Introducing…. These are the nominees for the first HR Technology Awards: Workday Peakon
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, specialist Employee Engagement Michiel Veefkind tells you all about Workday Peakon Employee Voice.
Can you start by briefly introducing yourself to us?
“My name is Michiel Veefkind and at Workday I am responsible for Peakon in the Benelux. I used to work in the world of digital marketing and customer service, where my main focus was on the consumer’s voice: how can we listen better to consumers and gain insights from them to ultimately achieve the best Customer Experience? I now do the same with the employee’s voice for the Employee Experience.”
Michiel Veefkind – Employee Engagement at Workday
Can you tell us more about your company and the product?
“With Workday Peakon, we give every employee a voice and help him or her to achieve the change they want to see in their daily work. This starts by listening and understanding what’s going on. In these times of scarcity in the labor market, there is a lot of attention for the Employee Experience and employee satisfaction. Nowadays, employers are willing to do everything they can to retain their employees. We also see many organizations focusing on diversity, inclusivity and (mental) health. They want to provide the best experience for their people, so that they stay longer. And these are exactly the strategic topics we help our clients with. We provide insights into the effect of these initiatives and from there on implement the best possible strategy.”
“Workday acquired Peakon early in 2021, with a view to giving clients even more insight into their productivity, development and employee retention. Peakon is primarily a change platform, that translates feedback into action-oriented insights. As such, we offer insights that employees need to further their professional development. Peakon also helps managers respond better to their employee’s needs, exactly when it matters.”
“Phil Chambers, one of the founders of Peakon, started the company ten years ago, after he noticed, as CEO of a software company, that management practices were often based solely on the results of the annual employee satisfaction survey. He thought things could be done differently. Listening to employees more often gives you a much better idea of the current situation and you can respond more quickly to changes.”
Why did you choose to take part in the HR Technology Awards?
“We always focus on innovation. It is one of our core values that we put into practice every day. Our innovations are based on the latest HR trends and developments and our own vision, but also largely based on the input we receive from clients. We see technology as an enabler of the business, and as an innovative software player, we would like to convey what HR technology can do for companies.
“It’s great that Bas and Juul from SuccessDay have stepped up to organize the very first independent HR Technology Awards. Actually, it is strange that this did not yet exist in our country. We are taking part with Workday Peakon because our clients make a tangible impact on both the well-being of their employees and the company’s bottom line. Almost every organization must deal with change. Change can be challenging, but it almost always begins with listening to employees. This is exactly what Peakon does.”
What makes you unique?
“Peakon is built on three pillars. Firstly, we help organizations to listen to their employees more often, if this is their ambition. We do this using question-sets developed by psychologists and a smart algorithm that sends the questions. We use Peakon ourselves at Workday and have introduced “Feedback Friday”: every Friday, our 18,000 colleagues answer four or five questions that have been pre-selected by the algorithm based on previously given feedback. So, everyone receives a personalized questionnaire. It only takes a few minutes to answer. The participation rate among our 1,500 clients is very high, at around 86%.”
“The second pillar that makes our technology unique is the activation of managers. We turn the traditional direction of change upside down, from top-down to bottom-up. By encouraging managers to talk more to their employees for example, you can bring about cultural change or reduce employee turnover. We use proposals generated by AI and Machine Learning. Every manager receives a dashboard for his or her team. The input consists of a score and comments that provide context and meaning. Of course, the data is anonymized, so that nothing can be traced back to a person. We also make action plans transparent, by giving every employee access to a personal dashboard. So, every employee knows exactly what challenges the team is facing and what actions are being taken. This closes the feedback-loop and really gives employees the feeling that they have been seen and heard and that their feedback is being used.”
Finally, Peakon is of strategic value because our clients make data-driven decisions. A lot of data is collected, both quantitative and qualitative. Our database now consists of over six hundred million quantitative data points. Based on this, you can benchmark your organization, department or teams and you can also make predictions of certain risk indicators such as employee turnover. Based on this, you can adjust your recruitment or learning strategy.”
What are you expecting from the award show? Are you expecting to win?
“I think we definitely stand a good chance, but it’s always nerve-wracking. We believe in the power of Peakon’s positive impact. Whatever happens, it will be a great event, with a good turnout. It is good for the whole HR community that this event is happening. I’m already looking forward to next year, because this will undoubtedly be continued!”
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.
