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 00:00:46 Hello and welcome to this edition of The HR Tech Spotlight, where we are talking about SkillCycle, a platform that streamlines goal setting, enhances core skills, and aligns personal ambitions with organizational targets all through innovative technology and personalized coaching, ensuring continuous growth and performance improvement. My guest today is Kristy McCann Flynn, co-founder and CEO of SkillCycle. Great to have you on the show, Kristy.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:01:12 Likewise. Thank you for having me.
Deanna Shimota 00:01:15 Yeah. So we were talking a little bit before we hit record, and you mentioned that you actually have a pretty strong background in H.R. Tell us about that.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:01:24 Yeah, absolutely. So I was roughly an HR for 20 years, worked in a lot of enterprise mid-market startups, and then even did management consulting with RTP for a lot of change management, reorganizations, digital transformations. I was very heavy on the LD, change management, integration and M&A. I really wasn't the person that you came to and asked about your benefits and pay, but it was really about operational efficiencies and how to be able to mold that together with the future of work, with a lot of a heavy on development and a lot of core other areas. So I like to say I had a good nervous breakdown back in late 2019, where I knew my craft of air very well. I had risen to the top and worked at some really good organizations and then some organizations that weren't so good, but there was lots of pains and problems that I could not fix that I was hindered by within HR, and a lot of it went back to the technology.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:02:25 A lot of the technology that continues to be out there is built by people that don't know anything about HR. and a lot of times they continue to push the narrative that HR can't do their job. And so I have a tool to fix that, to make it easy to do their job. That's not the case. HR knows how to do their job very well. It's about having enablement tools that can really show the outcomes and the ROI, along with having the ease and use and drives of what's in it for me factor for employees. And that is built within the flow of work. A lot of the tech platforms out there are built on a simple process and workflow from the 1950s, where they only do a piece where there be performance management or they only do a piece, whether it be engagement or they only do a piece, whether it be some type of learning, that's not how work works. It's not about the pieces. It's about having the workflow. And when I set out to create a platform, it was really about bringing together all the important components of work and driving it with data to lead the outcomes.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:03:31 We like to say that we make performance actionable at scale cycle, and we essentially do that by having goals and engagement and performance management, all core things within HR. And that data translates to automatic learning with our coaches, our mentors, and our content. In other words, Deanna, if you're hearing from your manager, whether it's formal review or informal review, that you are off your $2 million goal and you need to work on your communication skills. That automatically sets a plan to be able to work on that with an individual, have it reinforced, have it managed to measured along the way to be able to show that progress and outcomes that's connected to your role, that's connected to your goals and that's connected to the feedback. So we really make performance and learning evergreen and hence the name SkillCycle, right. It's a constant cycle within an organization. And it drives a real clear what's in it for me factor for employees because it's personalized feedback that that could take with personalized learning that will enhance what they're doing within their career and the overall outcomes.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:04:38 It provides full visibility into an organization as to where they are, where they're progressing, where the gaps are, how those gaps are being filled automatically. And it really becomes a workflow ecosystem because at the end of the day, an HR person doesn't need 12 to 15 systems. We just need 1 or 2 really good systems that are married into the flow of work. And so theoretically you can have SkillCycle and then you can have your highs. And oh, by the way we connect into all the highs too. So we make it very easy for the overall user experience. And they get to the outcomes. And so I've considered a good nervous breakdown because the skills gap has continued to be exasperated. Employees use these tools because they have to because they don't want to. And it's more of a task driven system rather than a goal oriented outcome system. And it provides visibility for HR and leaders to see an organization's HR leaders, like me for 20 years, didn't have to throw together tons of spreadsheets and become pivot table wizards and gurus to try to be able to show the ROI as to what we're doing and why.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:05:45 So that's pretty much me and the evolution of us and SkillCycle.
Deanna Shimota 00:05:50 That's awesome. I think it's great that you do bring that perspective of having been a working HR professional for many years because like you said, unless you sit in those shoes, I think it's hard to really solve some of those challenges that HR leaders and professionals are facing on a day to day basis, because they are really good at what they do. There's just so many elements to it, and there's a lot of inefficiencies, and they're always looking for better ways to be able to do that, right?
