Fast Company | by Kate Rockwood | November 2008
How Kenexa is blending psychology and technology to create passionate workers.
At the suburban Philadelphia offices of Kenexa, people grin at one another all day long. Sometimes they hug. Bright posters of the company’s guiding principles dot the walls: YOU’RE ALLOWED TO LAUGH YOUR WAY THROUGH A PROBLEM AND MAKING FRIENDS REPLACES OUR ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY. The CEO, Rudy Karsan, spouts odd koanlike talk: “The world is like a roomful of jars. Every time you open a jar, there’s untold treasure in there.”
Ah, but there’s treasure in such psychobabble. Kenexa is the leading human-resources-services company in America. Sixty percent of the Fortune 100, including Caterpillar, General Motors, Time Warner’s, and Wachovia, hire Kenexa to help get inside the minds of their employees and build worker loyalty. It has what analysts say is the sector’s most sophisticated data-crunching software, as well as a squad of scientists — statisticians and industrial and organizational psychologists — to help turn correlations into action plans as well as profit: Kenexa’s revenue has tripled since its 2005 IPO, to $182 million. In HR, a discipline viewed by workers at most companies as unhelpful at best and horrendous at worst, the company’s secret is its Cyndi Lauper — like conviction that employees just want to have fun.
According to Kenexa, turnover among managers who feel pride in their company is 21% lower than among those who don’t. Adds the Kenyan-born, Canadian-educated Karsan: “When you’re in a job that you enjoy and you’re good at, you’re not just a better worker. You’re a better spouse, a better parent, a better citizen.”
But this isn’t just about group hugs. Kenexa’s scientists do interviews and surveys to learn what inspires employees. (Managers: Apparently, employees love sessions where you just listen to them.) Its industry-leading software runs the data through sophisticated algorithms, identifying correlations and possible causations. Then Kenexa devises strategies to improve work environments and recruit, evaluate, and keep talent. For example, after studying several service industries, Kenexa recently developed a program in which potential hires use avatars to act out scenarios — from remembering the proper arrangement of items in a hotel room to making judgment calls about inebriated drinkers at a bar — to measure how naturally engaged an applicant would be on the job.
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Everything from recognition programs to in-house competitions to the corporate structure is constantly subject to employee feedback, and everything is meant to boost involvement and loyalty.
Kenexa draws a line straight from its employees’ behavior to its success. The company now has offices in 18 countries, including a newly opened 25-acre research campus in India. “It doesn’t matter where in the world you go,” he explains. “Through their work, people find dignity.”
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