Deanna Shimota (00:00:05) - Welcome to The HR Tech Spotlight podcast. I'm Deanna Shimota, CEO of GrowthMode Marketing. The HR technology market is crowded, and we know it can be hard to find the best software solutions for your business in the sea of sameness. On this podcast, we shine a spotlight on some of the best up and coming technology options out there. Check it out if you are interested in learning about new, innovative solutions available in the market. And if you are with an HR tech company and interested in being considered for a guest spot. Stay tuned for details at the end of the show.
Deanna Shimota (00:00:45) - Welcome to another episode of the HR Tech Spotlight. This time we are digging into a company called Bundle. Bundle is a 1-to-1 live skills development solution that specializes in human centered skills designing and delivering curated content, facilitated live by experts and driven by interactive instruction. Joining me to talk about Bundle is founder and CEO Kayla Lebovits. Welcome to the show, Kayla.
Kayla Lebovits (00:01:13) - Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Deanna Shimota (00:01:15) - So tell us about your background in the HR tech space.
Kayla Lebovits (00:01:19) - Yeah. So, I my background to HR tech, is not so straight and narrow. I actually started my career in the corporate finance space, so I worked at two large, investment banks. so it was introduced to HR there. But to be honest with you, I don't even know who HR was at either of those companies. to be honest. So, I, I got interested in this world because I just saw a lot of really high potential employees leaving because they weren't getting the training and development they needed. there were no resources, there was no tools, there was no career development. there were so many issues. And I just felt that there could be something better. And when I looked into the space, into like the air space, it just seemed like there was so much innovation and opportunity that that hadn't happened yet. And so that's what got me excited to go into this space. so yeah, I didn't really start out in air. I didn't have some, like, light bulb moment.
Kayla Lebovits (00:02:16) - It was more just witnessing, like really smart and intelligent people around me leaving because they weren't getting the training they needed. They weren't engaged in their jobs, and they wanted to go somewhere where people actually put humans first and had a more human centric culture. So that was really my introduction to the needs. And like the learning and development market as it relates to HR and just seeing how, again, very traditional old school market and everyone's kind of like piling into the same things, and not looking beyond like, how can we make things really unique and impactful for employees?
Deanna Shimota (00:02:52) - So I think that's a great transition into talking a little bit about what Bundle actually does. Yes.
Kayla Lebovits (00:02:59) - So we do soft skills development. I don't like the word soft skills because they really are hard skills to master. When you think about all the leaders that you may have worked for or that you know and admire. there's leaders that are good leaders and leaders that are not great leaders. And it usually comes down to like, do they have those soft skills? Do they have, you know, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, strategic thinking.
Kayla Lebovits (00:03:25) - Can they build strong teams? Can they effectively communicate? That's not stuff you can just learn through, like, you know, watching a YouTube video or doing an Excel course. These aren't like technical skills. These are really skills that you need to foster over time and practice and continue to practice. Most of them aren't innate, so we really focus on helping individuals develop those soft skills. We do it through a really unique, format. instead of doing like a classroom setting. We're all about that one on one all about like a human centric approach to it. I don't think most people want to learn from an AI avatar. I don't think most people want to learn in a classroom, although it gives that social learning. There's nothing like learning with someone who's focused on you and only you. And so basically, we have a skills building curriculum that individual contributors, managers, leaders can go through and get that practice they need and in order to really thrive in the workplace. So we really do soft skills development in a live one on one setting at our core.
Deanna Shimota (00:04:24) - Very cool. And you had alluded to how you got into HR tech. Tell us a little bit more about the story behind founding the company.
Kayla Lebovits (00:04:33) - Yeah. So, when I discovered that finance was no longer for me and I wanted to do something different and really support employees, I my first idea was actually supporting working parents. I was not a parent at the time, but I a lot of the working parents that I work with, they were specifically leaving, because of a lack of career development, because of the need to have, you know, more benefits and resources from their companies to thrive in their workplace. So Bundle was first, it was like online, it was an online benefit for parents where they could give their kids like, academics and tutoring. And we did it in that one-on-one format that we still do today. And we built our own curriculum just like we still do today. So we actually first are working with, with working parents, children, but as an employee benefit.