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:06:21 Yeah, absolutely. I don't need any more work, I already have. The craft of HR is a very broad spectrum. It's just there's just too many point solutions and that's all they are. They just deal with a solution point in time, point and place. And that's not how work works.
Deanna Shimota 00:06:39 Yeah, that's a really good point. I have talked to organizations that have had just insane HR tech stacks, because they have so many different components that they're trying to plug into it.
Deanna Shimota 00:06:52 And I think Gartner or Forrester, I saw a report at one point that said the average enterprise company had like over 70.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:07:02 Oh yeah, I had when I was at Pearson, I think I had 12 or 13. And yeah, I didn't use them. So how am I going to make a. Yeah use them. Right. And it's really about if we're going to do something, it has to be built into a Y. And that y with work and that y that is literally connected to what you're doing at work as far as your feedback, your goals, your performance, your succession planning, your career progression, these are all the different things, and it should be a constant cycle and not these things every once in a while. And it's because we're so hindered by all these systems, right? It also hinders us really providing development to all employees, right? Even when I was at a small organization and I'm doing a lot of things manually, and pretty much all of our employees needed upskilling, but for me to do 50 or 100, like individual development plans.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:08:00 I'd be in the next review cycle before I got that done. Never mind that a large organization that has thousands and thousands of employees, and it's why only 1% of employees really, truly only get training and development. But even when they do, it's not connected to anything that they do. And it's stupid. Who gives a report card without owning learning? And you force employees in these training classes. And the goal was if they could remember one thing from that training class that was considered success. And employees don't learn from a PowerPoint. They learn from experience. They learn from constant practice and work. And this is why the human component of what we do, it really helps to reinforce and reinstate that and to drive the overall outcomes that they're looking. Don't get me wrong. You know that we're used a lot of AI synthesis with the data translation to lead the outcomes, and it's very important because it's AI synthesis based off the data and not AI assumption, which is a lot of these other HR tech companies have.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:09:06 I don't need another biased AI. I got enough bias people in an organization. And so it's AI synthesis where it's truly using data to be able to push to those outcomes that continue to be managed, measured. And so that data really becomes the backbone as to what's going on and why, and the actions that are being taken and how it's fulfilling the overall, not just employees needs and managers needs, but the organizational needs and the data dies that a lot of these point solutions and it's so what like how would you like to go into get feedback in a performance management system. And it's just you need to go get help with communication training. Okay. Where. Right. Like I'm going to look up a thousand PowerPoints. I'm going to pay for my own coach. And so we're able to hit a critical mass. And when you're hitting a critical mass of employees where they had the ability to be able to get outcomes to that feedback that's connected to their roles and their goals. That's only going to help the overall skills, assessment and skills currency of an organization rather than just focusing on the top 1%.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:10:08 And that's really about it, too. We're not going to close the skills gap if we're only living in it to a certain amount of people. Skills gaps gotta be closed when you're ensuring that everybody has access and everybody has goals, and everybody goes to performance reviews and everybody gets feedback, so connect that to actual outcomes so that they could do their job.
Deanna Shimota 00:10:28 Yeah, that makes sense. And one of the things you said I'm like yeah, gosh that's so true is people don't want to go look at PowerPoint presentations. And when I stop and I think about like my own career over the years and the employees that I've worked with at the end of the day, like when you go and do a training, does it stick and how much of it carries forward? And I feel like a lot of times organizations are making these big investments to train employees, to upskill them but it doesn't necessarily translate into improving the skills on the day to day basis, unless you have some kind of formal way to promote it and measure it, and ensure that it isn't sitting in a classroom one day, and the next day you move on and out of sight, out of mind.
Deanna Shimota 00:11:19 Right?
