November 19, 2024 • 29 mins
Tara Thurber interviews Sam Caucci, CEO of 1Huddle, a technology company that uses gamification to enhance employee onboarding and continuous development.
Caucci emphasizes that traditional LMS platforms are outdated and ineffective, leading to high forgetfulness rates. 1Huddle's games improve knowledge retention by 91% after 30 days, compared to 11% for traditional methods.
A case study with Tao Hospitality showed a 45% faster onboarding process and $1.17 million in additional revenue from improved service. Caucci highlights the importance of lifelong learning, internal talent identification and empowering employees to own their skills, which can be leveraged for future job opportunities.
Top5 Biggest Impacts of 1Huddle
- Faster Onboarding
- Lifelong Learning
- Upskilling & Cross-skilling
- SkillScoring
- Own Your Stuff
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tara Thurber (00:00):
Hey everyone, welcome back to Top5 brought to
you by DefinedTalent. We are aresults driven partnership
service working with clients toconnect them with quality
talent, as well as working tomake an impact within the HR and
recruiting industry. We talkstraight about today's
professional world with realworld professionals, experts in
recruitment, job seekers andbusiness owners alike, have a
(00:24):
question for us, send it in, andyou might spur our next
conversation. I'm Tara Thurber,Founder and Director of
Partnerships at DefinedTalent.
And joining me today is SamCaucci, CEO of 1Huddle. Hey,
Sam, how are you today?
Sam Caucci (00:41):
Hey, Tara, thanks for having me.
Tara Thurber (00:42):
Absolutely. So Sam, I just want to dive right
in here. And why don't we juststart giving the audience a
little bit about your backgroundand the why behind 1Huddle?
Sam Caucci (00:54):
Sure. Yeah. So you know 1Huddle we are on the
surface as a technology company.
We we try to make the process ofgetting employees on, boarded
up-skilled, continuouslydeveloped. We try to make do
that in a more engaging and moreeffective way. We do it using
games. You know, the the kind ofconcept from this came from
(01:15):
probably a little bit too muchtequila along the way, but most
definitely was contributed by Ispent most of my career in
business development roles inorganizations where getting
sales people up to speed quicklywas of the utmost importance,
and along the way my experienceswhen it came to the onboarding
(01:41):
process and then the continuousdevelopment process, oftentimes
working with HR and L & D teamsthat were, I think, very well
intended, but the solutions thatthey were utilizing that were
really kind of stuck inyesterday. I mean, it was
manuals that we were printingout that sales reps wouldn't
(02:01):
read. It was videos that theywould just click through. I know
none of your listeners have everjust clicked through a video and
a compliance training before. Iknow nobody has ever done that,
but our experiences were thathappens way too much. So, that
experience kind of spurred thejourney of trying to think of,
how do we do we do this better,and how do we do this in a way
(02:21):
that employees look forward to?
And, you know, 1Huddle was born.
Tara Thurber (02:28):
beautiful, beautiful. I actually, I found a
statistic too, where 70% ofemployees prefer online or self
paced courses, and then it'sfollowed by online, instructor
led training, in person,training and hybrid learning.
But 80% of employees wantpersonalized learning, and 68%
(02:49):
they want non-work relatedtraining. So I think looking at
these statistics and thenbringing in 1Huddle, it's
phenomenal. It's a phenomenaloption for employees and
individuals to train and upskilland have some fun while they're
doing it.
Sam Caucci (03:08):
Yeah, I think what we've learned is that the medium
is only part of the solution. Imean, for really, if the goal of
an organization is to build thebest workforce, you know that is
the goal. The goal is to create.
And I fundamentally believe yourcustomer experience can never be
better than your employeeexperience. It's like law of
gravity here. So you wanted tocreate the best workforce. Then
(03:30):
what it takes is not justdeveloping some of those stats
pop out at me, because it's notjust developing people for the
job they're in right now.
Tara Thurber (03:42):
Right.
Sam Caucci (03:43):
It's about developing them for the next job
and or developing them beforethey clock in and after they
clock out. And an interestingstat on 1Huddle today is nearly
28% of all games played fromfront line workers at Lowe's
hotels to sales reps at MadisonSquare Garden. 28% of all
(04:05):
gameplay is on somethingpersonal or professional
development related, and thatmeans workers are exploring
games on things that you knowaren't food safety train now
they're exploring things thatare they find a personal
connection to they feel like itsupports them or helps them, or
is just edutainment in some wayseven, and I think that's a
(04:27):
really important part of thelearning experience. It is
totally different than the kindof old school academic watch
module one, then watch moduletwo, then watch module three,
and then you're quote, box checktrained. That stuff just doesn't
doesn't work anymore.
