Not a lot of people may realise this but when it comes to navigating various job opportunities, the one fundamental factor that’s often overlooked is company culture. We can discuss work-to-home proximity and debate about the ethics of comparing pay grades as much as we want, but at the end of the day, culture fit is what tips the scale when it comes to a person’s employment journey.

And haven’t we all been there? While paychecks and other concrete factors define the backbone of our decision-making, how long we last in a company and how happy we are during our time there are determined by how well we mesh with the values of the organisation.

According to a 2019 report, culture fit is the most important aspect when it comes to staff retention. Because we spend so much of our time at the workplace, it is necessary that employees feel connected in the environment they work in. This is integral not only with regard to how long employees last but also with regard to their sense of presence as well as their overall performance.

Company culture is known to have a direct impact when it comes to boosting a company’s profile and ultimately creating a brand out of its identity. Fostering this sense of identity through company culture can yield tangible results in terms of investor expectations and compensation costs.

As such, Manila-headquartered Workbean launched their culture-search platform that helps companies showcase who they are and what they value in employees to attract talents that mesh well with the company’s values and culture.

Empowering the workplace

In a nutshell, Workbean focuses on helping talents find meaningful careers in companies where they belong by helping employers showcase their most authentic stories about their people, workplace, and culture.

Launching in January 2020 with 8 pilot companies, they have now grown to working with 15 partner companies. Workbean has had over 25,000 unique views of the “culture page” of their portfolio companies, while their job-click rate (job-clicks per culture page views) rose from averaging 5-7% between February to March, and 16% in July. Starting from 1,000 monthly active users in February, they have now grown to 13,000 in July.

“We are seeing that companies are adding employer branding initiatives to their people strategies and not a lot of tools exist to assist HR leaders in this space,” said Neil Rojas, Workbean Co-founder, CFO, and Chief Strategist.

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Rojas added, “When I lived in Malaysia and Singapore, I noticed that the career perspectives of job-seekers are wider and more informed. This is not the case for Filipinos; the dream of the majority of fresh graduates is to work for the well-known conglomerates and FMCGs—product brands that are well-known.”

In the Philippine context, he argued that not a lot of people apply to tech and software companies despite the high growth potential. Filipinos are still more likely to go for areas often considered “safe” and “traditional”, whereas elsewhere in the world, there is a draw to technology companies and high-growth startups that are changing the world.

Workbean seeks to help widen the Filipino perspective and the best way Rojas believes one can achieve that is to provide a platform that offers authentic company information.

The importance of work culture in the digital age

With COVID-19 disrupting virtually every aspect of human interaction, and by extension, workplace dynamics where employees engage their coworkers through computer screens, it is especially important for companies to craft and nurture their values as an organisation.

Moreover, companies must build their teams according to those values and constantly engage their employees in ways that yield the best results both for the organisation and the individual satisfaction of team members.

Rojas believes that in this isolation economy, innovation will skew towards culture-building and engagement because these are the things that we need to preserve and improve on right now.

“In our interviews with users, we got the sentiment that employees need to feel that their management and their leadership care about them and see their human sides. This is a side of work culture that you don’t see in company websites and job ads—these are the things that we want to shine a spotlight on,” explained Rojas.

“Workbean is positioned to be the platform that showcases the human element of work.”

The future of Workbean

With the momentum that the company currently enjoys and one that they experience despite the setbacks created by the global health crisis, Workbean seeks to onboard at least 100 companies in the next 12 months and have partner companies in major cities in the Philippines.

“We want to be able to spread our mission to other parts of the country because we know that if we can widen the perspectives of a conservative nation such as the Philippines, we can also do so in other countries in Southeast Asia,” said Rojas, underscoring Workbean’s larger plan of scaling regionally in the future.

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He added, “scaling the product and having more companies in the platform [is the goal]. We want to elevate the way people search for jobs and we want to spread this culture of transparency not just in the Philippines but in Southeast Asia.”

The company is also gearing to release a self-service platform where HR teams can self-manage their culture pages. Coupled with plans to offer modified services that come in free and premium versions, Workbean hopes that companies will be able to start building their brands with Workbean for free and eventually upgrade to a premium version once operations finally stabilise.