Kayla Lebovits (00:05:20) - And it took off and Covid helped with that obviously because children were stuck at home. But very quickly we had working parents come to us saying, we love what you're doing with our children. They're so engaged, even though it's over zoom, it's one on one, so they're getting that attention and practice that they need. Do you have anything for adults? And that was probably one of our bigger light bulb moments where we were like, Like, what is the adult learning market like? And it was pretty depressing what it was like. It was it was on demand. It was trying to do learning and like quick bites, like microlearning. It was like, how do we get the most amount of learning in the shortest amount of time? And that's not really how you learn. Like you need to learn, you need to practice, you need to roleplay. You need to get feedback. You need to come back after a few weeks and practice again. So it just felt like there was so much opportunity to do something different.
Kayla Lebovits (00:06:07) - And people kind of think of us as like a throwback because we are humans first and human centric. But I think that while I will enable so many incredible things, like humans are still going to be there and needed, and so we're all about that human-to-human interaction. So back to the story. We started testing, working with adults. And so testing things like communication management. And it took off because adults had never hadn't had that focus and the education and so long. And it was fun. We made it fun. We did role playing, and we just had a really engaging way of working with adults. And so we went deeper and deeper into it and eventually realized this was a bigger opportunity than what we were doing with children. So we no longer do anything with children anymore. We're solely focused on like adult learning in the corporate training market and have just found like a really interesting niche. there's not really other we don't really have any other competitors out there. When people think about Bundle, the first thing they say is, oh, you're coaching because they see like the one on one.
Kayla Lebovits (00:07:07) - And we're not coaching. We really we do skills development. It's very different. We're not there. it's not like an open forum. Let's discuss. But you want to work on it's very structured skills building curriculum. So we were able to find something really unique that, employees have never been exposed to, and they're always a little nervous before they try Bundle for the first time, and then after they get the first experience under their belt, they realize, like, wow, this can actually help me drive real change in how I work and how I lead in the workplace. So we went from kids to adults. we kept the same format, and adults want to learn like the day when they were kids. So it worked. And we're we're going deeper and deeper into that and just finding like the sky's the limits when it comes to adult learning and making it fun and engaging.
Deanna Shimota (00:07:50) - So what is that experience like for an employee when they log in to Bundle and decide, I need to I need to upskill here.
Deanna Shimota (00:07:59) - Let's see what this is all about.
Kayla Lebovits (00:08:01) - So we work very closely with like the HR and LMD teams at companies. We basically help them build cohorts, whether it's high potential employees, whether it's new managers, who haven't received any training prior to becoming promoted, or maybe it's existing managers. It's just never got that training. So we help them find populations in, segments of their population that really need the training and the skills development. So we help them build programs with different skills. So let's say it's like, you know, emotional intelligence, which I already mentioned. Empathy. time management, organizational productivity. There's like so many skills that we have, we have 87 skills that we've drilled down into different courses. We kind of help imply employers curate those different, programs for employees. There's usually anywhere from like 8 to 12 sessions that they're taking throughout the year. And there's other things that they're doing in between the live sessions. But when employee gets on their first experiences, they're meeting with a Bundle trainer.
Kayla Lebovits (00:09:01) - Our trainers go through extensive training to make things like engaging and exciting. They're not there to, like, show you a PowerPoint and lecture you. They're going to ask you back and forth questions like, you will not be quiet for more than a minute because they're going to again, they're going to try to really engage you and make it exciting. And then it's a lot of role playing. It's that awkward role playing that no one wants to do, but you do it and it's very vulnerable, and they'll ask you questions. I'll push you. You might do like a case-based learning, a scenario based learning. but what's really powerful about what we do is you're not taking the same curriculum as everyone else. We're actually assessing people before we put them in a curriculum. And you'll be assessed into four different levels. So you're really learning at the level you're at for each skill. So for communication you might be like an expert. Great. You're going to be an expert curriculum. But for building strong teams you might be a beginner.