Tara Thurber (04:43):
Yeah, absolutely doesn't work. And just talking
to candidates, it's oremployees, it's a struggle, like
they Oh, I have to do it. Andyou're right with the click
through. I know I've probablydone some click throughs way
back in my past. So completelyunderstand that aspect. What
would you say some of the keychallenges 1Huddle is solving
(05:05):
for companies that struggle withthe traditional LMS platforms,
and how is it redefiningemployee training in general?
Sam Caucci (05:14):
Yep, and it's important to note, Tara, that I
think that when a brand isconsidering their technology
stack for people development.
Tara Thurber (05:25):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (05:25):
This is not either or, it's an and.
Tara Thurber (05:27):
It's an and.
Sam Caucci (05:28):
So we work with organizations that have an LMS,
and we we sit on top of it. Wehave organizations who they
think they need an LMS, and theyprobably need something smaller
first to really get rolling. Soit really just depends. For us,
when we when we look at a brand,the big challenges that they're
often faced with is, how do youget everything in one spot so
(05:51):
everybody knows it? You know, sonthat's a big like benefit of
1Huddle. If we wanted to takeeverything and put it in a
single place, make sureeverybody has access to it.
That's step one. Then step twois creating an environment where
they don't need to access itbecause they know it. So they
know it. If I'm the chef, Idon't need to look at the recipe
card, because I know thematerial. And that second piece
(06:12):
for 1Huddle. It's all aboutaccelerating onboarding. How do
we get people from not knowingto knowing as fast as possible,
and that transfer of knowledgesome ways. Here's one data point
back for you. 87% of what youlearn in a classroom training,
according to all the latestcognitive science research on
(06:35):
learning, is forgotten within 30days. 70% is forgotten within 72
hours of a live trainingsession. So, for us, the second
piece is transfer knowledgequickly, but in a way that it
sticks, so that the employee canstep back and access it when
they need it most. So that'sprobably the second prong. And
then, finally, is givingleadership insights into where
(06:58):
their skills are right now, andthis is a huge gap today that we
see with organizations. Because,they look at training as a, you
know, training is, is pasttense, you know, it's, did you
do it? Did you not? Pass/Failparticipation, and that's it. It
doesn'twhereas I, we think thatwe look at learning as more of
(07:20):
like we're taking your pulse andright you know, you're not going
to flat line. You always have,where are you right now at any
moment in time? So givingleadership, we create a single
metric, kind of like a netpromoter score. We call it our
skill score, on 1Huddle, everyplayer, every department, every
location, has it. And it's an itinforms operations L and D
(07:46):
people, HR on, where should wefocus next? And it allows,
allows the HR and L & D team toget closer to the P and L with
the organization, which I thinkwe would all agree. Talent
Development, I'm sure all yourlisteners agree talent
development does have an impacton revenue, but sometimes it's
(08:06):
really hard for HR groups to,again, get a metric that can sit
on a dashboard very early in aboard deck for a CEO, and that's
what we try to do.
Tara Thurber (08:17):
Awesome. It's amazing. The the advantages that
can come from that too, whenwe're thinking about employee
engagement and retentioncompared to the other training
solutions. How is 1Huddle'sgamified approach improved that.
I mean, you just gave me somestatistics as well, but tell me
(08:40):
a little bit more on on how it'simproved internally for
employees.
Sam Caucci (08:45):
Sure. So we have two studies that we point to. Both
were academic research studiesconducted by the University of
South Florida's Graduate Schoolof Business. They came in and
took 1Huddle and looked at itsexecution across a few different
environments, and I'll give youthe cliff notes here. They found
that a group that learns on1Huddle gets from not knowing to
(09:09):
knowing 45% faster than atraditional learning management
system. And they put us upagainst a small company you may
have heard of called LinkedInLearning.
