Introducing…. These are the nominees for the first HR Technology Awards: Crunchr
The HR Technology Awards will be presented for the very first time on 19 September 2023. The independent professional jury announced the six nominees last week, divided into two categories. Workday Peakon Employee Voice, UKG and Oracle Cloud HCM are still in the race to win the award for Best HR Technology Product Innovation of the Year. The Best Next Generation HR Technology (focused on scale-ups) will go to either Crunchr, Fanployer or WELDER. This week, we will introduce the nominees to you. In this article, founder and CEO Dirk Jonker tells you all about Crunchr.
Can you start by briefly introducing yourself to us?
“I am Dirk Jonker, but I’m also known as DataDirk. After studying actuarial science, I moved to New York, where I started working as an actuary. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, all companies had to make major decisions that had a huge impact on the organization, including the field of talent and recruitment. I was surprised to see that HR remained on the side-lines. It was the CEO and the CFO who took the lead. And this seemed a shame, because HR was full of valuable data. So I embarked on a mission to empower HR, with the aim of enabling HR to make these decisions. I am firmly convinced that every business is a people business. So I started my own business. Initially in consultancy with Focus Orange, which was later taken over by PwC. My company’s tagline was: ‘Data Science for People Strategies’. After the sale, I wanted to develop a data analytics product for HR, so I started Crunchr. I also teach students at New York University, the University of Amsterdam and the Erasmus University to contribute to a new generation of HR professionals.”
Dirk Jonker – Founder of Crunchr
Can you tell us more about your company and the product?
“Crunchr uses data to enable HR to understand exactly what is going on within an organization. Our HR analytics tool provides HR with answers to all the essential questions. A few years ago, everything revolved around the pandemic. How can you keep remote workers engaged with your organization? Turnover rates then rose rapidly, and the labour market started feeling the pinch. So that then became the focus for many organizations. And now we are slowly entering a recession, in which everything is suddenly all about cost reduction. AI is also coming into play, and has the potential to turn the revenue models of many companies upside down within the next five years.”
“We help with all these kinds of issues. You can see Crunchr as a shell that holds all these HR technology products. Companies have a payroll administration, an employee satisfaction survey, a learning & development system. But these systems and tools are never connected. We bring all this data together, to generate insight. To make clear where exactly there is turnover. Do we have the right people with the right skills? Are they following the right training courses to close the skills gap? If we want to become more focused, who should we hire and which recruitment channels should we use?”
“We serve the largest companies in the world. Randstad, Booking.com, AkzoNobel. They all have HR systems for workforce management, but these vendors are underdeveloped in terms of analytics and reporting. The data is also often spread over different systems. It needs to be brought together. And that’s what we do. Crunchr has offices in Amsterdam, London and Boston and has around 70 employees.”
Why did you choose to take part in the HR Technology Awards?
“Lots of our customers told us about these awards. If you ask companies all over the world who the top players in People Analytics are, we are always listed in the top three. I’m proud that we were born in the Netherlands.”
What makes you unique?
“I think that we do something different than our competitors. There are loads of HR tools emerging now. But they are often one-trick ponies. They each solve one small problem. Our strength is that we connect data from all these systems, which generates integrated insights. Like I said, the current focus is on cost reduction. I want to provide something that prepares companies for the future, no matter how uncertain it is.”
“Our tool can also be implemented very quickly. Within two weeks, the whole organization has dashboards that provide deep insight into what’s going on and what you can do about it. And it is also made especially for HR, a sector that employs many people with a background in the humanities. It is very easy to use. You don’t have to be a data scientist to use it, just a curious HR professional.”
Why do you think you have been nominated?
“Crunchr tells HR what’s going on within the organization. And we show them what options they have to do something about it. This is how we make HR the best business advisor for the business. Since recently, Crunchr also allows you to talk to your data using generative AI. And that’s really cool! You can ask questions like: Do we have a turnover problem? Where is the turnover highest? Are people with lower salaries leaving sooner?”
“HR has been complaining for years that they are not members of the board and therefore don’t make an impact. Crunchr gives HR answers about how they can alight their people, culture and organization with the topics of growth, costs and innovation. These are the things the CFO and the CEO struggle with. Our HR analytics solution makes HR a more fully-fledged discussion partner for the business.”
What are you expecting from the award show? Are you expecting to win?
“That’s up to the jury. But I have high hopes. We recently won an award from Gartner. We were nominated by Forbes as best HR technology. What’s important to me is that HR in the Netherlands is aware that we exist – and especially that there is no time to waste. Don’t build something yourself. It took us eight years to get to where we are now. Every month you don’t gain insight, you lose an incredible amount of money.
About the HR Technology Awards
As no independent awards have yet been presented for HR technology in the Netherlands, Bas Eggelaar, founder of SuccessDay, decided it was high time to make it happen. Several partners soon joined the event.
The jury of the HR Technology Awards consists of chairman Anne Jaakke (HR Changemaker) Louis Luijten (Diverse Board positions & Alumni CIO ASML) Rolf Jorna (Alumni Head of Group HR Action), Derk Jan Koole (Business Leader Career at Mercer), Helen Richardson (CHRO at Renewi), Erwin Hoogeveen (CHRO Fugro) and Pascale Peters (Professor of Strategic Human Resource Management at Nyenrode Business University).
The Award show will take place on 19 September in De Kazerne in Brainport, the heart of European innovation. Around 100 CHROs, CIOs, HR and IT directors have already signed up for THE networking event in the field of HR Technology. As well as the aforementioned categories, an award will also be presented for the Best HR Transformation using Technology.
