0:05 Welcome to the AIHI project. I'm Nicole Bradford, Sherm's executive and residence for AI plus HI. Thanks for joining us. Each week, we sit down with visionaries from business, tech, and HR to provide deep insights, actionable strategies, and practical advice for harnessing the transformative power of artificial intelligence and human ingenuity. This week we're diving into HR innovation, startup acceleration, and the future of workplace technology with Hadil Alashi, manager of the workplace innovation lab at Sherm Labs. Hadil, welcome to the AIHI project. Hi Nicole, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate you being here. And what we love to do with our guests is we really
0:52 like to start with their journey. So can you tell us what led you to focus on HR techch innovation and venture investment at Sherm Labs? How did you how did you come to this place? Ah um great question. I am not an HR um practitioner. My background is not in HR at all. Um my career Nicole has always been at the intersection of technology, innovation and social impact. I have worked in nonprofit, startups, a venture capital firm and led a corporate innovation lab giving me a broad perspective on how ideas take shape and how they scale. Um, I joined Sherm around the pandemic to help uh build the
1:40 innovation lab and the venture capital arm um and to launch uh key programs like the workplace tech accelerator. Um COVID as you know was a pivotal time for HR. Um suddenly you know HR got um into the spotlight and organizations recognized that people are the core of businesses of every business uh for that matter and HR technology plays a critical role in that in helping businesses navigate through workplace challenges. Um and that excited me. I love a good challenge and I was very excited to join Sherm and lead Sherm Labs and support um build this innovation uh lab and build this
2:27 community of HR technologies. Um and and that's what truly excites me. Sherm has deep connections in the HR community. Um, we gain realtime insight into what organizations truly need, allowing us to support uh startups that are solving for uh the right problems. That's great. Um, can you for our audience just tell them a little bit about the program that you just finished recruiting for, the workplace tech accelerator? Yeah. So, our workplace tech accelerator program is an 18week long program where we invite a very small cohort of companies to participate in um they're
3:15 all future of work HR technologies um that that we are very much excited about and the essence of the program Nicole is we help them understand the pain points of HR. we connect them with leaders in the space. So they are truly uh continuing to innovate and um enhance their solutions to address these real problems in the workplace. I can imagine having really having your finger on the pulse of what companies are experiencing really helps you look at the startups that apply to the program. Can you tell us a little bit about what are the key factors that you look at
4:00 when you're considering selecting a company for the program? Yeah, so Sherm is a missionoriented organization. At the end of the day, we serve our members and so our members needs are the most important thing when um we are evaluating these applications. Um and um so we always align that whole evaluation and selection um process with our members needs and priorities. So that's that always comes on top. Um and then after that, Nicole, it's it's very much like any accelerator program or other uh venture capital firms, right? We look at the problem. We look at the solution. Does the solution address a critical HR problem? um you know as I mentioned
4:47 before does it align with our mission and where we're seeing um the the the um solutions could potentially be then we also look at the traction do they have customers who are their customers what sort of impact have they made uh within their customer base um and then we look at the technology itself how unique is it how are they using how are they leveraging and using AI um you know data automation and all of these things and um we look at uh these tools even further, you know, and and look, are they using it eth ethically um and and responsibly? Are there certain things that we just need to be aware about there? Um and then, you know, the most important thing is also the team, right?
