Ram Manjeri, Kiran Kuchimanchi and Sirisha Peyyeti through their careers of building digital practices for companies, noticed that while there is a lot of demand for digital services, the supply is very low. Moreover, with technology rapidly changing each day, companies too are changing rapidly. Work culture is changing.
And as a result, Ram says, there is a lot of fitment problems, lot of wrong hires at the senior level.
“So that is something that really got us thinking, can Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning really help bridge the gap for firing and then employing. And we believe that is possible and we have validated that with a few HR experts. They believe that this problem exists. Now the idea is to figure out how to solve it,” he adds.
Ram and his team are working on using computer vision, along with AI and ML in the human capital management space. What this means is, “So today there are already enough platforms out there that help you in evaluating people and so on. But we want to use a lot of AI and ML making the evaluation much more person driven. Based on your response, your body language, the tone of your voice, we can make the evaluation. We want this to happen not just at the functional level or the behavioural level, but at a cultural level,” Ram says.
Ram says his belief is that an employee might be behaviourally and functionally fit for a company, they must be a cultural fit for the company as well.
And while there are other startups using augmented reality and virtual reality to help companies hire the right candidates, Ram says that with computer vision, a lot more components and factorscome into play.
“Using the tone of your voice, body movement, your eyeball movement, I can understand the answers you give. I ask a question and I read all these parameters and then I decide what is the next question to be asked. So depending on how you respond, I should be able to ask the next right question. That will not force fit me into what role you are looking at but ideally find the right role for me. So, there is a big difference. If I get the right role, I will be much more engaged and less likely to leave the company,” he adds.
Ram says that the way companies are hiring is set to change. “What more and more companies are going to do is find the right role for that person. It won't be that I have this role, are you a fit or not? Even in our company what we are trying to do is, if we find a good person, we try to see how we can leverage that person's skills. So, finding the right role for the right person. Our technology will aid in both. One is, if you have a position you will find out if that person is a fit or not. At the same time, if you find a good candidate, can you figure out what kind of role will keep the person most happy and fit that person into that,” Ram says.
“A person might be behaviourally and functionally fit for Google or Microsoft. But culturally where is he or she a better fit? We want to reach that level so that the attrition problem or the disengagement problem is much lesser,” he adds.
At this point, Roundsqr, which is the startup they founded, has the basic technology component and the intellectual property (IP) in place. “We are working with a couple of experts in the HR field to help us validate all our ideas. So, in about two three months we will identify two three clients in that space to work with,” he adds. Roundsqr is currently working out of Hyderabad-based startup engine T-Hub and is a part of its Lab32 program.
The ultimate goal is to reduce attrition, disengagement and keep the workforce motivated.
Earnings revenues
And while Roundsqr works on solidifying and evolving this solution into a final product, it is also offering data and analytics services to companies to fund the IP building.
The aim is to get its solution up and running in the next 18 months. While data and analytics services will drive revenues for now, Ram says the long-term goal is to generatw a major share of Roundsqr’s revenues through its human capital management solution.