Robin Daniels and Andy Roberts with Zensai

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Welcome to the Industrial Talk podcast with Scott McKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots and let's go.

All right. Once again, welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for joining. As I bang around, I feel like I'm dropping things on the desk and you can hear it. I'm trying to be quiet. I'm not succeeding at that. I'm moving things around as we speak. You have joined the number one industrial related podcast in the universe that celebrates you industrial professionals all around the world. I say it all the time. Yes, you are bold, brave. You dare greatly. You're changing lives. You are changing the world. This is a continuation of a webinar series. No, sorry. Check that webcast. I don't like to call them webinars, I like to call them webcasts. Sometimes it slips out and I'm not really happy with it. I'm not very proud of myself. This is a webcast and we're going to be kicking, kicking the tires on a product from Zinsei and it is called the Human Success Platform. And we're going to be featuring two gents, Robin Daniels and Andy Roberts, which is interesting when you think about their names. They seem like two first. Both of them have two first names except for Daniels. Could be Daniel. Let's get cracking with the conversation. I digress. I was looking at that. It was like, hey, let's check that out. Sort of first name. Ish for both first and last name. So you know, it's going to be a rocking show. Why wouldn't it be? We're talking about, talking about a solution, a platform that ensures that your, your valuable assets, the employees are on the same page, rowing in the same direction, achieving the same dreams that are for the company and without the drama. There's no drama in this thing. You'll see when you look at it because this is a great video one. This is a, this is. You go out to the video, you can see them sort of take that test drive and move around and click and do this and run this sort of use case. And so it's pretty doggone good. I liked it. I'm all, I'm all into making the, your valuable assets smarter, stronger, faster. Steve Austin them. That's what I would do. Yeah, it's, it's important. Especially now when you have this, this world that's changing so drastically and so fast. It's I'm getting whiplash trying to keep up with all of the innovation that's taking place out there in the industry. So that's. That's. That's me. Oh. Side note. Probably the most important side note in the. In my life. In my life, I tell you. Side note, I'm a grandfather. I am a grandfather. For the first time, we have a new baby girl in the family. I am absolutely tickled. Tickled pink. You can't believe how excited I am. So, anyway, there she is. She is amazing. She's. She. She's a wonder. Anyway, that I'm excited about that. All right, Onto another piece of business. And if you have a podcast, you should think about it. If you don't have one, if you should think about it, it is an important platform for your digital marketing strategy. It opens doors where doors are not open. It opens up conversations where conversations don't happen. It is that powerful. You need to do that. And if you have a podcast and you want to be able to amplify that and moving on all over the place, you need to put it out on Industrial Talk. That's what we're here for. We're here for you. We want you to succeed. Yeah, you can put that on a bumper sticker. Why not have it grab it out on a bumper sticker? And if you have technology, just like the two gents with Zinsei, if you have a technology, you want to feature it and we want to kick that tire and you want to just talk about it. Yep, Industrial Talk is here for you. And then finally, if you're saying, scott, I don't have a podcast, Scott, I don't have technology, which you should. Something. But I have a story to tell, and I want to amplify that. Go out to Industrial Talk. You know why? Because all of our voices are important for just helping companies succeed. And we do that. That's why it's important to the economy, it's important to people, it's important to communities, important to families. It's important. So we want you to succeed. Okay. Now that I got my granddaughter taken care of, I've got the plug for the industrial taught platform, which you need to do. Let's get on with the conversation. Robin and Andy. Zinsei, we are talking specifically about the human success platform, and we're taking. We're kicking the tires. It's. And it. It's pretty good. I. I've got to tell you, I liked it, and I know you will, too. Go out to that. Go out to our YouTube channel, find it and, you know, check it out and then of course, reach out to them and say, I'm interested. So there you go. Enjoy the conversation. Gents, welcome to Industrial Talk. How are you doing today?

Really good, really good, Scott.

Together they're called the gents. I don't always go, Robin and Andy, Robin and Andy and Andy.

That works for me.

Guys. Now Robin's in Wisconsin and he's in the uk and so we get to talk about a wonderful platform, this human success platform. Did I get it right?

You did, yeah.

You can't help but that. I mean, I mean, yeah, I want to be success industry, has to be successful. So this is key to your success industry. You who's ever listening to this, right? Key to the success.

Well, I'll tell you how we, how we came up with this.

Please share.

