The HR Gazette has exclusively caught up with Greg Pantelic, Co-Founder at WIRL (http://www.wirl.ca) one of the sponsors at SocialHRCamp Toronto 2014, to get his insights on the upcoming event.
Greg is the Co-Founder of WIRL, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company that empowers employees and their organizations through continuous feedback. He is a strategist, mentor and avid basketball and football fan. Greg holds an MBA from Queen’s University and BComm with a major in Human Resources from Ryerson University. Greg is also the founder of HR+Tech Professionals T.O. a group uniting the community of HR Professionals in the Tech industry to share best practices, discuss emerging trends + technologies and connect with each other.
Here’s the scoop on Greg, Wirl and why he’s getting involved with the 3rd annual SocialHRCamp:
Editor: Tell us a bit about your personal career history and what brought you to your current company?
GP: I was first drawn to HR while completing my undergrad and majoring in HR. After an inter-university competition, I actually soured on HR and pursued a career in marketing because I felt the HR industry was poised for disruption but the incumbents – and upcoming industry members – weren’t willing to push the boundaries. Fast forward seven years, with numerous technological advances, managerial experiences, and observations of the impact that continuous feedback (and a lack of) can have on an employee’s life – we founded WIRL – and my faith in HR has been restored.
Editor: Can you tell us a bit about what your company does for HR professionals?
GP: Simply put, WIRL empowers employees, HR Professionals and their organizations through continuous feedback. WIRL makes employee feedback radically simple to request, provide and analyze in real-time. Employees are empowered because they always know what they’re doing well and what they can improve. HR Managers and their organizations are empowered because they have actionable information that allows them to make data-driven HR decisions in real-time.
Editor: What is your target market? Please tell us a bit about typical companies which use your services?
GP: Our target market is software and technology companies with engineering cultures. We’ve worked with a number of software companies with 30-100 employees. A lot of them expressed interest in WIRL right before employing employee number 30, number 60 or number 90. These seem to be the sweet spots. WIRL works well in engineering cultures because a lot of them develop in agile environments. Some companies have suggested that WIRL makes “agile employee feedback” (aka continuous employee feedback) really simple.
Editor: How does your product/service help HR professionals?
GP: We allow HR professionals to easily track and analyze employee, team and company feedback in real-time. This allows them to identify strengths, areas for improvement and knowledge sharing opportunities at the employee, team and company levels. This empowers them to make data-driven HR decisions and facilitate high-performance cultures.
Editor: How does SocialHRCamp fit with your brand objectives?
GP: Whenever you’re disrupting a category you want to create awareness around the necessity of changing current behaviours. SocialHRCamp is helping move the HR industry forward and educating them on the need to evolve their practices and technologies. It’s something we already spend the other 24 hours of our day doing!
Editor: Why did your company choose to get involved with SocialHRCamp and what results are you hoping from the sponsorship?
GP: We think it’s a fantastic opportunity to be a part of change and help push the HR industry forward. We hope to build meaningful relationships, educate HR professionals and learn from them as well. We’re a feedback company – so we’re always looking for feedback on our product and vision. Oh – and we’d also love to get WIRL in the hands of some new HR professionals!
Editor: There are more hands-on sessions to help HR professionals strategically use social media and emerging HR/Recruitment technology at this year’s ‘unconference’ than ever before. The Camp’s session facilitators are experts in the fields of HR, Recruitment, Marketing, Social Media, Learning, Leadership and more, and will also be active participants throughout the day. Will your company be presenting a session?
GP: Absolutely – and we’re pumped about it.
Who will be speaking and what will be the topic(s) and learning outcomes?
GP: I’ve been given the honour of representing WIRL at SHRC14 and will be speaking about “What’s wrong with employee feedback today”. Attendees will leave the session knowing a) what’s wrong with today’s employee feedback practices; b) the importance of continuous employee feedback; and c) how to make a culture of continuous employee feedback stick (and the role technology plays in this).
Editor: In your opinion, what will be the big HR and social media technological shifts and patterns of adoption in the workplace in the next 5 years?
GP: I think technology will continue to fast-track the empowerment of employees, causing the lines to blur between personal and business applications. Employees will have far greater influence on the tools and processes that are adopted in their organizations, so it will be critical for HR technology to be integrated into their day to day lives.
If HR technology can achieve this, then there will be far greater adoption by employees and far more points of integration. These points of integration combined with data points from the HR technology, can present tremendous big data opportunities, which will arm organizations with rich information to (finally!) make data-driven HR decisions.
Editor: With low adoption of social media and HR technology within the HR Community it’s important that we introduce new technologies and push attendees beyond their comfort zones. How are you planning on doing this at SocialHRCamp Toronto 2014?
GP: We have a major product release scheduled for the beginning of November that actually promotes adoption and allows organizations to be as transparent as they want to be. We’d love to put this release in the hands of the HR community to give WIRL a whirl!
Editor: How can people learn more about your services?
GP: Let’s talk! Seriously, we’re a feedback company and are always looking to connect for feedback on our product and future innovations. If you prefer a more distant approach, checkout http://www.wirl.ca or follow us on twitter@therealWIRL.
Check out Wirl:
@therealWIRL
www.wirl.ca