Yoomi – connecting employee engagement, performance and wellbeing

Bob Rehill Associate Network are delighted to be supporting new organisation Yoomi, the first performance management app which connects employee engagement and employee wellbeing. In this article, we look at the story behind this exciting company and how Bob Rehill Associate Network are helping this new business on the road to success.

Claire Owen, Co-Founder of Yoomi with partner Prue Armstrong, describes Yoomi as ‘performance management at its best – a unique app that links engagement and wellbeing and moves away from the traditional annual appraisal towards more regular check-ins.’ The idea of doing something different came to the HR professionals about three years ago, when they had been working on a paper-based management system and realised that there had to be a better way. “From those initial discussions, a prototype was developed during 2018 and after extensive testing, we now have a fully functioning app that we have put out into market that also includes a feedback loop. Yoomi aims to create strong manager/employee relationships focused on trying to understand the whole person. We believe that by understanding more, businesses and teams can perform better.”

We believe that by understanding more, businesses and teams can perform better.

Between them, Prue and Claire have over thirty years’ experience in the HR and consulting world and feel that the key difference with their product is that it has been created by experts rather than someone in an IT department. Claire says: “We have been on both sides of the annual performance management appraisal of the past, that of being a manager managing others and their performance, to having people manage us and our performance.” Together they felt that the time consuming, clunky and past-performance-focused appraisal systems were not effective, and engagement and wellbeing was not considered in any performance discussion. Claire continues: “Yoomi is a success because we have been there, experienced what works and doesn’t work and have been able to think outside the box to come up with a better way. We are more interested in the whole person, not just an employee’s performance.”

Yoomi is a success because we have been there, experienced what works and doesn’t work and have been able to think outside the box to come up with a better way.

Claire and Prue have big plans for the business over the next few years. “We want to touch the hearts, minds and souls of organisations so they can have intelligent conversations with intelligent data for the good of the organisation and their employees. We want to continue to innovate and evolve the app whilst continually changing the performance conversation, and we want to have an amazing team on the journey with us to build a strong business. Part of this journey includes forging partnerships with other businesses, including Bob Rehill Associate Network. “We met Bob at the CIPD Festival of Work event earlier this year in London as we had a booth next to each other. We had a few laughs with his team and some serious business discussion about what we were working on and Bob has been amazing ever since. He is supporting us with a stand at Unleash in Paris in October and we will also be launching Yoomi on his new online exhibition space HRTech247 which is really exciting. And of course, Bob will be using Yoomi for his consultant workforce!”

Bob is equally delighted to be working with Yoomi: “We are thrilled to be working alongside Yoomi. It was wonderful to have met the team at the CIPD Festival of Work and to hear all about their exciting new app. I am delighted that they will be one of our launch exhibitors on the upcoming HRTech247 website and look forward to rolling out the app for our Associate Network.”

Claire and Prue are looking forward to an exciting couple of years ahead and are committed to making Yoomi a success. Their advice for anyone else thinking about starting a small business? “Always keep the passion alive and never give up – our motto is ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me.’”

To find out more and to follow  please visit https://yoomiapp.com or follow them on Twitter @Yoomiapp.