Segmented Communications to Drive Employee Engagement and Wellness Tops the List of What Companies Must Prepare for in 2021

CHICAGO, Dec. 15, 2020 – Evive, the leader in digital engagement and communication technology, today released its list of top trends businesses must prepare for around employee communication in 2021.

“Today’s remote workforce is changing the way human resource leaders communicate across organizations, accelerating digital transformation to automate personalized, relevant messaging,” said Prashant Srivastava, president and CEO of Evive. “Remote work requires mobile communication delivery at an unprecedented level. Many employers still cannot efficiently communicate if they are not in an office setting, but that will change with the right automated technologies to fill those gaps.”

The insights and predictions from Evive’s leadership team include:

Reaching specific employee populations

With the current and potential organizational disruptions, it is more critical than ever to send targeted and relevant messages. COVID-19 shed new light that sending an email to “all employees” is no longer good enough. There’s a need for more granular, data-driven communications that is personalized and meaningful.

More and more employers will need to use data to identify and target individuals with specific calls to action. Examples of segmented communications include employees of different geographies, cultures, age groups, medical histories, familial make-ups, genders and more.

Keeping employees up-to-date with evolving information

The pandemic has helped HR leaders identify the importance of regular communication. As the world moves into the next stage of the pandemic—vaccine execution— employers need to devise a data-driven messaging strategy to keep employees grounded and informed. They can alert segmented groups when a vaccine might be available in their area. They will also need to keep those communication lines open as they look toward workplace reopenings and ensuring employer safety. Companies will need to utilize email, SMS, applications, video conferencing and text messaging to communicate the right information at the right time.

Supporting mental and physical wellness

Employee’s well-being and health remain of the utmost importance in 2021. With workforces spread out and meaningful peer interaction significantly decreased, the need to connect with others has highlighted the increased instances of anxiety, depression and stress globally. A recent Evive study found that 60% of respondents were concerned about stress, loneliness, anxiety, and/or depression.

A platform that utilizes data to drive rapid, personalized communication to individuals in vulnerable moments could drive people to an employer-sponsored Employee Assistance Program (EAP), mental health treatment, or physical wellness program to gain the help or advice they need.

Understanding the state in which you’re reaching employees

In the wake of the pandemic, employees are stressed out, anxious, and need to feel a sense of community, making the right messaging key to success. Using data-driven communications to reach employees with what they need to hear in the right moments make employees feel engaged, informed, and aligned. Communication today may be more challenging, but with automated employee engagement technology, communicating directly with employees feeling workplace anxiety, stress, and burnout has a beneficial impact on the entire organization.

Boosting benefits utilization

Guiding certain segments of employees to the most useful benefits is still one of the critical outcomes of personalized communications. As employers realize their employee programs and resources are not always utilized, the need for the right people to engage with those benefits becomes evident. A personalized platform that segments the right audience for the right services helps HR leaders drive more benefits utilization. For example, a likely higher telemedicine investment in 2021 will mean HR leaders need to communicate how to engage with those services with employees who visited ERs in 2020 for non-emergent care.

Re-Examining the HR Tech Stack

The current economy forces companies to evaluate their software spend and effectiveness. Employers will continue to invest in programs deemed necessary, not nice-to-haves. Managing the employee journey and the right messaging through a platform no longer falls in the nice-to-have bucket.

HR leaders need to reevaluate their view on the employee journey. While the core stages of the employee journey remain the same, using data to communicate to team members at each stage must drive that messaging. In addition, supporting remote workforce, onboarding, and career growth for distinct employee groups no longer means an office meeting in a conference room. HR leaders need to leverage communications in an automated way to the right employee segments.

Overcoming Zoom fatigue for better employee engagement

2020 has proven the over-reliance on virtual meetings. Initially, companies and their employees were eager to shift their culture to these video calls. But the extended use of this approach has led people to Zoom fatigue.

Companies will need to invest in more useful ways to engage people and reach targeted populations. Data-driven messaging reaches people quickly and simply, meaning everything does not require video time. The faster employers can adapt to this, the better it will be for overall employee well-being.

“COVID-19 exposed a gap in employer-employee communications. It’s critical that leaders reshape and rethink how they communicate to employees,” says Srivastava. “The process is largely broken and fragmented, creating a void of understanding employees’ situations and an inability to communicate with them on a personal level. Employers that act to automate their digital engagement and communication technologies will see greater employee satisfaction and health, and increased profitability.”

Is your company prepared to embrace these trends in 2021? To learn more about the importance of personalized communication, visit 10 Features Your Communications Platform Needs to be Effective.

About Evive

Evive changes the way companies communicate. As the market leader in data-driven, personalized engagement, Evive has extensive experience helping large and midsize companies optimize the employee experience across their diverse populations. Starting with rich healthcare and HR data sources, Evive uses proprietary predictive analytics and behavioral science expertise to deliver highly segmented, multi-modal messaging that connects the right person to the right resource at the right time: driving individual action and delivering measurable outcomes across the spectrum of employee experiences. To learn more about Evive, visit https://goevive.com/ or LinkedIn. Contact press@goevive.com to learn more.

Media contact

Michelle Genser, Evive Vice President of Marketing

847.452.2723

press@goevive.com

Everyone would agree that 2020 has been a year of unprecedented disruption and change for businesses everywhere. It’s more important than ever to stay up to date on changing tax laws, regulatory changes, and more.

Our Year-end Webinar Series has four different sessions covering a variety of industry hot topics. From individual and business tax planning to a panel discussion on business performance strategies for CFOs, and more.

