Meet Mark Seemann, Founder and CEO at Automated HR and Performance Management Platform: StaffCircle

StaffCircle uniquely combines performance management and employee engagement into one cloud platform that measurably improves workplace culture, automates processes to deliver greater operational efficiency.

Our platform is designed to deliver a holistic approach to managing the end-to-end employee experience in one consolidated platform which gives 360 insight into performance, engagement and sentiment across distributed, dispersed workforces. These data-driven insights provide the basis for informed decision-making and a more strategic HR function.

Our unique approach is helping customers across the UK to achieve high-performing cultures with more engaged employees and strengthens their ability to attract and retain talent.
The platform runs on Microsoft Azure and is designed for medium-sized and large corporate and enterprise organisations.
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
I previously founded three businesses. Their fast growth and distributed workforce illustrated how hard it was to manage consistent internal communications, ensure adequate performance management and processes, drive employee development plans, and highlighted the difficulty in maintaining a consistent culture. There was no single software solution available to help managers solve this. So, in 2017, StaffCircle was created.

StaffCircle was founded to break down barriers to business growth due to a lack of visibility over team progress, engagement levels and operations – particularly where more staff are now working remotely. It enables teams within many companies with the tools to meet targets for individuals, departments and the wider organisation. In addition to supporting monthly and quarterly reviews, StaffCircle enables real time performance feedback, 1-1 check-ins regardless of employee location, and provides smart objectives.

Companies with engaged employees and strong company cultures typically do better than their competitors, employees with clear goals aligned to company objectives have a stronger sense of purpose and achieve more.

StaffCircle also helps to connect all employees to both engage and communicate with them in the best possible way, regardless of whether they are in the office, field, or working remotely.

With multiple points of contact, the platform builds up a multi-dimensional picture of each employee, from engagement, cultural alignment and performance as well as development and company advocacy.
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
During the COVID-19 outbreak, we offered the product to other businesses for free for 90 days. I wanted to help them overcome challenges sprung on by the pandemic such as managing performance remotely, maintaining company culture and finding a way to communicate with their distributed workforce.

We used our knowledge of running remote teams to build more remote management capability into the product – for example, our Mission & Values section replaces those posters in the office with a digital interactive version.
 

What can we hope to see from StaffCircle in the future?

 
StaffCircle is built for scale, currently providing services to the UK, US and Canada. Our aim is to build a global software business on the premise of helping businesses over the world give better employee experiences by combining Comms and Culture with Performance. Over the next decade, we will seek to provide a complete end-to-end employee operating system as a global leader in employee experience software.