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:11:19 It's it's it needs to be personalized skill development. My skill gap issues differ from yours and probably differ from a lot of people in the organization. But because we've been hindered by these systems, the only thing that we use and, you know, leverage is thematic data. And yes, thematic data is important and powerful. But even like thematic data as to all right, a lot of people in the organization have communication issues. That's a broad term. What does that mean? Is it communication issues as far as managing up as a communication issues, as far as executive presence, as a communication issues, as far as not wanting or fearing to give feedback as the communication issues, because they don't understand how to do their job and they're afraid to. That is too broad. And so we throw them in some generic communication training. You're going to get generic outcomes, which is little to none. And so it needs to be personalized based on the clear things that they're doing at work, which is their goals, the clear feedback that they're getting, which are the, you know, performance metrics and the outcomes, and then the overall sentiment of an organization, in order to get to personalization.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:12:29 And when you get to that personalization, you're going to be able to drive and reap the rewards, the scaling that they need that connects to everything that they need to do at work. And that's just going to continue to fulfill an organization.
Deanna Shimota 00:12:41 So when you look out in the market, obviously there's a lot of different vendors out there that have solutions that some degree help with upskilling workforces. How would you say SkillCycle is different from those other options out there?
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:12:57 We're the only one that does what we do. They're all point solutions. They either do performance management one thing, engagement another thing, goals another thing, mentoring another thing, coaching another thing LMS content, another thing rewarding recognition. Another thing. Communication. That's a different stack. Tech stacks. Right? Just right there. We drive it all together. And that's what makes it so powerful because it eliminates those tech stacks, makes it super easy to have the visibility and the get the outcomes and makes it very personalized. Because I'll say this because I'm a former buyer and I can say this cornerstone was big back in the day.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:13:39 All cornerstone is, is a database. And I think it's fine for compliance training, but it's just a database that is not connected to what people are doing and why, and what they need to do and why and how they're going to improve and why, in fact. And that creates more work for me, right? When I'm leading an organization, whether it be 100 people or 1000 people. I don't want to be creating content. That's ridiculous. That's a whole other job. I want to be creating personalization. I mean, in development, to be able to hit on where the gaps are for employees and to be able to solve them in an easy and efficient way. And that all lies in the data. And so when you look at these point solutions, they have a bunch of data, but the data doesn't go anywhere. It just gives you a summary. And I remember being in HR and was like, you know, no shit, Sherlock. You know, yes, my organization is suffering from a skills gap and they have tons of communication issues and situational leadership.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:14:39 Now watch. Right. Thanks data, for confirming what I know. How do I solve it now? And that's what this is. It takes the next step. It presents it and it solves it. And it drives it from within based on everything that they do within the flow of work. And so nobody wants another system to be able to go into. It's how it's built in with the flow of work. Hence why we have his integrations. Also integrations with slack, GitHub, Salesforce, anywhere we're one on ones, anywhere we zoom, anywhere where we could pull the data and be able to synthesize that data as to the action and the outcomes that they need to take and that they do because it's connected now to their goals and to the performance feedback and to the outcomes that they need to do within their organization. And so it makes it very simple and easy, rather than me trying to put together pivot tables and thousands of different systems and employees going to 1000 different systems, not knowing which way is up and seeing it as a hindrance.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:15:37 Even look at performance management, for example, on average it takes a manager about 7 to 8 hours to do a performance review for one employee. It's like why organizations shut down every March in October because they're just inundated with this manual process of doing performance reviews and try to remember things from literally a year ago to put in that review nine out of ten times the I only remember the last 10s. And so you better hope that last 10s was good or not, because that's what your review is going to depict. But now it's scale cycle because it has all those data inputs as to the goal progression, as to the informal feedback, as to the automatic scaling, because it's proactive, it's not reactive. We don't need to go through a performance review to get the scaling that they need to do their job. And so all that data synthesizes where you literally have a performance review done within seconds, and then it's upon the manager to ensure that accuracy and then maintain the ethics and efficacy on it and then be able to submit.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:16:35 And again, it leads to activity. My review says that I clearly have EQ issues and I'm too direct. Okay, these are the things that I can do now with our coaches, mentors and content and to be able to take those actions that's managed and measures that connects what I do. It makes it very evergreen. It makes it in a very easy workflow, and it makes it engaging. Right? I didn't like creating PowerPoints for these training classes. Never mind sitting in a training class watching a 20 point PowerPoint. It's a colossal waste of time. That doesn't stick. What sticks is constant reinforcement. It's change management. We're driving awareness. We're building that desire because it's connecting to what they do. We're building that knowledge with the overall learning. We're giving people the ability to be able to do their job. That's based on the stats and facts of their goals, performance and overall engagement, and then we're reinforcing it with the actual learning. We are a change management model, and every organization goes through change, whether it be small or seismic.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:17:36 It's an evolution that we need to keep ahead of and be proactive with and not be constantly reactive. Because when we're constantly reactive, this is why we have the problems that we have within organizations. We're solving for them. Six months too late.
Deanna Shimota 00:17:51 What type of companies would you say SkillCycle is perfect for?
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:17:56 So we're pretty agnostic. We right now, I want to say across our hundreds of clients, we have a very nice sweet spot within the mid markets. Reason being is that they're not inundated with too much stuff yet. They're growing significantly and they're looking to have a true productivity tool. So we in the mid markets we sell into a lot of crows. But we also sell on to a lot of CEOs because it provides complete visibility, transparency with outcomes and next steps that are already being delivered on into an organization. And so as we continue to go up to enterprise, we have a lot of enterprise that comes in and we could totally handle them. We just don't target them because they takes a long time to close enterprise.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:18:42 But they are getting awareness of us and they see us as a golden jewel. I don't need all these systems. I can save all this money that this is going to help me do my job. This is going to help the employees do their job, and it's going to be easy. And it's all built off the data. That's my data within an organization and not assumption. And so there's a lot of enterprises that have come in that have seen this, and we are able to work and scale with them. And they love it. And they're saving money. They're saving time. They're driving that engagement. They're driving that outcomes. And it's very crystal clear as to how the organization is progressing. And if they're not progressing, it's automatic that they start progressing. Because again, the data continues to drive to the outcomes of learning that connects to everything that they do. As we continue to grow, probably going to continue to verticals, but the mid-market majority of the companies in the US, in mid markets and a lot of them are growing and they need help because like I've worked in mid markets, it's crazy.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:19:39 Everything changes every single day. Usually with you work in an enterprise it's you still have a lot of work, but it doesn't have the fueled insanity of mid markets that are growing, striving, changing, pivoting, redirecting what have you. and so they they need that constant attention. And so within that our platform provides that.
Deanna Shimota 00:20:01 And obviously, any organization that's going out and making an investment in this type of technology, one of the things that they look at is what is going to be our ROI with this type of investment. What are the impacts that you have seen organizations that work with SkillCycle experience?
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:20:20 Yeah, they're huge. And I'll take a step back to move it a step forward. Every HR tech platform out there promises the fluffy things retention, engagement, happy, fulfilled employees. Right? That it's all words, right? What are the things that build to those words is very important one how people are progressing within their goals and having that complete ROI as to how the performance feedback that they got has led to the learning that was managed and measured, that helped them hit those goals and therefore the organization goals around part two.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:20:58 Very clear. Right. Data leads to outcomes. Leads to development, leads to progress. So we have all the tenants of the data that leads to those fluffy words of retention, engagement, empowerment, career progression. It's all there because it's all within the cycle of an organization from the time that somebody is on board it to when they're promoted to when they're demoted, what their overall career and succession planning is, how that ties to their goals, how that ties to the competencies, how it ties to what they need to do next within organization to fulfill that. It's clear as present day, so that ROI is constantly there and it's always present. And it's very clear. Anecdotally, we've seen and heard many things too, especially now, you know, that we connect in with Atreus, where we have seen a lot of career progression with people going up the ladder because they're connecting their goals to the different things that they want in their career. To continue to get to director, VP level we have seen that employees are staying much longer.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:22:00 Again, with the power of connecting into an HRS and see that retention go down significantly, we have seen the overall data and utilization of people constantly being in. There were a record of truth for people as far as they're constantly in there, because it's built within what they do, and it's leading to the outcomes as to what they need to do at work. I remember once it was about a year or two ago, there was a turnover within one of the organizations that we were working with where the CRO left. And so the general counsel is taking on HR in the meantime. And he's just like, get rid of this, getting rid of that, getting rid of this. When he got rid of us, the employees threw a coup and they wanted us back. And so we never ended up losing them. Why? Because we're their record of truth. And they need this to be able to fill the jobs and the outcomes that they need for what they're doing within their job at an organization. And so that's what makes it very easy.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:22:57 It's this is not an aside system that you touch once or twice a year, like all the other point solutions. This is a system and platform that is built within everything that you do, within work with those clear outcomes on a day to day basis. That makes sense, Deanna.
