How AhoyConnect humanises their People processes using Humaans

AhoyConnect is a community data intelligence tool that helps organisations unlock the value of their customer relationships and community by connecting their data and insights in one powerful platform.

Community and relationship-building are at the heart of AhoyConnect’s product offering  — and as a remote-first organisation, they’re also critical building blocks for their employee experience and culture too.

After a successful seed round, AhoyConnect is poised for huge growth over the coming year. Creating a great employee experience relies on having the right processes and tooling in place. That’s when they found Humaans.

Humaans has enabled us to humanise our People processes. We have more of an insight into our people from day one — and our employees are really living our values through our processes.

— Becky Lee Roche, Head of Talent, AhoyConnect

AhoyConnect at a glance

• Headquarters: Remote-first, with employees across 10+ countries globally
• Sector: Community data intelligence
• HR tech stack: Humaans, Greenhouse, Hofy, Bonusly, Notion, Deel, Brex.com, Slack

Key results

• 60% reduction in manual admin
• 50% reduction in onboarding setup time
• 100% integration of existing HR tech stack
• Increased insight into the employee experience

Navigating remote-first complexity while building a great place to work

“When I joined AhoyConnect, we didn’t have much in the way of a People function,” Becky says. “Most of what we did have was centred around spreadsheets or built in Notion. We’re remote-first, so we have an added layer of complexity in terms of the way we hire and approach our culture."

“Collating critical employee documentation, for example, took a lot of time, because we had to collect data from emails, then update it manually in a spreadsheet. We had about ten different touchpoints for storing that information — it wasn’t working.”

We realised that if we wanted to hire great people and retain them, we needed to make sure that we were creating a great place to work. We needed better People processes to support that goal.

Becky knew that AhoyConnect’s existing processes couldn’t scale with their level of complexity or long-term growth plan. She and her team were spending much of their time doing manual admin tasks, with two hours a week spent solely on tracking employee PTO across visible company channels. It was difficult to see what was going on at an organisational level.

“In an early startup, you’re often trying to build the plane as you’re flying it,” she laughs. “We quickly realised that if we wanted to hire great people and retain them, we needed to make sure that we were creating a great place to work. We needed better People processes in place to support that goal.

“As a remote business, it became hugely apparent that we needed better processes around onboarding and employee data to create a great employee experience. Our existing data processes were preventing visibility. Our existing onboarding process wasn’t giving new joiners much insight into us — or us into them.”

A responsive, remote-friendly HRIS to uplevel People processes and visibility

When evaluating a new tool, Becky’s key criteria were to reduce her team’s admin burden, increase visibility across the whole organisation, and help her provide a great experience to employees. It also needed to flex with the needs of a growing remote-first organisation.

AhoyConnect initially tried an all-in-one solution: “We realised quite quickly that it wasn’t suitable for what we needed. The user interface was clunky, and it didn’t integrate with any tools. We couldn’t upload basic employee documents or customise our workflows. It didn’t feel like it was designed for a remote-first business.”

Our previous solution didn’t feel like it was designed for a remote-first business. Humaans has been such a responsive partner as we build our People processes and scale our organisation.

Next, they looked for an all-together solution that could act as a core layer for their employee data, and integrate with their existing HR tech stack to drive better visibility. They weren’t looking for just any supplier either — they wanted to work with a company that was responsive to their unique and evolving needs.

“It was super important to us to work with a company that was receptive to our evolving needs as a remote-first organisation,” says Becky. “Humaans has been such a responsive partner as we build our People processes and scale our organisation. We always feel that our feedback is valued and heard. Our implementation and employee adoption process was so lightweight. The Humaans dashboard is so clean.”

Empowering employees remotely with values-driven processes

Humaans has quickly become a key component of AhoyConnect’s HR tech stack, creating whole-organisation visibility that keeps everyone aligned on everything from critical employee data and onboarding processes to PTO and bank holidays. And more importantly, there are far fewer spreadsheets on the loose.

“Humaans’ biggest value for us is how it drives day-to-day visibility across our organisation,” Becky says. “All of our employee data is centralised, so we’re now able to house all our salary data, personal data, and other backend processes in one place. We can track new hires, stay on top of onboarding tasks and loop in other stakeholders.

“We can also see all of the local public holidays and PTO booked for our employees across ten different countries, because everything is reflected automatically in a shared calendar. That’s been huge for us — it’s such a timesaver.”

Humaans has really levelled up our onboarding experience. Right from day one, our employees feel empowered to take ownership for their role and function.

Implementing Humaans has meant Becky and her team have reduced their manual admin time by 62%. Onboarding setup time has been cut by 50%. Meanwhile, automated workflows and integrations with market-leading products mean Becky and her team have more free time to do more important things, like building a great culture and employee experience.

“Humaans has really levelled up our onboarding experience,” Becky says. “We’re using the customisable employee information fields to add a bit of fun into our process, like asking people what their favourite snacks are.

“One of our company values is about creating ownership, and so we try to reflect that right from day one with a self-boarding workflow in the platform. Right from day one, our employees feel empowered to take ownership for their role and function.

“Humaans has enabled us to humanise our People processes. It enables us to get more of an insight into our people from day one — and it means our employees are really living our values through our processes.”

---

Simplify your people operations today. Book a free demo to learn how.