Sessions from the event include:

·       Individual tax planning during a pandemic and an election year

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·       Audit and accounting update

·       A panel discussion of business performance strategies for future-ready CFOs

Visit plantemoran.com to learn more.

In 25 words or less, what is Provi all about? 

We’re on a mission to better connect each tier of the alcohol beverage industry. At Provi, we believe that libations bring people together. It was that belief that laid down the foundation of our mission—to connect every tier of the alcohol industry.

What problem do you solve and how do you solve it better than the competition? 

Provi brings together all three tiers of the beverage alcohol industry in one place—giving them each unique tools and attentive support to help them all work better, together.

How did you get started? 

Our founder, Taylor Katzman’s family owns a distillery and saw firsthand how frustrating the process of ordering alcohol could be for bars, restaurants and retailers. He felt there was a better way and sought out to solve it. Not long after, Provi was born.

Are you headquartered in Chicago? What made you choose Chicago? If you are not headquartered in Chicago, what made you open an office here? 

Yes, we are Chicago-based. Our founder, Taylor, is from here and felt strongly that he could build a solid tech business with the wealth of talent that is here. Not to mention, Chicago has a bustling tech scene which has grown tremendously within the past several years. We’re excited to be a part of it!

What’s the coolest perk Provi’s office has? 

When the pandemic struck, we wanted to do something to support our customers. We launched WFH (work from home) Eats.  We reimburse $25 per week, per employee to get lunch or dinner from a local bar/restaurant to help give back to an industry that is hurting right now. It’s a win-win situation. Our employees get some good grub while also lending much-needed support to bars and restaurants across the country.

How has your company culture evolved as Provi has grown?

Our company has come a long way in the past four years, and with it, so has our culture. We now have a Culture Committee lead by our employees who have worked tirelessly to create our four core values:

●      Host: Inclusive & Kind

●      Serve: Collaborative & Empathetic

●      Deliver: Work Hard & Follow Through

●      Celebrate: Supportive & Have Fun

What’s the No. 1 thing on your to-do list? 

Expanding our DEI programs. We recently formed a DEI committee internally, made up of employees who are passionate about this. We are also working to engage an outside consultant to help with training programs and general best practices so we can attract and retain the best talent out there.

What do you do to encourage constant growth and change for your employees? 

We are diligent about sending out pulse surveys to get feedback on what we can do better for our employees, and we read each and every response! This has led to implementing numerous programs including the aforementioned WFH Eats!

How does Provi interact with the Chicago community?

Our engineering team wanted a way to give back and presented leadership with the idea of volunteer hours. We now have each employee accrue 1 paid hour per month that they can use to volunteer for a cause of their choice (up to 4 hours at time). 

What are the top reasons employees would say they love working for Provi? 

The people here are kind. Everyone is willing to stop what they are doing to help, answer questions, clarify, whatever you need.  We also are really good at giving shoutouts in our #Kudos Slack channel. It’s such a great way to recognize when employees are going above and beyond and demonstrating our core values!

Before launching a business, product line, or new service, it is imperative that a company understands how much of an actual demand there is for it as well as how financially viable the idea will be in the market. 

Failing to adequately validate a business idea can cost precious time, energy and money, as well as the opportunity cost of not investing resources in another area of the business that has greater long term potential to drive value to all stakeholders, the most important of which, of course, are customers. 

In this article, we will explore some of the ways a business can utilize digital marketing tactics to validate their business ideas before launching, as well as how one of our clients, a well-known manufacturer of vacuum cleaners, did just that before launching a brand new product line of air purifiers.

Measuring Demand

One of the simplest and quickest ways to begin to gauge potential customer demand for your product or service is to use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to estimate the number of searches for all the potential search terms a customer would use to find or describe what you are selling. 

For example, our client was interested in supplementing their traditional offering of vacuum cleaners with premium air purifiers. Using the Keyword Planner, we researched different ways consumers might search for this type of product and search volume for each keyword. Though our client already had a product they wanted to test in the market, keyword research is usually best done at the ideation stage to determine potential demand to reinforce the decision or avoid allocating time or resources to further developing an idea with little to no demand.

Sizing The Market

Another tactic to gauge potential demand is to use a social platform like Facebook or LinkedIn to measure the size of your target customer segments. Though you cannot measure actual purchasing intent to the degree that you can through looking at keyword search volume, you can determine the size of your target market in terms of potential customers. 

Our client piloting the air purifier had determined six customer personas they wanted to target based on their internal research. We were then able to look at which audience target options would best correlate with those personas, as well as how large those audiences were. 

Generating Interest

Whether you are a business that hasn’t launched or an existing business that is considering or in the process of developing a new product or service that hasn’t been released in the market yet, you can still start attracting potential customers by setting up a landing page and promoting it using paid channels such as search, social or display. This page should clearly define the product or service you are offering as well as your unique value proposition and a distinct call to action, which can be to enter an email address in order to learn more, get an early invitation, or even make a pre-order. If you are not generating any interest in the form of clicks to the page or capturing any emails, you may need to test different messaging on the page to know what will resonate more strongly with your prospects.

If after trying different messaging on the landing page, you are still not generating the desired interest, you may have an idea that your target customers are simply not interested in. If, on the other hand, you see a lot of traffic to the landing page as well as people signing up to learn more or receive updates, that is a strong sign that your prospects like what you are developing.