Kayla Lebovits (00:09:51) - And that's okay. We want you to learn where you're at. So all the curriculum is very catered to your level. It's catered to your role. So all the all the role playing you're doing, if you are a new manager, you will be doing very different role playing than an experienced manager because it's just different situations that you're dealing with. And I think it makes it really powerful. And then the last way that we hyper personalize it is by industry. So when you're doing that role playing, when you're doing that case based learning, if you're working in a manufacturing company, it's going to be a very different type of role play than if you're working at an accounting firm. We need to make it hyper relevant. People don't want to just like learn fluffy frameworks. They want to know how they can apply skills to their job and to their everyday workplace interactions. And that's what we really are excited about. What gets people excited during the session because they think the session was made for them. They don't think it's something that is from a curriculum that has modules because it feels so personalized, and that's the goal that you leave thinking like that.
Kayla Lebovits (00:10:48) - Trainer did not follow the lesson. They were just, you know, making it for me. They did follow the lesson. They just are so skilled and making you feel like it was meant for you. And the way that we've structured it allows that as well.
Deanna Shimota (00:11:00) - So I know you mentioned there's like 87 different skills that you have training modules on. What are a few examples of those skills.
Kayla Lebovits (00:11:08) - Yeah. So my gosh were so many. So when you think about we basically have like primary skills. And then there's sub skills from within that. So communication for example is like a very broad scale right. You might be like a great at verbal communication but you're not good at nonverbal communication. So we have our like foundational courses effective communication. But then we of course is like asking powerful questions how to listen. There's so many different sub skills within that communication. So that's why it becomes so many skills. and then we have like a whole, like a whole on leadership. Right. There's resilience leadership.
Kayla Lebovits (00:11:44) - There's executive presence. Right. How to have presence, in front of your executive team. There's systems leadership. Like there's so many elements within each skill that creates those that 87 skill taxonomy that we have. So within each primary you have lots of sub skills because again there's you can't cover all communication in 1 in 1 session. There's just it's too multifaceted and there's too many components of it.
Deanna Shimota (00:12:11) - You you mentioned that you don't feel like there's any true competitors in the market for you. Let's dig a bit more into that. In what truly differentiates the Bundle experience from other companies out there that help with upskilling.
Kayla Lebovits (00:12:26) - Yeah, I'm sure like every founder says, oh, I don't have any competitors, but I actually truly believe that. so again, I do think, like most people will compare us to three different things. One is coaching. They say, okay, you're like coaching. We're not coaching. we're a complement to it, right? You could do our sessions and then work with a coach to practice it.
Kayla Lebovits (00:12:45) - But we're not. We're not there to guard. Trainers are not doing coaching. a lot of them are coaches by training, but they are following that structured curriculum. instead of you coming in and working on different areas, you want to work on, the second thing people compare us to is like, oh, group learning. Group learning is very different, right? It's there's obviously like the positive around group learning is that social component, but you can't actually learn at the level you're at in group learning, you're always going to have people that find it too easy that are in our board. Some people find it too challenging, and then you have those people that monopolize the entire conversation and you're like, this person is so annoying. Like, I just want to learn. So group learning, we don't do that. We're one on one. And also we allow a hyper personalization because of that format. The last thing that people compare us to is, is like on demand learning. So think like LinkedIn learning and all the LMS that have like millions of courses.
Kayla Lebovits (00:13:39) - If you've ever been in one of those like on demand learning platforms, you like search something and like 10,000 results come up and they're like these boring videos that are just supposed to give you like, bite size. Here you go. Here's this framework. Go use it. It's so not impactful. It's so not engaging. It's not pushing you to challenge yourself. But like the world has gone that way because it's, you know, everyone thinks on demand learning. It's scalable. but no one uses it. Like when we talk to our clients and they say they have LinkedIn learning or some sort of LMS or go on or whatever it is, no one's using it. They just have it because it's like a check the box. I'd say Bundle is trying to be not check the box. We don't want to work with clients to check the box, because what we provide in terms of upskilling is, is hard. It takes engagement and motivation, and it takes companies that are really trying to enforce a continuous culture, learning of continuing a culture of continuous learning, at their organisation.