5:32 the founding team who's on the board. Um are these um team members that are going to truly stick around for a long time and continue to execute and make an impact in in the space or um are there any like potential red flags that um you know could prevent them from making that impact in the future? One of the things I'm really curious about is what were the biggest pain points that our our membership were having? like what were the because I think it's a really exciting time to be in innovation especially with you know AI and blockchain and like all of the things that are coming in and so we're definitely going to talk about the companies that were selected but I'm
6:18 also really curious what were the problems that you knew going into this cycle were some of the things that companies and members were facing? Yeah, that's a and there's a lot of it, Nicole. Where do I start? But um essentially, you know, the biggest thing is the talent, right? Um how do you get the right talent? How do you upscale, rescale, how do you move talent within the organization? Um um employee experience is huge. Um the same way you as a consumer, you want things to be customizable for you, right? um and and that will enhance your experience as a consumer. What does that mean for you as an employee with all sorts of benefits that are available to you? How how do we
7:04 ensure that me, you know, a new mom, for example, will have the resources that I need um to thrive in the workplace and you know, someone else that has other priorities at a different stage in the workplace has the benefits that they need to scale and thrive in the workplace. Um and um productivity is another big one. um uh that um um you know that it's on top of mind of a lot of HR leaders, you know, with tight budgets. How do you ensure your your workforce is productive? They're operating um in in in the most efficient ways uh possible. Um and so there's definitely a lot and and we um resort to the the research teams uh reports that they put out there and um and what
7:50 they're listening from our members. Um and you know we talked internally as well to different team members that are interacting with our members at the individual level but also at the enterprise level and just understand from them what are the biggest pain points and u like I said Nicole there there's a lot going in um uh but but we try to focus on on what what are the the top ones and I think I've I've mentioned those that's so interesting u one of the things that we see on the research side too is exactly what you said. It's like the companies are trying to find talent. They're trying to understand how to be more productive. They're really interested in the employee experience
8:36 and making that better so that you know it ties to enabling more innovation or also enhancing productivity. So, it's very interconnected and and um I love our research team. They do such good work. And so now flipping to the founder side and the company side also from your vantage point because you have this incredible vantage point of seeing both on the demand side what companies really need and then also seeing what founders are creating and building. What would you say would be a common misconception that a HR tech founder has about building a
9:22 company in this space? So when you're looking at at the applications in the batch, uh what what are the things that you think that they might miss? Yeah, it's so funny. We've been running this program for the past four years and um I feel when we were evaluating the applications for this year, there's a lot more AI startups than I've ever seen. Um but I I want to emphasize that, you know, AI alone is not a selling point, right? Um AI is not a tool. Um is a tool, sorry. And it's it's not a value proposition. And so, um, just because you stick an AI to your solution, uh, whether it actually is an AI solution or not, um, it doesn't make it all of a sudden super attractive, um, for, um, you know,
10:10 employers. And I feel like sometimes founders tend to focus a little bit more on that rather than the actual HR problem that they are solving. Um and so um and you know on on on that note too I I um would um I feel sometimes you know I look at an application or look at the solution it's like oh my gosh this is amazing. Um the technology sounds very interesting and and complex and it do it does XYZ but there's just some nuances that that are missing in terms of you know compliance. How does that, you know, integrate with the different HR workflows that are already in place? What does that mean for employee engagement um diversity inclusion and so forth? Like, I feel sometimes,
10:57 um, some founders are just too excited about the technology itself, and they're not necessarily focusing on the impact or the problem that they're uh, truly, you know, solving for. Yes, I I see that, too. Um as you know I have a venture fund and I invest in what we call human potential technologies of which HR techch is one subset of it and I also have seen that the number of companies that just add AI to it and really it's kind of a chatbot um and really missing like what is the core problem that needs to be solved because at the end of the day we're going to get to a place where AI is just
11:43 electricity. It It's just electricity. It's kind of like a while ago when um at the beginning of this of the that first internet boom where everyone just sort of added um you know um added you know the word web or something like that to it and it didn't really you know it was sort of it's sort of like adding the word electricity when you buy a lamp. And so understanding the core problem is also uh the biggest misconception that that I see also coming in from founders like are they are they excited about the technology and then just searching for a problem or are they really subject matter experts?
