HR guru Laszlo Bock’s start-up Humu uses AI to help people be more human at work
- Ex-Google HR head Bock says electronic ‘nudges’ sent during the day like ‘praise colleague in meeting’ will improve the workplace
- The software would learn what is most effective over time
Google’s former head of its “people operations” has a new start-up, and one of its goals is a lofty one: to make software that helps managers and colleagues act more human.
Laszlo Bock left Google in 2016 after running its human resources shop for a decade, during which he racked up “best place to work” awards, built a data-driven operation known as “people analytics”, and wrote a bestselling book.
He recently revealed new details for the first time about Humu, a start-up he co-founded with two other former Google executives that has raised US$40 million in funding.
The start-up’s software combines behavioural science and machine learning to nudge managers and employees toward behaviour change with time-based alerts. It acts like something of a digital personal coach, prodding managers to give employees a shout-out for helping their team, or to ask workers what they are looking forward to doing over the weekend.
Bock acknowledges that there is a paradox in needing an electronic nudge for such things to happen. “It’s definitely an irony,” he says.
