Inside Workleap

MONTRÉAL — Nov. 25, 2024 — Workleap, a leading Canadian software company behind products that empower 20,000 companies in more than 100 countries to build better employee experiences, announces its fall platform release introducing new solutions and integrated features into an all-in-one simple-to-use platform. This release marks a new milestone in Workleap’s ongoing commitment to transform the employee experience by empowering HR leaders to drive organizational performance and achieve business goals.

Workleap’s comprehensive platform helps HR lead organizations to thrive in the modern setting of hybrid, remote, and distributed work environments. The consolidated solution for understanding employee engagement, driving performance, and developing employees is the best add-on to your existing HRIS and HR technology, allowing companies to add simple experiences across the employee lifecycle. Bringing these functions together in one platform, Workleap enables HR professionals to create a more responsive, agile and employee-centric work environment.

What's New

• Workleap Performance streamlines performance management reviews and enables HR teams to guide managers to provide meaningful feedback, align teams with business goals, and easily track progress—all in one place.
• Workleap Pingboard, an intuitive org-chart, visualization, and company building solution, will be integrated within the Workleap platform before the end of the year.
• Integrated tools to help HR: Easily visualize employee engagement data within your org chart, streamline onboarding and learning workflows, accelerate content creation with AI designed for HR, and launch custom surveys across the employee journey.
• Unmatched value: Game-changing bundled pricing lowers the barrier for HR teams of any size to enhance the employee experience.

Why It Matters

“Hybrid work has completely reshaped the role of HR. It’s no longer just about managing employees—it’s about building the right frameworks, fostering authentic connections, and leveraging tools that drive meaningful outcomes,” said Simon De Baene, Co-founder and CEO of Workleap. “At Workleap, our mission is clear: make work simpler. The Workleap platform brings together the tools HR teams and leaders need to focus on what matters most—creating workplaces where people feel supported, connected, and empowered to grow. By continuing to invest in our platform, we’re accelerating innovation with solutions like Workleap Performance—designed to be simple, effective, and built to keep HR and leaders ahead as the future of work evolves.”

To learn more about Workleap’s employee experience platform, visit workleap.com.

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About Workleap
Workleap is the best add-on to your HRIS to build better employee experiences. The all-in-one Workleap platform empowers organizations to make work simpler by unifying onboarding, engagement, performance, and development —in one platform.

Workleap is a Montréal, Canada-based company building the operating system for hybrid work—unifying the experience to streamline talent management and scale productivity tools across 20,000 companies in more than 100 countries.

Media Contact
Jaclyn Pullen
PANBlast for Workleap
workleap@panblastpr.com

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At Workleap, we believe that strong employee experiences stem from three core HR actions:  

• Understand how your employees feel to make them feel heard.  

• Help managers to connect their teams and drive them to perform.  

• Develop your employees, grow their careers, and help them deliver for your business.  

HR work should be human work, supplemented by the right tools.    

It sounds simple (and appealing, no?), but the reality is, finding a simple software solution to unify and streamline this work is like finding a needle in a haystack.   

Refreshingly simple employee experience software  

According to HR.com's State of Today's HR Tech Stack and Integrations 2024 report, 37% of respondents are juggling five to eleven (or more) paid HR solutions in their tech stacks. Your job is certainly complex — but the last thing you need is to manage endless tools and increase costs.  

Workleap's employee experience platform brings the simplicity you're looking for — one solution to unify and streamline everything you need understand your people, connect teams, drive performance, and develop careers. 

Engagement surveys, anonymous feedback, performance management, new employee onboarding, learning management, and career progression — yes, all of this, in one place! It seamlessly integrates with your existing HRIS, adding a layer of simple (and consistently used) experiences. 

And with such a breezy setup, you finally have the breathing room to collect the right inputs, take time to analyze and reflect, and plan concrete actions.  

Hybrid work has completely reshaped the role of HR. It’s no longer just about managing employees—it’s about building the right frameworks, fostering authentic connections, and leveraging tools that drive meaningful outcomes. At Workleap, our mission is clear: make work simpler. The Workleap platform brings together the tools HR teams and leaders need to focus on what matters most—creating workplaces where people feel supported, connected, and empowered to grow. By continuing to invest in our platform, we’re accelerating innovation with solutions like Workleap Performance—designed to be simple, effective, and built to keep HR and leaders ahead as the future of work evolves. - Simon De Beane, CEO and Founder at Workleap 

A main takeaway from the HR.com report is that employee experience is the top priority that businesses want to address with their tech stack. Over half of respondents don't have any capabilities at all!   

We know you know it's time to boost your employee experience. And here's how you do it.   

Understand your people. Make them feel heard.  

Listening is a basic human skill — but in the HR context, it's taken to a whole new level. 

Continuous employee listening involves:   

• Providing a safe space for employees to answer questions and provide feedback   

• Acknowledging and analyzing employee responses  

• Actioning on employee feedback and communicating changes  

Ensuring your people feel heard is a key element of employee listening. As McKinsey senior partner, Carolyn Dewar, says: “You need to genuinely listen and learn, because the organization will sense if you are asking questions but not interested in the answers.” 

While there are many moving parts, continuous listening should be top priority because it goes hand in hand with one of HR's key metrics, employee engagement. In fact, highly engaged employees are three times more likely to say they feel heard at their workplace (92%) than highly disengaged employees (just 30%).   

Good news is, there are tools out there that help you collect constant feedback, regardless of location or time zone.   

How Workleap helps amplify your listening skills   

In a recent Workleap webinar, we brought in HR experts to break down effective listening. (Here's the link to the guide they created for attendees.)  

During the webinar, we talked about the how: How can HR leaders hear and analyze the perspectives of hundreds (or thousands) of employees? Their answer? Find yourself a really good survey and feedback tool.   

Cue: Workleap Officevibe’s engagement surveys and anonymous feedback.  

Both tools offer a safe space and an easy user experience to increase employee participation rates, which means greater insights for you! More recently, we updated our pulse survey tool to enable flexible listening. Now, you can deactivate or add custom questions to help you measure what matters to your organization. 

My team and I enjoy using Workleap Officevibe because we can instantly view our department's engagement temperature while continuously addressing learning and implementing strategies based on employees' voices. - Sivakumar Muniandy, Head of Singapore Contact Centre Operation, AIA Shared Services 

To close the loop, we recommend sharing updates with your people on what you're hearing and doing to address their needs. Open communication is key!  

Connect teams and drive performance 

Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, captures the power of alignment and connection perfectly when he wrote: 

“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.” 

When your people are connected, you’re a force to be reckoned with. Without this, the business goes nowhere. People work inefficiently. Decisions are made more slowly. Alignment ensures everyone works in lockstep. And that can make a big difference on revenue. 

What can you do, as an HR leader of a hybrid organization, to connect your teams from the comfort of your home office? Read on.  

How Workleap helps you connect and drive performance 

When you crack the code for driving alignment, you'll discover endless opportunities. There are many ways to get individuals and teams together and moving in the same direction.   

One way is through performance management. Once organizational goals are defined, then all other individual and team goals can feed this North Star.   

The reality is, however, that many HR pros are struggling to find a performance management solution that blend the flexibility needed to adapt to changing needs with the simplicity and user-friendliness that fosters widespread adoption and efficiency. 

With our new Workleap Performance product, you can finally have a flexible and customizable framework to build performance cycles that fit like a glove. You can easily customize questions and evaluation criteria that align with your organizational goals, mission, and values — while still ensuring a consistent and fair process across managers and teams.   

Another way to align people — that's especially valuable for hybrid or remote workforces and incredibly easy to implement — is by helping people connect with the right collaborators across their company. A tool as simple as a dynamic org chart and employee directory can foster faster relationships by showing who you need to speak with to progress your work.   

With Workleap Pingboard you can instantly improve alignment by fostering connections between employees, streamlining resource planning, and improving internal communications.   

Foster continuous learning and development  

Employees care about learning, development, and growth opportunities. This isn't new news.   

We've seen the data, too. When an organization provides these opportunities, great talent flocks and they stick around. According to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2024, organizations with strong learning cultures have a +57% retention rate and +23% internal mobility rate.   

Talent development starts from day one and it can be tackled with a strong onboarding process. Fresh training and courses will keep people engaged and growing.   

But we know the behind-the-scenes work of an L&D program — planning, managing, and tracking — can be time-consuming, hard to scale, and frustrating to maintain.   

How Workleap helps you develop talent at scale  

The secret to scaling your learning, development, and growth programs is leveraging AI, tried-and-tested templates, and other tools that remove the heavy lifting, so you can focus on the big picture: building a culture of continuous learning.   