Determining Financial Viability

Of course, creating a company, product or service to meet existing demand is not enough. An idea worth pursuing must also have a clear path to profitability. Using the tools described above, you can forecast rough customer acquisition costs by estimating the number of ad impressions, click-through rate, and conversion rate. With these metrics, you can, in turn, estimate the number of clicks, cost, conversions, and cost per conversion or cost per customer. 

If you know or can model the immediate value of each customer as well as the profit margin, you can determine the approximate profitability of each customer. Determining customer lifetime value will obviously be difficult at this stage, but you can model that out using assumptions such as average number of purchases per customer or average subscription length if your revenue model is based on that. 

If it looks like the path to profitability will be too narrow, you may want to reconsider who you are targeting, your price points, other costs that could affect your margins, or even the feasibility of the idea itself. You could also try to determine which types of customers would be most profitable and focus your targeting on those segments and then broaden the approach after launch.

Testing Scalability

If you already have an initial product, such as our client, you can go a step further than just doing research or putting up a landing page and actually start setting up marketing campaigns to test whether you want to launch a new business or product/service line. 

Our client had one product, an air purifier, and wanted to determine how well it would perform in the market. If it went well, they would scale the number of air purifier products and marketing investment into the highest performing channels. Using a combination of paid search, paid social, and programmatic advertising over a period of four months, we were able to generate a significant number of sales as well as a positive return on advertising spend as well as profit factoring in cost of goods sold. The performance justified an expansion of their product line as well as continued investment in digital marketing, and today they are well-known players in the air purifier industry.

Bringing It All Together

The tactics described above can help you not just determine demand but also whether you can realistically acquire customers in a profitable and scalable way. As with all things marketing related, you can draw better, more confident conclusions with more data, so it will behoove you to try everything you can to validate your business idea. If you can create an initial product or service and put some budget into a limited marketing campaign, that will provide you with the greatest visibility into whether or not your idea for a new business, new product or new service is worth pursuing.

Humans are a social species: We all want to belong. Being part of a community allows us to feel safe, support each another, and discover shared experiences. Most importantly, it builds valuable relationships and gives us a sense of belonging.

At Centro, our goal is to create that sense of belonging by fostering community in our workplaces. Our programs and initiatives are geared towards working to ensure that people of all identities can join us, create valuable relationships, and bring their whole selves to work.

Centro Community Groups (CCGs) are one initiative we’ve kicked off to better cultivate a culture where everyone recognizes the power of their uniqueness. These employee-led, employee-organized groups are centered around common identities, interests, life experiences, and backgrounds.

Our list of CCGs is growing quickly! Here’s what’s Centrons have organized so far:

• Giving Tree
  • Encourages corporate social responsibility among all employees. The Giving Tree promotes volunteerism with various organizations across all of our local communities. Our goal is to partner with a diverse group of charities to drive positive change where we live and work.
• Women of the Workplace (& Women in Tech subgroup)
  • Our mission is to educate all employees on the different challenges women can face in the workplace, create understanding for all employees, and feed an open discussion in all offices across Centro
• Centropella
  • A group passionate about singing together. Because singing together is fun, builds community, and because music brings us together and unites our uniqueness.
• El Centro
  • We want to capitalize on the extraordinary resources of Centro’s Latinx employees and serve as champions for diversity and inclusion at Centro. We want to foster a safe space for all employees and help identify opportunities for us to become more inclusive.
• CentroOut
  • Centro’s LGBTQIA community group has an overarching purpose of fostering an inclusive, open, office community that helps advocate for advancing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and allied people.
• Nom Nom
  • A place for foodies from all cultures to come together to share their experiences and background while eating the foods that mean the most to them!
• Reframe
  • A safe place to reframe how we think about mental health conditions and tips & tricks on how to overcome them. There will also be discussions around our experiences and how culture and society impact how we view mental health conditions.
• Parents @ Centro
  • Bringing together and supporting the community of Centro parents. This group will provide resources to help Centro parents navigate being a working parent. Centro Parents will strive to provide resources to help parents manage the work/life blend, and assist Centro in the recruitment and retention of parents.

As a company, we are committed to supporting these groups both financially and via professional development. Every month, members of Centro’s leadership team will meet with Community Group leadership to ensure that we’re cross-collaborating and providing mutual support. We also provide an external Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant to train Community Group leaders so that they’re well equipped for facilitation.

We realize that there’s no end to the work of building an environment where everyone feels that they belong. We realize that we will fail and make mistakes along the way. And, we are committed to transparency, persistence, and humility as we continue our journey to a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace.

The results are in, and definitive. In response to the demands associated with COVID-19, last July Topstep’s Executive Team decided to test two work-week options. The goal was to prevent burn-out, while increasing employee engagement and satisfaction:

• A four-day work week included four, 10-hour days Monday-Thursday (@42% participation) Or,
• A “summer Friday” schedule of five, nine-hour days, with Friday afternoons off (@58% participation)

During the seven-week trial period, internal Friday meetings were banned across the organization, regardless of selected option. This was yet another innovation to improve employee health as the weeks since March have become very meeting-heavy and Zoom fatigue is real!

It surprised me that only 25 of 60 employees opted into the four-day test (42%). The data suggested a hesitancy to commit as seven weeks seemed too long combined with satisfaction with the already reduced half-day Friday schedule from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

However, 100% of participating four-day employees recommended permanently implementing this schedule! The reasons cited included feeling more productive (88%) and 92% noted an improved work-life balance. We also found Fridays to be the most desirable day off (96%) and that it’s essential to have the same day off for everyone. There were also good learnings about still feeling the need to respond to the Executive Team on Fridays. The feedback was shared and adjustments were made to address this concern (i.e. our CEO now indicates it’s ok to respond the following week in non-emergency Friday correspondence). 

