This company uses AI to help people optimize their work, and save millions.
Marco van Hurne
Partnering with the most innovative AI and RPA platforms to optimize back office processes, automate manual tasks, improve customer service, save money, and grow profits.
I recently came across FOUNT, a company that you've probably not heard of before, but they are expanding at lightning speed. That is because they have such a unique approach to optimizing work by making use of AI and what they call "work mining" .
They give ownership of work to where it belongs: the employee . And their main business is in reducing "work friction". This way they get it both ways. The employees are happier, because they get rid of hurdles, and their company saves money at the same time !
Now you are probably wondering: What on earth is work friction?
Let me tell you.
Work friction
It is about the little things that make your workday harder than it needs to be. Take little pebbles in your shoe while you're trying to run. At work, these pebbles can be anything, from inefficient processes, buggy tools, to poor communication.
Now, in an office setting, work friction may look like you are having to go through a maze of approvals to get a simple project started. Or constantly having to fight with a software system that keeps on crashing every hour.
Now the problem with work friction is that it's not just annoying - it's also incredibly costly. Because all those little inefficiencies together, add up to a lot of wasted time and energy. And when employees are constantly fighting against friction, they get burnt out, disengaged, less productive - you name it.
We've all been there.
"The cost of work friction is staggering – not just in terms of lost productivity, but in terms of lost potential. Every moment an employee spends battling against inefficiency is a moment they could be spending on innovation, creativity, and growth" - Christophe Martel, Co-Founder of Fount
To be specific - in the case of a heahth insurer [see below], they managed to save $13.4M cost savings just 9 months after the start of the friction management program.
That's why companies are starting to pay more and more attention to identifying and eliminating work friction. They realize that by smoothing out these bumps in the road, they can actually reduce a lot of frustration in their workforce. And that's exactly what Fount is helping them do. They use AI to shine a light on the moments that matter most in an employee's working day and they provide them with insights to make those moments better.
Yes, indeed, you read it right: It's for the Employees. For us ! It is a bottom-up platform.
This revelation brings me to the 'why' of Fount
The "Why" of Fount
No doubt have you heard about or read Simon Sinek's book "Start with Why". In the book, he talks about great leaders who inspire action by communicating their purpose: their "Why"; not just the "What" it is that they do, or "How" they are doing it. For me personally, it has been a long time since I've come across a company with such a strong raison d'être (reason for being).
Let me give it a shot to try and put their purpose it into a few paragraphs:
Ok. Work gets done on the work-floor and people who feel responsible for their work now get the chance to change things themselves!
The core of their business is improving the work-satisfaction of people doing the actual work themselves, and they do this by getting rid of bumps in the road - the "work friction".
At the heart of Fount's philosophy is a simple and powerful idea:
"work should be a source of purpose, growth, and fulfillment for every individual".
This isn't just a feel-good slogan – it's a guiding principle that shapes every aspect of their platform and methodology. They focus on the moments that matter most in an employee's day-to-day experience: the moments where they run into complexity or bureaucracy. The platform identifies and addresses the key drivers of engagement, productivity, and satisfaction of the employees - and for the employees.
Their philosophy will definitely resonate with the new generation of employees, who are not content to just be cogs in a machine anymore. They want to own their work, and to have a say in how things are done. They're looking at work as a product that they're buying from their employer, and they want to make sure it's a product that meets their needs.
"They focus on the moments that matter most in an employee's day-to-day experience: the moments where they run into complexity or bureaucracy".
The company
Fount's founders, Christophe and Volker, have been passionate about transforming the workplace since their time as consultants, where they helped companies measure and improve employee satisfaction, and their work. However, they soon realized that simply tracking satisfaction scores wasn't enough – they needed to dig deeper into the underlying factors that influence an employee's overall experience.
This realization led to the development of Fount's unique "moment-centric" approach to data collection. Instead of relying on generic surveys, which are typically done with platforms like SurveyMonkey, Fount gets the feedback at the most critical points in an employees work process. Like for instance when they complete a project, interact with a customer, or collaborate with a colleague.
