR startup Strivr to bring more of their workplace training into virtual reality. See news here.

More to come! Stay tune

Note: All views expressed on this article do not represent the opinions of any entity whatsoever with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated. My opinions are my own.