We also found it doable but difficult for Trader Support to be on the phone for 10 hours. As it’s a nascent option, if there is greater interest from Support we will adjust hiring to provide this option for interested team members. Finally, it was great to see 64% indicated an improved stress level.

For those that selected the half-day Friday option, 89% said they were not negatively impacted by those participating in the four-day trial and in fact, 63% said they will switch to the four-day work week now that it’s a permanent option. An overwhelming majority mentioned the ability to get more work done as the primary benefit of no-meeting Fridays.

Findings led to the permanent opportunity for current and new employees to select either option, in addition to the more traditional five-day, eight-hour schedule. The majority (75%) selected the four or half-day options with an understanding it cannot be a week-by-week determination. It’s worth noting the qualitative data suggested that even if an external (partner/agency) Friday afternoon meeting couldn’t be postponed, participants took it in stride and still felt recharged on Monday. 

While the title quote isn’t mine, I share my colleague’s high level of enthusiasm and gratitude to be in a company that continually innovates to live its core value, “In the well-being of the team.” The above photos are of Team Topstep, Friday afternoons on Lake Michigan. We ask a lot of our empowered people and this change has positively contributed to our work hard/play hard culture.

Microsoft Teams vs. Zoom 

When addressing the question of Microsoft Teams vs. Zoom, there are a few different contexts you must keep in mind. These all have to do with one organizational profile and what they are looking to get from each platform.

Conferencing 

If conferencing software is your primary goal, then both platforms have quite good conferencing features. Microsoft Teams does not work with a dial-in number out of the box and requires an IT professional to set up and an additional license. 

It also does not do large “live” webinar events and requires an additional license and configuration. Zoom does both large conferencing and has dial-in features out of the box. If you need to expand your max webinar limit, it is a simple license upgrade that does not require an IT professional.  

Collaboration 

If collaboration is your primary use for the software, Microsoft Teams has advanced tools to aid in this process. Zoom does not really contain any of these advanced collaboration features, and therefore, cannot be recommended as a suitable software. Along with direct and group messaging, Microsoft Teams has dedicated containers with additional channels that allow for the effective organization of communication and collaboration. 

Microsoft Teams is also part of the Microsoft 365 Cloud Productivity Stack and takes full advantage of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint online. It can directly integrate with OneDrive and SharePoint online as well. The integrations don’t stop there! Microsoft Teams can integrate with many different applications to provide single-application expertise to end-users. Imagine having all your work in one application!

Security 

Let’s talk about the security of both platforms, as there has been a lot of news coverage around this topic – Zoom specifically. While there were some issues with Zoom security, most of these came to light during the heavy adoption period in March 2020 as countries shutdown for COVID-19. Zoom quickly moved to enhance its security features and was transparent about its efforts. At no time did Zoom have any egregious security issues, and much of this was overblown as sensationalism. 

Every application has security holes, whether discovered or not. It is essential to understand that both products are mature enterprise applications that have many resources dedicated to maintaining their security. Microsoft alone employs a team of over 3500, plus security professionals, alongside advanced AI systems to monitor and maintain the integrity of its product.  

Final Thoughts 

If your organization is looking for a simple web conferencing tool, isn’t on Microsoft 365, or wants to avoid extra cost and complexity, Zoom is the right choice for you. If your organization is on Microsoft 365 and is looking to increase communication, collaboration, and efficiency, then Microsoft Teams is the top choice. Some organizations will elect to choose both platforms because of the added cost and complexity of setting up all the extra conferencing features on Teams.

Read the original article here

How to Engage Employees in a Post-COVID-19 Workplace

Large organizations and their workforces are slowly re-adjusting to a post-COVID-19 world. In order to reinforce new policies and build population trust, there are many important steps employers need to take to ensure a safe workplace. The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the necessity of rapid, relevant communications—and as employees return to work, they need those communications more than ever: whether mass communications, segmented ones, or campaigns of one.

In this webinar, we’ll share compelling evidence from our national COVID-19 surveys that proves why tailored, meaningful communication matters. Employees who receive frequent messaging from their employer about COVID-19 updates, operational impacts, and news for returning to work report being more loyal to their company—which ultimately results in a more engaged workforce and successful business.

Learn how this approach to communication can better connect your employees with the benefits and resources they need, in the moments they need them, especially in uncertain times like the era we find ourselves in now. Help your business thrive and your workforce feel safe and confident in a post-COVID-19 workplace.

An Evive on-demand webinar

Blogging may seem like an SEO strategy from the MySpace era. But as Google continues to refine its algorithm and prioritize content quality over quantity, developing a concrete strategy is more important now than it ever was in the nascent days of online blogging. But where to begin? 

Brands and online businesses can leverage backlinks from sites with a higher authority to build the authority of their own content. But syndication alone won’t build the same brand awareness and organic search as developing a high quality content strategy through topical authority.

To find out more about topical authority and optimizing a blog for seo, discover Logical Media Group’s tips for leveraging this underrated SEO tactic to reach new customers and clients today.

What is Topical Authority?

