Transcript
Mark:
Welcome to PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. I’m Mark Feffer. My guest today is Cris Grossman, the CEO of Beekeeper. Their platform is designed to help companies manage desk close workers with automation, electronic communication, and other tools. We’re going to talk about how AI fits in, the dynamics of usability and other concerns of the frontline on this edition of PeopleTech.
Hi Cris. Welcome. Could you give me a brief overview of Beekeeper? What do you do?
Cris:
Yeah, for sure. So at Beekeeper we’re focused on the frontline worker and frontline organizations. And our mission is basically to connect frontline teams with everything that they need in order to do a great job because we believe two beautiful things happen with that, A, companies gain efficiency, productivity, and engagement. And we also simplify the lives and the work lives of frontline workers. We do this with a very simple mobile app that the frontline worker downloads on to them. That’s their one stop shop where they get all the information they need in order to do a great job.
Mark:
Now, that will help put our conversation in context. AI is obviously the topic of the moment in HR technology, and I see lots and lots of coverage about how it’s going to streamline HR. It’s going to allow the HR practitioner to do more, but how do you think it’s going to impact the workers themselves?
Cris:
Great question. And I think as you say, right now, there’s a lot of buzz and everything we hear is what AI can do either for HR, but more broadly for office workers. Create a summary of a sales call, create a presentation, a sales deck, et cetera. And one of our company values is be frontline first. So we really try to put ourselves in the shoes of frontline teams and frontline workers. So we’ve been asking the question, what does AI can do for the frontline worker and how does that work there? And some of the most interesting things that we’re seeing is to address the fundamental challenges that frontline workers and frontline organizations have. For example, A, the topic of language barriers. That’s a really big issue in general for frontline workers. How do I get access to information that is in other languages? How do I request information if my language is not the native one of the company?
So everything that has to do with language and also with voice, because another hard reality in the frontline is, frontline workers don’t necessarily, they’re great in doing work with their hands in delivering what they need to do, but it’s not like they can write poems and long, big, complex sentences. So shifting everything to a voice interface that is AI enabled, also to bridge A, the language barrier, but also the gap that there is when it comes to writing and when it comes to reading in general. So simply making information much more accessible to everybody within an organization. That is certainly one of the topics. Yeah.
Mark:
Does usability factor in here a lot? I mean, if you have great tools, but they’re hard to use, they’re not all that valuable. Does AI have a role to play in making things simpler?
Cris:
Definitely, definitely. So I think one of the main hurdles for adoption in technology for the frontline workers and organizations is in general usability. So everything that is a little bit more complex than a couple of clicks and a few options, it’s already too much. Everything that would need a training and onboarding and so on, the frontline workers don’t have the time to go into it. So it has to be that simple. It has to be consumer type of experience.
And yes, AI can help a lot there. Not only, as I was saying, on bridging the barrier of languages, of voice versus writing, for example. But even more so personalizing the whole experience of work, like guiding the frontline workers through their day into the most important tasks that they need to get done, et cetera. Almost like a personal assistant that is whispering in their ears, what is it that they need to be doing? So we envision a world where almost every frontline worker has almost like a personal assistant that is really doing all of that difficult work for them and guiding them through their day so that they can be more productive and more engaged at work.
Mark:
And getting a little bit more under the covers on this, when you’re developing a product at Beekeeper, how are you factoring in the usability issues? I mean, how much weight are you giving them and how are you figuring out what’s really going to be valuable to the frontline worker?
Cris:
Yeah. Yes. So the answer is we do spend a lot of time and mind share thinking about this. We have a whole product experience team with user researchers, with people that are really going and spending time with the frontline, A, to stress test the products that we’re building, but also to understand what are the pains and what are the things that we can really help them with to make their life easier. And it’s something that in our experience, you have to do and consciously invest in those type of things because most of the people that are sitting behind a desk, like people building product, engineers, et cetera, some of them might have had some experiences in the frontline, but it’s not the type of work that they do day in and day out. And that’s why it needs an extra focus to really be frontline first.
Mark:
Now, looking back at July, or I should just say in July, you launched your frontline intelligence platform, and that’s intended to help managers better understand employee sentiment and look at productivity. How’s that going? How’s the reception been and are people using it the way you thought they would?
Cris:
Yes. I mean, the reception by the market has been overwhelming to say the least. It’s incredible to see how well understood by our customers and expected this type of technologies already were. And I think it’s something that all managers and organizations are hungry for to understand better how the frontline is thinking, feeling, and where can they support them better. So the more insights and automated ways that you can give them to understand that at scale in their organization, the more valuable. So we’re very pleased with how that launch is going.