Addressing challenges

The modified services model currently in development is a part of the company’s plan to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 to businesses everywhere. Because companies are understandably in crisis mode where some have been forced to freeze their hiring processes, Workbean hopes to be able to offer their services without burdening the precarious financial situation of different businesses today.

Moreover, with Workbean having signed up for an e27 Pro membership, the company no longer has to rely on offline incubators and accelerators to access investors and explore funding opportunities.

“e27 Pro makes it easy to identify which investors to reach out to because data is presented in a way where we can easily filter things such as funding stage, markets, and funding amount,” said Rojas, highlighting the important role of transparency and staying informed in the context of fundraising. “The ease of reaching out just to start a conversation is very valuable for us,” he added.

Workbean’s solid run despite having been thrust into a pandemic-riddled status quo says a lot about the company’s formidable team and business model. With their plans already underway and their access to e27 Pro tools and insights, we can only expect great things from Workbean and their vision to inspire a healthier and happier life at work using authentic information for people to reach their full potential.

The post Workbean: Empowering the workplace in the time of COVID appeared first on e27.

Anchanto raises US$12M from MDI Ventures, European shipping firm Asendia, claims profitability; Ascendia is the 4th customer to turn into Singapore-based Anchanto’s shareholder; As of 2019, the B2B SaaS firm claims to have served 12K+ business and sellers consisting of over 300 global enterprises. e27

Singapore’s tech firms put up lists of retrenched workers to help them find new jobs; A local initiative called FreshlyBaked.io, which is collating these lists, said that there are more than 550 professionals, managers, executives and technicians in the nation on these lists; Skyscanner is one of the latest firms to start its own directory which it is promoting on multiple channels. Malay Mail

How Vietnam’s e-commerce firm Tiki manages to keep employee churn rate healthy; Chief People Officer Sakshi Jawa discusses the various HR challenges faced by Tiki, which employs nearly 3,000 people across Vietnam. e27

How bad is the retrenchment situation in Singapore, and how much worse it will get?; Unemployment and retrenchments on the island continued to rise in Q2, especially in the aviation, hospitality, F&B sectors; Retrenchments rose by 108% to 6,700 between April and June, compared with 3,220 in the first 3 months of the year. Malay Mail

Asia bets on blockchain to battle online theft during pandemic; The global blockchain market is expected to hit US$15.88B in 2023 despite retreating 7.27% to US$2.27B in 2020; Blockchain has emerged as a solution for fighting digital counterfeits, pushing businesses to adopt the technology. Nikkei Asia Review

New Singapore live-stream technology aims to recreate theatre experience at home; On their screens, audiences can hang out in the theatre foyer reading virtual information about the play, chat with the front-of-house manager and even sneak a peek at the actors getting ready in their dressing rooms. SGSME

MAS earmarks additional US$182M to boost fintech innovation; The Singapore’s central bank will commit the amount over the next 3 yrs under the enhanced Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme (FSTI 2.0); The budget is 11% higher than the US$164M spread over 5 years that was injected under the first FTSI scheme, which was launched in 2015. DealStreetAsia

Startups urged to unlock value of Malaysia Digital Hubs with launch of special deal; The hubs are an extension of the MSC Malaysia Cybercentre that was created for startups and digitally-powered businesses; It’s designed as hotbeds for innovation, digital co-working spaces and incubators using digital tech in their respective fields of specialisation. Digital News Asia

APAC SMEs responding well to pandemic, but face challenges in digital transformation, says poll; Among the APAC SMEs that responded to the section on COVID-19 impact, 77% said they had adjusted remote work arrangements for employees; The areas that S’pore SMEs cited the most often as significantly impacted by the pandemic were the abilities to meet customer demand, win new business, operate at full capacity. SGSME

Why the Avengers would make a bad startup team; A set of highly talented people coming together to attain a mission could often end up failing if they don’t get a time-travel redo; Talent does facilitate performance, but only up to a point, after which it becomes detrimental as intra-team coordination suffers. e27

