Dice’s Tech Connects podcast featured Saad Siddiqui, General Partner at Titanium Ventures, a San Francisco-based strategic growth firm. He offered some unique insights into talent acquisition, how technology impacts onboarding and training, and the future of work itself.
There were a number of takeaways from the discussion, including how the rise of remote and hybrid work is giving companies a lot more flexibility when it comes to recruiting and hiring. We also discussed how a lot of workers miss the ability to collaborate in-person within an office—a key reason why many technology professionals prefer hybrid work. Here’s the podcast:
Nick Kolakowski 00:27
Our guest today is Saad Siddiqui, who’s general partner at Titanium Ventures, a San Francisco -based strategic growth firm. He invests in HR tech companies such as Surten and Forage, which gives him some unique insights in talent acquisition, how technology impacts onboarding and training, and the future of work itself.
He also previously served as an executive at Informatica and Cisco. Let’s listen as Saad breaks down the biggest pain points in HR tech, how technology can impact parts of the hiring process, and how companies are adjusting to hybrid and remote work.
Saad Siddiqui 02:02
Now as we’re getting past COVID, people are trying to understand what the new workforce looks like. And this new way of working is changing everything from how we identify talent, because not only are you recruiting for talent locally, you’re looking at potentially nationally and even internationally, how do you recruit, onboard, train, how do you provide benefits and manage payroll across different geographies and manage tax structures and things of that nature.
Now that the economy is tightening, we’re starting to see more layoffs, particularly in the tech space, but investing in technologies that provide flexibility to employers, employees in terms of how they want to work and the broader landscape.
Nick Kolakowski 03:11
We surveyed technology professionals, recruiters, hiring managers, and so on. And there was this gap in the data where on one hand, you had technologists who were really interested in the hybrid and remote work and flexible schedules but you also had employers who really, really wanted their people back in the office.
Saad Siddiqui 04:19
I think the trade -offs that people are trying to evaluate is if you have people in the office, it enables more collaboration, both within teams and cross -functionally. You build a culture. On the other hand, employees themselves are looking for flexibility. So in the past, everyone has made a move from a geographic perspective based on their career.
And over the last two, three years, people ended up moving where they wanted to raise their families or where they wanted to live their lives.
So in the case of fully remote work, it is potentially easier to recruit and recruit on a national and international basis. You end up getting access to the talent and the best in places where you wouldn’t even think about. It is particularly useful for companies that have more task -based requirements, if you know exactly what you need an employee to do, that requires little to no hand holding.
If your employees have a need for collaboration and are trying to brainstorm, there may be why you may wanna bring folks to the office.
For every Tesla, there’s like an Airbnb, which is going fully remote and everything in the middle, so people are thinking through hybrid where they do a couple of days a week in the office.
Nick Kolakowski 06:33
One of the companies you work with, one of your investments, Forage, they do the virtual work experience programs. What actually goes into creating a virtual work experience?
Saad Siddiqui 07:16
Forage has been just a phenomenal investment for us. We’ve made investments in companies like Springboard, which is providing ongoing training and upscaling your employees.
We’re investing in a company called Spekit, which does employee onboarding and helping employees understand the new products that they’re launching and getting a better understanding of the competitive landscape.
There’s a lot to do more around actually helping build culture in a virtual world.
Nick Kolakowski
But what goes into a successful virtual culture?
Saad Siddiqui 09:38
So people have started obviously implementing things like virtual happy hours.
People are much more open about their life on a personal level, and it kind of brings that humanity to the virtual world.
So that flexibility, acknowledgement of people’s realities is what I think the workplace is now helping shape the culture of the future workforce.
Nick Kolakowski 12:55
You see, some people advocate almost a tech solution to it, on both sides of it, that you’re instant messaging where it’s Teams or Slack or whatever. Do you think it’s waiting for the next turn technologically for somebody to come up with a solution that’s better, both in work-life balance, and in creating that culture of fortuitous conversations and office interaction?
Saad Siddiqui 13:37
Everyone’s experimenting at this point. It can enable this thing that we call the fluid workforce here at Titanium Ventures. What we’re hoping to do with technology is provide the ability to have flexibility or fluidity in that workforce.
It’s not going to help you build the processes. There’s a lot of other things that are more operational in nature that are needed that’s more human.
Technology just can be an enabling feature for that.
Nick Kolakowski 15:01
Do you think there’s been so much hype about the Metaverse and AR and VR and so on?
Saad Siddiqui 15:21
There’s a company that’s really interesting called Gather.town that is building the metaverse for the office, where you have an avatar that goes into different rooms, and then you can sort of meet with different teams and stuff.
Those are really interesting experiments that are sort of being played today.
So it’s early days. I am optimistic that that does become something really valuable over time. Like in Slack, that’s our hangout spot with email. That’s like the meeting room.
You’ve got companies like Figma for design and all these collaboration tools.
I think that is going to continue and we’ll see more innovation on that front. We need to sort of combine all these ways that we communicate with each other.
Nick Kolakowski 17:30
When you talk to people in HR tech, is it something that they’re excited about?
Saad Siddiqui 17:44
It’s across the board, it’s very mixed. Some people are very skeptical. Other people are very optimistic. The big thing these days is more to do with everything around managing the hybrid remote in -office workforce and as the economy is tightening, managing human costs.
We’ve invested in a company called Certain. Secondly, I think as in the United States, the health care costs are rising through the roof. And insurance costs for employers are rising pretty substantially, and have sort of come more in vogue or more in focus because of COVID.
Employers are trying to figure out how to make sure that those health care benefits are being utilized, and they’re paying for that utilization rather than excess capacity.
We invested in a company called Lively, which is a HSA benefits platform on the back of that.
Forage is another really interesting example and Springboard around ongoing employee training and employee upscaling, we also invested in a company called Spekit, which is in the employee onboarding space.
Across the board, the whole journey of an employee lifecycle is changing. And those are the things that we’re pretty excited about and investing in technologies that enable the flexibility that employers and employees need.
Nick Kolakowski 21:39
According to CompTIA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the tech unemployment rate right now is 2.1%.
And it still seems like there’s pressure out there to hire technology professionals, despite all of the economic uncertainty and the fears of recession and everything else. So with a company like Spekit, does that put there pressure to create onboarding and training that that’s faster?
So just get people in as fast as possible? Is it hiring people who come with the skills and ignoring other candidates?
Saad Siddiqui 23:27
So there’s companies like Gong that do call recording and coaching, and that gets around workflow. So those are the tools that are needed for making sure that the team that you have is as productive as possible.
There’s this trend – quiet quitting. A key factor around quiet quitting is people don’t feel challenged enough or that their skills are being utilized in the best way
Tools like Spekit and Gong help you with that enablement.
Nick Kolakowski 25:06
Here’s a few key takeaways from our discussion.
First, the rise of remote and hybrid work is giving companies a lot more flexibility. It’s now potentially easier to recruit on a national and international basis, as well as find the right talent. But even though there are more opportunities to find the right candidates, a company needs its hiring, onboarding, training, and workplace arranged so that new employees can integrate into the company as smoothly as possible.
Second, a lot of workers miss the ability to collaborate in person within an office. That’s a key reason why many technology professionals prefer hybrid work, where they go back to their office for a few days a week.
Many companies are working on how to bring the collaboration, camaraderie, and spontaneity of the office to a virtual environment in a way that’s not just giving a thumbs up on Slack.
Third, startups are also trying to figure out how to help businesses manage rising employee costs such as healthcare. With inflation and other factors leading to rising prices, you should pay attention to how emerging companies are trying to make company spending much more efficient.
