ThriveMap successful on W2 Labs Innovation Competition

ThriveMap, the leading pre-employment assessment platform for frontline hiring was successful on W2 Labs, the innovation competition from Wincanton Plc.

Watch and read our interview with Chris Platts, CEO of ThriveMap.

Interview with CEO Chris Platts, ThriveMap

Can you give me some of the details about this competition?

Wincanton plc is a leading UK supply chain and logistics company. They work in industry sectors as diverse as eFulfilment, grocery and consumer goods through to public sector, infrastructure, energy and defense. W² labs is their annual innovation program that looks for innovative technologies and solutions which have the potential to revolutionize their business. 

Why did ThriveMap enter?

We felt that in many ways, the unsung heroes of the modern economy are the lower-paid workers keeping the wheels of the logistics and manufacturing sectors alive. As a developer of pre-hire assessments for volume hiring, it was important for us to get more experience in developing assessments for these types of roles and sectors. 

When we saw the programme was being run by Wincanton we knew that they would have challenges with staff retention. We know that these frontline roles seem simple and understandable but when you dig a little deeper they’re not simple, there is a lot of complexity and the type of people are not hard to identify, that’s why you get high staff turnover rates. We knew that using our product in these areas was going to have a big effect. 

How did the process of the competition actually work?

It involved working with Wincanton to deliver tangible value and cost savings over a period of 10 weeks. We were assigned to work on their Screwfix account – one of the UK’s biggest retailers, developing an assessment for the recruitment of Warehouse operatives across 2 huge sites with volume hiring requirements. It involved weekly meetings with the HR and resourcing team at Wincanton and the development of a realistic job assessment to help them reduce new hire failure and improve time to hire.

How hard was this process?

When we dived into the project there were a number of internal challenges. All companies have unique hiring processes, and systems to try and integrate with. Our approach is to work out what is going to deliver the maximum return for the company in the shortest amount of time. We decided that the end goal with Wincanton was to design an assessment that was more predictive than their current hiring process which involved hiring managers conducting interviews. If we achieved this they could use assessments as a replacement for the interview and dramatically cut the time to hire. We called it going “from apply to hi” in 24 hours. They seemed to like that idea.

Who was involved in this competition?

There were a number of other innovative companies providing solutions to Wincanton in other areas such as robotics, AI and deep learning. It was great to be part of such an innovative cohort.

What happened at the end of the programe?

All the startups pitched the results of working with Wincanton over the course of the programme. Our goal was to deliver tangible business value and secure a commercial contract with Wincanton which I’m delighted to say we achieved. Not only that but we’ve also signed a partnership with them which enables us to exhibit ThriveMap at their innovation centre and get introduced to their business partners across the UK. 

How has this win impacted the business?

When you set out to solve hard problems, it’s never straightforward. We recognise that changing how companies hire is complex. There’s resistance to change in any organisation, but especially ones that are at full stretch providing such an invaluable service to the UK economy. We knew that developing a pilot programe, and delivering clear value to the business first would be the right catalyst to drive change in how they hire and we’re pleased to see that playing out today.

How has the W Squared Labs competition helped ThriveMap grow?

Partnering with organisations and helping them to achieve better, more efficient hiring is what we do at ThriveMap. What we didn’t expect when we joined the program was the use case that emerged which was not just to replace CVs or phone screens but to replace interviews entirely with assessments. That’s what we’re really excited about doing for them and can’t wait to see the positive impact it’s going to have in a year’s time or even 5 years’ time.