12:29 Do they deeply understand a problem? uh are they able to solve it entirely for one, you know, like one uh client um in a way that delights that client and then they move on from there or not. Um so um it's it's interesting to hear you say that about um the the companies that we've seen too. Okay, let's turn to the companies that we did select. Let's start with bytes. So, Bytes helps companies create byite-size mobile friendly employee training content. Tell us about that company and why you selected it. Absolutely. So, byes is a social media inspired platform and it was designed to streamline training and
13:18 knowledge sharing. Um, the way that their clients describe them, Nicole, is essentially if an LMS um, uh, an LMS and Tik Tok had a baby, it would be bites. Um, so it looks and feels like, uh, a Tik Tok, super engaging. Uh, what was really impressive about their solution is the impact. So it only takes 14 minutes for um any organization to create content whereas a traditional organization it can take them well months um and it's super expensive whereas through the platform um you can do it instantly um and then the in terms of engagement um they have 95% um in engagement with their with
14:04 their um uh content. So it's it's uh we believe that solutions like bite um and specifically bice they are um you know changing the the whole uh game of of microlearning and this is extremely fundamental for frontline workers. Uh they work with people who are desperates who don't have access to a laptop and um you know having that experience having that easy access to content that you can get through WhatsApp through text is is just super um fundamental. um and and can can help with organizations making sure that their um uh workforce is upskilled and um you know you can imagine there's so much impact that can happen as a result of that. Yes. And you
14:50 know the age of AI that we're moving into the ability to upskill and reskill people quickly in a format that works for them is going to be really essential for the future of work. So I love that you picked that one. Let's move on to refresh software. They're tackling employee experiencing by unifying benefits, tools, and communication into one platform. Tell us about refresh. Yeah, so um the problem um that we're hearing over and over again, Nicole, when we're talking to different HR leaders um and executives is that the employee experience is fragmented. And honestly, we're not just hearing it from the the HR practitioners, but also employees. Um HR
15:38 has multiple um so many applications and tools for benefits, engagement, communications and what's so unique about refresh is they are think of them as a super app and it brings all these tools together. So you as the HR manager, you only have that one platform that you can um manage all of these things. And then for me as the employee, I can only access that one super app that's completely white labeled. Um and you know looks and feels like my organization's brand. Um and I can access the tools that I need that's customizable just to me. Um, and I kind of mentioned this earlier, like for me as a new mom, maybe there's certain
16:23 benefits that I want to see, whereas someone else who is in a different stage in their lives, they probably want to see other benefits that, um, you know, speak to their needs and their priorities in their lives. And so, um, that's what excited us about Refresh. And what's unique about them is they work with frontline workers specifically. And again, these um workers, they don't have all the time in the world to um you know, access and log in to tens of platforms and they just have um having one place that they can go to for everything that they need is um just going to drive efficiency. Yes. And one of the things that I noticed when I looked at their um when I looked at their website and and went through everything was just I love the
17:09 UIUX. You know, one of the things that often happens is that you'll have even with tech companies, you'll have their external product is beautiful and welldesigned, but the internal products look like they're from 1990, you know, and so Refresh just has this really great UIUX interface that, you know, treats uh an employee as well as a customer. And so I I really thought that was special about them. Yeah. Okay. So the the third is transcripts and that's a blockchain for employment verification and credentials. And I'm really curious about that because a lot of times when you when
17:56 people think about blockchain they think about crypto and this is so much different than that. Yeah. So blockchain um introduces a new level of security and efficiency in in the workplace and workforce management. Um it streamlines um streamlines uh verification processes, reduces fraud and empowers employees to own their data. Um what got us really excited about transcripts is there aren't a lot of solutions that um are in the space that make the impact that um they have done with their customers. Um and I I want to um give you just an example of the impact um that they have made. So for one of their enterprise customers um um and maybe let
18:44 me give you some context there. You as an employee, so I'm Hilal, I work at Sherm. If I want to apply for a loan, HR needs to contact and connect with the bank, verify that I work there, verify my salary, and all of that fun stuff. Um, now, um, if Sherm shares that information with a bad actor for whatever reason, by mistake, things happen. Um, Sherm could be fined significantly, you know. Um and so what transcripts does is it allows um um one employees to initiate and um um expedite that whole process. So you're not waiting on you know uh Jessica from HR to you know process that and she has a
19:30 million other things to do and God knows if she'll have time to do it before the end of the day or not. Um and and it just streamlines that whole process but also um that liability I as employee I take that away from the employer and so now my employer is not necessarily liable it going to any bad actors anymore. Um so transcripts is very innovative in in in the space and and we're very excited um um to have them part of the cohort. And going back to the impact that they've made for one of their customers, um they were spending over uh almost 300 hours a month um doing income and employment verifications. Through transcripts, they were able to reduce that number to an hour a month. Like can you imagine now
20:16 HR professionals are not necessarily doing these uh mundane tasks and repetitive tasks but rather have the time to do more strategic work um in the workplace. Well and also you know really allowing HR professionals to do the coaching and development and all of the other things that you know many people who come into this this function like that's that's really what they wanted to do. They wanted to help people and um you know employee and salary verification is not what they had in mind uh when they decided to become an HR professional often. Yeah. Yeah. So in general I I'd like to switch to overall workplace innovation. We've talked about some of the things that you've seen.