Yeah, I mean, so I'm the, I'm Robin Daniels, I'm the Chief Business Officer at Sensei. The reason we came up with this is very simple. When you look at all the data in the market and you've probably seen these stats Scots and they drive me kind of crazy. It says that 70 of people want to quit their jobs, right? It's like whether that's from Gallup or Forbes or hbr, it's so high. Anyway, you know what it's been that way for in 23, 22, 21, 20? It's been that way for a long time. We've been very high. And when you dig deep into why people actually want to quit their jobs, it's because they feel stuck. They feel nobody's investing in them, nobody's giving them the skills, tools, knowledge they need to be successful, not just today, but also in the future. So they feel stuck. They feel kind of this sense of discontent. And I want to be the company that tries to fight against this. And that's why I'm here with Andy, who's our head of products. So basically, the human success platform, we think of it as that old school hr. You know, HR is really about treating people as resources. That's why it's called human resources. It's kind of cold, outdated term. We believe that the future is around treating people as humans with infinite potential if you invest in them the right way. And I can tell you, I mean, I know you've taken a company public, Scott, you've had lots of successes. I am, I've had so much. I've had success in my life, honestly, because so many people have invested in me and giving me the skills, tools and knowledge I need to be successful. Mentors, coaches, teachers, parents, bosses, you name it. And I want to be the platform that does the same for everybody else so people can show up at work and have purpose and joy and meaning so they feel successful. And of course, if they do that, guess who will succeed? The companies that they work for will be more successful.

It's not rocket science.

I get it. At its core of 70% high misery factor out there.

Exactly. It's shocking. It's shocking, right? Do you think, Let me ask you, Scott, do you think those people are doing the best work of their life, those 70%? No.

Exactly. I mean.

Don'T you want to live in a world where most people are motivated, excited to show up to work? Because if we want to, I mean, think about what a company is. A company, all a company is. It's a group of people trying to solve challenges. Sometimes we're a small daily challenge, or sometimes there are big challenges. Oh, we got to enter a new market, launch a new product, whatever it is. And even society, if you bring it up a level even further, like some of these challenges we have inside, if you want to solve them, we need people to show up every day and do the best work of their life. So that's what we're aiming for.

Yeah, I have a lot of questions. Rapid fire question session. Give us a background into you, Andy.

Yeah. So I am evp, a product. So as Robin says, I look after the product direction, the strategy and the delivery around that. In my previous role, I was founder CEO of a company called Weekly 10, which is actually the, the starting point really of performance and engagement within the Zenai human success platform. And we've spent the last 18 months bringing those products together into one seamless, one seamless environment. Because previously. And things are changing and we're leading that change is that you typically had learning market over here and you had a performance market over here and engagement market over here. But fundamentally for the, for the employee, for the human, in this story, it's important that these are all combined together into one seamless experience. And that's really driven the human success platform forward.

So how do I as a company recognize that one, I need to retain individuals to embrace the fact that 70% of my workforce is really miserable and not engaged. How do you approach this user case where I'm, I'm just. I don't. How do you, Robin, how do you approach. I don't even know and create trust within my organization that I'm going to follow through and it makes sense And I'm going to be all energized and, and geared and focused and tip of the sword type stuff.

Well, well, I think Andy can walk us through what it looks like. I'll just give you some philosophical.

Yeah.

Insights into how we think about it. Basically, of course, the idea of human success and people being the best they can be, it's not just. Let me be clear, it's not just a platform. You need also the right mindset and leadership and culture. But at some point you also do need the right tools to be able to implement that. And that's, of course, where we as a company come in. But we're not naive enough to think that tool alone will solve this. It's about many more things, but it's really based on three core principles. Number one is people need to learn the skills that they need to be successful in their job today, but also for the future. So that requires an environment of continuous learning, meaning that there's always things that you could be better at, of course, that will make you successful for whatever goals you have today or maybe this year and so on, but also for the next three to five years. Because what, what is a CEO thinking? They're thinking three to five years ahead.

Right.

That's usually what executives. That's number one.

That's what the Internet says. That's a lot of CEOs are thinking tactical. Of course.

Of course.

You're right.