Tara Thurber (09:18):
(laughs)
Sam Caucci (09:19):
So they said two different cohorts. One group
learns just by playing games,and this is the key to the
learning piece. Struggle andfailure are critical to
learning. They areuncomfortable. However, that
process, which is calledgenerative learning, leads to
stickier, longer, lastingretention. So one group just
(09:39):
played the games, didn't haveany videos, didn't read any
manuals. Second group, that'show they learned. They watched
the video, they read content,and they spot tested that group
over time again, they found thatthe group that learned by just
playing games got there 45%faster. So we tell brands again
if it takes you six weeks toonboard an employee. So, we can
(10:01):
get there in as much as halfthat time, which is a big cost
savings. The second part of yourquestion is, once you learn it,
can you retain it? And is itstickier long term, we find that
players that learn on one huddleretain as much as 91% of the
content learned after 30 days,by the way, LMS is a loss is 11%
(10:27):
okay, it's an absolute flip whenit comes to knowledge retention.
And I think the magic ingredientin here is not, is low stakes
quizzing, like method ish, lowstakes quizzing and testing
yield very positive outcomes,because from a cognitive
(10:49):
behavioral perspective, thebrain doesn't like to fail, and
when it does, retains itsfailure and learns from that
event. It's a survival instinct,whereas the alternative is, is
not there's an absence offailure, which makes the content
very shallow, called kind ofshallow learning, right? And we
(11:09):
just, all we did was we tookthat learning and we wrapped it
in a game, because who wants tofail? I mean, by the way, like,
Oh, this is all really goodresearch that we were stumbling
upon. And we said, well, whatare we going to do, like, come
out with the testing app likethat? Nobody's going to really
want to do that. And that wasthe key. It's got to be
effective and engaging. And wesaid, well, the average worker
(11:31):
today, everybody's a gamer. Soone of the things we talk about
every single everybody, whetherit's your mom doing Wordle, you
know, Grandma doing a crosswordpuzzle.
Tara Thurber (11:41):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (11:42):
Someone that's even crazy about the reward points on
their Chase account, likeeverybody understands gaming
mechanics. So we knew that thegaming piece would drive
engagement, which, is really thebrings the whole platform
together, because when peopleplay games, when they're not
supposed to or not don't haveto, then we're doing something
(12:04):
special.
Tara Thurber (12:06):
Wow. And then the data that comes from that, I
mean, that's that's even themore magic. Diving into that is
there any way you can share somespecific examples how 1Huddle
has transformed trainingoutcomes for clients in key
industries?
Sam Caucci (12:23):
Sure, yeah. Toa Hospitality is a client of ours,
and they're fun to talk aboutbecause they are in dealing in a
high stakes hospitality serviceenvironment. Also, 165 million
US workers, 15 million of themare in hospitality. And I think
100% of them churn every likefew minutes, unfortunately,
(12:45):
given how chaotic hospitalityis. So Toa Hospitality had a
property in London that theywere struggling with an
initiative they called one morecocktail. Okay, so everybody
here that's, you know, been arestaurant or been to a bar or
been to a towel property knowsthat there's a special today.
You know, you drink, you haveone cocktail. The bartender is
(13:09):
potentially, should you know,from a service perspective, you
know, make the offer to you toconsider an additional cocktail
or another offering they werefinding that one in every 22
cocktails resulted in anadditional cocktail sold. They
were not happy with that number,and their goal was to bring that
(13:32):
down to one in 10. All they didwas launch a two game series on
1Huddle. So their strategy was,let's take the steps of service
that is supposed to be followedto confidently introduce
theoffer of an additionalcocktail, and then they'll do a
second game on all the talkingpoints around the cocktail. So
(13:55):
covering kind of both bases. Oneis process, second is product
knowledge. They rolled the gamesout to this single property in
London, hockey and Mayfair, andthey found that after six weeks
of doing this, they went fromone in 22 to one in six.
Tara Thurber (14:12):
Holy cow!
Sam Caucci (14:13):
So every six resulted in an additional
cocktail. What's crazier is,Tara, that that equaled $1.17
million in additional revenue,top line revenue for Tao. And I
think that speaks volumes again.
We prefer to talk about what theperformance outcome is of
(14:33):
getting someone there faster,versus just completion rates.
And that's probably one of thebest ones we talk about.
Tara Thurber (14:42):
That's wild, and it just starts with playing a
game for these individuals andgoing through and learning, and
then the outcome for that, Imean that that amount is
astronomical for just doing oneproperty.
Sam Caucci (15:00):
Yeah. Totally and, you know it was also one of
these things that I always ask,why do they play? You know, the
bartenders and the servers thatwere playing, we had two really
interesting spill out learningsfrom the games.