In order to fully embrace and incorporate topical authority into a content strategy, it’s important to understand what it is. As many SEO experts describe it today, topical authority is the perceived expertise a blog or online publication demonstrates over a variety of related topics or a set of ideas. Google uses this perceived expertise and context to determine which website’s content best aligns with user queries and this, ultimately, helps generate results on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Identifying Topical Authority in the Wild

Analyzing SERPs is a great way to familiarize oneself with topical authority, for example, when a user searches “how to care for denim” the first results on the SERP are not surprising. An article published on Levi Strauss & Co. appears in the featured snippet at the top of the page, then content from The Laundress, Martha Stewart’s blog, and Burton Menswear trails closely behind. 

Despite being in different industries, all of these brands are relevant to clothing care and clothing manufacturing and Google understands how all four are relevant to that query. 

Conversely, on the same SERP, the pop culture blog, Coveteur, appears in the middle of the page, occupying a prime ranking position for this topic. While Coveteur’s content doesn’t directly relate to clothing care, the publication has created enough topical authority around wardrobe-related content to compete with Levi Strauss & Co. on a search for jeans.

This search results page is a great example of the strength of well-written content, and how blogs can use loosely related topics to build a content strategy and go toe-to-toe with brands that have existed in certain industries for almost 200 years.

How Can Content Strategies Use Topical Authority for SEO?

While this example from Coveteur might seem as though the key to achieving topical authority is simply to produce as much content in as many topics as possible, there are other SEO conditions at play that allows the pop-culture site to compete with Levi on a SERP about jeans.

For one, Coveteur has a high domain authority which signals to Google that it is a reliable source. Additionally, Coveteur has connections to other high authority publications like Elle and In Style to build a robust back linking strategy. All of these efforts greatly contribute to a brand’s ability to rank, but that doesn’t minimize the fact that topical authority helped Coveteur rank for this particular topic.

The first step to building a content strategy around topical authority is to understand the message at the heart of your brand. If your brand sells candles, for example, your online store will contain references to different scents, aromatherapy, maybe even ambiance. From these broader topics, you’ll be able to drill down into more loosely-related content and build some of your first blogs. For instance, instead of writing about the “benefits of aromatherapy”, you can create a blog about “fragrances that make people feel sleepy”. The more specific and creative you can be with your topics, the fewer websites you’ll have to compete with in order to rank and start building brand awareness one user at a time.

The most effective topical authority SEO strategies drive traffic from users at the very top of the conversion funnel and get them excited about your brand’s unique ability to speak to their concerns or interests. That is where brand awareness is built and when consumers are ready to make a purchase, you may just find they return to your site to make their next purchase.

If you’re curious about optimizing your blog for SEO or building brand awareness with a creative and data-driven approach, find out more about content marketing services with Logical Media Group and build a great brand today.

When COVID-19 hit the U.S. and shut down events, KeHE’s largest annual Holiday Show was three months away. As the natural & organic, fresh and specialty food distributor’s largest live event – and the marketplace for retailers to find and purchase the holiday products they need – the success of the entire holiday food buying season was in jeopardy. In April, KeHE announced they would convert the live event into a virtual show.

Renamed KeHE’s Holidays of Hope, the entirely virtual show welcomed over 5,000 attendees and nearly 600 exhibiting suppliers on KeHE’s proprietary digital platform. Not only was the event completely contactless, but it was also the largest and most successful KeHE show to date.

The success of the 2020 KeHE Virtual Holidays of Hope Show can be credited to the foresight of the distributor to implement a virtual ordering tool far before the pandemic hit. Released in 2016, KeHE’s Product Finder platform has allowed retailers and suppliers to communicate about promotional deals, negotiate, discover products, and place orders online while on the tradeshow floor. The technology has been improved with each show and proved to be crucial to their COVID-era success.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” said Brian Wilkinson, KeHE’s Chief Information Officer. “Over the last few years, we have embarked on a journey to become the Next Generation distributor. Through KeHE’s strategic growth of in-house technology solutions, we have been able to gradually expand our digital event offerings and ultimately launch our first industry-wide virtual buying show.”

Also, six months before the pandemic hit, KeHE piloted a virtual show experience as a proactive measure aligning with the company’s vision to become the “Next Generation Distributor” with their key partners.

“Pre-COVID, technology was a major tenant of our overall strategic plan and live event strategy – which drove us to pilot a virtual show concept. We knew it was important, but we couldn’t have predicted just how big that need would grow in 2020,” said Ari Goldsmith, Vice President of Marketing at KeHE. “Our proprietary platform was built with our stakeholders needs top of mind, and it allowed us to quickly pivot to deliver a show experience they’ve grown to expect from KeHE, entirely online.”

Since the KeHE Holidays of Hope Show, KeHE has successfully hosted a smaller, curated virtual Winter Show this fall on the same platform. Building on user feedback and analytics from those two events, KeHE is looking forward to its virtual Summer Show in January 2021. For more information on KeHE how they’re harnessing technology to continue to deliver value to their partners, visit KeHE.com.

*KeHE’s shows are invite-only shows for their supplier and customer partners.

Co-founder Mohit Bhende honored among 100 most Intriguing Entrepreneurs at 2020 Builder + Innovators Summit

SEATTLE, October 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Karat, the industry standard for technical interviewing, today announced that Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is recognizing Karat co-founder, Mohit Bhende, as one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs of 2020 at its Builders + Innovators Summit. Goldman Sachs selected Mohit as one of 100 entrepreneurs from multiple industries to be honored at the two-day event.

As an executive at Microsoft, Mo was struck by the time engineers spent conducting interviews. And despite the significant time invested, the consistency and quality of technical interviews were nearly impossible to manage at scale. Mo and his co-founder, Jeffrey Spector, set about to solve the Interview Gap by making interviewing a job. Karat created and now leads the category of Interview Engineering.

