by 
People Mentality Inc will be featuring a series of HR Tech partners to share more about their background stories as well as how users can benefit from engaging them. No tool is perfect, but every one of them is unique in their own way which is where the value lies for the various users. Find the best tools that suit your needs, mix and match based on your context and grow your business from there!
In this week’s issue of People Mentality HR Tech Feature, we are excited to have with us Andy G. Schmidt, CEO of Beekeeper Communication, to share his thoughts on the employee engagement tool. Find out more about the story of Beekeeper and how users can benefit from this HR Tech app.
Interview Summary
Sam: What was the spark that led to the start of Beekeeper Communication?
Andy: I had been working for 24 years in several financial roles at the same multinational company. The organization was complex and seamless communication among all stakeholders was a challenge. I was getting more and more disengaged until I decided to resign.
I am convinced that communication is the backbone of any engagement effort. The modern workforce has gone mobile long time ago, so internal communication should be too. A branded mobile App is the way into the hearts of the people to unleash the power of communication by keeping everyone in the loop and making everyone a part of that progress the organisation is striving for.
Because to get the CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT right, one has to first get the EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT right.
Sam: How did the name Beekeeper Communication come about?
Andy: As so often it can be very beneficial to learn from nature which has been around much longer than us humans. Honey bees are social insects. They have to communicate with each other. And they can. Through odor cues, food exchanges and their famous waggle dance (the only known symbolic language that exists outside the realm of humans and lower primates and one of the seven wonders of animal behaviour).
Bees are self-organized. The queen bee does not tell them what to do. As there are no hierarchies nor silos in the beehive, communication is boundary-less. They trust each other. It is almost as if the colony of ten thousands operates as one homogenous being. And that colony is driven by one single, meaningful and clear mission “Bring home as much honey as possible for the well-being and survival of the entire beehive over the next winter.” The worker bees simply get that mission communicated from one generation to the next. They know exactly what is expected of them.
You inspire your organisation with a purposeful and inspiring mission that provides the “Why” to your people and they autonomously communicate and organize themselves to get the job done. No micro-management required. People are emotionally committed and engaged. They take ownership, they are loyal and they all want to go the extra mile.
This is how Beekeeper Communication was born.
Sam: If you could turn back time, what would be one thing that you would have done differently?
Andy: If I could turn back time, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner. No, seriously, I would have loved to take decisions sooner. It’s seldom what I do that hurts my professional development, but what I choose not to do.
Yes, everyone has regrets, but try this: Talk to some people that are beyond their 70s and who have gathered ample experience in life. Ask those age-experienced whether they have any regrets and what they are. My guess—without having any empirical studies at hand—is that most people’s biggest regrets in life center around things they have failed to do, not the things they have actually done.
So, nowadays I try hard to run my life on regret-minimization guided by my values or in the words of the wise Yogi Berra: “When I come to a fork in the road, I take it!”
Sam: What kept you going when things got tough?
Andy: Purpose. Most of the Singaporean workforce is disengaged. I know how that feels. Not a great basis for happiness at work or in life. At the same time, it is a huge productivity loss to society as a whole. I want to help my clients create a place where people want, not need to show up to work. Providing a tool that helps to boost employee engagement is my purpose.
Sam: What are the top 3 features of the tool?
The Beekeeper App is addressing our core human intrinsic motivators by informing, inspiring, and involving employees. The App in the palm of the hands of every single employee – wherever they are working in your organisation – bridges communication gaps with an open two-way boundary-less communication platform.
The Beekeeper solution with built in translation provides onboarding, critical employee communications, Employee Pulse Surveys, recognition, and offers the integration of other communications and content via APIs.
Think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp and WeChat functionalities merged into your own branded corporate, legally fully compliant App with an in-depth Analytics Dashboard for a closed feedback loop for the Beekeeper-Administrator.
Beekeeper is your internal Employee Relationship System (ERM System) that complements your external CRM-System.
Sam: Is there anything you would like to say to HR practitioners out there?
Andy: Employee Engagement is the leading indicator of retention and business performance. Often Employee Engagement is conveniently delegated to HR. But HR does not own culture, does it? Management drives and the entire organisation creates the corporate culture. As such Employee Engagement is everybody’s business.
Only half of the equation is how the employer could increase the employee’s engagement. The other half is pertaining to how employees themselves could increase their own engagement. Forgetting that second half is the biggest mistake we make in employee engagement!
So, employee engagement – by default – is your responsibility too. Then why not take the lead and form a multi-disciplinary engagement team with people from HR, Internal Communications, Operations, Senior Management and front-line staff. Then humanize your workplace and communicate with your people the way they communicate in their personal life via a Mobile App. After all texting has become the native communication mode of the younger workforce.
Sam: Where can people find out more if they are interested?
Andy: Check out www.beekeeper-communication.sg or if you want to dive deeper into functionalities and features go to www.beekeeper.io/en or simply drop me an email to arrange for a demo at andyg.schmidt@bkc.sg.
Closing thoughts
Engagement is a journey. Very often, we perceive it as a once-off project and thus, making it look like a big hairy monster to all. But is that really the case? Or can engagement be broken down into touch points to allow organizations to tackle it bit by bit?
A tool like Beekeeper provides an opportunity for employers to get closer to their employees regardless of geographical distance, generational gap or cultural differences. It also makes communication a lot more varied and effective, in particular for the Millennial generation where the traditional channels no longer prove as effective as it used to be.
We have come to the end of this week’s People Mentality HR Tech Feature on Beekeeper. Stay tuned for the next one which will be out real soon!
Together we can create a better workplace for tomorrow!