21:02 What are some of the things that you would like to see that um just aren't being develop haven't been developed yet or haven't shown up yet but are real um workplace problems that need innovation? That's an interesting question. Um I think um and and I I feel like there are technologies out there that maybe touch on this in a little bit one way or another. Um, but I I think the the the big one really is is skil uh skills-based hiring. I feel like there's a huge huge opportunity for that. Um, and and I have yet to see more technology in that space. Um, to address this this big problem. Um but I think you know as as we're thinking about um
21:49 moving forward and and the trends that we would like to see in the space um anything that can help HR you know do more of the strategic work and less of that admin repetitive boring task is is always going to be a plus. um uh you know anything around more of um I AI solutions around well-being and personalization I think is going to be um uh really helpful. anything that's um uh predictive and not reactive is is going to be really huge um in the future. and Nicole and and as we talk about AI and and and we have come across uh you know uh solutions in in this space um you know ethical AI is very
22:36 important um in in this space and so I'd love to see more you know um maybe there will be a lot more demand for white box um AI versus you know the the blackbox AI of here you you know this person got that rating or this person needs to be hired without providing the explanation like why did you come to that decision right so I think there there's a lot more opportunity for technology to um um invest more in in the space and one of the things that I've been thinking about too is you know the employees and employers have a there's a bit of a social contract to use sort of like a a social neuroscience and psychology standpoint
23:23 so there's There's a social contract and sometimes it's implicit, sometimes it's explicit. It sounds like the company mission and some other things and certainly leadership and culture sets the tone but the mechanism of the social contract. I think the mechanism because it's across the employee life cycle. I think HR in many ways um manages the mechanism of the social contract, you know, and and so I I think that um responsible AI is going to live in HR. Um it's going to be enabled by it, but it's going to live in HR because
24:10 it's about what you said, the white box AI. Am I being treated fairly? am I being supported? Um, you know, do I understand how I'm being evaluated? Uh, and so that's everything from onboarding, so recruitment, hiring, onboarding, you know, benefits, what gets approved, what doesn't get approved um promotions performance management, you like that whole employee life cycle. And because AI is going to show up in the tools that are being used across it, even though there might be mission and culture that comes from the top, the tone from the top plus the culture across the organization, HR is really holding the social contract through the
24:57 tools that impact the employee life cycle. So I I I one of the things that I'm expecting one of my predictions u this is not a sure prediction this is a Nicole prediction is I think that I think that the HR function is going to own responsible AI within the organization. Yeah I definitely agree with that. Yeah. So, okay, let's talk about how HR startups struggle and when they're struggling to scale because it's quite hard actually to get enterprise contracts to get in there. What are some of the common pitfalls that you've seen the early stage companies have? Um, and how how should they navigate them? Yeah. Um so the biggest thing in HR is really
25:43 understanding the HR buyer and this is what we really focus the accelerator program on um helping these founders and truly understand that buyer journey who are the decision makers who are the potential champions and in HR it's very unclear and depending on then there really isn't one method or process that applies to all and I think that's just the challenge of um the HR industry as a as a whole and selling to HR. Um but that that's a big big challenge I think. Um the other thing is um overengineering the product. Sometimes they they invest too much on you know nice to haves and not focusing on like the true needs of of the HR you know function and and
26:31 profession. Um I think the underestimation of um integration as well. HR has so many tools um as is and your tools need to very well integrate in what already exists and um that that's um another big one and I would say the last one maybe here is um ignoring a change management uh it's so important you have this amazing solution help HR and and businesses and employers understand how they can easily adopt your solution um and how can you provide more support and training to these teams so they can best utilize your solution um so they can see the outcomes that you're claiming that that they will see and how do you see HR innovation
