Arnaud Grunwald is the chief product officer at Betterworks. He was the co-founder and CEO of Hyphen, an employee listening and engagement platform that was acquired by Betterworks in 2020. In his current role, Arnaud is responsible for leading product innovation and development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The master builder of Betterworks product innovation and roadmaps, Arnaud recently shared his insights about business trends, performance management, and working as a DJ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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A:<\/strong> During a potential partnership conversation with Betterworks, I met Doug (Dennerline) and we hit it off. It was becoming obvious in the market that performance management and employee engagement had to be tied at the hip. It\u2019s been studied and proven that high employee engagement drives better individual, team, and company performance, but good performance management also drives employee engagement \u2014 they go hand in hand. Betterworks had planned to develop something in-house to measure employee engagement, and when they saw what we had built at Hyphen, it made sense to consider a merger. That happened in February 2020 two weeks before the pandemic shut down everything. I got to go to our Redwood City office for two weeks, before we were all sent home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A: <\/strong> We start with building a vision, based on a detailed analysis of where the market is heading, the biggest pain points for our \u201cideal customer profile-type\u201d of companies, and especially where the competition fails to deliver great solutions. The key themes of our roadmap are aligned with this long-term vision. But we are also very customer-centric and get a lot of input from our customers about their challenges and what they’re looking to do better or differently in the existing solution. That also contributes to the roadmap. So, we\u2019re listening to the market, customers, and prospective customers, all of which informs the near-term product roadmap and the long-term vision. All in all, we receive a lot of fantastic input and have many prioritization discussions with internal and external stakeholders. It’s really part art and part science!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A: <\/strong> There are four main trends I see currently. First, everything has become more employee-focused \u2014 the rise of employee engagement and importance of the employee experience. Second, everything is now digitalized, and so things happen 10 times faster. Teams are agile. Communications are instantaneous. Third, we have a talent shortage. Companies are trying to keep their talent and understand the skills that their employees have and need. The fourth trend is hybrid and remote work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you put all this together, it makes for a very challenging time for the world of work where employees have a lot to do. They don’t know if or how they\u2019ll fit into their employer\u2019s future plans. And, communications are more complex because they are taking place asynchronously and remotely, which requires employees to use a lot of tools. Employees are expecting managers to coach them, not to be task oriented. So, managers are challenged to collect all the information they need to have the right conversations with their team members. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the performance management process hasn’t changed that much in the past 20 years. Companies still fall back on the traditional \u2018set and forget\u2019 approach where they realize at the end of the year that goals haven’t been met and no feedback has been given along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A:<\/strong> We believe in a process that’s more meaningful, where there is continuous progress, feedback, and conversations with employees about what’s in it for them so that they feel they\u2019re being invested in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To accomplish this and help employees feel like their development matters, you need a much more simple way to do performance management. That’s what we call performance management in the flow of work<\/em>.<\/strong> This brings performance management activities into the tools that employees use every day. Making it easy drives employee adoption and continuous engagement with the tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This also requires using sophisticated analytics that enable HR business partners and managers to be better coaches by having the right conversations with employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Related Content: [webinar] Josh Bersin on Enabling Performance in the Flow of Work<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A:<\/strong> It’s not that managers and HR don\u2019t have conversations with employees, but they often don’t talk about the right things. They don’t have the right structure, cadence, and topics. With analytics, you look at the data in a consistent, structured way. This provides insights to HR and managers about what to talk about and when, who’s not completing their goals, who’s not learning new skills, who doesn’t feel like they have a future in the company, who’s at risk, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you combine performance management in the flow of work with analytics that drive meaningful conversations, you have a virtuous cycle that works together. Adoption and engagement on one side and analytics on the other side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Related content: Using Conversations to Drive OKR Dialogue Between Employees and Managers<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n A: <\/strong>One area of our roadmap is to continue strengthening our enterprise readiness \u2014 whether it\u2019s scalability, configurability, diverse types of technical engines, or the accessibility of our front-end \u2014 to make sure that organizations know we are purpose-built for their needs. We are already the most enterprise-grade performance management point solution out there, but we owe it to our customers \u2014 many of them in the Fortune 500 \u2014 to keep improving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re always working to make sure the user experience is as delightful as possible, brings value, and is lightweight for employees, managers, and HR. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The third area we’re continuously improving is our reporting and analytics capabilities, including delivering self-service reporting and analytics. This will give managers and HR professionals who want to slice and dice the data with their own filters, benchmarks, and comparisons the ability to self-serve and stay within the platform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last but of course not least is our investment in AI. We\u2019re able to collect a lot of data and decipher it. This allows us to build sophisticated algorithms that simplify activities for employees and managers. Some examples include providing guidance on how to write better goals, give effective feedback, and write meaningful performance reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We\u2019re always working to make sure the user experience is as delightful as possible, brings value, and is lightweight for employees, managers, and HR.”<\/p>Arnaud Grunwald, Chief Product Officer<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n A:<\/strong> There\u2019s a lot of complexity in any software platform. To start, companies should decide what are the five most important capabilities they want. It might have to do with scalability if the company has thousands of employees or is growing quickly. Another consideration might be the relative importance of goals to conversations to calibration. Once determined, the next step would be to drill down into those five areas and do your due diligence in asking the right questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the product is only half the story. Performance management is too important to be reduced to just a software product. Companies purchase new tools in order to roll out better and different programs and processes. Hence, the change management aspect is crucial. Any company that wants to implement a successful performance management program should ask potential partners about best practices, case studies, and being introduced to the provider\u2019s customers to learn what worked well for them and what didn\u2019t. Professional services are hugely important in helping with implementation, communication, training, adoption, and sustained engagement to make sure that employees, managers, and HR continue to maximize the value of their performance management program. <\/p>\n\n\n\nQ: When you\u2019re developing the product roadmap, how do you balance the customers\u2019 needs with market trends and needs?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Q: What are some of the biggest trends you\u2019re seeing in the world of work?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Q: How is Betterworks helping alleviate this problem?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Q: What do you mean by the \u201cright\u201d conversations?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Q: What\u2019s on our roadmap in the near term?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Q: Many of the performance management technologies can look very similar. What should an organization look for in a partner?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n