As an operations executive and business leader for more than 20 years, Branden Tsetsilas says he has always valued performance and engagement tools, but many tools available were not effective.
“They always generated low adoption and frustration with things such as annual performance reviews, continuous performance evaluations and engagement surveys,” he says. “This is critical information that companies need to understand around productivity with their employees. However, it just felt uncomfortable for the employee. I figured there had to be a better way.”
That’s when Tsetsilas, founder and CEO of Chyme in Salem, set out to design his own platform, also called Chyme, to align managers and employees by focusing on what he calls the three biggest drivers of success: performance results, empowerment feedback and social dynamics.
The platform lets employees join a network and share “Social DNA” profiles. Tsetsilas says the methodology is based on Myers–Briggs and Carl Jung but is not a personality test. Rather, it reveals the employee’s preference for one of four social approaches and gives managers and employees communication tips and guidance to improve conversations one-on-one.
Managers and employees can take the Social DNA evaluation tool as many times as they want as communication preferences can change over time.
He says other vendors build too many tasks into their engagement and productivity platforms, such as 360-feedback, social recognition and other features that don’t have a meaningful impact on productivity and just add to employee workload.
Chyme conducted beta testing in 2018 and brought it to market in September 2019. “We expect great growth,” he says, noting sales have been strong in the first year. “We’ve a 100% renewal rate to this point and have had a lot of early success with staffing and recruiting firms,” Tsetsilas says.
Current Issue - April 2024