World Manager: Changing How the World Does Business

Gary Valkenburg, Founder and CEO

Human Resource technology, over the years, has become a key aspect of running an organization. With Human Capital Management growing in stature in a company’s business exchanges, the investment businesses ought to make on HR technology has intensified. Changing times have compelled organizations to strive harder to improve the effectiveness of HR solutions implemented, and subsequently enhance the efficiency. HR technology with its value-added solutions has become a key enabler of progress and organizational success. With these developing trends coming to light in the HR space, World Manager changed the course of the industry with its pioneering HR solutions.

Gary Valkenburg, Founder and CEO of World Manager, was a restaurant/retail trainer traveling the world for two decades. On his journey, he observed a consistent pattern in the way restaurants and retailers handled their organizational structure. Each Location Head acted on his own whims, abandoning company policies and standards. Valkenburg incepted World Manager with an ingenious idea of a centralized management platform for both employees and administrators. Importantly, he realized the immediate need for such a platform. “The goal was to create a platform to allow every CEO to train, track, and communicate with employees, and control company compliance nationally and globally,” says Valkenburg. In a year (2005) where the population of the Internet reached one billion, a lack of a definitive HR tool confounded many industry purists. In that sense, the launch of World Manager at that time and its subsequent growth ever since has been exemplary. Conclusively, reflecting the industry’s lingering wait for such a centralized manager to take over their HR duties.

The management at the firm, applying their experience of working in the Hospitality industry, has completely reformed the HR techniques practiced worldwide and brought about a new dawn in the industry. World Manager has transformed the traditional HR methods and its usual frailties and built its e-learning platform, training methods, and HR onboarding. The World Manager platform launched commercially 12 years ago, has made rapid strides ever since and is being used by over 30,000 businesses in more than 50 countries. Millions of people are completing their tests worldwide annually, with World Manager being among the winners of over 30-industry awards.

World Manager allows organizational heads to keep track of all employees across the globe in one online platform. While it doesn’t replace the existing system and programs, it enhances the organizational structure completely rendering report tracking, data collection, analysis, testing, and follow-up, obsolete. Characteristically suitable for any company of any size, its implementation significantly reduces expenses by creating all online systems internally within the platform. It drives unprecedented reporting capabilities and allowing operations team to deliver and monitor best practice training and HR systems worldwide. World Manager provides access to minute-by-minute data, staff training results, average test scores, personal tests, performance appraisals, and surveys.

World Manager offers four suites of online software which include Operations, Human Resources, Training, and Communications in addition to two more suites, Education and Scheduling.

The decisions we make daily are not profit driven, but driven by the desire to be the best at what we do

Originally designed to enable CEO’s and Head Offices to train, track, and communicate with every employee every minute, the suites help organizations to stay relevant in the technology space with outstanding customer support. The suites delivered in an interactive and engaging way, allow HR administrators to create content easily and quickly and to deliver the same across the organization in an instant. This fastened delivery of content allows managers to be flexible and responsive to changing business needs. It also allows for consistent standardization of messages and communication throughout the organization globally.

Each suite's functionally has its unique characteristic, but each one of them works towards the core idea of easing the HR managerial experience. The Operations suite helps create a custom online inspection report or use incident report template for reporting of all audits, safety checks, accidents, customer issues, and incidents. The training suite offers Compliance tracking capability, Self-Authored e-Learning, Mobile e-Learning, ACTIV presentations, written tests, SCORM, and more. The Communications suite, keeps employees engaged with mobile app notifications, online photo gallery tools, event scheduling software, and document management software ensuring employee communication. The Education suite allows brands to create a customized nationally accredited online training academy for all employees and leaders. The Human Resources suite consisting of all sets of HR online tools manages the entire employee lifecycle online from recruitment and onboarding to exit interviews. And finally, the Scheduling suite in partnership with ZUUS Workforce, seamlessly provides employee schedules directly in World Manager platforms.

World Manager manages to address the four main topics that plague the CIO’s and HR’s approach towards employees in the industry at the moment and has proven to be a beneficial ally delivering useful advantages to its clients. The topics being, Employee engagement, Employee development, Lack of consistency in communication to and from employees, and Integrating HR tools. World Manager delivers advantages that include Industry best practice templates for all suites, video and photo training expertise, a network of industry professionals and much more at a relatively low cost. Additionally, the company’s upgrades are free and as the clients grow and technology changes, it modifies itself to suit the industry demands. World Manager invests a major portion of its revenue in constant reinvention and development of latest technologies.

