A company lives by its employees. Most companies have long since recognized this and have completely overhauled their HR departments. Good onboarding, employee satisfaction, and employee engagement are the alpha and omega for HR departments these days. But how can you ensure that you keep an eye on all HR processes and developments and do not lose track? This is exactly where HR software comes into play, of which there are quite a few on the market.
One of these software solutions is called Kenjo. We spoke with the company's CEO and Co-Founder, David Padilla, asked him what sets Kenjo apart from other HR tools, where David sees the biggest challenges and trends in the industry, and how employee engagement and work practices have changed with increasing digitization. We reveal David Padilla's answers to you here in the interview.
David Padilla, CEO and Co-Founder of Kenjo, reveals to you the current trends and challenges in the HR industry
OMR: When you look at the HR industry, what are currently the biggest challenges?
David: As more and more companies put people at the center and focus their employees on almost all strategies and decisions, employee engagement is gaining importance in 2022 and beyond. Like most strategies, employee engagement does not work overnight, but requires consistent, calculated efforts.
Another big challenge for companies is recruitment, as a tight labor market makes talent acquisition a difficult undertaking. It is no longer enough to capture as wide a net of applicants as possible. Much more important today are customized approaches that identify and attract qualified and motivated talents. The use of modern technologies will play an even more central role in the future, making the entire process more efficient. This way, employers can maximize their impact while saving resources and using them for other important business areas.
In light of technological progress, demographic change in the workforce, the continuous segmentation of consumer groups and countless other factors, companies have to be flexible and always ready, willing and able to make necessary changes. So, companies have to prepare for continuous changes in the digital age.
OMR: What trends do you see for the HR industry?
David: One of the biggest trends is certainly the switch of a large part of the workforce to working from home or hybrid working. Many companies are considering giving up long-term office rentals in the future and investing in premises that can serve as the main location in the sense of coworking places.
This poses a major challenge for the employer branding experience: HR departments have to adapt employee management and evaluate the virtual working conditions. Elements such as work-life balance, employee well-being, networking and collaboration play a decisive role here for employee satisfaction and for optimizing business results.
Another important trend we see is in data-driven HR and personnel analytics. In order to remain competitive within a company, HR professionals need to adopt a data-driven approach and evaluate current and future personnel needs, skills gaps, and much more.
Professional development of employees has also been an important part of HR trends for some time. Continuing education measures support HR professionals in binding employees to the company in the long term, improving work morale, and reducing the costs of recruiting and onboarding.
OMR: What role will social media take over in application and HR processes or what role does social media already take?
David: Recruiting through social media via employee referrals allows companies to gain entirely new perspectives for recruiting talent. Even today, the majority of companies use social media for staffing, and if companies do not want to be left behind by the competition, they must take advantage of this situation.
Certainly, this influence and benefit will only be further expanded in the future, to pick people up where they are on the move every day.
David Padilla tells you about his experiences and reveals Kenjo's vision and competitive advantages
OMR: What experiences have led you to start Kenjo?
David: After many years in start-ups and cooperation with other companies, we understood that companies can no longer work with principles and management practices from the last millennium to stay competitive.
It was pretty clear early on that the digital change and the trend towards flexible work models will accelerate even more rapidly in the future and will radically change the world of work.
Therefore, we want to move away from traditional personnel management technologies with Kenjo and focus directly on the employees, because they are at the heart of companies.
OMR: What is, in your eyes, the main function that distinguishes Kenjo from the competition?
David: Many companies struggle with personnel recruitment and retention, developing innovative business models, and building an international leadership peak. These challenges are essentially related to performance management. However, a structured performance management and tracking process is extremely important for demanding company standards.
We at Kenjo are convinced that an open and supportive corporate culture with regular and transparent feedback among employees leads to more motivation and productivity. Our performance management software ensures that employees feel completely comfortable and can unleash their full potential. For example, anonymous feedback surveys help to detect any underlying problems in time and, if necessary, counteract them.
Clear goal agreements for all employees and superiors provide transparency and clear agreements - which is particularly important with flexible and hybrid working time models.
OMR: When you think of all your customer cases, which one do you remember most?
David: We take all our customers seriously and appreciate continuous feedback. Kenjo is the only HR software that works together with our customers on new developments and tries to incorporate the feedback directly into the new releases.
Our customers rave about a 40 percent time saving in digital recruiting processes and a 90 percent reduction in email traffic thanks to Kenjo's intelligent absence management. Of course, these are just some of the many advantages of our app.
OMR: What is the vision for Kenjo?
David: Our vision is to revolutionize the world of work and change the often outdated culture at many workplaces. We believe in digitization and automation in personnel management, to make HR the strategic linchpin of companies.
We want to provide both employees and superiors with a platform where their needs and expectations are not just managed, but taken seriously and mirrored. This way, they can develop professionally and find a real home at work.
We can accompany and help companies on this path to developing a real corporate culture in which all employees feel comfortable.
We are supported in this among others by Julian Teicke, CEO of the wefox Group, Maximilian Tayenthal, Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of N26, and CEO and Co-Founder of Taxfix, Mathis Büchi.
About our Interview Guest David Padilla
More about the tool from Kenjo and further HR software can be found on our software review platform OMR Reviews.