Since its launch, Karat has raised $42M in funding and built a global network of Interview Engineers–software engineers who are equipped by Karat to be professional technical interviewers.

The events of 2020 have accelerated the need for software engineers and demand for Karat’s expertise in conducting virtual, equitable interviews. The company has conducted over 70,000 technical interviews for companies like Intuit, Roblox, Pinterest, and Robinhood, and is tripling its enterprise account base year-over-year.

In addition to scaling Interview Engineering, Karat is focused on increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion across the tech industry, and recently announced a $1 million practice interview program in support of Black software engineers.

“I’m honored to be selected by Goldman Sachs as one of the top 100 most intriguing entrepreneurs of 2020,” said Mohit Bhende. “This acknowledgment recognizes the value created by our amazing team and that our mission is more important now than ever: to make every interview predictive, fair, and enjoyable.”

“True innovation is built from a diversity of perspectives and experiences”, said David M. Solomon, Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs. “Our Builders + Innovators Summit brings together a collective of impressive future leaders who are striving to drive meaningful change. For over 150 years, Goldman Sachs has supported entrepreneurs as they launch and grow their businesses. That’s why we are pleased to recognize Mohit Bhende as one of the most intriguing entrepreneurs of 2020.”

In addition to honoring 100 entrepreneurs, the summit, which this year will take place virtually, consists of general sessions and clinics led by seasoned entrepreneurs, academics, and business leaders as well as resident scholars.

About Karat

Karat established the category of Interview Engineering to make every interview predictive, fair, and enjoyable. Karat’s solution combines 24/7 live technical interviews, rigorously tested interview formats, enterprise-grade Interview Infrastructure, and unmatched data visibility and insights. Karat helps clients hire faster and more effectively by unlocking productive engineering hours, improving the candidate experience, mitigating bias, and delivering a hiring signal that software engineering leaders trust to raise their hiring bar.

ITA Spotlight: Technology at TransUnion

As we continue to keep the well-being of our associates a top priority, our TransUnion teams have quickly adapted to delivering products and services to the communities in which we serve. Working in a remote environment, we have found creative ways to stay connected. With the help of video conference calls, our internal associate newsfeed, and various virtual events, ‘life at TU’ is still going strong.   

Adapting to these new circumstances has shown us that no matter where we are around the globe, we can evolve and shape the future. Knowing that technology advancements never cease, we continue to modify both our ways of working and how we ultimately deliver meaningful solutions. All of this combined, empowers the team to work on products that connect the world around us. Keeping our associates’ experience top of mind, we’re providing an environment that pushes the boundaries of innovation. Together we are streamlining our application ecosystem, which is why there has never been a better time to be at TU.  

Hear from the team

Read more from our TransUnion Technology team members to get their thoughts on our collaborative atmosphere, innovative problem solving, and much more. Aayushi, a Scrum Master in Technical & Infrastructure Support shares some of her thoughts:

What is most rewarding about being part of technology at TU?

Being surrounded by innovative products and solutions on a daily basis that make our processes and automation stronger and efficient. It’s rewarding to know the work I’m doing benefits our customers and everyone in the company. Every day, I can virtually log onto the office and achieve my goals by helping customers see the path forward. With so many internal opportunities, TU as a whole is especially encouraging of you moving amongst teams to create the career you want.

At TU, one of our values and beliefs is we all make a difference every day. How do you make a difference on your team?

This is one of my favorite TU values because each individual I’m surrounded by does impressive work for the greater good of the company, fellow associates, and our communities. Each day, we’re ready to contribute our ideas that make a direct impact on the business. I know I make a difference on my team by assisting engineers with any impediments or blockers on their projects. I lead touchpoint meetings every morning to help understand challenges and how I can assist resolve them efficiently without it affecting our timeline. Being on the Systems Engineering and Programming team, I get to work with so many great people within technology at TU.

Watch a quick video of Aayushi explaining what it’s like to be on her team.

There are always new ways to get involved to help push our tools and infrastructure to new heights. New opportunities to not only design comprehensive solutions, but also develop individual skills that create a meaningful career. Paul, Manager of Database Engineering shares:

If someone is interested in joining the team, what skills are needed to be successful at TU?

I think one of the most important skills is problem-solving. No matter what position you’re in, you’ll come across a challenge you’ll need to solve effectively. Having the skills to know how to overcome those challenges can make you a key player. I also think you need to be flexible and able to adapt to change because it’s a very dynamic, fast-paced work environment. Lastly, you need to be collaborative because working at TU, you’ll work across several different departments that each touch meaningful work.

You’ll also have the ability to develop your skills, whether that be functional coding or interpersonal skills. There are resources we offer our associates so they can expand their knowledge and learn new functions to continue creating solutions that have a forward-facing impact. We also have a resident career development coach that every associate can set time with to develop career goals and what is needed to achieve them.

As a manager, how do you maintain a collaborative atmosphere for your team?

I manage associates in Chicago, Austin and Atlanta. We’re all very used to working from home and use Skype to share screens and meet together. My team also has regular ‘knowledge transfer’ sessions where individuals present new things they’ve learned on projects or through training. This allows us all to help each other succeed and do the best possible work. One of the best elements about my team is we all make sure other members are involved when we’re implementing large projects to ensure everyone is familiar with the solutions we deliver.

Join our team

As the future of our products and solutions continue to evolve, we need innovators who can build enhanced consumer and customer-facing solutions. Right now, our Technology team is looking for Back-End and Front-End Engineers to code the path ahead. If you are looking to take on your next technology challenge that enables you to create innovative solutions, which have a forward-facing impact, then learn more about Technology @ TransUnion.