You're right. So number one is that this idea of continuous learning, number two is to create a high performance culture and a high performance environment and team. You need to have clarity around what people are working on, just at the individual level, at the team level, at the company level. So we also have a performance management or goal setting platform that allows an individual or team or company to set goals per quarter, per year, whatever it is. It could be okrs, it could be key KPIs, and then making sure that, that you're tracking towards them. Because how are you going to know if you're going to achieve greatness or feel momentum for your company or in your life if you don't even know what you're aiming for in the first place? So we give that clarity. Clarity is kind of a core component of our platform and that allows you to really understand, am I moving towards the right direction? Am I working on the right things to make a big difference? And then number three is this idea of making sure that people are deeply engaged in the work that they're doing and the team that they're working With So the way that they show up every single day is a net positive for themselves, but also to people around them. We've all had people in our companies. I'm sure you have too, Scott, where you look at those people like that person showing up with energy, excitement, conviction. Everybody wants to work with that person. Right, because they're just like a netball. And our platform aims to ensure, through weekly check ins, much more real time conversations with your manager, high fiving each other in your company that you have that sense of belonging and purpose that means that you show up. The sense that I matter for the work I do matters for not just the company, but for the team. I'm part of something bigger than myself that will lead you to doing great work and being motivated every single day. So those are the kind of three core pillars. So this is where the platform comes in. Andy can then of course show that. But we've tracked that through the platform. We have this concept that we call a weekly check in. It's supposed to take a few minutes. This is where Andy's company was created on this kind of core fact. So, for example, in my team I have four people who report directly to me. I have a team of maybe around 50 people. Every week, my team, they check in and they say what's working well, what's not working so well, who they want to high five and how they're doing on a scale of one to 10. And each of those kind of questions give me so much insight into are they working on the right thing? And instead of me finding out at the end of the year, crap, this person wasn't working on the right thing. I can go and course correct. It becomes much more of a we're in this together. Hey Thomas, I see you've been struggling, let me help you. Course correct, focus on the right things and so on. I can also see how they're working, how Thomas is working correctly with the rest of the team, not just my team, but across the company, because I can see the things that are going back and forth between him and other people. Are they high fiving each other? Are they giving each other props with great work and collaboration and communication and so on. Then finally, of course, it really allows me to have my finger on the pulse around things that we can optimize either on the individual level or the team level and so on. So our, our platform aims to give you all that information so you can be the best you can be, but also so the managers can be the best that they can be every day so, Andy, I don't know if you want to maybe kick this off and show a little bit of this, but I think this is, this is basically the kind of core philosophy behind this.

Where the, the off ramp happens right here, the visual off ramps. So it's like, okay, here we go. Let's get into the system.

It's just easier to show you a little bit about what it is that we're talking about.

Yeah, yeah. Robin is just sort of. I mean, I have tears in my eyes. I'm just so excited about seeing this.

Particular tool exactly the reaction we're aiming for.

Scott, let's get chirpy on it.

Andy, there you go. Wow, it's there. Yeah. As Robin said, I mean, the key aspect, this is providing the tools to, obviously there's a philosophy behind it, but it's also providing the tools to everybody in the organization, whether that's an employee or whether it's a manager, to do the best work of their life and reach their full potential in the organization. So the point of the software is all about making sure that we give the nudges at the right time, that we provide managers, as Robin said there, the right insights at the right time to take action. Because a lot of the things that we encourage within the product may well be best practice, but they're quite hard to implement often. So weekly check in and a regular one to one is common best practice. But ultimately, without a process in the system to be able to support that, it becomes very difficult. So really, the platform is all about making sure that it's not a big heavyweight activity to be able to maintain or to be able to use, but it's just about the right nudges at the right time.

I have to interrupt here just real quick. When does this become a little, you know, I'm Scott McKenzie. I'm banging away at this computer. I'm doing my stuff, I know my goals, I understand where they all fit in. And when does it become. I'm, I'm getting tired of being nudged, dude. How do you, how do you, how do you manage the nudging? And it doesn't become, oh, God, do I have to do this now?

1, 100%. And, and that is, that is the balance that we always have to play in product, is that we have to do enough to create action, particularly around, you know, managers. That the thing with managers, that 90% of people managers in organizations didn't go into their role or their job to become people managers. They, they typically have been promoted to a certain level in that organization. And maybe they're, they've been an expert in a certain area. And although you do of course get individual contributors within organizations, it's still the default path that you end up managing people as you become more senior in the organization. So many of these people aren't used to or aren't really trained or have experience or knowledge around coaching and managing people and leading people in organizations. So often our nudges are focused around just providing that right nudge, that right insight at the right time. And one way we do this is we deliver the platform where people work. So you'll see the screen that I'm sharing here. Yeah, sharing a teams window. Okay, so this is Microsoft Teams and the entire platform is built on the Microsoft ecosystem and platform. So our approach is very much that nobody wants more software on the day to day, they want less.

I'm dealing with a software problem right now and I'm like, I don't like it. I don't like it. Exactly.

You're not alone.

You're not alone.

Yeah, exactly. Why change management, how you implement it. It's a big, it's a big thing. So actually many of our customers end up reducing their software estate because they're able to consolidate in the Microsoft platform. Now you of course can access this on mobile, you can access it on web, but the vast majority of our customers access this through either Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook or SharePoint. And the reason they do that is because it's in what we call the flow of work. So actually everybody or every organization that uses teams for chats and calling and organizational things essentially have that open already. So a nudge is no longer an email being added to your, to your list. It's actually a chat notification or it's a quick nudge within the platform when you're there to just remind you that maybe you have something mandatory to do or you need to provide some feedback to your.

It's all automated from a workflow perspective. It's like, you know, yeah, I don't have to be thinking, okay, it's time to nudge.

