Zugata

Zugata

Zugata is an intelligent, mobile-first performance and development platform. It was founded in late 2014 with a purpose to help businesses understand their employees better in order to develop and manage performance more effectively. Zugata didn't just hone in on the belief that Millennials crave close relationships, frequent and immediate feedback, and a free flow of information within the work environment; they honed in on the notion that frequent, automated feedback allows businesses to move faster. The workplace as a whole, moves much faster than in previous decades due in part to the digital revolution. Zugata focused on helping teams and individuals employees be more agile and to move faster.

There are two main features that set Zugata apart from other platforms:

First, it's ability through a.i to determine an employee's frequent collaborators and prompt them to provide feedback. Zugata has built an artificial intelligence tool that scans various systems employees utilize to determine who the employee collaborates with frequently. In example, an employee takes on a new project, within a short span of time, Zugata notices new communication and calendar appointments (integrates with gmail, outlook, slack etc.) with members of the business. The system will then prompt collaborators to provide feedback. This feature allows a feedback culture to take hold very quickly within new teams, or dispersed/remote teams, and highly fluid organizations that work through ad hoc teams.  

Second, it's ability to limit feedback visibility only to the employee and the person giving the feedback; essentially feedback be restricted from the visibility of the employee's manager and h.r.  In addition, there is a setting to allow feedback to be provided anonymously. This allows feedback to be truly used for performance and development, not for compensation conversations or corrective action. 

Ratings: 4.75 out of 5 stars

Strengths: The automated prompts is a true competitive advantage for Zugata. Many other tools get knocked by users for not being prompted to give feedback on a regular basis. We live in a world of notifications; 'stand up/keep moving!', 'email received', 'News Alert', 'package delivered' etc. While there's a certain 'robotic' feel to being alerted to provide feedback, it's a great way to create a habit and enable an employee or teams to adapt, learn and move faster.

Secondly, while transparency is an important general motto to run a business, allowing for some privacy in feedback can really shift the needle. Many managers hesitate to solicit feedback for fear that collaborator feedback will only reflect a short moment in time (i.e. a project, a presentation) and not broader annual performance. The fear is sound- for example the feedback from collaborators on a 3-week project could be very positive and conflict with boarder annual performance feedback that the manager & employee have been discussing. This could cause corrective action process issues for the manager with h.r. If the documented feedback is disparate, they may not be able to move forward with corrective action to improve performance. However, if casual, more frequent feedback is omitted from the formal performance management process, it allows the employee to hear all feedback without causing legal risks down the road. Additionally, collaborators may not be keen to provide tough feedback if they know any employee's manager can see it. Peers often don't want to get their teammates 'in trouble'. While it's a natural tendency, it slows down progress. This tool removes this issue from the equation. 

Weaknesses: Zugata started as a feedback platform but more recently, it's aiming to be a full blown performance management tool. We're not sure expanding to a performance management tool is a good call for this platform though. Employees might have a harder time believing that the performance management feature and the feedback feature don't 'speak' to each other. Meaning, is feedback really anonymous and restricted to the employee only if the platform supports both the performance management and feedback systems? It's something to keep an eye on. 

Best Use: Zugata is an excellent platform for large organizations with established performance management tools. Zugata can be utilized as a completely separate platform to enhance employee development, performance, engagement and an enabled culture. The ideal state is for feedback to be separate from reward and compensation decisions.