With almost 25 years of experience as a technology leader, Parag leads Simpplr’s engineering and technology teams in developing this generation-defining platform. Through an acute focus on engineering excellence and customer-driven road mapping, Parag will ensure that Simpplr customers continue to receive unparalleled value from the leading employee experience platform. Before joining Simpplr, Parag served as the Senior Vice President of SaaS Engineering at Nutanix. During his career at Nutanix, Parag developed advanced Saas applications and systems across the entire customer and partner life cycle.
This episode features an interview with Parag Kulkarni, Chief Technology Officer at Simpplr. Parag has nearly 25 years of experience as a technology industry leader. Previously, Parag was the Senior Vice President of SaaS Engineering at Nutanix where he developed modern SaaS applications covering the customer and partner lifecycle. Parag is now heading Simpplr’s engineering and technology teams to create more value for its customers. In this episode, Amanda and Parag discuss Simpplr’s new employee communication software Live EX, intranets and employee engagement, and the personalization of communications.
Parag’s background
Segment: Story Time
Simpplr’s Live EX function and what makes it different
How Live EX helps drive employee engagement
How Simpplr personalizes data to communicate with employees
How people use Simpplr to get to know each other
Segment: Ripped From the Headlines
How organizations can use Live EX to minimize employee turnover
Segment: Asking For a Friend
Parag’s advice for those hesitant to change the employee experience
"When we talk about engagement and connection, the big component of that is communication. How do you communicate? Who do you communicate to? Can you properly explain the why? Can you communicate at the right time? The product [Live EX] really focuses on that communication aspect as the first step of employee engagement or employee experience. Once that communication has happened, the next piece is to actually have a way of listening back to the feedback. Which is where surveys, the analytics that I talked about came into play. So, you really understand, ‘If I’m falling short in terms of engagement in certain areas, why is that? What can I do?’ And then the third component, which is where we are moving towards, is using that to inspire. Which is where things like recognition comes into play. If you see certain cultural values being exhibited that will drive more engagement, more connection. Then those are the ones that you really want to communicate to the larger group. Those are the ones that you want to recognize. So between connection, listening to the feedback for the connection that was provided, and then ultimately inspiring using recognition is how the platform can really help. And we are seeing a great uptake in that. We are seeing companies who are looking at employee experience and saying, ‘I really want to invest in my current employees.’ Hiring a new employee is so much more difficult and so much more money than focusing on the existing employees and keeping them happy".