London-headquartered eduMe completes acquisition of learning technology company and enters partnership with Microsoft Teams .
March 7 2023, [SANTA MONICA, CA] -- The leading deskless training platform, eduMe, announced today it has closed the acquisition of Playbook, an innovative learning technology platform that’s developed a popular TikTok for Learning format, and it has fully integrated the technology into eduMe’s core product proposition. The innovative format has already been adopted by one of the largest pet retailers in the United States, Pet Supermarket, where they use it to deliver immersive and engaging standardized training via QR codes placed contextually in-store. The format improves training quality, boosts productivity and empowers employees to provide a consistent customer experience. The partnership follows the recently announced $20 million Series B funding secured by eduMe in January 2022 with participation from Workday Ventures, the venture arm of Workday, whose HCM product suite is utilized at Pet Supermarket.
“Businesses can no longer expect to succeed delivering generic, long-form training that doesn’t meet workers where they are.” said Pet Supermarket’s Store Operations Senior Manager, Theresa Micheli. “If employees can consume training the way they want to -which eduMe provides with its new, energetic, TikTok for training-style lesson format - they’re more likely to engage. And when our workforce is confident, the customer is. eduMe is pivotal to building the knowledge that creates confidence. We are very excited about the potential of this partnership.”
At the same time, eduMe has announced a product integration with Microsoft Teams through which eduMe’s learning product is now accessible to all Microsoft Teams users, worldwide.
Available for download via Microsoft’s AppSource, connecting eduMe allows users to create, deliver, access and track training directly through Microsoft Teams. By bringing training into the flow of communications, companies can enrich everyday conversation with contextual information, and provide an ongoing and personalized learning experience that optimizes the performance of their frontline.
“Frontline workers deserve an excellent employee experience, but most shift workers are still having to learn on the fly and in really antiquated formats.” says Microsoft’s Modern Work Product Lead, Liz Leigh-Bowler. “This is not only stressful and frustrating to the worker, but also a missed opportunity for organizations to offer tools that relieve stress and build loyalty, ultimately increasing employee retention. We’re really excited about eduMe’s integration into Teams, because Frontline workers can learn in a format that is familiar to them, while staying in the flow of work on Microsoft Teams, where all their other productivity tools are housed.”
Microsoft Teams is the most widely used collaboration app in the world with 280 million monthly active users with a large proportion deployed on the frontline. The partnership will drastically increase the reach of engaging, accessible learning to frontline workers in order to help them be successful at work, and to help the companies they work effectively onboarding and upskill their workforce to drive productivity and retention.
“Currently, 2.7 bn people, equivalent to 80% of the global workforce are deskless, but the vast majority of them aren’t given the necessary tools and training to be successful,” says Jacob Waern, CEO and Founder of eduMe. "We believe everyone has the same right to be successful at work. By embedding eduMe into the tools frontline workers use, such as Microsoft Teams, we have made consumer-grade technology available to everyone, in the flow of their everyday work. By doing this we’re setting the new standard for what deskless workforce learning looks like."
eduMe customers see significant increases in workforce productivity, retention and safety soon after deploying the platform. By creating easily-consumable content that can be accessed from the tools they use on a daily basis through seamless integrations with partners like Microsoft Teams, in the existing flow of their working day, eduMe’s users and customers overcome the typical hurdles deskless businesses face in operating profitably and successfully.
With a commitment to the enterprise, with well known brands like Uber, Marriott, Vodafone and Deloitte, eduMe can also announce its recent completion of SOC2 Type 2 certification, complying with the highest security requirements in the industry.
About eduMe
eduMe is the training platform of choice for the frontline. We partner with global companies like Uber, Marriott and Vodafone to seamlessly deliver immersive, consumer-grade training, in the flow of work, allowing them to improve productivity, retention and safety. eduMe integrates into the tools your frontline already uses, such as Microsoft Teams, Workday, Braze, Beekeeper and Fountain. We are HQ’d in London, UK, with offices in Santa Monica, USA. Learn more at edume.com.
