COVID -19 was an impactful event for all of us, and Engagedly’s team was no exception. However, we were a geographically distributed organization with offices in 4 countries and employees in a dozen cities. We could adjust quickly using our work technology stack to go remote, even in the core work centers. Our India R&D team works more collaboratively than our US-based center, which is more client-focused, and as such, was impacted a lot more than other regions. I give a lot of credit to our team leaders for holding a strong culture that lets us get through these times without any major impact on our culture and people in general. We were able to run a fairly smooth operation during this time period in all our centers.

My background has been in technology consulting, working with EY and then with Emids. I spent a considerable amount of time traveling all over the country and meeting organizational leaders to help them with digitization strategy. In working with over 100+ companies and organizations, one thing was evident: organizations were, by and large, business-focussed and not as employee experience focussed. In many organizations, managers were more interested in building their little empires and taking credit for their team’s work or stifling ideas to keep from doing anything that would create exposure to criticism. And in many organizations, people felt they were not being recognized enough or did not feel connected to their organization’s mission. Research has demonstrated that this adversely impacts the organizational outcomes, and overall employee morale suffers. Engagedly was born out of that need to build better cultures that can create highly engaged organizations. We built this product to help organizations connect with their people and actively engage and motivate their teams. Organizations can build a better culture that can provide fulfilling careers.

Rapid digitization in many areas of business required that people’s processes be more digitized as well. People functions, including goal management, alignment, engagement, and employee development, were in need to be digitized in a manner that provides a better employee experience. Our goal with Engagedly is to provide a platform that connects their people to one purpose regardless of where they may reside. In the era of a hybrid workplace, technology like Engagedly is no longer a luxury but a necessity to build a more cohesive organization.

The pandemic did impact us in some ways, but our business overall did very well due to the innovation and the impact our software has on building a better culture for teams that are now mostly virtual. Regardless, it was a difficult time from every individual perspective as the connections we had at work were missing, and we started having fun social events over zoom. We also started a practice of playing fun team-building games online to keep our connection. On the business front, our growth was particularly strong in 2020, and we continue to see tailwinds from organizations moving to Engagedly to help better employee experience in a hybrid work environment.

One of the most difficult choices was to stop all hiring with the uncertainty of the pandemic hitting. We made the risky choice of hiring managers and other key roles we needed to support our thesis that the secular trend of focus on employee experience and digitization of people processes will continue. Fortunately, our thesis has continued to play out. The big lesson here is that entrepreneurship requires conviction in your value proposition and your approach.

We actively use Engagedly for most internal processes and communications. One of the most used tools is the Engagedly recognition tool to show our people appreciation who pour their heart and soul at work and building our culture. For employee goal alignment, we use Engagedly as well. Our online meeting tool is Zoom.

In the last 18 months, one positive outcome has been an increased focus on employee well-being and employee experience and greater emphasis on having a diverse workforce and leadership. We believe it is the right and profitable approach for organizations, and tools like Engagedly can help them build a better organization.