WATCH: See what Technology @ TransUnion is all about

Stay in the loop with TransUnion

Find your next technology opportunity

Olenick, a global leader in software quality engineering, and Consumers Credit Union (CCU), one of the largest Credit Unions in Illinois serving over 170,000 members, recently partnered to successfully automate three processes for CCU that will save over 90 days of manual labor in the first year of production.

This key project will serve as a critical step towards CCU’s goal of defining and realizing the desired future state where efficiency and automation are optimized.

Consumers CU’s goal was to leverage Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to improve efficiency in key back office functions and manage large expected increases in workload. Given the RPA market’s broad and nuanced options, Olenick partnered with CCU to confirm that their RPA technology selection was a good fit for their automation needs, assessed candidate processes to automate, successfully deployed three fully automated processes to production, and trained Consumers CU staff in maintenance and usage of the bots.

“The results from the implementation of RPA to complete most of the manual work involved in our chosen processes, surpassed our expectations,” said Dyana Horbach, Contact Center Manager. “The Olenick team provided clear guidelines to help us choose the right processes to consider for automation and expertly led us through the steps to create, test and implement.”

Olenick’s 16 years of experience working with Credit Unions has allowed an appreciation for the importance of scaling staff efficiently while also improving service delivery to credit union members. The demand for experienced RPA resources has grown substantially as more credit unions seek to start automating low value manual tasks.

“Consumers Credit Union had a clear goal in sight as they took their first steps into RPA, which made it easy for us to help them accomplish it,” said Sharon Mueller, Sr. Director of Credit Union Strategy and Services at Olenick. “Not every manual process is a good fit for automation technology. CCU’s team was thoughtful about choosing the right processes, which made them a great RPA partner. We couldn’t be more excited about their positive results.”

Olenick engaged key stakeholders at CCU to assess and score a prioritized target list of business processes that will yield the best ROI. The engagement then delivered the RPA based automation targeted at three important processes. As a final step in the engagement, Olenick and CCU analyzed the data from the newly deployed bots and compared it to the initial Return on Investment calculation that was used to justify CCU’s RPA investment. In the first two months of production deployment, the actual ROI has been enough to justify the investment. As the number of transactions being fed to the systems scale up, the full ROI will be realized.

About Olenick

Olenick is a global leader in software quality engineering practices with over 300 consultants, four global locations, and a client base with a mix of small-to-mid-sized businesses and Fortune 500 companies. Olenick ensures delivery of successful projects by providing software testing and quality assurance, process and test automation, requirements and project management, and DevOps services. Olenick partners with Credit Unions to test and integrate core systems with online and mobile banking, consumer loan and mortgage origination, and credit card systems, among many other software-driven initiatives. Click here for more information on Olenick’s Automation services.

About Consumers Credit Union

Headquartered in Gurnee, IL – Consumers Credit Union (CCU) $2.5B, has been serving its members’ financial needs since 1930. As one of the largest credit unions in Illinois, CCU currently serves more than 170,000 members nationwide and has been consistently recognized by Forbes Media as a Best-in-State credit union. Consumers is a trusted financial partner, empowering their members live better lives. To learn more about Consumers Credit products and services, or for information on how to join, visit www.myconsumers.org.

We are all too familiar with the e-commerce behemoth, Amazon. Amazon has dominated online shopping by elevating customer expectations, building communal trust through reviews, and optimizing their site for the paramount user experience. In 2019,  Digital Commerce delineated that Amazon produced 37.5% of all online U.S. sales. And despite the pandemic,  Facteus reported that consumers spent 60% more on Amazon in May-June, 2020.

While Amazon Advertising  is tried-and-true, brands also need to establish off-Amazon digital marketing strategies to fuel product sales. But how should brands do so? Well, I am glad you asked. Logical’s paid media team has a proven track record for driving off-Amazon sales through traditional channels like Google and Facebook by utilizing Amazon Attribution and ZonTracker. 

What is Amazon Attribution? 

Amazon Attribution (beta) is a free analytics console that helps measure the effectiveness of non-Amazon tactics that generate sales on Amazon. This beta product is available to professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry, vendors, and agencies with clients who sell products on Amazon. Common non-Amazon publishers include Facebook, Instagram, Google Adwords, Google Display, Choozle, eBay, Hulu, LinkedIn, and many more! The Attribution API recently launched a closed beta that allows Kenshoo, Marin Software, Perpetua, and Quartile to integrate Amazon’s data within their management dashboards (a HUGE time saver for your agency!) .  

Amazon Attribution: Proof is in the Puddling

One of our e-commerce clients tested whether or not Amazon Attribution could increase conversion rates. By driving traffic from Google to Amazon, we took advantage of Amazon’s superior domain authority and landing experience. The test resulted in 133% increase in paid search return on ad spend (ROAS), 9x increase in purchases, 130% increase in revenue, and 243% increase in paid search conversion rates. Yet on a more detailed note, the quality score of the keyword [closet freshener] increased from 4 to 10, as the brand’s product pages contain more keyword-optimized content. By introducing Amazon Attribution, the client experienced their most successful month to date! 

What is ZonTracker?

ZonTracker is the first third-party tool that allows brands to optimize towards Amazon Sales on Facebook. Placing their Amazon pixel allows you to aggregate off-Amazon sales data within the Facebook UI, monitor ROAS, and build remarketing and lookalike audiences off of past purchasers.  

