BEST COMPANY CONNECTION (SME)
WINNER: PERSONIO

Ian McFarlane, Michael Thompson and Jordan Farry from Personio is presented with the ‘Best Company Connection – SME’ Award by Liz Toner, vice president of Global Talent at event partner First Derivative
Personio working to maintain a happy and united workforce
BEST Company Connection (SME) winner Personio is the most valuable HR software company and fastest-growing business-to-business SaaS company in Europe, having achieved a $6.7 billion valuation in October 2021.
Personio is a start-up making HR processes more transparent through the use of tech, and the overarching aim, since it was founded in 2015 has been to allow HR teams to focus on what matters most – the people in a team.
Its software serves more than 5,000 customers, and its team has more than doubled in size in 2021, from 500 employees to over 1,100 – across offices in London, Dublin, Munich, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Its Dublin office alone has 209 employees, expected to reach 254 employees by the summer.
In its application Personio says: “We pride ourselves on our ability to maintain a happy and united workforce through a period of hyper-growth, and throughout challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Team spirit is one of our core values and even when working remotely, hybrid, and across different countries, we succeed in keeping up productivity, wellbeing and team spirit by keeping our company connected.”
Its award entry focused on four of Personio’s initiatives launched – Personio’s Remote Working Taskforce; Virtual Health Weeks; Company Culture Week; and its Company Culture Program – which demonstrated how it has been a trailblazer in maintaining company connection and communication over the past two years.
Not only does it boast brilliant products, which it sells around the world, but the company prides itself on its ability to maintain a happy and united workforce through what is a period of hyper-growth
When Covid hit, Personio created a cross-departmental ‘Home Office Taskforce’ designed to ensure it maintained communication in the company from top to bottom whilst everyone was working remotely. It consisted of sub-teams which included a mix of colleagues from all departments and levels, headed by a Captain, who attended weekly update meetings with Personio’s executive team.
To communicate, it created a Slack channel and page on the Personio intranet where employees could find all relevant information. The taskforce had five objectives: