Interview with Steve Elcock, CEO and Founder at UK HR Tech Company: elementsuite

Tell us about yourself and how you came up with the idea of elementsuite?

I have worked in HR tech for all of my career. My first role after Cambridge University was working for PwC in the HR technology team, after which I set up my own HR tech consultancy, implementing large HR solutions.

However, after 12 years working on ERP mega-systems that were inflexible, costly, and difficult to use, I felt that there must be a better solution. The inspiration for elementsuite was born out of the frustration of working with these large typical contenders in the realm of HR tech. Ultimately, I believed that these old-fashioned usual suspects were, and still are, no longer fit for purpose in today’s rapidly technologically advancing world. 

I wanted to create something that gives real answers and real information in real time. elementsuite was designed to be agile, adaptable, and provide seamless solutions for organisations’ unique requirements.

I am enormously proud to have built elementsuite as a full-suite HR and workforce management (WFM) platform with no bolt-ons, no third-party code – all designed in-house to meet the needs of the ever-changing landscape of HR. 

What makes this company unique?

Innovation is in our DNA and continually investing in our platform has allowed us to embrace the latest technological advancements. Most recently, I have been able to combine my background of neuroscience from Cambridge University and my passion for AI into the system, bringing to life the endless possibilities for AI in HR.

With over 25 years of experience in transforming organisations’ world of work we’ve created a solution that is a hire-to-retire system, renowned for having overcome the hurdles of outdated best-of-breed systems. I am delighted to say that elementsuite boasts a portfolio of world-renowned brands which stand at the forefront of innovation, including McDonald’s UK, Travelodge, Five Guys, TGI Fridays, and many more.

What makes the elementsuite platform so different?

The flexibility of the platform allows us to continually innovate and deploy updates (on a weekly basis) to our clients. For example, during COVID we were able to adapt in real time to unprecedented changes placed on companies by the UK government e.g. furlough. It makes me proud that our clients were able to avoid wasting hours juggling spreadsheets on unnecessary admin at a time when their organisations needed them the most. 

As an innovative tech house, we were quick at adopting the latest AI advancements and new models into our platform with the surge in AI technology from 2022, which led to the launch of ELLA (elementsuite Large Language Assistant) in late September 2023.  

How has the company evolved over the past few years?

Over the last few years, elementsuite has become an industry leader for AI in HR tech. We have always strived to break free from the confines of the tedious inefficiencies and inflexibilities that many traditional HR systems still have at their core.  

ELLA is a complete AI toolset which is set to revolutionise HR software, and designed to help HR leaders increase the productivity of their workforce.  ELLA ensures security by being fully embedded into the elementsuite platform, while providing flexibility and control over the key AI techniques to fully unlock the power of Large Language Models (LLMs).

Fundamentally, ELLA has two key missions: increasing productivity in a changing world where the workforce talent pool is shrinking whilst ensuring data privacy and security are upheld at all times.

What can we see from it in the future?

I am looking forward to deploying two new powerful features to ELLA. Firstly, Natural Language to SQL generation which will make it possible for users to simply and securely ask questions about their data instead of having to write time consuming code or queries.

And, secondly, Workflow Builder, which has significant power when working side-by-side with ELLA’s LLM technology. When AI is given agentic responsibility to complete mundane tasks such as generating a document, alerting a user or firing an integration, this enables an entirely new level of efficiency to HR and WFM processes within organisations.