The Dream Factory
I love a story with a good ending. Stories that veer off the traditional “happily ever after” are the bane of my existence; so much so that even a relatively good story could tank my reading or watching experience if the ending is not as “happy” as I would have imagined.
‘….And they lived, happily ever after’
The story I’m about to tell has too good an ending to save for last, so I will begin from the end.
Spoiler alert!
At the end of this story, Africa wins.
This is a story of people, purpose and impact. The story of dreams coming true and lives being transformed . The story of 10 great scale ups, that will provide 10,000 jobs with a combined value of $10 billion, in 10 years.
A factory that manufactures dreams and churns them out as solutions to the biggest challenges we face in our continent: A story of Impact Africa Network.
Chapter 1
I will begin the first chapter with one of the 10 scale ups that is close to my heart: SeamlessHQ, The People Company. A company built around serving people and helping African organizations scale to great heights by streamlining their people management processes.
In the recent past, Africa has been described as ‘the new frontier’ for global growth, and rightly so. The continent has seen a surge in fascinating evolutions, making it a powerful innovation centre that drives the development of sustainable technologies. This has resulted in exciting opportunities for African entrepreneurs to provide African solutions to African problems.
More specifically, startups have emerged as key drivers of economic growth and job creation by embracing technology and tapping into the vast human resource.
Africa currently boasts of having the world’s youngest and fastest growing population, with an estimated 122 million young people expected to join employment roles in the next five years. This means that in the foreseeable future, there will be increased human resource in the job market placing HR leaders at the centre of managing this workforce.
It is against this backdrop that the vision of SeamlessHQ was born.
At the core of SeamlessHQ, is the belief that people are the lifeblood of organizations and the company’s most valuable resource. Hence, we are driven towards helping organizations better manage, reward and retain their most valuable assets; People.
The pandemic has helped bring to light the digital revolution that is sweeping away traditional processes coercing organisations to adapt or die. Our solutions therefore help organizations adapt and win in the 21st century.
How it works
We are looking at the HR space in a more holistic approach. Our goal being to:
- Automate all the HR processes that encompass the employee lifecycle from hire to retire, (onboarding, payroll, leave, learning and development to performance management)in one central place.
- Integrate other parts of the business such as Finance, linking the payroll module to banks and mobile money wallets to easily disburse funds to employee bank accounts and wallets. With this data, we will be in a position to extend credit and even manage salary advances.
- Provide a distinctive unmatched user experience setting up organizations to seamlessly manage their workforce through the design of our software.
The Community
“Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.”
~ Malcolm Forbes
During our market research, we identified some glaring gaps in the HR Space. One that particularly stood out was the absence of an inclusive, vibrant community of African HR professionals. We therefore saw it fit to bridge that gap through creating an environment that allows HR professionals to interact, learn and belong.
The HR space is always evolving and demands from those in it to continuously educate themselves on emerging issues such as changes in the employment laws, newest practices for handling sensitive HR issues and to find innovative ways to help contribute to the company’s bottom line.
Some of the avenues that we provide for learning are podcasts — featuring various thought leaders- and monthly fireside chats which are engaging conversations on relevant HR topics -featuring global HR leaders. In addition, we have regular slack conversations on global HR trends and host fun light-hearted meet and greet sessions that include HR trivia games amongst others.
The SeamlessHQ community has been a great resource and has grown in leaps and bounds currently boasting of 350+ HR professionals.
Building a tech startup smack in the middle of a pandemic and tackling the demands of a dynamically changing market has been equally daunting and exhilarating. We couldn’t have made any significant strides without the commitment and support of our team, not to mention our HR advisors like Dickson Nyambori , Group Head of Human Capital, Auto Express and technical advisors like Eric Gaturu, Snr. Engineer at Andela. He has been our key Engineering mentor from the onset and has been very fundamental in our growth and in the development of our product. Our mentors have generally enabled us to think through problems in a manner to provide value to our users in an effective and scalable way.
Most importantly, this would not have been possible without the guidance and support of Impact Africa Network(IAN); the dream factory, a startup studio on a mission to ensure young talented Africans can participate in the digital transformation of Africa as creators and owners.
Not to mention our chief strategist, Mark Karake, the brains behind IAN, who has committed his time to mentor a team of young people to develop a project into a stellar company, that is now solving a huge market niche.
I am blown away by how technology is constantly changing the way we live and interact with those around us. That I get to experience and see the tangible impact achieved by it is the icing on the cake. I am honoured to be a part of the solutions to some of our continent’s biggest problems and thrilled to learn from and engage with innovation-driven HR professionals in the SeamlessHQ community every day.
I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to gain foresight by stepping on the shoulders of these giants. It’s been a journey of many lessons learnt.
Watch this space.
