In the Age of Technology, People Matter, Too

2010-09-17 --- While many quick-service operators stick to the old-fashioned hiring and employee management method---piles of paper---the president of an upstart company, PeopleMatter, thinks its new product will "revolutionize" the way the industry views talent management and will do away with those piles.

PeopleMatter president and CEO Nate DaPore launched the company in 2009 when he says he realized that companies outside of Fortune 500--type juggernauts had no efficient talent management system at their disposal.

"I said, 'I'm going to build a platform that really is going to be very different, that is going to speak to those employees that are in service verticals, and really reconnect the employee and employer," DaPore says.

The first roll out of the PeopleMatter system, released Tuesday at a special launching event in the company's headquarters of Charleston, South Carolina, is PeopleMatter Hire.

The Hire tool is a software as a service module---accessible on any technology with a Web browser, including the iPad---that helps companies look for talent; allows interested applicants to apply; matches specific personality and loyalty traits in potential hires to the brand; completes background checks; and processes available tax credits, among other things.

"We really help the employer find great talent that matches the DNA of their business," DaPore says.

Such a tool is especially critical today, DaPore says, because of the state of the American job market. He says PeopleMatter Hire helps operators weed out the potential field of employees to find "the diamonds in the rough."

"These operators are getting swamped with tons and tons of candidates that are looking for jobs and they're getting candidates that they never dreamed they would have access to before because of the talent that's available on the marketplace," he says.

The tax credit function of Hire is the first of its kind, DaPore says. He says operators nationwide miss out on billions of dollars in potential tax credits because they either don't know credits are available or they don't pursue them.

While the Hire tool is PeopleMatter's B2B element, DaPore says the company also plans to roll out a B2C---business to customer---element.

In the spring, PeopleMatter will launch a scheduling and learning component for employees that will be interactive. Later, the company will release a reward and recognition program that lets employees build their own profiles and work toward certain merit badges, similar to Foursquare.

"With the entire platform in place, the operator will have a really innovative way to build that culture, to interact with those employees, to keep them engaged in what they're needing to do in the workplace, and really help them to develop and ignite their passion," DaPore says.

And in an age where social media is king and more technology-savvy employees are entering the workplace, DaPore says the fact that the PeopleMatter system requires no piles of paper is a big leg up.

"When an employee applies for a job, if their first interaction with that brand is a piece of paper, which is very static, not engaging, not informative, it doesn't really set a good precedent for what you want to build and what you want to inspire that employee with," he says.