More and more companies are keeping a close eye on their employees. In March 2020, searches for employee monitoring software shot up by 75% compared to the previous year. This trend continued in 2021 and 2022, mostly because of the shift to remote and hybrid work during the pandemic. A survey by Microsoft in 2022 found that a whopping 85% of bosses had trouble believing their remote workers were working.
Startups that make software for tracking employee work have been doing well because of this trend. One of these startups, called Erudit, just raised a significant $10 million in a funding round. Investors like Conexo Ventures, Athos Capital, Ignia Partners, True Blue Partners, and Fondo Bolsa Social led this funding round.
Erudit is unique because it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to watch over employees and gather data on things like turnover risk and job burnout. It connects to tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom that companies already use to get insights into what's happening in the organization. Then, it uses AI to analyze this data and give scores for things like "alignment," "autonomy," "engagement," and "satisfaction."
The company's co-founder, Alejandro Agenjo, says Erudit can help companies make better decisions based on real-time data without disrupting the workflow. He also mentions that it avoids biases that can happen with traditional surveys.
However, there are privacy concerns. Erudit says it anonymizes the data it collects from employee chats, but some people might still feel uncomfortable with the idea of software reading their private messages.
A 2021 survey found that many employees worry about their employers spying on their communications, with over half of them feeling stressed and anxious about it. Erudit does allow companies to exclude specific employees or teams from monitoring, but this decision is left up to the company administrators.
There are also questions about whether Erudit's AI understands how people from different backgrounds and cultures express themselves in text. Some AI models have been found to have biases in how they interpret messages.
Another concern is what happens if someone makes a mistake in a message. For example, if a colleague sends an angry message and then deletes it later, it's unclear how Erudit would handle this.
Even if Erudit works perfectly, there's still a concern about how managers will use the data. Will they unfairly punish teams that Erudit flags as "unengaged" or "misaligned"? What about managers who have consistently low employee satisfaction scores through no fault of their own?
Erudit has tried to address these concerns by explaining in a blog post that it's just a tool and can be used for good or bad purposes. However, not everyone might agree with that perspective.
Despite these concerns, Erudit has no trouble finding customers. Many businesses use its platform, and the company plans to grow its team in the coming months, especially in areas like customer support, customer success, and sales.
Agenjo believes that Erudit is at the forefront of helping companies optimize their processes and make better decisions using the data they already have.
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