Our weekly roundup of deals, product announcements and other HR technology news.
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Microsoft announced new features across Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, Surface Hub and Microsoft Viva, all designed to facilitate hybrid work and address employees’ new workplace expectations. Among the new capabilities: Teams Connect shared channels that enable collaboration from a shared workspace; New touch-enabled display solutions for Teams Rooms; New capabilities for Microsoft Whiteboard; and a new Surface Hub 2 Smart Camera that dynamically adjusts Teams video feeds to provide remote team members with a better view of in-room interactions.
Job search platform Talent.com raised $120 million in Series B funding in a round led by Inovia Capital. The round brings total investment in the company to $150 million, and will allow it to further expand its platform by improving the relevancy and efficiency of the job search experience. The funds will also be used to hire new team members globally, invest in product development, further establish the brand and scale its newest solutions for SMBs.
This week in #HRTech: @Microsoft ups Teams for hybrid use; Talent.com raises $120M and more. #HR Click To TweetStaffbase, a provider of employee communications management solutions, announced a $115 million Series E round led by General Atlantic. The company will leverage the funds to help it scale internationally and strengthen its market position. Based in Germany, Staffbase also intends to invest in expanding its platform, working to complete a full integration with Microsoft 365 and further accelerating growth.
Alight Solutions launched the newest release of Alight Worklife, the company’s employee experience platform. This is the first of two major releases planned this year for Alight Worklife, both focused on delivering a personalized experience that replaces siloed approaches to payroll, benefits and well-being. With regular releases, Alight said it will innovate and add content to address the latest employee challenges.
Socrates.ai, an employee experience platform, and digital interviewing company Jobma formed an alliance to leverage each organization’s expertise in the candidate-to-employee journey. Defined as a referral agreement to provide flexibility for product integrations with existing HR platforms, the alliance pairs Socrates.ai’s enterprise expertise with Jobma’s SMB focus.
HR SaaS provider PuzzleHR released PuzzleHR Connect, an app that gives customers and their employees direct access to real-time HR assistance. CEO Lonny Ostrander called the app’s launch, the “next step in our journey of intelligently leveraging technology” to aid HR functions.
TalentGuard opened a new office in Dublin to provide regional support and professional services to global customers. Ireland and the UK are priority markets for the company, which also gains access to “highly qualified” talent pool.
Bambee, which provides HR services to SMBs, announced a $30 million dollar Series C financing round, bringing its total funding to $65 million. The investments will be deployed across four areas, the company said: Bambee Guided Payroll and HR Autopilot products, adding new customer benefits, expanding customer and HR manager teams and growing engineering teams.
Moveworks announced plans to expand across Europe, specifically in the UK, France and Germany. The company plans to hire aggressively to meet increasing demand in Europe.
Last Week’s Top Stories
HR Outsourcing Jumped by 7% Last Year, Pushed by Covid-19
Outsourcing of HR functions increased by 7% between June 2020 and June 2021, according to a report by management consulting firm Avasant. The said Covid-19 accelerated a spike in HR outsourcing demand and adoption during the year. Read more.
Demystifying Business Coaching: How HR Teams Should Narrow the Options
More than three-quarters of senior decision-makers believe workforce training and development is more critical now than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to CoachHub’s 2021 Global HR Survey. And business leaders expect increased people development budgets as a result. In fact, 92% of those surveyed predict these budgets will grow in 2022. Read more.
4 Reasons You May Want to Rethink Your Legacy Intranet
While at one point intranets were only used for document filing and organization. Today, the modern intranet provides opportunities to improve employee connection, optimize efficiency and streamline processes. Read more.
Podcast: Internal Opportunities in the New World of Work
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