Workleap Onboarding, Workleap LMS, and Workleap Skills all offer templates, automation, and AI to streamline manual admin processes and reduce busywork.  

Need to create new safety training? Hop into Workleap LMS and leverage AI to create a course outline in minutes with a few simple prompts. Want to integrate this course into your new hire's onboarding plan that you just built in Workleap Onboarding? Easy peasy! 

Unifying these product experiences isn’t just great for you — it also helps new hires transition smoothly from onboarding to role-specific training.  

When onboarding, training, and career plans are easier to create and manage, you'll see higher engagement — from your HR team, managers, SMEs, and employees. 

All you need to build impactful employee experiences 

With Workleap's unified platform, you have all you need to tackle the key areas of the employee experience:  

• Understand how your employees feel to make them feel heard with Workleap Officevibe 

• Help managers connect their teams and drive them to perform with Workleap Pingboard and Workleap Performance.  

• Develop employees, grow their careers, and help them deliver for your business with Workleap LMS, Workleap Onboarding, and Workleap Skills 

Let's get back to the work we love to do, simply.

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Thanks to companies in Silicon Valley, employees have high expectations of the perks that your company offers.

Besides perks like medical and dental benefits, employees are looking for companies that think outside the box and create an atmosphere that makes employees want to spend time there.

Employees want a work environment that encourages fun and helps them be more productive.

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But it’s important to remember that perks don’t make a company culture.

You can have all the beer and arcade rooms in the world, but if you’re underlying culture is bad they won’t make a difference.

Employee perks are also good for retention, which is an important issue. Talent is more scarce than ever, especially good talent, and they know that companies are out-perking each other.

Even if you don’t have a lot of resources, you can still create an amazing place to work by being a little creative.

As you’ll see with this list, most of the perks that matter to employees are free, or cost very little. Even the ones that do cost money have such a high ROI that it’s worth it.

You don’t have to implement all of these, these are just ideas. A good tip is to ask employees for feedback about what they want.

1. Parental leave - More than legally required

Having a baby is one of the most beautiful, stressful times in someone’s life. Why should you make it any more complicated for an employee?

In the United States, companies legally need to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave. In Canada, it varies by province, but it’s usually anywhere between 15-40 weeks, not all of which are paid.

Follow in the footsteps of Netflix, and offer unlimited maternity and paternity leave. From the Netflix blog:

Parents can return part-time, full-time, or return and then go back out as needed. We’ll just keep paying them normally, eliminating the headache of switching to state or disability pay. Each employee gets to figure out what’s best for them and their family, and then works with their managers for coverage during their absences.

Absolutely amazing.

2. Education reimbursements for all classes taken by employees

The idea is to encourage employees to take classes on their free time to get better at what they do.

If you want to go a step further, you can allow employees to take classes that have nothing to do with their jobs or the company, just ones that interest them.

This one will cost a bit of money, but it’s worth it.

A more educated workforce means a more productive workforce

There are tools to help you with this. Udemy for Business and Udacity for Business are great tools that you should check out.

If employees know that they don’t have to worry about the cost of those programs and that your company encourages them to develop their skills, they’ll be happier at work.

3. Donation-matching program

The research is clear about employees wanting to work for companies that give back to the community.

70% of millennials will spend more on brands that are socially responsible and support good causes.

If you’re not offering this already, this can be an easy way to show your employees that you care about raising money for nonprofits and that you encourage employees to donate.

If you are offering it already, make sure that it is widely known about, you can even use it as part of your recruiting efforts.

DoubleTheDonation is a great service that I would recommend checking out to help you.

4. Unlimited vacation

Modeled after Netflix’s famous policy, unlimited vacation is starting to catch on at progressive companies like Hubspot, General Electric, and even Officevibe’s parent company.

The idea is simple: don’t track the number of vacation, sick, or personal days that an employee takes.

There is no vacation policy, be responsible about when you take vacations, but take as much of it as you want.

More than anything, it’s about treating employees as adults.

As we shift more to giving employees autonomy and letting them manage themselves, this policy makes a lot of sense.

The reason this perk makes so much sense is that it shows employees that you trust them to make the right decisions.

One thing to watch out for: employees might not take any vacation with this policy. Some companies have had to implement mandatory vacation because of this.

5. Gym membership

Employee wellness programs should be viewed as a strategic initiative, and not a simple employee perk.

Healthy employees will take less sick days, work harder, cost you less, are happier at work, and are more likely to make friends with other coworkers.

This is a perk that will cost you some money, but the benefits far outweigh the expense.

Also, showing employees that you care about their health is an easy way to get them to stay at your company.

As a creative idea, you could set up a friendly competition between employees or departments to incentivize everyone exercising.

6. Cake on your birthday

Bringing an employee cake on their birthday is such a simple and inexpensive way to show appreciation to someone on their special day.

It’s a great way to show employees that you care. When an employee comes to work on their birthday, they’re hoping someone remembers and wishes them a happy birthday.

Getting them a cake takes it a step further, and is a nice bonus for their coworkers.

Also, taking a couple of minutes to eat a piece of cake with your teammates is great for team-building.

7. Shared kindles

This employee perk is like a book club 2.0.

We have this at Officevibe, and it’s a great way to discover new books and take a break at lunch.

The way it works here is there are 10 Kindles that anyone can rent at any time, and buy a book that the company will pay for.

Another side effect of this program is that you get to know your colleagues through the books they like (and if we have any in common), and how they describe the book.

When someone shares a book with the team and writes a whole paragraph about why they’re sharing it and why they enjoyed it, you learn a lot about who they are.

8. Paid time off to volunteer

Giving employees time off to go volunteer is a great way to let them know that you support giving back to the community.

Many employees would love to volunteer, but simply can’t because of their work schedules. Having a dedicated program to help employees do that is a great way to let them volunteer.

Explain to employees that they’ll be paid for their time and not to worry. Let them enjoy!

Perhaps limiting it to one day per month or something to start would make sense.

9. Flexible schedules

This is one of the best employee perks you could offer. This perk is completely free, and on many surveys of what perks employees want, this one comes up again and again.

Flexible schedules are about showing your employees that you respect them and trust them enough to make their own decisions.

Some people are better in the morning, and some people are better in the afternoon. Some people have families that they’d like to get home to, and that’s fine.

For example, I work 10-6, and I have a coworker that works 7-3. Whatever works best for everyone.

I understand that there are some jobs where people need to be there at a certain hour, but perhaps in this scenario you could implement shifts to make it easier.

10. Catered meals

Providing meals to your employees is a great way to give them one less thing to worry about.

The cost of restaurants and the hassle of making your lunch make this a perk that you should be offering employees.

There are many services that provide healthy meals for employees, but if you don’t know of any, simply go to Google and type in “[city name] meals delivered to work”

Another advantage to this is you can offer employees healthy alternatives to whatever restaurants are near your office, keeping them healthier and more productive.

11. Allowance for mental health

This is an important perk that often gets forgotten about.

Often, when people talk about employee wellness we think of gym memberships and healthy food in the kitchen, but mental health issues in the workplace are huge.

Imagine giving employees an allowance for something that will help them mentally, like going to a spa or talking to a psychologist.

You can get really creative here, but don’t forget about mental health. Many employees are scared to talk about this stuff, it’s up to you to help them feel comfortable.

12. Company retreats

There is no better team building activity than a retreat where employees travel somewhere for an extended period of time.

Every year, our company does a Christmas trip that brings everyone so much closer. Last year we went to Punta Cana for the weekend! Who knows where we’ll go this year.

You don’t have to go as wild as an all-inclusive resort, but a weekend in a cottage somewhere can bring the team so much closer together.

13. Game rooms

This is a standard perk that’s almost a requirement at any tech company.

It’s important to remind employees that they can take time to relax and you support that as an employer.

It doesn’t matter what you actually do, whether it’s a TV, a game system, foosball table, it honestly makes no difference.

The point is to show employees that work-life balance is important to the company.

14. Lunch and learns

Lunch and learns are a way for a subject matter expert to share their knowledge and teach other employees something new.

Not only is it a great way to learn something new and bond over lunch, it’s a way to learn more about the employee that’s teaching.

Finding out what’s important to the subject matter expert will give you insight into what they like.

Pro tip: one cool idea could be to bring an expert from the community in to talk to employees.

15. Transportation allowance

Not everyone drives to work in a Mercedes and has a parking spot near the front door.

Providing an allowance for transportation shows your employees that you want to help get to work as safely and easily as possible.

Monthly metro passes can be pretty expensive, so it’s a nice gesture to offer that to your employees.

