Yesterday, OMERS Growth Equity (OGE) made an investment in Phenom, an AI-powered Talent Experience Management (TXM) platform that offers an end-to-end solution for enterprises that create personalized experiences and increase efficiencies for candidates, recruiters, employees and hiring managers.
As demonstrated before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of software is proliferating across industries and companies. The HR industry is at an inflection point. The seismic technical disruptions and generational shifts happening in the world of business are also happening across HR. Gen X and millennials are moving into more senior roles while Gen Z enters the workforce leading to more digitally native employees, and subsequently higher expectations of what is possible of HR. This isn’t a problem that can be solved by throwing more people at it. Modern HR leaders need to be as digitally native as the workforce they support with a focus on technology and data to drive productivity, engagement, and culture.
As I previously wrote about while in University here in 2015 “between software, services, and recruitment consulting, industry estimates suggest employers are spending on average between 150-200% of a person’s annual salary on employee replacement costs. This reflects the high value that companies place on HR, the source of some of their most valuable assets: patents, trademarks, and goodwill.” Today, we believe this is truer than ever as COVID-19 and the rise of remote work has highlighted the importance of focusing on finding, retaining, and engaging talent and will lead to further adoption of talent experience solutions like Phenom.
Phenom — a global HR technology company founded by CEO Mahe Bayireddi, COO Hari Bayireddy, and Chief People Officer Brad Goldoor — delivers its AI-powered Talent Experience Management platform to enterprises, enabling them to help candidates and employees find the right job, recruiters identify and engage the right talent, and management optimize HR strategy, process, and spend. The company offers a holistic platform that impacts the entire talent lifecycle, transforming many of the world’s largest enterprises.
OGE strongly believes in the importance of AI-backed HR tools as an enabler of productivity. Businesses of all types are implementing more of this technology than ever. With an increasingly global world where remote work is becoming more commonplace, companies of all sizes now compete not only for business globally, but increasingly to attract and retain talent. Companies like our portfolio company Gitlab were born in a fully remote environment and compete for talent on a global basis, which we view will increasingly become the norm and has been accelerated by COVID.
We are optimistic about the future of Phenom and the talent ecosystem more broadly as companies shift focus to their people in an increasingly competitive environment and cope with the changing workplace norms. If 2020 has taught us anything about remote work, people, culture, and values are what defines organizations — and those that emphasize their overall talent experience will benefit exponentially.