Kayla Lebovits (00:14:38) - And that's really what we're here. We're here to continuously learn and practice and not be a cookie cutter, off the shelf approach, because that's not really what's going to help develop your employees and then therefore help the bottom line. So we're really like we're the we're the opposite of all those companies. We know that things don't happen quickly. Change takes place over over time. And you need and you need to practice. I, I always tell people there like, what's the biggest advice you? I was just at a launch event for one of our clients, and someone asked what piece of advice you'd ask before employees go into this program. And I said, patience. Like you're not going to become an expert in anything overnight. It takes practice. It takes not just doing the session and forgetting about it. It takes reinforcement and engagement in order to really, truly develop as a person and as an employee. So that's that's always the advice to give. Just be patient. And I think a lot of our competitors are just how can we do things that the like as fast as possible, and as scalable as possible?
Deanna Shimota (00:15:40) - I think, you know, when you look at the HR tech space, a lot of organizations like one of the things that's really important to them is if we're going to make this big investment for a new solution, you know, whether it's training and development or something else to support our employees is our employees have to embrace this, and it has to be used, and it has to benefit us in order for it to make sense for us to spend this money.
Deanna Shimota (00:16:06) - How does Bundle help organizations ensure that there's broad adoption across the organization and that they're getting the value out of Bundle.
Kayla Lebovits (00:16:17) - Yeah. So we strive for like 100% registration and utilization. We want every employee who a company has invested in to actually finish our programs. So we have an amazing customer, account management success team. That is we we do a whole launch with employees around education. We don't just send them an email and say, welcome to Bundle. We do a kickoff. We get them excited. We show like, look how your company is investing in you. We show them how others buy in from leadership. One element that I think makes us unique is that we involve the managers of the learners going through our program so the managers can see everything that their direct reports are doing, all the learning that's happening, and that helps a lot of accountability and buy in from your manager. If your manager knows what you're doing and they can actually use that in their one on ones, and they can continue that learning and development, that goes a really long way and helps make it full cycle.
Kayla Lebovits (00:17:13) - So we're just we just do a lot of work with it. We we nudge employees. We we help them as much as we can make the learning work for them. So we've like we're almost open 24 over seven and employees can use our platform at any time of day, weekends, etc. we have to do that because with like the new future of work and how people work all different shifts and hours and things like that, you need to be flexible. You can't just, you know, have a 9 to 5 learning platform. It has to be, it has to be globally accessible and inclusive to everyone, no matter what their, their work life, schedule looks like. And so we really try to meet them where they are.
Deanna Shimota (00:17:52) - What type of companies would you say are the perfect fit for Bundle?
Kayla Lebovits (00:17:57) - To be honest with you, I think we're still figuring that out, but I would say I'd say it more depends on the culture. So when we have a company that really believes in that, if they do not like invest in their people, they will not be a profitable, successful company.
Kayla Lebovits (00:18:14) - Those are the companies we want to work with. So we've seen we've seemed to like found a niche a little bit in like the manufacturing, construction, space recently. But we still have so many companies in professional services and retail and tech. So it's kind of all over the board. In terms of industry, I don't think we've exactly found our sweet spot because at the end of the day, employees are employees no matter where they are. People are people. People problems exist everywhere. and in terms of size, it's all over the board as well. We work with companies as small as 50 employees and companies as big as like 50,000. So it runs the range. I, I to be honest with you, I still think we're figuring it out, but I know that the difference starts with what? Why are you why are you looking at Bundle? Like, why do you want to use what we're offering? And that's the types of companies we look for rather than, oh, that's a huge company.
Kayla Lebovits (00:19:05) - Let's work with them. No, like we need to work with a company that's bought in because we're if they just are here to check the box, they're not going to push their employees to take it. The managers aren't going to be bought in the leadership. It's not going to be bought in. And then it's just going to be like, there's just no point. It's a waste of everyone's time. So we look more like, is this company? Are their values aligned with one that supports employee development? Like those are the types of companies you want to work with.