This is also, I'll just chime in here. This is also where there's an interesting generational divide actually. If we did some research and asked when do you want to have feedback or maybe some information about your performance, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. And the older generation wants it maybe like every quarter, even every year. And the younger generation, the new generation wants really like feedback every week, ideally maybe monthly is by far the data show that. And it's no surprise. If you're early in your career, you want to know what you should be doing to optimize and learn and grow your skills and so on. And so there's this in terms of nudging. So it depends on. I think some people will find it super helpful because it's like it's reminding me, oh, take this course, connect with this person, learn this skill, and so on. And others, if you're maybe more senior, might find it a little much. Right. Like you don't need the same level of prompting. But the new generation and the ones coming into the workforce, they absolutely want that coaching and mentorship on a much more daily or weekly basis.

Interesting.

Yeah. And I think, I think the stat is actually twice as many Millennial. The percentage is twice as many Millennials expect feedback at least once per week on their performance compared to Gen X's. So it's a big move. And Gen Z is just another, you.

Know, it also puts a lot of burden actually on the managers coming back to that point. And I mean, because what if you're not trained to give feedback? What part of our platform is. We use AI to train a manager how to respond. If, let's say one of my employees is struggling with something and I can see that in their weekly check in, then we can use AI to coach me what kind of tone I should have. Empathetic, compassionate, maybe a little bit more strict, maybe a little bit more direct and so on. Right. With people, it's not going to do it for me because we're not trying to replace the human, but teach me the skill if I'm a new manager, of how to actually get the most out of my people by responding in the correct way.

100%.

Yeah.

So the screen you can see at the moment is actually the manager's overview of the employees training. And they can see where they're up to both in their developmental activity as well as from compliance. Because, of course, although compliance maybe is not as exciting as career development, it's critical to your role as well. So a combination within the learning element of the platform between, between compliance and development and basically taking people on a journey from where their skills are today to where they want to get to in the future. And we take them through that journey. Robin already touched on a couple of items there around the check in and the cadence behind that. And one thing we talked about in terms of nudges, well, what we also do is we build habits within the product. Because if you build a habit, people don't need to be nudged. So the weekly check in is, is a key example of that. And I'll, maybe I'll go in and quickly show you what we're talking about when we talk.

Yeah, please.

The weekly check in is, as Robin said, is all about going in and reflecting on how things have gone well this week, maybe where you've had challenges. Okay. And if we go in and have a look at a typical weekly check in, this is typically what it looks like. So again, of course it's flexible, but we really recommend that actually a weekly check in is more about having reflective time and not responding to a quiz or a survey. Because, you know, most employees are kind of fed up of just giving their data to organizations. So organizations can, can run a report on engagement or report on performance. This is about real conversation. So this is about the ability for employees to reflect, think and provide feedback, but also reflections. So typically they'll be asked, what have you achieved this week? What blockers or issues have you experienced? And as Robin said, when the managers are reviewing that, we use AI to not answer the question for them, but provide them insights on the things they might want to think about when they're, when they're going to respond. And then one of the key aspects is this peer to peer recognition and feedback. So you can just mention somebody as you would on social media and give them some kudos as you're doing that reflection. We really recommend that this is a weekly process where people reflect weekly and then of course they work asynchronously. So if your manager's away on vacation for two weeks, you've still got your check in, you don't need to wait for your next one to one. So you capture the cadence through the, through the whole year.

So this particular, that's me, I'm, let's say I'm the human person and I answer those questions. What did I do this week on a weekly basis?

Every employee. Yeah. Does that.

That's right. So the manager could be gone or whatever doing other manager thing. And this always happens.

Yeah, exactly.

And if you scroll up right. Just before you get there, Andy. And so Scott, what's interesting here is over time, if you imagine this meant to be quick, you're not supposed to write a long essay. It's a few key bullet points. But then when it comes to the end of the year and you're doing a summary, guess what? AI can just go in and summarize, hey, this is what Scott has achieved all year without you having to go through your calendar. Try to think about all the stuff that you worked on and the question around, have any colleagues done a great job? This is such a question that leads to a lot of sense of belonging, especially in this environment where everyone's remote or hybrid. A lot of people are working from home. So oftentimes it leads to isolation or loneliness. And this when you start seeing in the first, I'll tell you in the first week that we started using this in our own company, about 200 people, we had over 1500 kudos flying between people. And it just makes you feel like when you see those kudos come in on a Friday afternoon to yourself, like, oh, you know, Joe over here in the us Susan in Australia really cared about this thing that I helped her with. It becomes this sense that wow, I matter. You know, there's a sense of belonging and like people care about the work that I do. It's not just sitting there isolated by yourself and it really makes you feel like, wow, the retention goes up because of that, the feeling of belonging goes up. So it's a very powerful, even though it's a simple question, it's a very powerful question that drives that sense in a company.