Deanna Shimota 00:23:13 That does. And I think that's a testament to the quality of your technology. When the employees know, yeah, what it is, they remember it and they get upset when it's not an option for them anymore. That's a true win.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:23:27 I was shocked, like I been in H.R. For years. I can't tell you how many employees have come into the office. Like I hate the system. Please get rid of it.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:23:34 Yeah, I like I.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:23:36 I'm refusing to go in there. And I was like, I got you. I don't want to go in there either. I can't understand it. It's a bunch of munch. And so to hear that, because it's not just built for HR, it's built for the learners.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:23:51 And that's what a lot of HR tech companies that are point solutions miss miss it completely They would rather continue to say that HR doesn't know how to do its job, and that we're here to help you do it better. Now we know how to do our job. We just need a system that enables us, and then they never once think about the people who actually use the platform and what they're going to get out of it, and what's going to drive what's in it. For me, as far as the why that they're going to do something. And so that was always disappointing. But like I said, it was a good nervous breakdown that I had on 2019. I do thank God I was an HR professional for 20 years, but I did not go through Covid as an HR professional, which to this day I thank God for. I probably be on Rikers Island if I had, but I was there to help many of the HR individuals going through seismic change with Covid and in this hybrid and remote and very ambiguous and tons of change management going on every single second of the day, that we were able to not only provide the service as a software and our platform to help them do their job, but to take a breath and to eliminate the thousands of jobs that HR has to do and really condense them in a way that makes it very actionable and easy, so that we're getting rid of all this manual crap that we constantly have to do because we're plagued by systems and stupid processes, and that we're really getting to think of how to engage an organization with what they need to do their job.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:25:25 And so it was it led to a lot of outcomes and a lot of the early customer feedback that we got informed, how we continue to build it. So my my platform just isn't built off my 20 years experience. Right? I'm an oldie now, right? I haven't been in HR for five years. My platform continues to be built off of customer feedback and that is our CRO or even our SEO and our learners. It is integral to everything we do. We do not want to simply build, to build. We don't want to simply do, to do. We want to put something together that actually helps people. They see that they want it, they thrive it, and they actually have a voice into what's being built and why. And that is very important. And it has always been an important part of our organization.
Deanna Shimota 00:26:19 That's awesome. As we wrap up on time here, Kristy, what final thoughts do you want to leave our audience with?
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:26:25 I think the biggest thing that there's a lot of change that's going to continue to go on.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:26:30 We got the elections coming up. We have a lot of unrest within inside and outside organizations. We're still dealing with the remote hybrid. And the debate around that, which I just find is ridiculous. The way to get ahead of it and the way to always get ahead of it, is to instill the learning that people need. Because when you instill, that becomes a safety net as to how people communicate as to how people situationally lead, as to how people use emotional intelligence as to how people collaborate. I just read this article where, you know, former Google CEO is going on about that. We're not succeeding as well because of hybrid and remote work. That is lunacy. Okay. Work has always been remote. It was just called mothership offices and satellite offices. And if you weren't in the mothership office, your ideas weren't getting hired, you weren't getting promoted. There was constant tension, and all these satellite offices felt like the redheaded stepchildren. This has always been an issue. Doesn't matter if you're in an office or not.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:27:36 We've always been remote, and it's a lousy excuse not to do the real work. And the real work is always going to be scaling and development, because we can continue to have these negative monikers war on talent, skill shortage, all these crazy things. No it doesn't. We don't need to have those negative demographers do your job and provide people with the skills that they need to do their job. It's that simple.
Deanna Shimota 00:28:03 Awesome. Great. Thanks for the insights and conversation, Kristy. It was so great to have you on the show.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:28:08 Likewise.
Kristy McCann Flynn 00:28:09 Thank you so much, Deanna. Bye everyone.
Deanna Shimota 00:28:16 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.
Deanna Shimota 00:28:46 This is Deanna with GrowthMode Marketing signing off. Thanks for listening. We hope you'll tune in again next time.