Established in March 2020, Teamspective is on a mission to empower managers to greatness through actionable employee engagement data, counting Silo AI (acquired by AMD in July this year), M-Files, and Metacore among its clients.

The Helsinki-based startup was bootstrapped until it raised €0.5 million in pre-seed funding last year, turning four of its client’s founders, including Sammeli Sammalkorpi, CEO and Founder of Sievo, into angel investors.

Teamspective is currently in the process of raising a seed round of funding in the next few months.

John Brazier: What is Teamspective’s unique selling point? What makes your proposition special?

Jaakko Kaikuluoma: Teamspective is a comprehensive solution for enhancing employee engagement, performance, and collaboration. We believe in giving everyone, including managers and individuals, the tools and autonomy to identify and resolve issues at work.

Our approach is built on three special value propositions.

First, by meeting users where they already are – in Slack or Teams. Users can submit surveys, answer feedback requests, and get recommended actions directly in Slack.

This makes the user experience smoother and faster compared to browser-based solutions. Ease of use leads to consistently high participation and completion rates, for instance in engagement surveys.

Second, by giving managers action points, not only data points. Using AI, we transform each team’s key data into concrete guidance, lowering the threshold to taking action.

For example, a manager can get personalized discussion point suggestions for their one-to-ones or team meetings.

Third, by making organization silos, bottlenecks, and key players visible. Our app features a distinctive dataset that includes collaboration insights derived from Organizational Network Analysis (ONA).

This offers rare insights into teamwork dynamics and the roles individuals play in driving organizational performance.

JB: How is Teamspective trying to change the world?

JK: Our goal is to enable every manager to be a great leader who listens, knows what to do, and takes action.

The problem with most employee engagement and talent management solutions is that they’re too data-heavy for everyday working life and lacking in actionable insights.

It takes a lot of effort, skill and time for a manager to figure out what to do, and how to actually use the data – and HR rarely has time to support everyone.

When data is not used by managers, people stop responding to surveys. This leads to worse data quality, further lowering the managers’ ability to use data.

It’s really hard to pull back up from this spiral, and many companies rather just switch their solution providers than fix the root cause of managers not having the capacity to figure out how to use data themselves.

We solve this common problem by reversing the whole process: we provide actionable insights first, and then back it up with data. For example, a manager can get a list of one-to-one discussion points sent to Slack, linked to data points from recent pulse surveys and personal feedback.

This approach helps managers to identify and address issues in a timely manner, enhancing employee engagement, team performance, and ultimately – organizational health.

JB: What is your key message to HR leaders?

JK: In short: HR technology is a buyer’s market right now, so be a smart buyer!

As we like to define it, HR’s purpose is to manage talent and develop leadership to ensure long-term organizational performance. There are new AI-powered solutions, like Teamspective, that provide better support, automation and user experience to fulfil that purpose.

Like all departments, HR has to evolve and find ways to do more with less, especially in the current market.

The good news is that also the HR solution market is evolving quickly, meaning that there are better and better solutions that are often available for cheaper than the incumbent solutions.

I’m at risk of getting hate for this, but because HR tech is now a buyer’s market, you will get good deals if you just ask around for new offers. And while you’re at it, you may just stumble upon a better solution than what you currently have.

JB: What are the next strategic goals for Teamspective?

JK: We’ll continue on our mission to enable all managers to be great leaders. This includes development of our product and go to market motions, as well as getting new financing.

Our product roadmap aims to still improve the actionability of our data, bringing our suggestions all the way to people’s calendars, and helping managers tackle issues using pre-filled templates like performance improvement plans (PIPs) and personal development goals.

We’re also adding new ways of using AI to modify the tone and style of our recommendations, making them more personalized and enjoyable.

In the long run, we’re leveraging our unique dataset, solution and expertise to create a new generation AI Agent for HR.

As for the business side, we’re happy to say that we’re now just about to become cash flow positive, and looking to accelerate our growth even further. We’re determined to expand our business 100x over the next five years.

JB: What one trend will be top of mind for HR leaders in the next 12 months?

JK: Pressure to cut costs in organizations – so the best HR leaders are already thinking, how can we do more with less? There are two direct implications for HR.

First, companies need to focus on and reinforce their core operations of value creation. This raises the importance of performance management and ability to identify and resolve issues in productivity.

In practice, people need to stay aligned with company goals and perform at their best. And managers have to be on top of their game. It’s crucial for companies to reduce money and time spent on things that don’t necessarily add significant value.

Second, the app spend in companies is going to be squeezed even further, forcing many companies to reconsider their solution partners and how they support HR processes.

Here we encourage HR to have an open mind, look at what’s available on the market, and meet with new providers – who can do more for less.

UNLEASH Startup | Spotlight is a monthly Editorial interview series where we speak to and profile the best and brightest technology startups the HR world has to offer. Want to feature in the series? Get in touch with john@unleash.ai to find out more.

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