It's also a great example of really the approach within the platform around things being real. So there's a lot of platforms out there which, which you can buy off the shelf, which will do recognition. And often the recognition is, is gamified and it's, it's made that there is a reward or you've got so many tokens you can give away, for example, or, or you know, earn rewards, whether it's a monetary reward, you know, like a voucher or something else. But this is not about that. This isn't about a league table. This is actually about real people providing real thanks and providing recognition to people. And that's really that, that is the scalable and the long term way of making people feel valued in the organization is, is actually having those real conversations. I much rather that actually somebody appreciated something I've done rather than, you know, I get voted employee of the month, for example. So we see this as more real. And this is where engagement happens in organizations. Engagement doesn't happen in the boardroom. It happens between peers and it happens between employees and managers in the organization. So it's not about measuring that engagement once a year via a survey. It's actually impacting it by having a culture where it's easy to be able to thank people in this way and it's easy to be able to, you know, to support your peers. And support your employees as well.

So two questions. Let's say I miss my weekly, you know, summary. Do I get a nudge?

You do, but not too many. So the, and this is, this is something, it's very, very interesting point you make because when we first Launched Check Ins 2018, it was the first part of the what is now performing Engage product. The question always came is the weekly check in mandatory? Should we be forcing people to do this? And the question has always been no. It's there as a tool for the employee and it can't be something that people are forced to do. There are many benefits of doing it. And you can never expect 100% check in rate in an organization. Anything over 75% is really, you know, really healthy. And some weeks some people will miss them and that's fine. Of course, if somebody's never checking in, then that's, you know, maybe it's a touch point and it's a, it's a discussion point for the manager to have and they can see that that's the case and they can kind of get, get a good understanding of, of why they don't find it useful. But it is there as a, as a tool for the employee to reflect and provide feedback. So we encourage people to use it, but it's not mandatory. So as I said, we always would get that question and we actually conscientiously within the product changed the terminology from overdue to not submitted. And we changed it from red to amber because it's actually more, well, actually to gray. Amber was the overdue previously. And this is really about the fact that this is a tool, not something that you've got to tick off every week. And that's the approach that was very much taken.

These check ins, are they aligned with the overall goal that you establish at the beginning of the year? So that I know I'm on track.

Yeah. So this is very, very qualitative in the fact that when you're reflecting here on these questions and it should be a relatively expansive open ended question, but what you will notice, and you can also include kind of pulse type questions rather than running surveys as well. They will, you can rotate those through at different times of the year. But what you'll also note is that any goals that have been set automatically feed into the check in as well. And again, one of the big issues with traditional forms of performance management is that you'll set objectives at the beginning of the year with, you know, with the best of intentions. But as soon as you put it in some system and then you're not touching that system for another six or 12 months, you're never going to go and actually progress those objectives or those, those goals. So the idea here is that when you set goals or OKRs at the right time, actually we resurface them. And it's not about me providing an update to these, but if I do have an update, I can go in and I can make that update and I can provide a comment if I want, I can go in, I can manage it and add new goals if I want. I can do various things around these. But this is actually a great way, just providing that visibility is a great way of just reminding people that these were the objectives that you set. Because often you'll go into a week and you know, we all have those weeks where we feel like we've not maybe achieved what we set out to do and we've got maybe a bit stuck into the business as usual or firefighting. And actually when you reflect on your goals, you'll realize actually maybe next couple of weeks I need to allocate a bit more time to thinking on these strategic goals. And, and it allows people to, to re baseline and not get too far away. As you said, you know, you've got that goal at the beginning of the year, not to get too far away from, from where you, that the path that you're, you're taking.

Yeah. Is there enough flexibility within the platform to adjust? Because it's one thing to have goals in the beginning, but then life happens and market changes and things just, you know, whatever impact. How dynamic can these goals and in line align with the individuals?

Yeah, 100%. So you'll, you'll see here I've just jumped into the, the OKR screen and I think as Robin said, there are different. You can use okrs, you can use goals, you can use a combination of these.

What does OKR stand for?

Ah, so sorry, okrs. Objectives and Key Results. So objectives and Key results, just a slightly different structure really to smart goals. They tend to be focused more on output rather than input or activity. But they essentially consist of an objective which is your overall aim, which is relatively qualitative. And then you have basically a number of key results which are quantitative. So they are a little bit more like KPIs. So you may have an objective which is become the best company in the world. And then your key results will be how you measure whether you achieve that. Which could be, for example, I don't know, be number one on Forbes or, you know, and that that would be a good way of measuring your progress towards that overall objective. So that's what an okr. An OKR does. What you will see to answer the question on flexibility is you can see, you can just go in and edit a goal at any point in time. And the key thing with goals and okrs in the system, again, we don't have these big gated points in time. Yes, people are typically going to set goals as part of maybe their, their, their performance conversation or the development conversation, but you could be able to set a goal or edit a goal at any point during the year because businesses are agile. And so should we be when we're, when we're prioritizing what we do. And that's how you should look at goals and okrs. They're, they're not that these are all the things we need to do. It's actually these are the things that are most important and they really help with prioritization. And again, coming back to Robin's point about alignment, it's all about making sure that we're working on the right things in the right order at the right time. And not only does that deliver for the business, but it also means we're much more engaged because the work we do is actually making a difference to the organization. That's what we all want. When we're working in an organization, we want to contribute to its success.