27:18 evolving over the next 5 years and and sort of and what role will investors have in shaping that future. So how can you know we via Sherm Labs, me via my fund and other people who are investing in this space, how can we support that innovation for HR? Yeah. Um I think we talked about what what we're going to see in in the future um in terms of what are the priorities. Um and I think VCs and and um investment firms they are going to play a critical role in um accelerating the the types of solutions that are going to solve uh real businesses. Um uh I think you know um
28:04 investors are going to uh seek a balance between the technology and the impact the human impact that these solutions are going to make within the organizations um to like ensure that the AI solution augments rather than replaces the HR decisionmaking um function because I I I I really feel like we we're never going to get to a place where AI replaces HR. are it's it's always going to augment um and and support that HR and empower that um HR function. I agree. I agree. So final question and I'm going to ask it from two different perspectives because you have this unique vantage point where you both see what the HR leaders need
28:54 and what their pain points are and then you also you know have just reviewed hundreds of founders and companies. So for an HR leader who is following our conversation and they're reviewing a lot of different technologies, uh what is the what is the the piece of advice you would give them about navigating the future of HR innovation and and how to know what they're looking at when they're looking at potential solutions. Yeah. And it's it's a crowded space, right, Nicole? There's there's definitely a lot of noise. And this is where I I highly recommend HR professionals to to learn to tap into um
29:43 whatever resources is available to help them understand um what their needs are within their organizations, help understand what types of solutions they're looking for um that could make an impact within their organization. But um don't shy away. Um you know technology is your friend and it is supposed to empower you in the workplace and um uh you know help you take that seat um in in that decision making table and uh propose the solutions that truly will impact the people within your organization. But definitely learn more. There's a lot of things evolving very quickly. Um but but don't be overwhelmed. I think your podcast does a great job, Nicole, at like educating you, bring in different experts um you
30:30 know, in in the space to talk about different um areas that HR professionals need to learn about when it comes to innovation and AI and all of that. But um highly encourage um uh you know professionals to you know expand your knowledge, learn more about what uh tools you you can put in place to understand your needs or people needs within your organization and don't be afraid to listen to demos and learning more about the solutions that are out there and um I think Sherm is a great partner in that u in in supporting them understand u what they need to listen for and what are some things that they need to uh keep in mind. Yes. And one of the pieces of advice that I give them is I tell them to really understand what
31:17 their problems are because if they don't want they understand what their problems are then and they and they don't know it intimate intimately and I I love what you said about really you know also knowing having the tools that allow you to really understand your problem because if they don't then the vendor solution then the vendor shapes their problem versus them saying here's my problem and you know and then using that as the lens to decide the vendor. Um and so that that's my advice to them too. And then okay so for HR tech founders listening what's the the the biggest piece of advice you would give to them? Yeah I my biggest advice is listen to
32:03 the HR professionals. um they are your partners in in this uh space. Um so listen to them make sure that you're solving real problems and um solving them in the right way and you will not know and this is particularly true for um a lot of these technologists and innovators that don't have HR experience there they there's that disadvantage and so I would say open your ears listen to what um HR professionals need in their workplace and make sure that you are truly solving a real HR problem. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Okay, so that's it for this week's episode. A big thank you to Hadil for sharing your insights on HR innovation, AI, and the future of workplace technology.
32:50 Thanks for having me, Nicole. And thank you so much for coming. And before we wrap up, everyone in the audience, I encourage you to follow the AIHI project wherever you enjoy your podcast. And if you found today's conversation valuable, please take a moment to comment, leave a review, and spread the word. It really makes a difference. And finally, you can find all of our episodes on our website at sherm.org/ihi. Thanks for joining the conversation and we will catch you next [Music] time. Sherm
