Last Updated on February 1, 2023 by New-Startups Team
Right throughout Asia there is amazing HR Tech being developed and today we’re going to take a fresh look at some Asian HR startups, big and small, and see what they’re busy creating.
We start our tour of Asian HR Tech in Singapore with a rapidly-growing business in the Recruitment Tech space.
Glints – Not short of ambition, Glints aims to be Asia’s number 1 recruitment platform for young professionals & graduates. As we’ll see, there is plenty of competition in the recruitment arena but this business, based in Singapore, continues to go from strength to strength with their beautifully designed portal and their impressive results to date. The site proudly reports that they have helped “361930 young professionals to discover their dream careers,” that they have empowered “13437 companies worldwide to build successful teams,” and that they continue to enable job seekers to explore 2271 “hot opportunities” every month.
plugHR – PlugHR is a new breed of HRIS systems that comes out of tech powerhouse, India. With a strong eye for design, the PlugHR team have cleverly focussed on addressing key challenges faced by HR leaders as they try to increase performance and drive culture.
PayrollPanda – Malaysian SMEs are finding themselves well supported by PayrollPanda’s online payroll and leave management software. The company understands the human element behind the technology and offers free expert support to help attract and retain their customers. It’s a plan that seems to be paying off as they’ve acquired over 1,000 customers and the number is growing fast.
Leena AI – Y Combinator graduate, Leena AI of India, continues to go from strength to strength. Riding at the crest of the AI/machine learning wave, Leena AI helps HR Directors streamline their HR operations via an HR Helpdesk chatbot. The ‘AI-powered HR Assistant’ provides employees with instant answers to their various pay, leave, and HR administration queries.
Qilo – Also based in India, Qilo comes from an interesting background. The technology was born out of a workplace culture study of over 10,000 employees and the learnings derived from the study have driven ongoing product development. Qilo supports business leaders to drive ownership, accountability, and ultimately boost organisational performance through the platform’s innovative mix of behavioural science and machine learning.
EngageRocket – As the HR industry starts talking about the ‘war for talent’ again, Singaporean startup EngageRocket is well-placed with its real-time workforce data platform that aims to increase employee engagement and productivity. The real-time aspect is a key selling point for HR leaders as it can provide an early warning system for talent attrition. This allow leaders to take remedial action before it’s too late.
Fastwork – There are some giants in the freelancing industry but Fastwork has carved out a niche for itself by focussing specifically on the Thai market. This laser focus has enabled them to bring in more than 300,000 users working in diverse areas such as graphic design, online marketing, data entry, and web development.
eChinaCareers – Another niche player that has carefully chosen its market, eChinaCareers provides an English-language jobs board in China. The small but growing startup has already posted over 1,400 jobs in the last 6 months and has over 1,100 employers using the platform.
Xobin – The team at Xobin in India clearly understands its audience of HR practitioners because their product suite very clearly intends to reduce the administration components of people operations by rolling-up job boards, the ATS, assessment tools, Learning Management system, and the traditional HRIS into one seamless user experience. Streamlining of recruitment gets most of the spotlight but HR leaders clearly enjoy the time-saving factors of the post-hiring product elements as the company continues to grow steadily.
Thue Today – Thue Today is another Recruitment Tech startup that has chosen to operate within a particular region, this time, Vietnam. In fact, the highly-automated jobs and hiring portal goes one step further and operates within a sub-niche: they currently help job seekers and employers within the hospitality, food & beverage, and retail industries.
[Image Source]
Infeedo – We’d be remiss if we failed to mention the Indian phenomenon that is Infeedo. The company has helped over 5,000 employees to enjoy their work more and has helped CEOs involve and engage all employees using an AI chatbot named ‘Amber’. We gather that one of Amber’s particular strengths is to support and retain employees who are unhappy or thinking about leaving. Watch the founders’ very entertaining product pitch on India’s ‘The Vault’ television show.
Kakitangan.com – The HRIS market is highly competitive but the team at Kakitangan.com have created a beautiful all-in-one system that is already helping a wide range of Malaysian SMEs.
Urban Hire – Indonesia’s Urban Hire job board aggregator continues its impressive growth. Employees enjoy the easy experience and the regular automated updates after applying for roles. Employers benefit from advanced applicant-tracking, resume search by multiple users, and being able to reach candidates by posting to multiple channels at once.
Swingvy – It has been another big year for Swingvy. They’ve won another award for their all-encompassing HR, payroll and benefits HRIS platform. Spread across Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, the Swingvy team automates administrative work for HR practitioners which always tends to be a popular outcome.
[Image Source]
Freshlinker – FreshLinker, the vibrant careers portal based in Hong Kong, shares thoughtful career development content and provides employer branding opportunities, all of which help young people make informed decisions about their respective career paths. Their curated “Quality over Quantity” applicant approach has appeal to recruiters and should see further fast growth of this young HR business.
Interview Mocha – Every hiring manager has the fear that the person they’ve selected isn’t quite what they thought they were getting during the interview process. India’s Interview Mocha recognises this fear and has built out a highly successful candidate assessment platform. The platform offers over 1,000 different skills and aptitude tests across different areas such as coding, business skills, ERP, finance, languages and many others. With a portfolio of over 1,000 corporate customers from more than 70 countries, Interview Mocha’s performance must surely be the envy of most HR Tech startups.
We’ve looked at a range of HR Tech startups from around Asia and all of them are inspirational in their own way.
All of these startups are working hard to improve the performance of businesses and, in turn, to improve the working lives of thousands of people across the region.
We wish them well.
This article has been contributed by Sat Sindhar, MD at peoplehr.com