You have to adjust a goal. There must be user preferences for that. I, let's say I'm on the front line and there's these goals that we established as an organization that ensures our success, but then we realize market conditions have changed. I don't have the authority to do it. Somebody else must have it and then be able to communicate those changes to the right people. Is that my looking at it?

Yeah. So you'll see it's relatively simple. And again, it's one of those things where with goals and OKRs, people can overcomplicate these things. And as soon as you overcomplicate them, that's an understatement. You'll end up in a mess and you lose the value of why you're doing them in the first place.

Right. Yeah.

So, so you'll, you'll see here, you know, we've got organization department and personal level. You can have team level as well. But ultimately, yeah, we recommend that organizations will set between 3 and 5 okrs or goals at the organization level you can see here. And then people are able to align to those, those goals or OKRs. They can do that. Either departments could do it or individuals can do it. And our recommendation, the way the system is built is to keep that as simple as possible. If you set more than three goals, we'll say are you sure you want to set more than three goals? Because that's the magic number when you're setting goals or OKRs, keep it short. Often it's much, you know, they always say that it's, it's, it's actually harder to decide what not to do than what to do. And that's what goals is often about. It's about making tough decisions to make sure that these are the most important things. Even though I've got 10 things to do, actually these are the three most important. Let's focus on those.

So the, the question is always going to happen. So I'm a company, I see the value of this particular platform. I want to have my, my people engaged, learning all of the wonderful things that the platform can provide. How quickly does it happen? I mean you come on in and I mean am I looking at a. The Internet says this 18 month implementation or no.

This is the beauty of what Andy was saying is because we're 100% built on Microsoft and we operate within the Microsoft platform, we work within that platform, Teams, SharePoint, you name it. You can literally get this up and running in a few hours if you want to. Most of our customers, they have about 5,000 customers around the world in over 60 countries. I would say they take a few days because they want to be thoughtful about the goals and who has access to them and so on. So you can do it as quickly as a few hours, but most of them take a few days. We're not talking weeks here or months. Definitely not.

Let's shift to training now. This is sort of an LMS type of opportunity as well. How do we, how do you create the curriculum?

Good question.

Yeah. So there are, well essentially you have, this is the, the end user experience. This is what, when you're coming in and you're, you're creating this. So you'll see here I can see, you know, what training I've got. If I've got a team, I'm also going to be able to see what training, what training those guys have got and you can access it all through the, the platform here. So I can go in, for example, this one here I've got Mastering Public Speaking and I can go in and obviously, obviously access, access my training directly. You can self opt into training as well. So whether that's personal development training or something else, you're able to do that very easily in, in the product. So yes, LMS wise, you have all of the access to, to that. To that training. Again, if I click I've got in progress. This is what it looks like once I go into the product itself. And essentially the content and the learning paths that you have is very flexible within the product. You'll see here I'm actually going through and I've got a quiz that I'm going through as part of this. But there would be. Whether it's the actual content of the quiz, you're able to access that directly in the product here. Now.

This is where it comes together so beautifully, Scott, which is very unique. There's the courses that you have to take in a role, right? Oh, you're starting your job as a tech support or you're starting your job as a marketing manager. There's usually courses you have to take maybe for your role, but also just general courses on let's say cyber security, your HR policy, all that stuff. We've all taken those courses before, so usually role specific companies and then of course the kind of courses you want to take because you know it makes you better. But here, tying it back to what Andy showed with the weekly check in. If I can see that somebody on my team is struggling or needs to learn something, let's say they're, they're having some issues with communication between them and some other team members. Well, maybe I can send them on a course on public speaking skills or communication skills or somebody struggling with completing tasks on time. Well, here's a time management course you can take. So it all starts tying in. So it's not just learning in a vacuum, but it's learning tied to you becoming the best that you can be for yourself, but also for the dynamics of the team.

Yeah, here's the heavy lift. Who's responsible for creating that curriculum, that training? Do you guys step in and say, hey, we can do it or hey, there's, I mean it, it's. And, and let's say I'm Scott manufacturer and I have specific, I have specific requirements. Yeah. Is that, are you asking me to do it?