Temasek, Mirae Asset return to invest in Impossible Foods’s US$200M Series G round; Impossible Foods has so far raised close to US$1.5B in total funding since launch in 2011; COVID-19 appears to have had a positive impact, at least in part, on the burgeoning alt-protein industry. AgFunderNews

Launching a whole-plant ‘pork’ made from jackfruit in Singapore is next for Karana, say co-founders; In the future, it also plans to launch products using other regional ingredients that will enable us to expand beyond pork; Karana recently closed US$1.7M seed funding for its jackfruit alternative meat. AgriFoodInnovation

How working from anywhere (WFA) is defining the next normal; WFH is not going to be the silver bullet that rebuilds the world’s economies; Instead, a hybrid workforce that incorporates the ability to WFA is what will define this Next Normal. e27

MDEC urges SMEs to register with Digital Xccelerator (DX) platform; The DX platform is designed to help SMEs gain access to available programmes, incentives and tech solutions that best match their specific digitalisation needs; It’s a free-of-charge initiative launched during the MDEC inaugural SME Digital Summit. Malay Mail

Korea’s US$2B Unicorn Toss Join forces with CIMB Bank Vietnam for in-app banking solution; Since launching in Feb 2015, Toss garnered over 48M app downloads and processed over US$10B in P2P payment in Korea, and started to expand its biz to Vietnam since 2019; In an emerging market like Vietnam, the unicorn had a different strategy to win over the young generation. Fintech News

China to expand testing of digital currency; The digital currency pilot programme will cover much of the country’s most prosperous regions; China’s central bank has said that the digital currency shares features with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra, but it will be designed to handle transactions more quickly, making it feasible for wider adoption in China.WSJ

Robots in, buffets out: Asia hotels try socially distant hospitality; Establishments that pride themselves on “personal service” with a “human touch” are now forced to keep employees away from customers as much as possible, while also rethinking a host of other amenities guests used to take for granted. Nikkei Asia Review

Developing an IoT system for Thailand; Experts propose an IoT ecosystem that requires a combination of key players such as tech service providers and the government to jointly facilitate factories connecting their machines, making them “speak” to one another and having them work automatically with a minimal amount of human involvement. Open Gov

Championing the spirit of entrepreneurial resilience; Businesses in the F&B industry have taken to offering food delivery services, while those in education have switched to online classes; In this difficult period, it has become more important to rally businesses to champion the values of resilience, tenacity and importantly, innovation in their daily operations. SGSME

Telecom speakers advise digital readiness; Thailand is first in ASEAN to embark on 5G frequency allocation as it aims to become a digital hub; The nation needs to embrace new digital tech such as robotics, AI, drones, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, AR/VR, and 3D printing, which are all seen as a tech disruptors. Bangkok Post

Amid contactless boom, S. Korea steps into cashless society; Concerned about COVID-19, people are increasingly using mobile services to order food and other necessities online instead of dining out or buying their clothes at physical stores; People in their 40s and 50s have become a crucial customer base. The Inquirer

eBay rolls out an e-commerce export programme for Filipino SMEs; ‘Global 24/7’ is specifically designed to help local SMEs leverage eBay’s platform for global export; Aside from Philippines, the programme is extended to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam. NewsBytes

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With the ever-changing business climate across the globe, companies now find it increasingly important to innovate and grow in order to remain relevant and gain a competitive advantage over their peers. XNode, a leading private accelerator from China, starts from entrepreneurs, connects the resources of large enterprises and synergises the power of investment institutions, academia, government agencies, and accelerators or incubators to build a diverse entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem progressively.

The China-Singapore Innovation Launchpad is one of the many acceleration programs organised by XNode to help participants gain in-depth market knowledge through workshops and meet leading partners and customers to find the product-market fit. More importantly, participants can tap into the XNode’s community and alumni network to receive ongoing support on knowledge, partnerships and financing.