And because the platform is about collecting huge amounts of data on how people work, and the trouble they run into, they are able to produce friction dashboards by only surveying employees once or twice a year! But the platform does not collect data alone. It also creates an analysis of these touchpoints that shape an employee's work life.
A touchpoint is any interaction that an employee has during their workday that shapes their experience and productivity. Fount examines every aspect of the employee experience to identify areas for improvement. They do this from analyzing the tools they use to the processes they follow and to the people they interact with.
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This holistic approach is key to understanding the factors that contribute to workplace friction. The platform pinpoints the most significant pain points and prioritizes the changes that will have the greatest impact on employee well-being and their performance.
The business case for Fount is quite strong I must say. At the most basic level, getting workplace friction down will lead to a lot of cost savings because it will eliminate wasted time and effort. But I think that the real benefits of this platform go far beyond cost savings. And forgive me for getting a little enthusiastic and sentimental here: they are here in this game to help organizations build a culture of continuous improvement and employee empowerment!
Especially the latter makes this a company worthwhile to invest in.
This platform can help you attract and retain talent, drive innovation, and even help you adapt to changing markets. And that's because when employees feel heard, valued, and supported, they are more likely to bring their best selves to work and go the extra mile for their organization.
That is something that people want, and want to be part of!
An example
The impact of this shift in perspective can be seen in the results achieved by Fount's clients: companies like for instance PepsiCo and IKEA. They have used it to streamline their operations, and making their frontline workers responsible for optimizing their work. But beyond these tangible outcomes, they have also seen a noticeable improvement in employee morale, collaboration, and creativity.
Let me take you through an example:
Take a team of call center agents working for a Health Insurance company.
This is one of the toughest customer-facing jobs out there, since these people need to interact with customers that might be diagnosed with serious diseases and who want to know the extent to which their insurance can cover very expensive treatment costs.
One of Fount’s customers, ALPHA HEALTHCARE (a pseudonym for a Fortune 100 insurance company) had an early turnover problem in its 8,000-employee service center organization, with a 6-month attrition rate over 30%.
?
With its unique approach, Fount was able to analyze the points of friction in the call center’s day to day work, which looked at workflow activities such as ‘Handle a complex caller issue’, ‘Confront an abusive caller’ or ‘Take a scheduled break’. Within each of these activities, Fount was able to measure the effectiveness of anyone or anything that call center agents needed to interact with to get these activities done, including touchpoints such as the SME Help line, digital applications, company policies, supervisors etc.
And the brilliance of it all is that Fount can do all of this without getting in the way. It asks quick questions as part of the normal work routine. Its smart system looks at all this information to spot patterns and highlight specific workflow problems. The platform shows all this data in charts. This helps the teams and their leaders to see where work is slowing down, and where there are hiccups. It also suggests ways to fix these slowdowns, like for instance better training, clearer rules or different escalation rules to Subject Matter Experts.
And after the teams make these changes, Fount keeps watching to see if things actually get better.
In the Healthcare’s case, because of the actions taken from Fount’s data, early attrition in new call center agents fell by twelve percentage points from 32% to 20%,
Nine months after the start of the friction management program, a $13.4M cost savings.
My last thoughts
When you get down to it, that's what Fount is really all about – making work better for everyone involved. It's not just about boosting profits; it's about creating a place where people actually want to be. And considering how much of our lives we spend on the job, you know, that's a pretty huge deal.
[Insert screenshot of Fount's mission statement]
So, if you ask me, Fount is definitely worth a look. It's a secret weapon in your back pocket for making your job awesome. And who doesn't want that? It doesn't matter if you're the big boss or just trying to make it through the week. After all, life's too short to be stuck in a job that feels like a grind and a drag.
And here's a little quote that I'll be ending this article with:
"Fount isn't just another HR tech platform – it's a movement. A movement towards a future where work is more human, more meaningful, and more fulfilling for everyone involved".
So why not give it a shot? I think you future self just might thank you!
Well, that's a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I'll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ??
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Signing off - Marco
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CEO, Axe Automation — Helping companies scale by automating and systematizing their operations with custom Automations, Scripts, and AI Models. Visit our website to learn more.
1 个月That sounds like a game-changer. It's impressive how they're improving work processes and saving money.