What we learnt at our January summit💡

We are all about Workforce Success at eduMe - it’s at the heart of what we do.

What’s Workforce Success?

In a nutshell it’s ensuring your people are empowered with the right information, training and knowledge to engage and motivate them, so that they are able to perform at their very best.

We believe that companies need to put as much focus on their workforce as they do their customers to achieve success - to see internal success as the prerequisite for external success, and the secret to securing longevity of their company.

Workforce Success in action

We strive for every team member to feel like an integral piece of the puzzle that makes up eduMe’s success, and to understand how these pieces fit together. This involves clear communication, regular rewards and the offer of opportunities to develop personally as well as professionally.

Practicing what we preach is important. So with improved flow of information, increased knowledge and heightened motivation at the forefront of our minds, we traded a day in the office for the bright lights of London at our bi-annual company summit.

Having spent the turn of the decade reflecting on our journey in 2019, the aim of our summit was to spend a day looking ahead to the future of eduMe, particularly what 2020 has in store for us.

We gathered to…

• Learn more about each team’s day-to-day operations, particularly focusing on a specific area of their work.

• Understand how each team’s objectives contribute towards our end goal, breaking down overall company targets into 1 month, 3 month, 6 month and 1 year actions.

• Brainstorm ideas across different departments, providing an open forum for innovation through idea sharing.

• Spend a day team-building and bonding cross-departmentally.

The great people that make up our team took on roles as the event’s speakers, with a view to share cross-departmental learnings. We were lucky enough to have an external speaker join us as well - Declan Penfold, Deliveroo’s Global Virtual Brand Manager.

The aim, by having everyone contribute, was to develop a more in-depth understanding of other departments’ day-to-day. As well as recognise how each team’s 2020 focuses contribute towards the company’s overall values, objectives and goals. In essence, it was all about creating clarity for a strengthened, unified mission.

What did we learn and from who?

In the morning ☀️

Jacob Waern, our Founder & CEO, kicked off proceedings with a presentation that shared eduMe’s key objectives for the coming year. He shared his approach to achieving success, which was “define today what the perfect tomorrow is, and work backwards”. Visualising your goals first, then breaking down the steps and timeframe required to reach that final destination is a useful way to set multiple smaller, achievable targets.

The opening talk from our founder Jacob was followed by an insightful session with our Commercial Director Priya Bhandari, and Account Executive Bradley Hunt, who spoke about the On-Demand Industry. The On-Demand sector is booming - in the U.K. it has doubled in size in just the past three years. And the gig economy is so well served by a mobile learning because its people are largely dispersed, largely millennial and the only technology they’ll have on them as they go about their daily jobs is (you guessed it!) a smartphone 📱

Next up, our CTO Mikko Heikeila gave us an insight into the technical world of eduMe, letting us know about all of the exciting integrations we have lined up to be developed this year - starting with Fountain. With such great integrations lined up, we’ll improve how our customers can use eduMe, and broaden the scope for what’s possible.

One of the highlights of the day was a fireside chat with the fantastic Declan Penfold, Deliveroo’s Global Virtual Brand Manager. Declan shared his journey in hospitality with us, from working in a Thai restaurant aged 14 to heading up a new department in one of the biggest global On-Demand food companies.

We got to learn all about how Deliveroo are innovating the market with ‘Virtual Brands’. Virtual Brands provide existing restaurant partners (restaurants signed up to trade on the platform) with the necessary resources to house more than one brand in their kitchens. This is done to fill ‘cuisine gaps’ Deliveroo has identified, i.e. the absence of a certain cuisine in an area where there is demand for it.

To hear about the development of Virtual Brands, from their conception to implementation, was greatly inspiring for the whole team.

Activity time 💥

After a buffet lunch to fuel the minds (and stomachs) - we moved onto an interactive session led by our Product Team. We were split into cross-departmental teams again, each with a member of the product team to lead us for the next couple of hours. The different teams were given the name and description of some fictional companies - and tasked with building a Workforce Success platform for each of them.

Each company had its own problems and challenges. These ranged from a platform for cleaners offering services to people who need their home or small office cleaned, to a delivery app, where customers can order items to be delivered quickly from their favourite shops.

After group discussions about each fictional company, we were tasked with answering the following question:

With the company you have been given, what tools/services/help/support would you create for them so they can achieve Workforce Success?

This was a great opportunity to not only think about the ways in which our existing product could empower these fictional companies, but also in idea generation for how we can grow, develop and build on our own platform going forward. With many minds at work, we were able to come up with some innovative ideas.

Then, as we know knowledge is best retained when delivered in bite-sized chunks, we enjoyed a short break for afternoon tea ☕

The final stretch 🏃

Refuelled and ready to continue learning, we heard from David Rambridge our Workforce Success Franchise Manager. David talked to us a little about some of our Franchise clients, including two recent additions to the eduMe family - Machmade Ltd and AMG Services Ltd, both licensed DynoRod franchises.

The penultimate speakers of the day were Nicola Lindop and Katie Bradfield, who make up our wonderful Customer Success team. They continued the overarching trend, speaking about the significance of onboarding to a company’s success. Specifically, they covered how they work with our fantastic clients, like Uber and Tigo to empower success in their day-to-day operations using our platform.

Customer Success is key to the functioning of any SaaS company. Our team work closely with our clients, making sure they are using eduMe to its fullest potential, to supercharge their workforces and achieve Workforce Success. They offer day-to-day support, and help our customers to reach their own business objectives. After all, as Jonas Staanford, Director of Customer Success at Unbounce, put it - “customers are not paying for your product, they are paying for their outcomes”.

The evening was wrapped up by Matthew Brew, Head of Marketing, and Isidora Markovic, our Content Marketing Manager. They delved into some insightful information on how our Content and Marketing strategies have evolved to ensure a continued trajectory of growth and expansion in 2020.

The day concluded at Bounce, where the team - newly imbued with inspiration and fervour for 2020’s departmental initiatives - enjoyed further team building over pizza and ping-pong.

The takeaway 💭

We convened in person for our bi-annual summit. But it doesn’t matter whether your workforce is deskbound or deskless. Whether your meetings are face-to-face, or virtual. The values that underpinned the event were universal.

And they were that Workforce Success is only attained through effective training, communication and engagement of your people.

Unlocking Workforce Success means every individual that forms part the whole is empowered to work to the best of their ability, supercharging your workforce 🚀