Rarely does one leave a technology provider’s user conference equally impressed with their culture and compassion and their ability to help employers create and uncover more value from their workforce.
But that was my reaction to Explorance’s MTMImpact conference, an impressive mix of data analytics evangelism, technology innovation and sincere customer care, complemented by charitable giving to local community organizations in the host city of New Orleans.
Led by Samer Saab, the rare CEO equally adept at visionary leadership, making personal connections and the details of software engineering, Explorance displayed its ability to help employers conquer perhaps their greatest challenge — leveraging insights from learning and engagement data to improve workforce effectiveness.
Explorance has three core products, MTM (Metrics that Matter), Blue and Blue ML. The Explorance team did a great job working closely with customers to answer questions, solve challenges and demonstrate how their solutions can help unlock insights into workforce challenges through strategic data collection and innovative analytics.
This is extremely important because Brandon Hall Group research shows that less than four in 10 organizations believe they understand what their workforces need and want from their employment. That leads to only 31% of organizations believing they are effectively addressing talent retention.
Explorance focuses on helping its users take decisive and strategic actions driven by insights from learning and engagement data.
While some providers in this space stress the need to conduct frequent surveys — which often leads to fatigue — Explorance emphasizes the need to leverage the technology to gain more insights with fewer interactions. Each Explorance solution does this in its own way. BlueML, which was showcased at Brandon Hall Group’s recent HCM Excellence Conference, can glean important sentiment information from unstructured data. Blue and MTM also unlock actionable insights, and the product roadmap offers impressive additions and refinements.
For example, leaders from Newell Brands, a leading global consumer goods company with a portfolio of well-known and planet-friendly brands, told conference attendees how they used Blue to uncover competency gaps in the workforce, improve their competency models, adjust proficiency targets and improve use of training modalities.
This doesn’t happen by magic or simply by leveraging the technology. In her keynote presentation, Shawn Overcast, Explorance’s Chief Experience Officer, urged HR and learning leaders to engage with key stakeholders to gain buy-in and understanding of the value of using data to drive workforce effectiveness.
“We need to have conversations that can drive more and better use of data,” Overcast said. “We must ask ourselves, ‘What can I do to take the first step in my data-fueled conversation?’”