Yes. So basically we do not provide the content. We work with LinkedIn learning. Go one open Sesame Udemy lots of these content platform who have the content, because a lot of content that you will implement in your company, let's say you're in manufacturing, will be standard best practices. But then there's other content that's specific to your company, like how you Operate certain things. Things I do certain things. And there we have basically what Andy's showing, where you can go in and create the courses yourself. And you can either do it directly at LND manager or HR manager can go in and create that content themselves. And you know, it's very easy to do. So we'll guide you through how to do that. Or you can use AI. For example, you can say you can upload a video, let's say it's a one hour training video that some manager did and say based on this video, create a course that's 20 minutes long with two. Have questions at the end for everybody else who's joined the company so they can learn from that one hour of training video that that manager did. Or here's a 50 slide PowerPoint deck that somebody in marketing has put together on how to do marketing in our company. Turn that into a course for everybody else. Because there will always be this mix of stuff that's standard across the industry and then stuff that's very, very specific to how you do business. And we support both.

Yeah, my past is that that propping up training courses is pretty heavy lifting.

It is.

Then all of a sudden then the quality begins to be in question and then people are bored and then back to being disengaged.

Some of the data under this is pretty stark. I saw some that said that nearly 50% of an L and D manager, learning and development manager time is spent on just creating the courses. And we're saying now using AI, you can cut that down by at least 90%. Like Andy's going to show here. It's like he's going to show you how to just do this quickly. You upload a document based on that. Create the. This is where AI is beautiful, right? Because it's great at taking a lot of information and synthesizing it into something that can be presented very quickly. So he's walk us through, Andy, what you're doing here.

Yeah, for sure. What we can do, as Robin mentioned, you can use a video and you could then create a course from that. But the great thing about that is you can then create, for example, a quiz automatically. And we use AI to do that. You can take today's podcast, for example. You can upload it and run a quiz just to make sure everybody was listening to the pertinent questions. You can do the same with any content. Again, because we're built on Microsoft, a lot of self generated content comes from say PowerPoint or some of those materials that people are using. And we Just automatically import those in and we can create knowledge testing around that and make sure that they fit within that learning journey. Combined with maybe as Robin said, go on LinkedIn, learning, Udemy, etc. As content provided as well. But another example is that I can just simply use an AI prompt so I can ask it to create me a security course for remote working and actually get it to go, go off and I can tell the AI what to do. I can say, well, I want certain number of learning modules or I can let it decide. I can say the level of complexity I want. I can even say the tone of voice. So do we want this to be humorous or inspirational or straightforward? I think security course maybe not humorous.

Maybe, maybe humorous is good for security course.

Talk about security. I'm telling you right now, you can.

Have storytelling mode and various. So really flexible as to how you do it. And you know, one of the, one of the killer parts of this feature is that you can then also add the quiz, as I said. So then you can be tested on that content very easily as well. You could generate. It's going to go away and it's going to create that now because it's using the prompt, it's building that. It'll take, you know, it'll take a few seconds, maybe up to a minute to do that. But it means that you can generate this content very quickly. And of course we're expecting the AI will get you 98 there and then you can make those tweaks. So it makes a big difference.

Huge. Yeah. If you're me, it's, it's a hundred percent.

This is, we, we call this democratized learning as well because this is about, yes, you can buy the off the shelf content through our, through our partners and, and buy that directly in the product. But this allows you then to overlay that really specific content. As Robin said, if you've got a sales team and you run all these sales enablement sessions, you can now package those up into that learning path and that learning journey just from running a few webinars, for example, or running a few meetings and bring that all together. You'll see here it's created it already. It's provided us with all of the, what you might call metadata. So the categories, the skills that this is going to help with, even provided us with an image. You can then go in and have a look at the contents which created us five modules because I didn't tell it how many to create. You can go in and obviously look at those modules. I can see all of the content that it's created. Exploring unique challenges and risks around remote working, for example. And then you'll see at the end it's even created that quiz which gives you an idea of. Of how that knowledge has gone in as well. You'll see here best practices. It's giving me the options that are there. This for us is a bit of a game changer when it comes to really curating that custom content for your organization.

That's stellar. What does it look like once you just do it?

Yes. Why don't we.

Let's create. Yeah. Which is 100 accurate.

It sounds like. It sounds like you've done this before. I mean I have tuned so many of my past jobs. Salesforce and LinkedIn. Because I used to work at LinkedIn and other companies.

Yeah.

And the amount of time you spend on trying to train new people on things that it's just over and over.

Right.

I taught at a university a number of times and just this is definitely pre AI but just to be prepared for the class. It was monumental. Give me a greater appreciation for people who are teaching just it. It's not easy.

And here we are. So we've got it Security for remote working. We can go in and view that course. Obviously you. You may assign it. So you can use groups within the platform to assign. So whether it's new people etc. But then you'll. You'll end up with the. With the course in there. Assigned it to myself. Let's have a look.