In many cities they have bikes that you can rent and ride to work, in Montreal we have Bixi, in the US I believe it’s Citi bikes. Offering to subsidize that is a way to help employees like a healthy lifestyle.

16. Company swag

A simple perk that helps promote the company and reinforce the core values. Depending on what your company does, this could be a very cool perk to offer.

My winter hat and sunglasses are company branded and I wear them with pride 🙂

17. Free coffee

A nice perk that’s becoming very common, especially in startups.

Coffee keeps the creatrive juices flowing and the employees productive and happy.

Instead of making employees go to the local Starbucks, a nice perk could be to offer free coffee to your employees.

18. Pets are welcome

Pets are good for boosting employee happiness and company morale.

A study done by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University found that access to dogs boosted morale and reduced stress levels, whether people had access to their own pets or other people's.

This doesn’t cost you anything, and shows employees that you like to create a fun and friendly work environment.

19. Interest-free loan

Not every company can do this, but many companies have excess cash flow that they could use to help their employees out.

The idea is to provide employees with an interest-free loan that they can easily pay back over time if they have to make a big purchase.

It’s a very nice thing to do, and more than anything, shows employees that you care about them and are there for them.

20. Free fruits

Offering free fruits to employees is a great way to keep them healthy and productive.

It’s an inexpensive perk that pays great dividends.

Providing free fruit shows you care about the health of your employees.

Finding a provider that delivers fruit is simple. All you have to do is go to Google and type in “[city name] fruit delivery for work”

You can start simple, maybe with one basket and scale up if you see employees like it.

Fun fact: At our company, we sent a survey about the perks employees love most, and surprisingly having access to free fruit was the number one answer!

21. Matching RRSP contributions

Contributing to your RRSP (or 401k) is a smart idea, as you try to plan for retirement.

It can be tough for most employees to contribute a meaningful amount, which is why this is such a powerful perk.

Many companies do this, but employees often don’t take advantage of it. Why turn down free money?

22. Desk swap

The idea here is to allow employees to sit somewhere new and “swap desks” with another colleague.

It’s great for team-building, as it allows employees who might not necessarily interact to get to know each other better.

It can also help employees with their personal growth because of the knowledge transfer that will take place.

In an article for the Wall Street Journal, they talk about how powerful this perk can be:

Proponents say such experiments not only come with a low price tag, but they can help a company's bottom line

23. Stock ownership plan

One of the hardest parts of employee engagement is getting employees bought in to the company’s mission and values.

The owners want their employees to be as passionate about the company as they are.

Why try to make employees act like owners when you could just make them owners?

This can be the most powerful employee perk that you have at your disposal as an owner. Employees want to feel invested in the company they work for, this is a great way to make it happen.

24. In-house yoga

Meditation is one of the best things you could do increase your happiness, as is exercise, and yoga is actually a perfect blend of the two.

Offering employees an in-house yoga class once or twice a week can lead to a huge increase in employee happiness.

25. Standup desks

Sitting all day at work is terrible for you.

Getting your employees a standup desk shows them that you care about their well-being and want them to be as energized and productive as possible.

You also don’t have to buy one for every person. Buying one that employees can share on rotation is a nice idea as well.

Employee perks are good for retention

Employee retention is incredibly important because of the effects of turnover.

When an employee leaves the company it lowers morale for everyone else.

It creates a culture of fear, where no one knows how safe their job is. This in turn affects their work, because they spend so much time worrying about if they’ll be let go.

Creating an environment where employees want to stay is important.

Replacing an employee is annoying, time consuming, and costly.

JDA, a professional services firm, did a study on how much it would cost to replace an employee.

They say that for an employee with a $60,000/year salary, it would cost $150,000 to replace them.

Having more perks like these can help retain your best and brightest employees.

What employee perks do you like?

Now over to you. Let us know what you think the best employee perks are in the comments!

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Companies spend an immense amount of time and money on recruiting, and often don't get the results they were looking for.

12 recruiting statistics to change the way you hire

• 66% of candidates want to hear more from employees.
• Candidates are twice as likely to accept cold emails if they have interacted with your brand before.
• It takes an average of 27 business days to make a new hire.
• The best candidates are off the market within 10 days.
• Average cost per hire has risen to $4,000
• 60% of employers are very concerned with the cost of unfilled positions
• 64% of applicants would share negative application experiences with friends and family.
• ...and 27% would actively discourage others from applying.
• 60% of candidates have quit a too long application process.
• 15% of candidates with positive hiring experience put more effort into the job.
• Over 75% of professionals are passive candidates.
• 46% of recruiters see "recruiting becoming more like marketing".
• Employee turnover can be reduced by 28% by investing in employer brand.

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Learn More About These 12 Recruiting Statistics

Candidates Want To Hear From Employees

In the past, companies could advertise whatever image they wanted to potential candidates, but today, candidates prefer to learn about the company by interacting with people who work there. Websites like Gassdoor and of course, social media, have changed the way companies recruit because there is so much more transparency in the process. No longer can companies hide behind marketing gimmicks and buzzwords; companies need to be much more authentic, and potentially change the way they do things. The book Good Is The New Cool offers some really great insight into the importance of sincerity and realness in today's marketing world - it's worth a read.

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Get Employees Involved: Encourage employees to promote the company on their social media accounts. You can even create a company hashtag to help create a culture. Ours is #yesimatwork.

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The Truth About Recruiting with Cold Emails

No one likes getting cold emails unless they’re really well-written or from a well-known company. As a simple example, if you were to get a cold email from Google offering you a job, it’s likely that you’d open it. Right? That’s why developing your employer brand is so important. Whether it be via social media or word of mouth.

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Simple Tips For Effective Cold Emails: Be human - personalize every email and don’t be afraid to show some personality. Real people are more interesting than automated messages. You can also send a private Linkedin message, which humanizes the process even further because they can put a face to the name and browse your profile.

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It Takes Around 27 Days To Make A New Hire

Companies realize the value in taking the time to get to know someone and the importance of having all potential candidates go through multiple steps in the interview process before making a decision. The only caveat to this is that top talent is off the market very quickly. Often, companies will overdo the process and make it longer than it needs to be.

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Optimize Your Recruiting Process: There are tons of excellent software options that help to optimize the process, such as Greenhouse, used by companies like Pinterest and Evernote. Take advantage of all the great resources available.

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The Best Candidates Are Off The Market In 10 Days

The best candidates may already have several offers coming their way, quickly. so if you find a top talent candidate, you should try to move fast. You want all-star players on your team, and you need to do whatever it takes to get them.

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How To Secure Top Talent: You need to find the “just right” scenario of recruitment, meaning, don’t make the hiring process too long and complicated that it becomes daunting to the candidate. But, don’t make it too simple either, making the position less ‘exclusive’ and desirable.

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The Average Cost Per Hire Is A Whopping $4000

This is a pretty alarming statistic. What it takes to recruit an employee has changed because the opportunity cost of hiring the wrong employee is too much of a loss. Recruiters now administer more advanced tests, bring other managers into the process and spend on more expensive and diverse job listings.

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Don’t Forget To Consider This: Make your money count. Your candidate may have great experience and be a good fit on paper, but do their values and personality fit with the company culture? If not, you might want to reconsider the hire.

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Unfilled Positions Are Costing You

Think about the lost revenue from missed business, the lost money from employees who have to do more with less, the money from mistakes made when employees are doing too much to handle, etc. This is a constant, arguably unnecessary stress for employers.

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Focus On Building Your Employer Brand: This is crucial to reeling in top talent. It isn’t an overnight process but it’s one that can’t be ignored. SparkHire gives some great insight into employer brand techniques.

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Applicants Spread The Word About Bad Experiences

The candidate experience is so important, and companies can’t ignore this process because your reputation is at stake. One bad candidate experience might seem trivial, but with inevitable word of mouth and today's prolific use of social media, there can be residual effects that leave an indelible bad image on your company on more than just one person.

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Be Respectful: If you decide not to hire a candidate, be sure to send them an email or give them a call to let them know that they haven’t been accepted. And to kick it up a notch, if they happen to ask for a reason, taking the time to share your insights would be so greatly appreciated.

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If It Takes Too Long, You’ll Lose Them

This is a big opportunity wasted, and you risk losing great candidates because your process isn’t well optimized. Google is a good example. They realized that after working so hard to optimize the hiring process, they had too many steps in the interview process, and therefore brought the number down to 4. Now they’re able to get candidates through the door much faster.

