Sam Mire The field of HR is wide-reaching, and making changes to improve efficiency is not an overnight-prospect, but it can be done. For competent HR professionals, the abundance of modern technology will help aid the facelift. Outdated legacy systems helped pull HR into the digital era but failed to remain agile and adaptable to HR and employee needs. Currently, the industry is in need of digital solutions that offer custom services, interoperability, and data security.
Blockchain technology is well-suited to deliver on all these fronts. It can drive better platforms that empower applicants to share more work history while giving employers a more accurate picture of their applicant pool. Cryptocurrency and smart contract implementation means employers can test new automated payment models that reach their employees more quickly. These companies are exploring practical use cases for the blockchain in HR. They’re pioneering a new wave of innovation that HR professionals have been waiting for.
CATEGORY #1: PEOPLE OPS & REWARDS
Human resource operations have long tagged technology as a way to better serve their employees. Unfortunately, most HR tech innovation has been designed for enterprise-level organizations, rarely considering the needs of an individual employee. These companies are exploring ways to build better HR systems with the individual in mind, using distributed systems to change how things get done. Some are even integrating the incentives built into various cryptocurrencies to improve existing rewards systems.
Reward
Reward is a peer-to-peer platform designed to boost employee productivity and cooperation using the blockchain. Companies purchase reward tokens that are distributed to employees based on customizable milestones and incentive programs. Employees also reward each other, the idea being that this will increase collaboration and quality of work, rather than boost the competitive mentalities that emerge in traditional workplaces.
Date Founded: 2017
Funding Type: ICO
Truebase
Truebase is a digital community for those with jobs and seeking new opportunities. Their True protocol was designed for developers to build decentralized apps to help others discover new business opportunities. The Truebase team is focused on improving the referral process. By letting job posts from external platforms be posted and shared with reward parameters in place, they hope that lower-cost referrals will establish Truebase as a preferred site for recruiters and quality candidates alike.
Date Founded: February 1, 2018
Funding Type: Private
Aura Lab
Aura is a digital recruiting platform that united crypto talent, consultants, and companies. The interface includes several novel features including data analysis, AI, professional profiles known as Aura Crystals, and smart Aura Contracts for instantaneous payouts. In addition, Aura Coins enable more features for better search and hiring. With these options, Aura wants to create a recruiting ecosystem that will directly benefit the crypto space.
Date Founded: October 2017
Funding Type: Venture-backed
Eminently
Eminently is a blockchain-based referral platform designed for recruiters, businesspeople, and headhunters. The platform automatically compensates those who refer candidates who successfully get the job. Those who make referrals will also receive a monthly commission as long as their candidate is still actively working. Eminently seeks to provide a higher quality referral network by imbuing it with financial incentives.
Date Founded: July 2018
Funding Type: Private
HireMatch
HireMatch is a decentralized employee recruitment platform that is working to establish itself as an industry mainstay by partnering with Recruiter.com. With their HIRE cryptocurrency underpinning the marketplace, HireMatch seeks to reduce the friction and costs associated with third-party intermediaries in the employee recruitment process.
Pre-ICO: August 1, 2017
Funding Type: ICO
Peoplewave
By bringing employees and managers closer together with their blockchain-enabled management platform, Peoplewave aims to provide a comprehensive solution to the problems that prevent smooth management. Peoplewave hopes to build a culture of developing employees instead of focusing on talent acquisition and compliance. Data-driven employee appraisal methods, employee-centered onboarding systems, and a transparent HR dashboard are a few central features of the platform.
Pre-ICO: April 6, 2018
Funding Type: ICO
CATEGORY #2: PAYROLL AND OPERATIONS
Payroll is one of the most challenging functions for HR teams. It’s not a function of complexity, but it’s highly tedious. Enterprise payment platforms have tried to standardize the payment process, but banks, accountants, and HR professionals can make things complicated, especially when their technology requires manual data input. These companies are using the blockchain to automate payroll and payment processes, getting employees paid faster and reducing costs for employers.
Etch
Etch is all about making sure that employees are promptly paid when work is complete — no delays between finishing work and payday. Smart contracts track your work progress and pay out incrementally as the work is being completed. This ensures that no finished work goes uncompensated. The funds can be withdrawn or spent using the Etch payroll card, with the entire process reducing administrative costs.
ICO: September 18, 2017
Funding Type: ICO
ChronoBank
ChronoBank a blockchain-powered HR solution seeking to upend the way companies recruit, hire, and manage employees. Chronobank is also working to provide payment solutions to help bring full-service blockchain abilities to the HR industry.
Founding Date: 2016
Funding Type: Private/Venture-backed
PeaCounts
PeaCounts is a blockchain payroll solution aimed at automating the payroll management process. Using AI to verify productivity measures and work milestones, PeaCounts pays people with their PEA token using smart contract technology. PeaCounts has encouraged others to build services on top of their blockchain protocol.
Date Founded: 2017
Funding Type: Private
CATEGORY #3: FREELANCER ECOSYSTEM
As freelancing becomes a primary source of income for more and more knowledge workers, they need better infrastructure to facilitate everything from payment to contract terms. Companies hiring freelancers are hungry to verify their qualifications or completion of work. These companies are working to improve the freelance economy for freelancers as well as the companies that hire them.
DREAM
DREAM is a platform for assembling top-notch freelance teams in the blockchain sector. By measuring the relative success of past projects, DREAM uses machine learning algorithms to assess the skills and fit of different team members to see how smoothly they can collaborate. A candidate’s credentials are authenticated using blockchain record-sharing mechanisms.