Let's see. Come on.

There we go. It.

Shut the front door. There you go.

Boom. Easy. A couple of seconds and we've created.

Yeah. Geez. That's cool. That is cool.

Yeah.

Well that's. Sheesh. That's. And what.

Yeah.

And correct me if I'm wrong. It's. It's going out and it's curating all of the content that exists out there. It's not just within the organization. It's. It's trying to find. It's. It's more of a comprehensive approach at. At creating the program. Right.

Yes. The AI is essentially trained on the. The web. So yeah. See this is going out there. It's bringing it all together. Of course, you know, it's. It's AI So you need to. And this is the big thing, right. Is about prompt engineering these days. You'll notice there that you didn't really. We guided you through that in terms of whether it's a straightforward approach and conversation or. Or how you structure it. But. But yeah. Ultimately it's bringing all that data together, packing it up. As we said, it will get you 95, 98 there, and then you can make those tweaks that you need that are. That are right for your organization. So, yeah, it makes. That makes sense.

That's massive. That's massive. Now you can really, truly have that educational platform for your organization that is. Is meaningful and it's not a waste of time. And. And given the fact that you have that flexibility to create sort of a tone for that program, you know, like you said, you know, if it's, if it's cyber security, it'd be fun if it was a little bit humorous.

I mean, you probably remember it more, right.

Yeah, you would.

Exactly.

You wouldn't. You definitely wouldn't go into it thinking, oh, cyber security. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever that attitude is, it's not a good one, let's put it that way. But it's important. You gotta do it. It is. And then you can just keep at it. You can. And then as a. An individual that's responsible for the training, they. They can align their training expectations with individuals and see it and you have it all working together so that you know what people are really in need of or what they're deficient in.

Yeah.

Or whatever.

Let's say at the end of the year, then you can see, oh, Scott, he's taken these courses, he's gained these skills. He's at this level. And when it comes to cyber security, he's a six out of ten, you know.

Right, right.

You can do all kinds of things. Then you can start seeing across departments. Oh, this team is doing much better than this team. Let's do something about it.

Right.

Yeah. And 100. And it also addresses the. The attraction and retention challenge that exists within organizations today.

That's right.

No, I get that.

Yeah.

Well, I'm all sold.

Yeah.

My team of one, me, I'm ready to hit it. Hey, we're gonna have to wrap it up because we're. Yeah, that just. That was stellar, guys. I really enjoyed that. Robin. If they're saying, this is great, this is in line with what we want to try to accomplish, and it makes sense. How do they get a hold of you, Robin?

Well, either go to sensei.com z e n s a I.com or c in the US c e, n sai.com or you can contact me on LinkedIn. I'm easy to find. Robin Daniels. You can contact Andrew Roberts on LinkedIn as well, or you can see. Email us. My email is Robin. Robin Senzai. Dot com and we'd be happy to show you. Talk to it, all that stuff.

Let's say I don't want to get.

A hold of Robin.

I want to get a hold of you, Andy. Are you out on LinkedIn and you're pretty active.

I'm on Linked. I'm on LinkedIn. Maybe, maybe not quite the followers that Robin's got, but you'll find me on there. You'll find me on there. Yeah.

Just as long as I don't have any friction in trying to figure out how to contact you guys. That's what I know. That's it.

Multiple channels. We will respond. Email, LinkedIn, Web, you name it.

That's the right answer. Take note, Industry professional, don't make it hard to connect with you. All right, you guys were full. You gents were great. Back to J. I have to say, Robin and Andy. Yeah, you just were fantastic. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Scott, for hosting us. It's good to see you.

All right, listeners, we're going to wrap it up on the other side again. We're going to have all the connection information for Robin and Andy out on Industrial Talk. So make this a point. This is important stuff. We want you to succeed. Yes. We're passionate about your success. All right, stay tuned. We will be right back.

You're listening to the Industrial Talk podcast network.

Robin, Andy. Yeah, they're passionate about what they do. Zincy Sensei. Yeah, that's better. Is the company talking about making, talking about educating, talking about getting your organization rowing in the same direction in a way that is, you know, is pretty remarkable. As you can tell by the video, the. The platform is pretty doggone cool. They did a great job. Kick the tires. I say that you need to kick the tires. You need to reach out to these two chants. Go out to Industrial Talk. Reach out to them. Say, I'm interested. Let's have a conversation. Industrial Talk is here for you. We're here building a platform that amplifies your voice. Contact me, Go out to Industrial Talk and contact me because we want you to succeed and we're going to do everything that we possibly can to help that happen. You need to succeed.

All right.

Be bold, be brave. Derek. Greatly. Hang out with these two gents. Change the world. We're going to have another great conversation shortly.