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Something To Think About: Just like an author can revise and edit their book an infinite amount of times, sometimes you just have to decide to be done. Don’t overdo the process. Nothing is ever completely perfect, and you won't know if it's really a great fit until you try.

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A Positive Hiring Experience Pays Off

It’s so important to make candidates feel good and respected at every point in the process. When this is the case, the employee will already hold your company in high regard, enticing them go the extra mile to make your company successful.

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How To Make It Positive: Just as you expect candidates to show up on time, you should likewise be punctual - show up or call when you say you will. And, try not to schedule any portion of the interview over the weekend (even if it’s on the phone), demonstrating the company's respect for work-life balance.

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Don’t Neglect Passive Candidates

Many companies make the mistake of neglecting passive candidates. You’re missing out on a giant pool of talent that would potentially be willing to work with you if the offer was right.

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Keep This In Mind: Don’t view hiring as a one-time thing when you need to fill a position. Building and maintaining your employer brand is an ongoing process that takes input from many different people in different departments.

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Recruiting And Marketing Work Hand In Hand

Recruiting is becoming more and more like marketing. Candidates, both passive and active, should be treated like leads in a funnel, the same way that marketing treats their leads.

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How To Attract Leads: Message people of interest with relevant content (blog posts, company news, etc.) at the right moment. HR can work alongside marketing teams to optimize the process.

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Investing In Your Employer Brand Is Key

If there’s one key takeaway from this post that keeps repeating itself, it is that your employer brand is crucial. Why? Employee turnover is costly, so doing whatever you can to reduce it is essential. The entire experience from A-Z (hiring to onboarding and onwared) needs to be seamless so that employees are excited about working for your company right off the bat.

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An Example To Lead By: Hubspot, a company famous for their culture, makes each new employee responsible for improving the onboarding experience after they go through it, giving even the newest of employees an important task.

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Do you have any recruiting tips and tricks to share?

Let us know in the comments.

Workleap Officevibe is loved by managers and HR teams worldwide. But more and more, C-Level executives are taking notice (and advantage) of the tool. We sat down with Martin Gourdeau, President and General Manager at Workleap, who shares how Workleap Officevibe has become an integral part of his daily reality — informing decisions at all levels, delivering true business value, and benefiting the company’s bottom line.

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The golden rule for great leaders

[Workleap Officevibe] We’re stoked to chat with you today, thanks for taking the time! Officevibe has been successfully adopted by thousands of managers and employees worldwide, and we’re excited to have an inside look into the business value it has highlighted for Workleap from your executive perspective.

Before we jump into things, we want to better understand you as a leader and businessperson. So, what’s your golden rule when it comes to leadership?

[Martin] Well, right off the bat, everything I'm going to say is linked to one of my core beliefs, which is that people are the most important part of any business. I've never heard any rational argument stand up against that notion, ever, so I have to put that out there before we get started because it plays into everything great about Officevibe.

Having a good read on your people and how they feel is key if you’re looking to have any real, honest visibility on your business’s health. I’ve always believed that, but this is especially true in distributed environments, where visibility becomes five, probably ten times more important. And that’s why Officevibe is now part of my everyday workflow.

How to use Workleap Officevibe for optimal visibility of employee insights

Considering so many businesses, including Workleap, now operate with hybrid or distributed teams, that’s more relevant than ever. So can you walk us through your relationship with Workleap Officevibe and how you use it to gain better visibility on the business and its people?

In general, and I think most executives will relate here, my morning routine starts by looking at a bunch of data — business metrics, like products and value delivered, roadmaps, and so on. One of the first things I do is open Officevibe to get a sense of the state of affairs of our teams.

I look at engagement trends — especially the eNPS (employee Net Promoter Score). ​​I also take a quick look at employee feedback as it gives me information on how the business can be improved at different levels and from different perspectives.

The employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a simple way to track loyalty and pride for your organization. It’s an important part of Officevibe's engagement metrics. Learn how to calculate your company’s eNPS.

Another feature I look at almost every day is the comparison report. I mainly look for discrepancies — ​​that’s usually when I'll look into an issue further or flag it at the right level.

​​​There’s also the goals feature which, in my opinion, is one of the most valuable and underused features of Officevibe. I use the “tree view”, so I can drill down to understand every single OKR and how they connect back to top-level objectives. In my professional experience, I haven’t found any other tool that helps with strategic planning as well. For me, those features help me make correlations between how things are going in terms of delivery, sales, retention, and churn, across all other product, business, or finance metrics.

What’s super interesting is that engagement metrics can also be considered predictive indicators for business metrics. They point towards a confidence level of how things are going now and how they're going to be going over the next few months.

For example, let's say an event occurs that causes engagement metrics to start dropping. You could expect that to have an impact on business metrics, although there’s usually a delayed effect. If engagement starts going down, it's almost inevitable that business metrics will follow at some level — this could mean sales, retention, or product metrics.

​​​Like I said, people are the most important part of a business, so being able to visualize the state of a company from the perspective of its employees is incredibly helpful to run your operations. Sort of like a strategic looking-glass from the inside-out… with a bit of foretelling.

There are many engagement metrics executives can consider, and each one plays a role within the big picture of an organization. Officevibe also offers a sub-metrics view, which contributes to the employee experience. Discover our top 10 engagement metrics.

We love the predictive aspect and how you use Workleap Officevibe day-to-day. Was it a natural adoption process for you when you first got access to the tool? ​​​​​​

Ha! As one of our products, you’d expect I was using it since day one! But the truth is, I wasn't spending much time using it in the beginning. Don’t get me wrong — I had heard a lot about Officevibe. But I had no idea of the powerful business insights that could come from it.

It was once I had a sit-down with Simon [De Baene, Co-Founder & CEO], where we talked about the tool, that things really clicked for me. Simon shared how he was using Officevibe and that got me curious. Once I started playing around with it and experiencing its value myself, I was hooked.  

For someone in my position, a tool that can give you business insights that help with your decision-making process is incredibly valuable. So, I’ll admit — I didn’t give Officevibe much love the first few weeks. But once I saw I could chase real business value through the tool, it naturally became a part of my reality.

Improving daily operations with an employee experience platform

As a leader, in what other ways has Workleap Officevibe helped improve your daily operations? How would you say it helps the specific realities of an executive?  

Officevibe gives you a good understanding of a team or an employee’s capacity, and that can provide very useful knowledge. If I need to talk to a team leader about something, I check the general state of how their team is feeling beforehand to get some context.

A team’s state reflects on the person leading it, always — it’s human nature. So, I tie these insights into my interactions with that leader. Since I look at Officevibe every day, I’m able to keep a general sense of awareness of how things are going, which is just as important for planned conversations as unplanned ones. Knowing how specific teams are doing helps me manage conversations more effectively.

Thinking of a time before we had a tool like Workleap Officevibe, you wonder how executives ever managed to have a good understanding of their teams.  

Martin laughs. Around a whole lot of water cooler conversations!

Even then, those insights aren’t as in-depth or data-driven, wouldn’t you say?  

Agreed. These types of insights are biased to how a person is feeling at a specific point in time. A more anecdotal type of feedback — nowhere close to the quality of information you get from Officevibe. Not to mention the ability to look at trends over time.

Facing business challenges with confidence

You spoke about how you're using the tool to predict things. How does that help you face business challenges?  

In terms of forward-looking, if I see a business opportunity that requires putting specific teams under more pressure for a certain amount of time, I'll look at different engagement metrics — like culture, equity, or happiness — to evaluate how much they can take on in terms of mental bandwidth or stress.

The other part of it is the retro-looking capabilities, which are actually built into the platform and help us face business challenges with confidence. We did this for ​​​​our company restructuring — a massive change, which is usually stressful for everyone.

My hypothesis was that the business was going to come out happier and more engaged, so we built this hypothesis into the design of the project, rolled it out, and communicated it.

As predicted, metrics started going up. People were able to perform better with the clearer roles and responsibilities that came from the restructuring. The hypothesis that engagement metrics were going to improve after a stressful event is a bit counterintuitive, but everything was measured and that's exactly what happened.  

If the opposite effect happened, where the restructuring didn't go well, you would probably see metrics drop and be able to devise a new action plan, correct?  

Exactly. We’d use that in our retrospection, to see what we could have done better.

Workleap has been going through periods of high growth, which naturally comes with its own set of challenges. How do you feel Workleap Officevibe can help businesses navigate changes?

Growth is great. Although you have to be aware of the honeymoon period. I don’t love that term, but it’s a real phenomenon, where everything seems to be going great when new people first join, and where engagement is high. The data tends to skew the state of affairs more positively. But as long as you keep that in mind, you can use data to your advantage and have a good understanding of how the business is absorbing new talent.

