Introducing…. These are the nominees for the first HR Technology Awards: WELDER
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 owner Maarten Schellekens tells you all about WELDER.
Can you start by briefly introducing yourself to us?
“I am Maarten Schellekens, founder of WELDER. I once studied business administration and then started working at a large catering company, where I saw just about all the different layers of the company over a period of seven years. It struck me at the time that there was very little guidance at strategic management level on matters relating to HR. An employee satisfaction survey was conducted once a year, and that was pretty much the end of it. Strange, right? It’s not like you check just once a year whether the company is making profit or not? You have to be much more in control: constantly measuring the level of satisfaction. Why do people work here, how can people grow, what challenges do they face, how are we positioned as an employer in the market? To get a better grip on these things, I developed tooling together with my business partner Rob Wouters. And that was the beginning of WELDER, which was founded on 1 April 2019.”
Maarten Schellekens, founder and owner of WELDER
Can you tell us more about your company and the product?
“WELDER helps companies in facilitating the above-mentioned HR processes. We now have 32 people working in our office in Den Bosch. There is high demand for our product, and we mainly focus on SMEs. The reason we started WELDER is that there is a major problem in the Dutch labor market. There is an enormous shortage of staff, and workloads are high, which causes a lot of stress and leads to burnouts. You can come up with all kinds of great, innovative solutions, but these are mainly aimed at highly educated knowledge workers. Our focus is on small and medium-sized companies that are mainly involved in physical labor: the joiners, engineers or nurses working in the neighborhood. We want to make a difference for them. We help these companies to improve their HR processes. This may involve induction programs, assessment interviews, internal communication, but also exit analyses.”
“We have developed an app that is very user-friendly and can be used by employees 24/7 on their smartphones. The app contains everything he or she needs to do their job well and to develop further professionally: the induction program, internal communication, knowledge banks, e-learnings, development plans, etc.”
“The app is white label, tailored to suit the company and the target group. We offer a complete toolkit, and the company can choose which tools it wants to use. This often happens gradually because there are lots of steps to be taken. It can take up to two years before customers have set up all the available elements. But with our modular approach, this is no problem at all.”
Why did you choose to take part in the HR Technology Awards?
“Because we liked the idea of taking part in this new, independent award show. It is a good opportunity to showcase our company, there are good networking opportunities and I enjoy learning more about new technologies that are coming onto the market.”
What makes you unique? In other words: why do you think you have been nominated?
“We want to make our tooling as simple and accessible as possible for our target group, because they still do very little with HR technology. This means using simple language, in the user’s native language if needed, with an excellent user interface, coherent documentation, clear activation campaigns, straightforward dashboarding, etc. We are doing everything we can to make smart technology more accessible for society as a whole.”
“Our company is made up of two parts: a technical part, which is our software developers and product specialists who make sure the tooling is neatly set-up, and a part that consists of HR professionals who guide our customers in implementing the tool. And that’s desperately needed. Because the average construction worker or baker doesn’t usually have conversations about development. It is my personal goal to ensure that every builder in the Netherlands has a development conversation. Not with the aim of them eventually becoming director of the company, but to start the conversation about how to make their work better, more fun and easier.”
“Our tooling guides employees as best as possible in their personal development. The main advantages for the HR department are time saving and added value. HR professionals spend less time on administrative tasks and can focus more on strategic activities. They immediately have the right data at their fingertips, which can be used to gain insight and further develop the strategy. This means that the HR manager can take a seat at the boardroom table more often. In any case, change is underway: job satisfaction is increasingly placed higher on the management’s agenda. And rightly so: you shouldn’t see people as a risk factor, but as your chance for success.”
What are you expecting from the award show?
“The competition is fierce, but it’s actually like comparing apples with oranges because we all do completely different things. May the best man or woman win. Whatever happens, it is a great opportunity to present yourself and to make new contacts.”
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.