Deanna Shimota (00:19:29) - And when you bring on those clients who are very interested and truly like supporting and upskilling their workforce for the benefit of the workforce, what impact have you seen for those organizations that work with Bundle?
Kayla Lebovits (00:19:46) - Yeah, it's pretty amazing the impact we've seen. I mean, we do a lot of, we do a lot of assessments and surveys and things like that, Like in the learning world, they're called like level one and level two surveys, which basically asks like, you know, how is this learning impacted you? how are you using it? how are you using it beyond the session and kind of ask like more surface level questions.
Kayla Lebovits (00:20:07) - And then we go even deeper into level three and level four questions. We also assess learning gains. So we're assessing like have there been gains from before you started to after you started. and then we're even doing a skills impact survey three months later after the program was finished. So we're we have a lot of data coming to us at all times. And the impact we're seeing is that, I mean, it's all over the board. It's employees being more engaged and more excited about their future career development. It's them feeling confident that they actually can do their job and they know what they're doing. And then it's also feeling more like loyal to the company. Like when they see that their company is allowing them the time to invest in their development. They want they want to give back. They want to do better. They want to perform better for for the for their company. So we've seen a lot of like engagement, confidence, loyalty, things like that. And then obviously overall skill development and gains in those skills, those are really kind of the four primary areas that we see from from the data right now.
Deanna Shimota (00:21:03) - For organizations that are considering bringing in a solution to support their workforce, what would you say you see is the biggest hesitation that these companies have when they're looking to implement a solution like Bundle?
Kayla Lebovits (00:21:18) - I think it all comes down to cost, unfortunately. and budget. Right. Like they have I think in in the HR, like HR as a cost center at the end of the day. And air always has the struggle of proving ROI. So they don't want to invest in something where they can't show that there's been results, right? Whether it's, you know, soft ROI or hard or ROI, meaning like softer data versus harder data. So I think it comes down to cost and being able to prove value, doing one on one trainings, one on one training is obviously going to be more expensive than doing a LinkedIn learning and or on demand learning or group learning, like obviously, right. But it's how much change do you want? Do you really want the impact? You really want that behavioral change.
Kayla Lebovits (00:22:03) - Then you're going to have to pay for it. So I think at the end of the day, the obstacles always cost. But I think again, when you have that buying at the top, knowing that like we need to invest in our employees, they realize that the cost actually is pretty fair. and there will be ROI that, you know, ROI that you can look at, whether it's engagement or, or retention or just loyalty or confidence or things like that. there's lots of things you can look at that prove that the cost is worth it. But at the end of the day, it does come down to budgets and whether the budget can, can allow it.
Deanna Shimota (00:22:37) - So switching gears just a little bit. Tell us, what is your future vision for Bundle.
Kayla Lebovits (00:22:43) - Your future vision. There's so many things. I think right now we, companies come to us and they're usually using us for, like, subsets of the population. Like, my future vision is that we can be used for an entire population.
Kayla Lebovits (00:22:56) - From the second you walk into a door at your company. I want Bundle to be like a part of, like onboarding your skills. Development starts the minute you walk in the door, and it's there for you until you leave the company. And hopefully that will be like many years before you leave. I just think there's so many there's five generations in the workforce, and those five generations have so many different needs in terms of skills, from someone who's never, you know, their first job to someone who's been there for 30 years but might not have the greatest management experience in training. So just then, there's so many, so much opportunity to work with all subsets of the population. And then I just think like we're going to continue to use technology to make what we offer just more in your everyday like I want Bundle to not just be okay. You go on for your training. You go back every two weeks and you keep doing it. I want it to be like in your every day, where it can reinforce you and nudge you and takes a lot of technology and things like that to make it so part of your daily routine.