In that sense, I find that the best way to determine the success of onboarding is by observing how engaged teams are over time — not just during or immediately.

Growth phases add a load at all levels of management, so the state of a team is also reflected through the manager of that team — that’s another great insight to pull from Officevibe.  

Do you find that using Workleap Officevibe facilitates reaching milestones for every level of management, even all the way down to the employee level?  

At the management level, for sure — if it's used properly. At worst, it'll derisk how you're managing your team. And at best, it'll optimize how you're managing your team.

There's a distinction between risk management and optimization for managers and executives. If I look back at my Officevibe journey, I started looking at data from a risk management perspective. Eventually, I understood its insights and moved towards using it to get the best out of people.  

The cost of not using Workleap Officevibe

You cover the benefits of using Officevibe. How would you describe the cost of inaction — in other words, what companies might lose out on not using Officevibe?  

​​​​​​​​Not using Officevibe is like driving without insurance — the biggest cost is whatever could come out of flying blind. That's how I would put it. Although, if​​​​​​​​ you're immature with the product, as in you don’t learn how to leverage its full potential, then of course it’s difficult to understand how it could contribute to your visibility and overall business success.

That’s the case with any tool. But Officevibe is, in my opinion, so easy to use and integrate into existing processes. Now that I use Officevibe, it blows my mind how many businesses miss out on using this kind of technology. ​​​​Every business is different, but one thing is certain: You need visibility on your people to manage them well.

Are there any KPI improvements you’ve been able to tie back to Workleap Officevibe?  

You can tie engagement back to the product execution of the teams. Engagement promotes better performance. When you cross reference performance with engagement, you have your business case. As a product company, it's one of our most important metrics.  

Team dynamics can truly dictate how quickly we can turn big projects and decisions around. There's trust and there's alignment when people work well together and have good communication.

You mentioned, at the very beginning, that you check the employee Net Promoter score often. On a final note, can you share what that metric looks like for Workleap today?

​​​Right now, we’re scoring 60 for eNPS across the whole company, which is a very good score. Our overall engagement is between 60% and 66%, and our participation rate is at 90%.  

Realistically, we’re not going to stay at 60 forever. We will experience normal business cycles where there will be harder times than others, which will impact engagement.

What's most important, as an executive, is that the numbers fit with your perception of what's going on. If there's a disconnect, it means you have a blind spot and you need to look into that.

But, to me, the score itself isn’t everything: what's most important, as an executive, is that the numbers fit with your perception of what's going on. If there's a disconnect, it means you have a blind spot with your business and you need to look into that. That’s why tools that give you visibility are so important. And that’s why Workleap Officevibe isn’t just ideal for mid-level management — there's a big potential for leadership members and executives there.

Guest article written by Valérie Gobeille, Director of Talent Management and Learning and architect of Workleap's "innovate" challenge.

Innovation is at the heart of what we do at Workleap. We help organizations enhance their employee experience and elevate their hybrid teams, and that requires a constant push to develop new ideas and solutions. But fostering a truly innovative culture within a growing company can be a challenge. You need to create an environment where people feel comfortable taking risks, collaborating across teams, and bringing their best ideas to the table.

A few years ago, we noticed we weren’t taking risks like we used to, and innovation wasn’t as core to our culture as it once had been. That’s why we decided to launch a company-wide initiative called “innovate.” It was our way of making room for experimentation and turning problem-solving into a collaborative challenge. 

The vision: Nurturing a culture of proactive problem-solving

The innovate process emerged from a strategic goal my team championed: to nurture a culture of innovation that positively impacts our clients. We wanted to shift our focus from simply reacting to problems to proactively seeking solutions that would benefit both our customers and our company's long-term sustainability. And we wanted to achieve it with a people-led initiative. 

The core idea behind innovate was simple: dedicate a specific period for employees to focus on innovation, following a structured approach. We decided to leverage the design thinking process as a framework. This not only provided a clear roadmap for generating ideas but also helped keep everyone focused and moving in the same direction. 

Developing the challenge: Tapping into user pain points

When building out innovate, we drew inspiration from our internal innovation strategy, emphasizing the importance of understanding users, building prototypes, designing solutions, and putting them to the test.  

We asked our HR Tech and ShareGate product directors to come up with one pressing challenge they knew their respective product’s users were facing and used that as the foundation for the different innovate tracks.  

With our user-centered challenges in place, we turned our attention to our personal challenge: getting stakeholders in on the innovate action and securing high employee participation. 

Navigating the hurdles: Getting everyone on board

Launching a new company-wide initiative always comes with its own set of hurdles. One of the biggest challenges we faced initially was getting everyone on board. 

Stakeholders were concerned about the time commitment involved, especially for busy teams with tight deadlines. There were also worries that the challenge might disrupt existing project roadmaps. Both concerns were valid, but we were determined to carve room for exploration and were confident it was for the greater good of the entire organization. 

Overcoming these concerns involved emphasizing that the challenge wouldn't disrupt existing plans. Instead, it was about identifying areas to augment our current offerings or address emerging customer needs, potentially saving time and streamlining our roadmap in the long run. 

From brainstorming to reality: Kicking off innovate

Once we had buy-in from the stakeholders, the real fun began. The energy and excitement around the challenges were palpable.  

In the first edition of innovate, we shared the challenge details and user pain points by sending out postcards with QR codes to every employee. We kicked off innovate at the height of the pandemic and had to get creative.  

In the second edition, we brought our employees from across Canada together for a three-day long company gathering. We reintroduced innovate, had product directors present their respective product challenges, and held in-person workshops to flex the team’s design thinking muscles.  

Coming together with carefully crafted workshops: The power of collaboration

Workshops were the backbone of both innovate editions. We centered them around brainstorming and teamwork, highlighting the power of diverse skill sets and perspectives. We saw teams coming together from different departments — product, marketing, software development — all working collaboratively to brainstorm and develop solutions. 

{emphasize}Side note: If you’re looking to do something similar yourself, check out the innovation toolkit I included at the end of this article. It features resources to facilitate any creative process. Adapt it to your needs and you’ll be golden! {emphasize}

It was inspiring to see people who didn't usually interact on a day-to-day basis come together and leverage their unique skill sets. We were blown away by the creativity and quality of the ideas that emerged. A panel of sponsors evaluated submitted ideas and the chosen concepts then moved into an incubation phase where teams developed prototypes with the support of mentors. This emphasis on quick learning and iteration proved to be key. 

Success stories and highlights: The genesis of "Good Vibes"

The first innovate challenge was full of valuable outcomes. A prime example is the HR segment of the challenge, which led to many creative prototypes designed to transform recognition sharing in the workplace.  

Post innovate, our team combined various of the tested concepts and created "Good Vibes," a delightful way to say kudos to colleagues within an organization. I'm happy to report that Good Vibes is no longer just a concept; it's a real feature within Workleap today — and a fan favorite among our clients.  

Lessons learned: Looking forward and refining for the future

Of course, running innovate for the first time didn't come without its learning experiences. One key takeaway was the importance of thorough pre-planning. We realized that the more prepared we were upfront, the smoother the entire process would run. This meant having clear deadlines, well-defined judging criteria, and a strong communication plan to keep all stakeholders informed. 

Another important lesson was the need to create a positive feedback loop to incentivize participation. In the first iteration, some teams expressed feeling a bit disconnected from the final results. To address this, in the following edition of innovate, we aimed to have a better feedback loop from product directors as to what would happen with chosen concepts. There are still lots of fronts on which we can improve in further editions! 

The innovate challenge: A springboard for innovation

The innovate challenge wasn't just about creating new features; it was about fostering a culture of proactive innovation and ongoing learning. We learned that the journey of innovation is just as important as the final product. By embracing collaboration and iteration, we can continuously improve and adapt to new challenges.  

This article highlighted the wins and valuable lessons gleaned from both editions of innovate. You might be wondering – will there be an innovate 3.0? The short answer is maybe. The long one is that carving time and energy for projects like these is tough. Even with two successful challenges under our belt, prioritization continues to be a constant battle. However, the positive impact of innovate motivates us to find ways to make innovation a more regular fixture in our company culture. 

We remain dedicated to fostering an environment where every employee feels empowered to contribute ideas and help shape our innovative future. The exact format of the next challenge might evolve, but our dedication to a culture of innovation will not. 

🎁 Bonus: Kick off your next creative process with our tried-and-true innovation toolkit

If you're looking to boost innovation, consider a similar initiative. Start small, focus on collaboration, keep it user-centric, and choose a structured process. You might be surprised by all the creativity that emerges from employees. 