ZonTracker: Unmatched Amazon Audiences

Another one of our paid media clients implemented ZonTracker for two primary reasons: track Facebook sales made on Amazon and build audiences off of Amazon customers who purchased their products. On Amazon Prime Day 2020, their ZonTracker audiences generated a 3.43 ROAS, which was 971.9% higher than prospecting audiences and 662.22% higher than lookalike audiences. ZonTracker audiences are built off of Amazon product ASINs and can be compiled in a variety of ways to bolster your account’s performance.

If you’re looking to drive off-Amazon sales through paid media channels like Facebook and Google, Amazon Attribution and ZonTracker could be the key to your success! Do you need assistance implementing these marketing technologies? Contact the Logical team today!

Just as you file your taxes every year, companies file tax returns—only corporate taxation is infinitely more complicated. That’s why the world’s best-known companies count on CSC Corptax® to help them meet global-to-local tax regulations with the best software solutions in the business.

In addition to producing great products, we’re known as a great place to work. The Chicago Tribune and Built In Chicago recently named CSC Corptax a “Top Workplace for 2020.” Part of what makes our workplace award-winning is our flexible work environment. Back in the “good old days” (February), we worked remotely as needed, with 40% of our people offsite all the time. When March hit, we became 100% remote without missing a beat.

We’ve always invested heavily in technology and infrastructure to support our “work anywhere, anytime” philosophy. But it’s our people who made a seamless transition possible by living our values of tenacity and resilience.   

Before COVID, we took time to celebrate with catered events and friendly competitions around the foosball, shuffleboard, and ping-pong tables. Those times will return, but for now, we’re still having fun with virtual events like weekly bingo games that include the whole family and have awarded 500 prizes, so far.

To stay connected, employees hold virtual lunches, happy hours, and team-building activities. We also give back by supporting our communities in big ways. We sew masks, raise money for charities, and safely volunteer at local organizations. CSC Corptax supports these efforts by making resources available and offering a generous company-match program.

We’re proud to be part of a caring, responsive company. Hear from team members on how CSC Corptax has come through during the pandemic:

“CSC Corptax demonstrates concern for the impact of COVID-19 on employees and their families.”

“We’ve shifted all customer training to a virtual format and have seen record attendance at our training sessions.”

“Despite being on-boarded remotely, the process has been smooth. Everyone has been great about answering questions and checking in. Equipment was delivered before my first day of work.”

“We’ve been celebrating employees and teams internally through our #CSCStrong stories.”

Stop disruptive digital experiences. 

Modern consumers don’t just want, they expect seamless experiences when interacting with digital products. According to Forrester, 95 percent of customers interact with a company over more than three channels, with 65 percent of people noting inconsistency across interactions as a source of frustration. A consistent experience drives positive relationships with customers.  

Lack of shared information disrupts the efficacy of organizational operations. Teams operating independently and establishing individual guidelines introduce unnecessary choices and the risks inherent of varied experiences. Code bases without design systems supporting them are weighed down by many shades of gray, only a few of which are used. The fracturing of experiences accelerates through these divergent patterns, echoes out into layouts, buttons, and form styles, and ultimately disrupts how pages behave. 

Bring balance and consistency with design systems. 

Look at any website or an internal tool used to perform a task for a large organization. Take stock of each button, form field, color choice, and layout. Each unique element is a new element to process, with each new layout a new pattern to understand. Each of these elements weighs heavily not only on the people using them but also on the teams maintaining them. The cost of ownership, paired with the increased cost of doing business, and lost efficiency, means a single choice cascades multiple times throughout an application. Consequently, design systems call upon a series of repeatable components featured in products and their corresponding guiding standards. This white paper breaks down the elements that make design systems successful, as well as answer the important question, “Is it even worth building one?”

Download the white paper here!

With the adoption of the DevOps culture in agile development teams, the time to deliver a project has been significantly reduced as problems across different teams are now resolved as a single team. Team boundaries that existed in the waterfall development approach are removed and collaboration across Developers and Operations take off to work together towards a shared goal. As development and operation teams start working together, it is important to integrate automation technologies to eliminate repetitive processes and deliver predictable results over and over.

How can the build, test, and deploy processes be automated? Using continuous integration, automated testing, and continuous delivery, the core of the development process is automated and the end result is consistent.

Continuous Integration (Build)

In the practice of continuous integration, developers commit code changes in the project into a shared repository every day or several times a day. Each time a change is committed into a branch an automated build is triggered to build the code binaries. This automated integration tied to every code change facilitates the detection of coding issues as soon as they are introduced and helps backtracking issues in earlier releases.

Test Automation (Test)

The next step after implementing and using a continuous integration solution is to incorporate test automation to improve the quality of the code, detect human errors, and test the user interface against multiple browsers. Test automation can be added as part of the continuous integration to run a number of tests along with each build with minimal overhead in the build process.

Continuous Delivery (Deploy)

Following the principle of “build your binaries once, but deploy and promote them many times” provide a consistent end result that has been tested during the build process and in a parallel environment. The practice of continuous delivery ensures a successful build is packaged once and promoted through multiple environments until it reaches production.

Automation tools in software delivery increase the confidence in the team to release more often and better quality software without having to sacrifice time or budget in the project. Each release consists of a repeatable process to ensure the version that was just released from development and passed thru QA is ready to be released to production.

Using automation technologies like continuous integration, automated testing, and continuous delivery to automate the development process increases efficiency and accuracy. If you’d like to learn more or discuss this with our DevOps team, reach out today.