Due to the many benefits and advantages that World Manager carries, clients across the globe partner with them, deriving exponential synergy internationally. World Manager attends to a variety of sectors like Retail, Sports Leisure, Fashion, Health and Beauty, Community and Childcare, Homeware and Home improvements, Financial services and Insurance, Communication and Entertainment, Automotive and Accessories, Catering and Food services, Fitness, Travel, and Recreation services. The clientele includes Domino’s Pizza, Adidas, Reebok, Bardot, Jurlique, Samsung, Greyhound, Timezone, Bridgestone, Emirates Leisure Retail, Jetts Fitness and much more.

A fine example where World Manager’s expertise shines through is the case of Domino’s Pizza. The Retail Food and Delivery giant faced a big challenge of tracking compliance across several countries and have their training content converted into country specific languages. World Manager launched the platform in English and in just two weeks and translated the training content into Dutch for the Netherlands’ market. Alina Press, National People Development Manager, Domino’s Pizza testified, “World Manager offered us a unique opportunity to consolidate all of our Human Resource systems in one easy-to-use communication platform, matching our overall strategic direction. Moreover, it also offered fast and efficient technical support and has shown an excellent understanding of our needs as a customer.”

For their services, the firm along with an enviable clientele has garnered numerous awards in every category or sector, they have set foot in by various globally recognized forums and publications. World Manager received the 2016 Most Outstanding Business Growth Platform, Acquisition International, 2011 Winner Award for Marketing Excellence, 2011 Winner Award for Best E-Business Product, 2009 Winner Award for Best Value, 2009 Winner Award for Enterprise, 2008 Winner Product Quality, 2007 Winner Leadership in Consulting Award, 2004 Winner Best New Training Program, and a lot more.

The company has come a long way though. Since the days of it being an idea in a notebook on a desk in a bedroom, it has achieved its dream and grown in stature and size. With a committed team working continually to deliver outstanding VIP treatment to its clients, World Manager has transformed the way Human Resource Management is viewed and executed. World Manager realizes the small nuances and details that every HR culture demands and produces what is needed. For example, it is simultaneously creating upgrades in Onboarding to soon offer paperless onboarding and contract generation in Asia Pacific, and it is processing I9, W4’s, and WOTC in the United States. Along with it, World Manager has been a market disruptor throughout which offers free upgrades, free support, free account manager, no hike in price for the duration of the agreement, and a no fixed term contract. Something its peers would find it hard to emulate.

"World Manager invests a major portion of its revenue in constant reinvention and development of latest technologies"

Speaking of differentiators, World Manager is ably supported by its policies and packages that help it to stand out from its peers and competitors. One of them being its “Implementation packages” that it provides to help a company go live. Unlike most of its competitors who take nine months to a year to get a company live. World Managers accomplishes the same in 4-5 weeks by ‘doing the heavy lifting and build the forms, appraisals, application forms, employee surveys, exit interviews, and even full training implementation packages’. Also, the company does not outsource support or training content development, enabling the best working experience to its clients. The company has always been a trailblazer in HR Technology and has set new benchmarks for others to follow. After launching appraisals as their first HR tool, World Manager hasn’t looked back and has gone on to launch tools like employee surveys, exit interviews, online recruitment, employee KPI, and was one of the first ones to go 100 percent mobile.

For all their success and accomplishments, Team World Manager has been a major part of it. Valkenburg says, “Compared to our billion dollar competitors in the world, we have a small team. However, our entire team works towards being the best at their roles.” The culture at World Manager breeds innovation and reinvesting in the latest technology is a company mantra. He further adds, “We continually defy the odds, and turn the ship whenever necessary to meet the ever-changing market demands. From selling our platform, to after-sale support, or providing the best upgrades we possibly can, the entire team focusses on keeping World Manager on top.”

12-years in the industry, World Manager, is not looking towards resting on its laurels. At a time when businesses are keen to adopt new technologies to streamline their HR operations, World Manager plans to remain a global leader in the HR industry, by establishing their presence in the major regions around the world. Valkenburg elaborates, “A big focus for this year is improving our already comprehensive HR suite. We have several phases of paperless onboarding going live this year, plus contract generation, and complete overhauls of our current recruitment and appraisals tools to keep them cutting edge in the industry.” World Manager seeks to commit itself fully to the client’s cause globally and be good at it. In conclusion, Valkenburg states, “The decisions we make daily are not profit driven, but driven by the desire to be the best at what we do.”

- Vikesh Seth
May 29, 2017