Before you go, be sure to save this innovation toolkit below! We used and shared these exact resources with our team, and they helped us make innovate a success. Whether you choose to go big with a dedicated event or simply want to move the needle on innovation in daily work, this toolkit will get you there sooner. 

The Double Diamond Design Process

1. Detecting customer problems

Is it viable: Understanding the market 

• Benchmarking of competition

• SWOT analysis

Is it desirable: Understanding potential users  

• Empathy mapping (Miro has a > template you can use)

• Value proposition canvas & video (Miro > template)

Is it feasible: Understanding the business opportunity 

• Golden circle

Brainstorm potential sub-problems from the previous analysis (market, users, business) 

• Creative matrix

2. Defining your focus

Mapping your users' experience 

• Mapping the persona's experience & video (Miro > template)

Selecting what problem to solve 

• Design criteria canvas

• Customer need canvas  

3. Developing potential solutions

Brainstorming high-level solutions 

• Prototype canvas

Designing a viable, desirable, and feasible solution 

• Business model canvas & video (Miro > template)

• Hook model

• Design principles by Gabriel Faucon  

Prototyping 

• Rapid prototyping

• Guide to prototyping in Figma

• Figma youtube channel

• User flows  

• Managing risks

Testing and analyzing results  

• The five-act interview

• Types of user testing

• Writing questions

• Steps to interview and analyze findings

• Heuristics

• Accessibility

• Analysis

4. Delivering your solution

Visual design and branding 

• Material Design by Google

• Human Interface Guidelines by Apple

Presenting your work to sponsors 

• Storytelling canvas

POV: You’ve built an amazing product and want to share it with the world. But as the founder of a young company, you’re bogged down by the day-to-day operations –– and it’s hard to focus on your long-term vision for the product. And building products? That’s the stuff you love to do.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are great options for founders who want to focus on creating and refining their products. You don’t have to worry about things like raising capital or handling business admin tasks. To Robert Eanes, Founder of Pingboard and now Workleap’s VP of Product, that’s something he couldn’t pass up.

For founders interested in M&As, it’s important to explore this option early so you can find the best-fit acquirer. If you do, the benefits are plentiful: You can leverage their customer base, partners, expertise, and more –– all while feeling confident that your product is in good hands. 

To shed light on this important topic for founders, we sat down with Catherine Ouellet-Dupuis, Workleap’s Chief Strategy & Corporate Development Officer, and Robert Eanes, Founder of Pingboard and now Workleap’s VP of Product. They share insights on Workleap’s successful acquisition of Pingboard and offer perspective on how to bring your product to the next level through the right M&A integration.

The TL;DR on Workleap’s acquisition of Pingboard

On December 6, 2023, Workleap acquired Pingboard.  

Workleap builds software to help HR professionals boost their organizations’ employee experience — onboarding, engagement, recognition, performance, and more. When Workleap’s team came across Pingboard’s dynamic org chart and employee directory software, they knew they had to introduce themselves. Pingboard was the perfect addition to the Workleap solution.  

Eanes, Pingboard’s founder, thought so too. After several emails, phone calls, and a meetup in Texas, they decided to join forces and bring Pingboard into the Workleap platform.  

So, what did they do to ensure a seamless acquisition? What was Eanes looking for in an M&A opportunity? What advice can Ouellet-Dupuis give to interested founders? Let’s dive in.  

Q: How did you know Workleap and Pingboard were a good match? 

Ouellet–Dupuis: We’re looking for products that enhance the employee experience — that's always our focus.  

Typically, org charts are clunky and boring. Pingboard figured out a way to make org charts really simple and created an engaging way to find out who’s who and build connections. So, the way Pingboard built its product caught our attention. We could see that it brings tremendous value to the customer. We could see that they were passionate. We could already see alignment, so we knew we needed to talk to them.  

Eanes: Workleap checked off three boxes right away: It’s founder-led and profitable, it demonstrated culture fit, and it’s a product-focused company.  

When Workleap first reached out to our CEO, I did some of my own research. I discovered that Workleap is founder-led, profitable, and was fully bootstrapped until last year. The money they raised recently was specifically to enable their acquisition strategy, not to fund the business. What this said to me was that they’re a profitable and strong company looking for the right expansion opportunities — not any expansion opportunity. That gave me confidence.

I also wanted to assess culture fit, so I looked at Glassdoor reviews and LinkedIn. They're imperfect signals, but they’re still signals. And in Workleap’s case, they were positive signals. That was important to me — my team’s fate, if you will, was top of mind.

As someone who builds products — and spent years building Pingboard — it probably comes as no surprise that I was looking to partner with quality products, too. During our first call, I was very observant of how they talked about their product and their interest in our product. Their communication felt very genuine and tailored. I was confident that they’d take care of our product.

Q: The perfect first call: What does it look like? 

Eanes: Don’t start with numbers. There’s a time for that, but not during the first call. Get a feel for the company first. I think it was really important — for both Pingboard and Workleap — to ensure culture fit first. We asked questions like:  

• Can you tell me more about your company values, why you chose them, and how they show up in your day-to-day operations?
• How would you describe your company culture and the attributes of your team members that you value most?
• Where do you envision your product and company in the next five years, and what key milestones are you aiming to achieve?
• How does my product fit in with your product suite? What are your plans for my product?
• What strategies do you have in place to innovate and adapt to market changes to ensure sustained growth?

Ouellet-Dupuis: Totally agree. During our first phone call, we just swapped product stories and shared our company values — those types of things. Then, we flew to Austin, Texas, to spend time with the exec team. We could see how they worked and interacted, their leadership style, what they valued. And they could do the same.  

Q: What are some essential first steps for founders interested in selling their company to another product company like Workleap?  

Eanes: It’s so important to get your stakeholders aligned before any moves are made. Whether that’s your co-founder or partner, your investors, or even your spouse! It’s important to consult those key players and discuss everyone’s expectations — on numbers, your roles, your people. You don’t want to hop on a fast-moving train and then realize you’re not going to the same destination.  

Q: When should you start engaging potential acquirers? 

Ouellet-Dupuis: Earlier the better! Look ahead and map out where you want your business to be — and what you need to get there. Who are the right partners? Are you looking for corporate or investment funds? These are important things to think about.  

I think there's a common misconception that you can’t engage with anyone until you’re sure and ready to sell your business. Here's a tip: Instead of treating them solely as acquirers, think of them as partners! This makes the whole process less intimidating. Just focus on finding like-minded companies that you’d want to partner with.  

Eanes: Yes, I’d double down on that. You should be thinking about your optionality as you build your company: what you can do to control your own destiny. We always had the option of selling in mind. Even though we planned on selling Pingboard in about 18 months, we were ready to consider this acquisition when Workleap approached us and even had time and space to explore alternative bids.  

Ouellet-Dupuis: At Workleap, we’re looking for founders who are passionate about building products and want to continue doing so as part of our ecosystem. We’re here to take care of the business logistics, so founders can focus on refining their product and bringing more value to customers.

If that’s something you’d consider down the line, don’t hesitate to reach out to us — even if it’s super exploratory. If you’re considering the funding route instead, take time to identify the right investors to support you in your journey.  

Q: Any final advice for interested founders? 

Eanes: Sit down and write a list of what’s important to you. Before you enter any conversations with acquirers, you should already know your boundaries, your expectations, what you want, and what you don’t want. It’s easy to get caught up in conversations and bend your rules.  

It’s okay if this list changes or evolves. After you consult your stakeholders, things may also change. But if you have this list at the ready, you’ll have conversations with the right acquirers — and will feel confident entering the discussions.  

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💡Are you M&A curious? Do you want to connect with Catherine Ouellet-Dupuis' team and learn more about Workleap or the M&A space? Introduce yourself to Catherine on LinkedIn!

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MONTRÉAL – May 8, 2024 – Workleap, a leading software company behind products that improve the employee experience for 20,000 companies in more than 100 countries, is pleased to announce the appointment of JD Saint-Martin to the company’s Board of Directors.

After 17 years of being bootstrapped and profitable, Workleap achieved an important milestone last year when it announced its first external investment of CA$125 million from CDPQ, a global investment group. With ambitious goals for the future, the Workleap Board of Directors had been looking for a candidate with a strong track record of scaling growth, which they found in Saint-Martin.

"You can tell right away when someone's really good at what they do, and JD Saint-Martin is definitely one of those people,” said Simon De Baene, CEO and Co-founder of Workleap. “He's calm, humble and highly ambitious. That's the kind of person I want to build a business with, and his experience scaling revenue will be a great addition to the team.”