Date Founded: January 1, 2016
Funding Type: ICO
NYNJA Group
NYNJA calls itself a “virtual operating system powering the future of work.” The company believes that its vOS platform will unite the world’s gig economy under one roof. With a network of dApps built into the vOS platform, NYNJA will securely facilitate hiring and management processes like onboarding and on-demand workforce oversight. then communicating and collaborating with that workforce, and ultimately compensating them for their efforts.
Date Founded: 2016
Funding Type: ICO
YINC
YINC is short for “You’re IN Control,” and it enhances the way that contractors are sought out and hired. By making a store of verified data and information accessible to both contractors and employers, YINC hopes to provide trustworthy ratings and financial histories that will let both parties make informed hiring decisions. Their YINC utility token will tracks transactions, reviews, and interactions on the platform.
Date Founded: 2015
Funding Type: ICO
Thor
Thor fills an important niche in the world of HR by utilizing blockchain technology to lower costs and increase efficiency. Their goal is to make attracting, retaining, and paying 1099 contractors easier and more cost-friendly. The Odin onboarding platform is highly customizable, and their contractor management portal eliminates the need for cumbersome spreadsheets when it comes time to pay contractors. Their services range from payments to healthcare options, retirement planning, and beyond.
Date Founded: March 1, 2018
Funding Type: ICO
Talao
Talao is a blockchain-based platform specializing in the acquisition and retention of freelance talent. The platform lets freelance candidates fill out a certified resume, verifying their skills and credentials using the blockchain. Prospective employees can join specific talent pools and apply for “missions” — Talao’s term for gigs — all on one site. Offering a verified pool of talent and taking no commission for it, Talao endeavors to attract a high-quality base of freelance superstars, and a corresponding group of worthwhile employers.
Date Founded: February 3, 2018
Funding Type: ICO
Bounties Network
The Bounties Network is an organization working to empower humans to incentivize and self-organize, from freelancing to grassroots social action and everything in between. It’s not a traditional approach to HR, but their smart contracts can organize tasks and contract work like research, content translation, and video production. The Bounties Network aims to help users create projects, collaborate, and get paid for doing great work of any kind.
Date Founded: April 2017
Funding Type: ICO
CATEGORY #4: APPLICANT DATA TRANSPARENCY
One of the biggest gaps in the hiring process is verifying the applicant’s credentials and work history. Companies come and go, so it can be difficult for former employers to confirm someone’s history. Hiring managers are left to do their own homework and trust their instincts on the applicant’s account of their background. These companies are working to improve the veracity of work history claims, empowering hiring managers to make better decisions, and giving applicants an opportunity to confidently express their qualifications.
ASPIRE
London-based ASPIRE is a cloud-based employee recruitment program built on the blockchain. It provides services that include candidate sourcing, qualification assessment, background checks, onboarding, and training. Its algorithms are designed to ignore factors like gender and race in order to pair qualified candidates with ideal employers in a cheaper and more automatic way.
Date Founded: April 28, 2017
Funding Type: Venture-backed
Zinc
A blockchain recruitment platform with its headquarters in London, Zinc provides authenticated, transparent proof of a person’s qualifications and career experience, helping employers disqualify frauds and exaggerators to make more informed hiring decisions. Zinc offers an interesting glimpse into the future of HR with simplified reference-sharing, anonymous hiring, and built-in aptitude and attitude reports.
Date Founded: 2016
Funding Type: Venture-backed
StartMonday
StartMonday is an applicant tracking platform tailored specifically to the retail and hospitality industries. Candidates using StartMonday are invited to apply with a 15-second video and a resume. The platform also provides a framework for organizing and tracking candidates in a way that is creative, visually appealing, and easily to share amongst hiring managers. Because it’s all built on the blockchain, StartMonday is also secure and anonymous.
Date Founded: 2014
Funding Type: Private
TrustLogics
Atlanta-based TrustLogic’s goal is to root out the usual suspects that increase the cost of hiring: phony resumes, incomplete information, not enough verifiable data, and so on. They’re using the blockchain to do it, which brings transparency to the employee recruiting processes. Job-seekers can get their credentials verified, and employers will know they are drawing from a legitimate candidate base for better matches in the hiring process.
Date Founded: 2017
Funding Type: ICO
BHIRED
BHIRED is a recruiting platform that professes to take advantage of the benefits that blockchain technology affords; namely, transparency, trust and accountability. Its hiring and recruiting platform helps users to be more aware of who is accessing their data, and to sell their employment-related information to interested parties.
Date Founded: October 1, 2017
Funding Type: Private
Indorse
Indorse leverages the blockchain to solve two persistent problems in HR: the lack of trust in skill verification, and users giving up their data for little or nothing in return. They solve the first problem by employing decentralized consensus, in which anonymous users judge objective examples of a user’s skill (AI methods are also used). To solve the second issue, Indorse rewards users with IND tokens for interacting with the platform and sharing their information. They get something of value for interacting with advertisers and other users.
Date Founded: May 2017
Funding Type: ICO
Caerus Connections
Caerus is a blockchain hiring platform designed to increase the veracity of employment history and help employees display their passions more effectively. Applicants list their motivations in a way that the platform makes searchable. Because everything happens on the blockchain, there’s more data integrity confidentiality, which is central to the hiring process.
Funding Type: Private/Venture-backed
Appii
Appii is putting employee background checks and resume verification on a secure blockchain. Their goal is to help speed up the background check process tagging the blockchain’s distributed ledger capabilities to make sure that employees have accomplished what they claim to.
Founded: March 15, 2016
Funding Type: Private/Venture-backed
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