Mark:
In general, I’m wondering about AI products like the intelligence platform, but others too. And I’m wondering, do you think that AI products are outpacing the needs and the knowledge of the frontline managers and the workers? Or are solutions providers like Beekeeper doing a good job of keeping everything aligned?
Cris:
It’s a hard question. So there are different parts to it. I think when it comes to the frontline, I think one of the fascinating things is that we’re really moving from paper to digital. So we’re really helping many of our customers to do that jump. So a lot of the things that they start doing on the digital world are simple things that they used to do on paper, and they’re fascinating by the speed that they gain, the efficiency that they gain, the clarity, and especially the data that you get out of it. So people are just getting their heads around, wow, I was not even able to track all of these steps, and suddenly I can see how these processes, for example, running, compare it from location to location, do benchmarking within my organization. So I think that there’s a lot of potential for AI in general to bring the understanding of the organization to a whole new level that didn’t exist before.
So I think we’re at the very beginning of the journey of all of those tools. And I think the gap is still, I would say, considerable when it comes to what AI can absolutely do and saying, well, I used to run this process still on paper just a few months ago. So yeah. And that’s part of the job of all the providers in this space to make sure that you make that path as seamless as possible. And that’s where we found questions around engagement, questions around sentiment analysis of the organizations, are things that people somehow already had in their head but hadn’t had found the tools or the technology to actually extract it directly from them.
Mark:
As employers are integrating AI into their operation and their employees lives basically, do you think they’re thinking about the right things? Are there areas they should be thinking about that they’re kind of pushing aside right now? Or where’s their state of mind?
Cris:
Yes. I think as in any new domain, people are still trying to figure out what is it going to be, right? And I think a lot of the focus so far, maybe biased by just the big boss of ChatGPT and all the other things are very much going into this generative AI and how can you create some context, content or how can you, for example, schedule certain information to go at a certain time. I think those are nice to have use cases that don’t really add too much business value. I think the real big business value is much more on understanding the productivity of your company, on improving that productivity, knowing where do you have bottlenecks in your processes. I think that’s where the big domain lies, and we’re just scratching the surface of what’s going to be possible on that side. So yes, I think right now we’re still, I would say, on the toy examples on what is a little bit shiny and simple to do, but the real big benefits will come from other domains.
Mark:
So what’s your roadmap look like right now? I mean, all of this AI excitement has really happened within the last year, and I’m wondering if it’s impacted your development plans and where you see it all going for Beekeeper?
Cris:
Yes, it has definitely impacted our roadmap. So I think one thing that aligns really nicely with this interpretation of what can AI do for the frontline goes back to our initial mission of connecting teams with everything that they need in order to do a great job. We see, for example, domains around enterprise search being a domain that so far had probably no to little relevance for the frontline because going to search into a huge world of PDFs is really hard. But if you ask a question with your voice, it gets translated directly into English, searches through all of that and gives you directly a digestive version of what you’re looking for, how a machine should work, how you can service a certain part, et cetera, I think that’s where we’re going with our roadmap to really make the life easier of the frontline worker and expose more of the information that they need in order to do a great job. So to your question, yes, we have adjusted and adapted more and more of a roadmap to encompass this type of topics.
Mark:
Do you think this all, not just for you, but everybody on your side of the table as it were, has this been exciting or hair raising or causing you a lot of sleepless nights or some combination of the above? Where are the vendors in all of this?
Cris:
Well, I think many vendors, as I mentioned before and the statement I’ve made before, that the market and the buyers’ minds are probably still on the toy or nice to have type of use cases. It’s a lot driven by other vendors that are, let’s say, just scratching the surface, right? Like I will generate quicker maybe a post for my company. Yes, that’s nice. That’s good. It certainly helps one person to write a little bit faster, fine, or to send messages at the right time to the right people. Yes, maybe it’s good, but we don’t believe those are the things that are really going to make a huge impact in the businesses. So I think there’s still a lot to go, and that’s where we’re heading and taking charge to make sure that we take the market, our customers and our future buyers with us on that journey.
Mark:
Well, Cris, thank you very much. It’s been great to talk with you, and I hope you’ll come back and talk some more sometime.
Cris:
For sure. Thank you very much for the invitation, Mark. Great talking to you.
Mark:
My guest today has been Cris Grossman, the CEO of Beekeeper, and this has been PeopleTech, the podcast of the HCM Technology Report. We’re a publication of RecruitingDaily. We’re also a part of Evergreen Podcasts. To see all of their programs, visit www.evergreenpodcast.com. And to keep up with HR technology, visit the HCM Technology Report every day. We’re the most trusted source of news in the HR tech industry. Find us at www.hcmtechnologyreport.com. I’m Mark Feffer.
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