JD Saint-Martin is the President of Lightspeed, a commerce platform that powers the operations of 160,000+ retailers, restaurateurs and golf courses. The company is headquartered in Montreal and dual-listed on the New York and Toronto Stock Exchanges. Saint-Martin joined Lightspeed in May 2019 through the acquisition of Chronogolf, a SaaS company he co-founded in 2013. Since then, he’s been an instrumental player in driving growth and delivering value to Lightspeed’s B2B customers. Prior to founding Chronogolf, Saint-Martin worked in venture capital and private equity at Teralys Capital in Montreal, Canada and GE Equity in London, UK. He holds a Master of Science in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Commerce in International Business from the University of Ottawa.

"What the Workleap team has built over the past two decades is impressive, and I'm honoured to join the team," said JD Saint-Martin. "I’m inspired by the company’s mission to make work simpler, and I'm looking forward to contributing to Workleap’s growth, with the ultimate goal of enabling even more people to work at their best."

About Workleap

Workleap builds practical employee experience software that makes work simpler. With its growing collection of tools, Workleap streamlines talent management and the adoption of productivity tools to enable people to work at their best. Products include:

• Workleap Officevibe – The simplest engagement, recognition and performance management tools.
• Workleap Onboarding – A better way to structure and automate new hires' journey.
• Workleap Skills – The next gen career development tool to map skills and accelerate teams' growth.
• Workleap LMS – The most efficient way to create and organize internal training.
• ShareGate by Workleap – A leading Microsoft 365 management solution, from migration to management of day-to-day operations.
• Pingboard by Workleap – Dynamic org chart and employee directory that connect your organization.

With over 20,000 happy customers in more than 100 countries, Workleap is a must-have for businesses looking to create a more engaging and successful workplace.

Workleap acquires US-based Pingboard, an employee experience SaaS company recognized for its industry-leading org chart and employee directory capabilities 

Workleap's acquisition follows a $125M CAD investment from the CDPQ to accelerate growth strategy, increase market share and broaden product offerings  

MONTRÉAL — December 6, 2023 — Workleap, a leading software company behind products that improve the employee experience for 20,000 companies in more than 100 countries, has acquired Pingboard, a US-based HR tech SaaS company with 2,000 customers globally recognized for its industry-leading org chart and employee directory capabilities. 

This announcement marks an important milestone for Workleap, as the company continues to expand and unify its family of software products, tackling the full employee journey, with the mission of making the work experience simpler. 

“Earlier this year, we shared our vision for accelerating our growth through the strategic acquisition of products that complement ours,” said Martin Gourdeau, President and GM of Workleap. “That’s what we found in Pingboard – like us, they build simple, value-creating software that focuses on improving the employee experience. We see tremendous potential for leveraging the company's dynamic visual employee directory and org chart to create a connected, unified user experience across all our products.”  

Workleap is a long-term partner for businesses navigating the challenging world of a digitally connected workforce. The acquisition of Pingboard adds new capabilities to the company’s family of software products, in line with Workleap’s vision of building a best-in-class ecosystem of workplace tools. 

This acquisition grows the Workleap employee footprint in the US, as new talent from Pingboard joins the company. 

Rob Eanes, co-founder and former CTO of Pingboard, now Vice-President of Product at Workleap added: “We’re very excited to join the Workleap team. We have a shared purpose of improving the way people work and we’re looking forward to joining the team and continuing our mission to build software that solves real problems and helps businesses elevate their employee experience.” 

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About Workleap  
 

Workleap builds simple employee experience software that enable people to work at their best. With over 20,000 happy customers in more than 100 countries, Workleap is a must-have for businesses looking to create a more engaging and successful workplace.  

Products include:  

• Workleap Officevibe: The simplest engagement, recognition, and performance management tools.  
• Workleap Onboarding: A better way to structure and automate new hires’ journeys.  
• Workleap Skills: The next gen career development tool to map skills and accelerate teams’ growth.  
• Workleap LMS: The most efficient way to create and organize in-house employee training.  
• ShareGate by Workleap: A leading M365 management solution, from migration to management of day-to-day operations. 

The Workleap team has 400+ employees united around a shared passion for building software that make work really work. 

Media Contact

Danielle Pitl
Director, Communications at Workleap
danielle.pitl@workleap.com
+ 1 438 476-2208

Source: Official press release.

The last few months have been chock-full of exciting news and developments for us. As you may recall, in June, our company, GSoft, rebranded to Workleap, strengthening our commitment to bringing people and technology together to drive business excellence. We saw the synergies between our products and realized that by unifying our brand, company and ecosystem of powerfully simple employee experience software, we could further empower teams to work at their best. 

As the next chapter in our journey unfolds, our products will now be doing business as Workleap. From now on, Officevibe, Didacte, Softstart, and Talentscope will be known as Workleap Officevibe, Workleap LMS, Workleap Onboarding, and Workleap Skills.

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You'll start to notice our new product names and logos throughout our apps and communications. Our marketing websites (officevibe.com, didacte.com, softstart.app, talentscope.work) have been migrated to workleap.com. The application login and URL of our products will remain the same, and you will see no significant changes in your day-to-day use and management of our products in the near term.  

The experience you’ve grown to know and love is here to stay. Our products will only get better from here, starting with a simple aesthetic evolution to tie all Workleap products together. This change is small but it marks an important step in our quest to make work really work.   

We thank you for your commitment to improving the employee experience and we’re so excited to shape its future together. 

For more details on the transition, you can check out the FAQ sections below or contact us if you have any questions or concerns that aren’t addressed in this post.  

• Officevibe is now Workleap Officevibe FAQ 
• Didacte is now Workleap LMS FAQ 
• Softstart is now Workleap Onboarding FAQ 
• Talentscope is now Workleap Skills FAQ 

Cheers,  

The Workleap Team  

Over the past decade, the world of work has undergone significant changes. Technological advancements, shifting employee expectations, and the rise of remote and hybrid work have reshaped the way organizations approach employee engagement and experience.  

In the midst of this dynamic landscape, Officevibe emerged as a guiding light, helping businesses worldwide — over 8,000 and counting — navigate the complexities of the modern workplace. 

As we celebrate 10 years of Officevibe, now part of the wider Workleap ecosystem, we invite you to join us on a journey through time, exploring the milestones, challenges, and innovations that have defined this remarkable chapter in our history! 

Launch and early days of Officevibe: Addressing the employee experience gap 

Ten years ago, a small group of forward-thinkers embarked on a journey that would reshape the way businesses approach employee engagement and experience. 

Driven by the belief that workplaces could be transformed through enhanced communication and collaboration, Officevibe emerged as a catalyst for positive transformation in the employee engagement landscape. The spark ignited, Officevibe set out to revolutionize the employee experience by providing a platform that enabled open and effective communication between teams and leadership.  

This endeavor was grounded in a simple yet profound idea: to create a tool that would foster stronger connections between management and employees, amplifying feedback, nurturing engagement, and ultimately making workplaces better. This foundational principle set the stage for a decade of innovation and evolution. 

Milestones: Shaping the employee experience landscape 

From its inception, Officevibe aimed to be more than just a tool — it aimed to be a transformative force committed to user-centric development.  

This commitment to delivering a superior user experience led to the introduction of Pulse Surveys, allowing organizations to gather real-time feedback and respond swiftly to emerging challenges.  

As the workplace continued to evolve, so did Officevibe's features, from recognition mechanisms to data-driven insights that empowered businesses to make informed decisions about their employee strategies and adapt in an ever-changing work environment. 

Collaborative development: Listening to our users 

Officevibe's growth was not just about creating a tool, but about creating a community. An essential aspect of Officevibe's journey has been its collaborative approach. The evolution of the product has been deeply intertwined with the feedback and needs of its users.  

'We gave them easy access to new features that complemented what they originally looked for when they first implemented Officevibe. And we did it with the help of our trusted clients," continued Guillaume.

This user-centric philosophy empowered Officevibe to become more than just a software tool — it became a platform for meaningful dialogue, recognition, and engagement. This constant feedback loop allowed Officevibe to iterate, enhance, and create features that truly catered to the diverse needs of today's workforce. 

Today, Officevibe facilitates giving and receiving nearly a quarter million pieces of feedback between employees and managers per month — as well as helping ask and get answers to 4 to 5 million questions per month.  

Elevating employee recognition with Good Vibes 

Innovation is at the heart of Officevibe's journey, and this is no more evident than in the introduction of Good Vibes. This feature offers a delightful way to recognize and appreciate the efforts of employees, fostering a culture of positivity and camaraderie. Collaborating closely in the development of this new feature was Aunalytics, a trusted partner who played a vital role in its beta testing phase. 