In September last year, XNode leveraged e27’s ecosystem platform and network of startups to promote the Launchpad. The programme called for Singapore startups keen to enter China to submit their applications.

e27 recently had the chance to sit down with Luuk Eliens, XNode’s Chief Commercial Officer, and Clara Chen, XNode’s Innovation Lead, to get their thoughts on the importance of bridging global innovation, the potential for startups in Singapore and the ecosystem in China to mutually advance together as a whole, and how e27’s community and expertise have helped XNode to achieve their desired outcomes.

Also read: ‘Asia Pacific is rich in innovation’: Airbus Ventures Partner Lewis Pinault

How e27’s community supported XNode in its China-Singapore Innovation Launchpad and helped achieve its objective

On working with e27, Chen shared that “e27’s coverage about our Launchpad helped us reach far more people than we might realise; it is a nice complement to our own community-building efforts and collectively, the continued visibility keeps our brand in the innovation ecosystem’s eye and reinforces the message that we are here to support the Singapore ecosystem for the long haul.”  Apart from capitalising on XNode’s existing community members, the Launchpad also tapped onto e27’s ecosystem of startups, investors and partners to attract relevant stakeholders to participate in the inaugural accelerator program in 2019.

Chen further added that the campaign with e27 “gave the XNode brand a personality and helped to tell our story to the right audience. After close to a year, our content is still being discovered by audiences new to the e27 community and continues to earn organic traffic.”

The importance of bridging global innovation and how accelerators like XNode are navigating the new business landscape in fulfilling their mission

Even amidst these times of crisis, XNode’s mission to build the world’s leading engine for innovation and to bridge China to the rest of the world remains the same.

Eliens pointed out, however, that there are definitely several firms including early-stage technology companies that are now more cautious in executing their global expansion plans. “In particular, a few companies with whom we already reached an agreement to help expand their business into China decided to hold back and wait for the right timing to do so,” he revealed.

Nonetheless, Eliens firmly believes that the marriage of business and innovation is a global necessity and startups and innovation ecosystems will naturally gravitate towards the geographies where opportunities are the most significant.

On future opportunities in the space of innovation in China and the rest of the world

There are growing trends both in China and in other parts of the world where we start to see governments stepping up to revive economic growth through innovation. 

Eliens posits, “from that angle, we see a plethora of opportunities in areas such as Smart City, Smart Manufacturing, and Sustainable Development Trends including climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.”

“But this will depend on the ability of companies to take advantage of the new industrial revolution and to overcome growing economic nationalism, as sustainable development depends on a global policy climate that remains conducive to cross-border investment.”

Key advice for founders who are planning to internationalise their business into markets like China

“I certainly believe there is great potential for startups in Singapore and the ecosystem in China to mutually advance in the long-term”, Eliens begins. 

China remains as one of the largest growth engines globally during the pandemic and the country is extremely hungry to spur innovation by fostering collaborations externally. In this regard, since startups from Singapore are global natives and easily adapt and localise from the get-go, they are perfectly positioned to play an important role.

In order to become successful in a vast ultra-competitive market like China, Eliens advises startups and companies not to underestimate the amount of localisation that is required across all angles including product, business model and communication style. He also advises startups to have a long-term vision and mission and be willing to invest in their business expansion for an extended period before they can even draw any meaningful conclusions from their expansion strategies. 

For Eliens, some of the critical characteristics of these companies include “having a very differentiated value proposition, some experience in the China market and the humility and willingness to listen and change”. With that, founders would have a better chance of flourishing in this competitive market.

Carrying such a positive outlook on their bold initiative in the region, XNode has tapped the right partners to complement their objectives. “The campaign with e27,” Chen shares, “was the catalyst to our community-building efforts in Singapore. It connected XNode with hundreds of startups and scale-ups, and was the bridge to future partners and talents within the ecosystem.”

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XNode recently worked with e27 for a campaign to tap into e27’s network of startups and reach out to a wider targeted audience. We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

Apart from the above, e27 also has the expertise on co-organising accelerator programs. Some of our recent notable projects include the Facebook Community Accelerator Program, Vision Program with Science & Technology Policy Research and Information Center (STPI) and Smart Zholy Program with the Kazakhstan Government. Find out more by contacting our open innovation team at dustin@e27.co or bocheng@e27.co and let us help you to achieve your desired goals.

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