Kayla Lebovits (00:23:51) - So we're really focused now on the technology part in the sense of how can we make Bundle more of your everyday? How can we make it something that your managers are using to help continue that learning in the workplace? So we really want to become more ingrained in companies. And it takes, you know, it takes working with clients, but it also takes some technology to help that reinforcement happen on a day-to-day basis, and not just when you log into the Bundle platform. So our goal is just become partners with companies like real partners and not just like you're our client and we're telling you this, like, how can we partner with you to make this continuous development and learning again from the second an employee walks in the door to when they leave.
Deanna Shimota (00:24:33) - So a lot of good things that you've brought up here as we wrap up this interview, what final thoughts do you want to leave our audience with?
Kayla Lebovits (00:24:43) - Oh, it's a loaded question. I feel like. There's so many directions I could go. I would say they're like. As you're thinking about the learning and development and training that works for your organization, I, I would think, say, just don't think about the check the box solutions like you're going to get check the box results from checks the box solutions. And so maybe Bundles not the fit and that's fine obviously. But like look for companies that are that can really show you how they can develop your people that your people actually want to use. Like the worst thing you can do is spend money on something that no one wants to use, no one logs into, or it's like a chore. this doesn't have to be so, like learning and development doesn't have to be so boring and engaging. It can be fun. When people are having fun, they're excited, they're engaged, and they want to. They want to try. They want to be better for their people below them and the people they report to. So I would say just do a lot of due diligence and find what works for you.
Kayla Lebovits (00:25:37) - But know that if you if you try to think of a one size fits all, if you try to think of like the easy way out, you're just not going to get the results you need, and it's just going to be like money thrown away. So I would say take the time to find the right solution, but just know that you get what you pay for. so take the time to really find something that actually be impactful, even if that means starting out the pilot and seeing what works for your people in your organization. I think piloting is a great idea and can help you test things. and then I'd also leave with just saying that I do think, like in this market, like employees want this, they want to go to organizations that care about their career development and where they can see themselves growing again. We just went to this client event like last week, and I was so amazed at the retention at that company, like everybody I spoke to was there ten years, 15, 20, 25.
Kayla Lebovits (00:26:27) - I think the highest was like 32. And I was like, okay, this how much like, this company hasn't had to spend as much money as others, like replacing people because their people are staying, and it's because they develop their people and they put people first and they put their money where their mouths are. So I think they just think about that as you're choosing solutions and as you're thinking about the future of employee development organization, think about like, how can you get employees to stay and be productive and help grow the company? And I think it's investing in them from the second they signed in on that first day.
Deanna Shimota (00:26:57) - Yeah. Well said. So where can our listeners go to learn more about Bundle?
Kayla Lebovits (00:27:02) - Yeah. So we have a website. Obviously you can go to.
Kayla Lebovits (00:27:05) - Bundle skills.
Kayla Lebovits (00:27:06) - That. Com and you can always message me my email is [email protected] and we have LinkedIn. We have all the normal things that everyone has. But we love to hear from you.
Kayla Lebovits (00:27:18) - We honestly like our favorite conversations are the ones where we can provide insights and use cases. We've worked with so many companies and we've seen a lot of things go right and go wrong, and we're happy to share those insights to help at least, you know, arm you with the knowledge you need to make right decisions. So can reach out to us LinkedIn, email, chat website, any of that. But hopefully you'll find a way to connect with us and at least learn more about us.
Deanna Shimota (00:27:44) - Excellent. Thanks for coming on the HR Tech Spotlight to talk about the great things your team is doing over at Bundle, Kayla.
Kayla Lebovits (00:27:50) - Thanks you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Deanna Shimota (00:27:53) - All right. That does it for this episode. Tune in again next time to learn about another HR tech company doing innovative things in the market.
Deanna Shimota (00:28:07) - Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Tech Spotlight podcast, where we showcase some of the best up and coming HR technology options in the market. If you are an HR tech company leader who would like to be considered for a guest spot on this program, please contact me via GrowthModeMarketing.Com or reach out to me, Deanna Shimota, on LinkedIn. And if you found this show informative, subscribe. Connect with us on social media and leave a review. This is Deanna with GrowthMode Marketing signing off. Thanks for listening. We hope you'll tune in again next time.