Welcome to 2019. Here’s the year’s first roundup of deals, product announcements and other news from the HCM technology community.
Larger HR technology vendors increasingly see smaller talent-management companies as attractive takeover targets, said a report from Nucleus Research. The firm said its latest Technology Value Matrix for Talent Management “shows a diminishing field of standalone applications as the solution becomes more of an embedded solution for HCM, much like AI and analytics.” Talent management firms “are moving in the right direction” as they add features to support continuous visibility and learning capabilities, “but they still need to do a better job of making these complex innovations more digestible for their customers,” said Vice Presidemt of Research Wettemann
Crew, a chat app designed for deskless workers, raised $35 million in Series C funding, according to TechCrunch. Participants include DAG Ventures, Tenaya Capital and previous backers Greylock Partners, Sequoia Capital, Harrison Metal Capital and Aspect Ventures. The company also launched Crew Enterprise, a new feature designed to help companies manage messaging across large groups of deskless employees.
Lattice released mobile app designed to facilitate one-to-one meetings of managers and employees. The tool helps create an agenda, facilitates note-taking before and after the session and highlights issues that require the manager’s extra attention. The app is positioned more as a work-facilitating tool than an aid to streamlining performance reviews.
Namely, an HR platform that targets mid-sized companies, has joined with life Ethos to make the insurance firm’s products available to its customers. Ethos will be available on Namely during 2019’s open enrollment period in November.
E-learning firm Trivantis has updated of its Lectora Online, Lectora Inspire and Publisher and CenarioVR authoring products. The company called the updates significant because they improve workflows, usability, productivity “and the overall learning experience.” Among the biggest changes include new CenarioVR apps for the Oculus Go and Samsung Gear VR headsets, a modernized dashboard for Lectora and a contemporary template library.
Asurint background-screening products can now evaluate and instantly clear individuals from counties representing approximately 98 percent of the population of Florida. Background checks are often slow in Florida because checking court files there is manually intensive, the company said. Asurint already provides instant clears in other staties including Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Ascentis, an HCM solutions provider, acquired Cincinnati Time Systems. The company said the acquisition, combined with the recent acquisition of California-based NOVAtime, will strengthen its domain expertise in healthcare, facility services, staffing and manufacturing. It will also increase Ascentis’s Midwest presence.
SmashFly had it’s added more than a dozen clients since July and a new career site content management system and “Emerson,” a digital recruiting assistant. During 2018’s second SmashFly also opened a strategic engineering, sales and marketing hub in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Workforce communications platform SocialChorus launched new features to increase engagement and connect employees with corporate messages. The updates include a means to embed the SocialChorus communications feed in intranets, search functionality and recommended posts to deliver relevant content and top stories.
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