As organizations strive to create a vibrant and engaging work environment, Good Vibes steps in as a catalyst for recognition. With fun and engaging cards, employees have a simple and human way of acknowledging each other's contributions — aligning with Officevibe's core philosophy of fostering empathetic and meaningful connections within the workplace. 

Looking ahead: Evolving for the future of work 

It’s been a wild ride of innovation thus far. But Officevibe's journey continues with an exciting new chapter.  

This evolution involves venturing into the realm of performance management, a significant step that reflects Officevibe's commitment to driving holistic growth and development within organizations. This new focus aims to revolutionize how companies approach employee evaluation, emphasizing ongoing feedback and growth over traditional annual reviews.  

As businesses adapt to the changing nature of work, Officevibe's evolution ensures that it remains at the forefront of employee experience innovation. 

Agile performance management: Navigating the next frontier 

As the workplace continues to evolve, Officevibe constantly explores new avenues to enhance employee experience. A recent breakthrough in this journey is the introduction of data-driven performance reviews and continuous performance cycles — foundational elements of performance management. 

Set to roll out starting in September 2023, these features mark a significant step towards redefining how organizations approach performance evaluation. Officevibe’s data-driven performance reviews are designed to help managers reduce biases, enhance fairness, and provide a comprehensive understanding of employee performance, while continuous performance cycles equip managers with a playbook for frequent and ongoing coaching. 

Built on the same principles that have made Officevibe a leader in employee engagement, these new capabilities empower managers and employees to collaboratively review a shared record of performance, driving consistency and success across the organization. 

Plus, the integration of recognition, performance notes, and goals data points ensures a rich, timely record that drives meaningful discussions and growth-oriented conversations. 

Celebrating a decade of positive change with you 

As we celebrate 10 years of Officevibe, we celebrate more than just a tool. We celebrate a decade of empowering organizations and individuals to navigate the complexities of the modern workplace. And we celebrate much hope for the future — now propelled by Workleap, the ecosystem in which Officevibe and our other EX tools will live and work together. 

Officevibe's journey, marked by milestones and guided by user-centric values, is a testament to the ever-evolving nature of work and the power of innovation to create positive change. As we look ahead, we're excited to continue driving transformation, supporting businesses, and fostering a future where employees thrive. 

Stay tuned for more exciting updates from Officevibe as we embark on a new era of employee experience. As we unveil our performance management features, we invite you to join us in reshaping the way organizations approach employee growth and development. Together, we'll continue to make work truly work. 

At Workleap, our mission is clear: to make every employee onboarding a success. We're also passionate about making these tools accessible to businesses of all sizes, ensuring that everyone can experience the benefits. We deeply understand the crucial role that a strong onboarding process plays in driving organizational success. Studies have shown that companies with strong onboarding experience an 82% increase in new hire retention and a remarkable 70% boost in productivity. That’s why we’ve made it even easier for you to join us on this exciting journey as we rethink the way you welcome and empower your new hires.

We're excited to announce a free version of Workleap Onboarding, where we offer you the ability to unlock the full potential of your employees through a world-class onboarding process entirely for free. Now, you can experience firsthand how Workleap can take your onboarding to the next level and help you harness the true capabilities of your team. Frictionless value, no trials, no credit card needed. Pure value, right from the start.

In this blog post, we'll explore the reasons behind this change, showcase the new features we've introduced, and highlight the compelling value that Workleap Onboarding brings to your organization.

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What's in this article

• Optimize Your Onboarding Process: Introducing Workleap Onboarding's New Starter Plan with 5 Free Onboardings
• Unleash the Power of Data: Introducing Pulse Surveys, Reports, and More
• Experience the Impact of Workleap Onboarding's AI Generators: Discover the Game-Changing Potential
• Unlocking the Value of Strong Onboarding: Boosting Retention by 82% and Productivity by 70%
• Foster Stronger Connections: Embrace a Human-Centric Approach to Onboarding with Workleap

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Optimize Your Onboarding Process: Introducing Workleap Onboarding's New Starter Plan with 5 Free Onboardings

We listened to your feedback and we understood that the previous 14-day trial was too short for you to fully evaluate Workleap Onboarding's benefits and set it up for success. That's why we're excited to introduce the Starter plan. With the Starter plan, you can now onboard five employees for free. Now, you have the perfect opportunity to witness the transformative power of our platform. After all, we all know the proof is in the pudding.

With our Free tier, you can now:

• Collaborate seamlessly with your team to streamline onboarding
• Automate repetitive onboarding tasks seamlessly and send notifications straight to Slack or Teams
• Scale up standardization, structure, and organization for efficient onboarding with templates
• Track and get real-time insights for proactive problem-solving
• Get up to five employees onboarded from start to finish completely free

Here's a breakdown of our plans and what's included in them.

Sign up for our Starter plan without any credit card requirement and unlock the power of five free onboarding plans. Experience the transformative impact on your organization's success at absolutely no cost. With the Starter plan, you gain access to a range of tools and insights to elevate your onboarding process. Our dedicated team is here to support you throughout the journey, ensuring a seamless and impactful onboarding experience for your organization.

Unleash the Power of Data: Introducing Pulse Surveys, Reports, and More

We're proud to introduce Pulse Surveys and Reports, powerful tools that automate feedback collection and provide actionable insights. For example, they can help you identify departments, locations, or managers with suboptimal onboarding experiences, and resolve recurring IT bottlenecks. Additionally, you'll stay well-informed about any new hires who may be falling behind.

With Pulse Surveys and Reports, you can effortlessly gather feedback and improve your onboarding process over time. Reports offer comprehensive analytics and visualizations for tracking progress and refining your strategy. They also help make presentations on program performance more visually appealing. Workleap Onboarding ensures a seamless and data-driven onboarding journey for all stakeholders.

Experience the Impact of Workleap Onboarding's AI Generators: Discover the Game-Changing Potential

Experience the efficiency and convenience of Workleap Onboarding's AI plan and template generators. Our advanced AI technology makes onboarding faster and easier than ever. You can generate personalized onboarding plans and templates with one click, eliminating manual tasks and providing immediate inspiration. Then you can turn those plans into templates with just a few more clicks. Streamline your process, save valuable time, and ensure consistency and effectiveness for new hires with Workleap Onboarding's AI-driven solutions.

Unlocking the Value of Strong Onboarding: Boosting Retention by 82% and Productivity by 70%

Investing in a robust onboarding process pays dividends. Studies have shown that companies with strong onboarding experience an 82% increase in new hire retention and a remarkable 70% boost in productivity. The value of a strong onboarding process also extends beyond retention and productivity, mind you. It goes hand in hand with building a stronger sense of belonging and connection within your organization. In today's fast-paced and digital world, employees crave authentic human connections and a sense of belonging to their workplace community.

Workleap Onboarding recognizes the importance of fostering a human-centric approach to onboarding. We believe that by infusing personalization, empathy, and genuine connection into the onboarding process, we can spark a deeper sense of belonging among new hires. Our platform facilitates meaningful interactions between new employees, their team members, and the broader organizational community.

By using Workleap, you can create an onboarding experience that goes past the paperwork and administrative tasks through to full immersion.

Foster Stronger Connections: Embrace a Human-Centric Approach to Onboarding with Workleap

You have the power to cultivate a welcoming and inclusive environment where new hires feel valued, supported, and connected from day one. Whether it's through pre-recorded personalized welcome videos from the team, virtual meet-and-greets, mentorship programs, or team-building activities, Workleap Onboarding helps you lay the foundation for lasting relationships and a positive work culture.

When employees feel a strong sense of belonging, they are more likely to be engaged, motivated, and committed to their roles. They become active participants in the company's mission and are driven to contribute their best work. Workleap Onboarding's emphasis on human connection sets the stage for increased collaboration, knowledge sharing, and innovation within your organization.

In addition to the proven benefits of increased retention and productivity, Workleap's focus on building a stronger sense of belonging adds a valuable dimension to your onboarding strategy. It's about creating an environment where employees not only thrive professionally but also feel a genuine connection and fulfillment in their workplace interactions.

With Workleap Onboarding, you can unlock the potential to create a meaningful onboarding experience that sparks a sense of belonging among your new hires. Invest in building a stronger, more human connection within your organization, and reap the rewards of a highly engaged and connected workforce. Experience the power of Onboarding and witness how it transforms onboarding into a catalyst for growth, collaboration, and belonging.

You can start using Workleap Onboarding's free plan without using a credit card. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to email us.