Tara Thurber (15:12):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (15:13):
The first is, people were playing at all hours. So
first five minutes of theirshift, last five minutes of
their shift, some were opting inon Wi Fi during break periods
where they coulda ccess gamesand do additional learnings. Not
even that game, but they werespilling over and doing games,
or playing games on generalspirit knowledge, or games on a
(15:37):
culture topic that was relevantfor the moment. So we saw that
that game created this likespillover effect. And then
second, we started to find that,because they didn't just turn
this game on for front of house,they turned it on for everybody.
And I think this is an importantpoint for talking aboutnobody
(15:58):
likes an unfair game. I say thata lot to brands.
Tara Thurber (16:01):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (16:01):
And the problem with learning today is certain people
get it and certain people don't.
There's these theaters ofaccess, and our product is
mobile. First, it's 95% of ourgameplay. You can play on any
device, but mobile is like theprimary use case. So the other
thing Tao saw was they havepeople in the back of house that
aren't even selling cocktails,playing that game and engaging
(16:25):
with that topic. And if we'retalking about how organizations
identify talent, some of thattalent might be right under your
nose. You didn't even know itwas there.
Tara Thurber (16:39):
And that kind of goes right into thinking about
how one huddle measures the longterm impact of the platform on
workforce development andbusiness performance. I know
we've spoken multiple times, andit to me, it's amazing for the
to be able to look at the backend, let's say, for somebody
(16:59):
that's serving but to be doinggames that are more focused
around management, or around,maybe it's around marketing and
having those data points thenright to to maybe think about a
shift in their role, or, um,upskilling and and promoting
them differently.
Sam Caucci (17:20):
I mean, company spend Tara, they spend so much
time trying to figure out theyou know, mindset, sentiment,
point of view of their guestsand their customer. The amount
of platforms that exist tofigure that out is wild, from
Google to Yelp to you name it.
The the amount of timeorganizations spend trying to
(17:41):
understand the skill level, thesentiment, the motivation
levels, the interest levels oftheir people, if it was, if it
was equal, I think that youknow, that's where the best
organizations thrive, is they,they are relentless about trying
to understand their people withthe same intensity that they
understand their guests, andwhen they do that, and again,
(18:01):
for one huddle, what we try tobring to the table there is not
just knowing what skills youhave and what skills you're
short on. That's one piece. Youmay have, some things that
you're missing, but alsounderstanding the current
engagement levels of anindividual on your team. If
you're playing 1Huddle, and youare on a 50 week streak, we talk
(18:22):
about this every day here,here's somebody, they're on a 51
week streak, and they just stopplaying. Something is happening,
like, when, when you are on, Imean, if you're on some if
you're played 1000 games, 2000games, you're, you're a super
user on 1Huddle, and then all ofa sudden, you're two, three
weeks out of playing. So we sendlike a flashing light to the to
(18:45):
the manager on the front line tolet them know, hey, Tara, we
don't know if something's upwith Sam here, but Sam is
something's happening with Sam.
Maybe you should go talk to Sam.
And this has been the most funwe're having, because, again,
talent data can, if it'ssurfaced the right way, can
(19:05):
transform frontline managersinto frontline leaders who can
take that data and then dosomething with it to intervene
and mentor and coach anddevelop, which I think is
exciting, because we're livingin a moment where you can't turn
the TV on without hearing AI orrobots or automation is going to
take someone's job. This pieceright here, is a human task that
(19:26):
allows frontline managers totruly be transformative in the
employee experience. But youneed the data to look at, and
you need to be an organizationto be putting the money behind
investments in technology likethat.
Tara Thurber (19:43):
Yeah, and that's huge when we think about just
mental health and the silencebehind it. So case in point,
somebody stops doing somethingthat they've been doing for so
many weeks in a row. Somethingis happening. So to empower
those frontline managers, toempower employees to then help
(20:05):
others. I mean, that's stuffthat you you can't even train at
times, for somebody to feelempathy or for somebody to learn
those leadership skills, it'sthe option and the data behind
it, for them to be able to feelempowered to step into that
role. I think that's one of thekey things about 1Huddle that I
(20:28):
personally think is such anamazing part within employee
development and withinbusinesses that want to create
career paths for individuals. Ithink that that's such a it's a
key for keeping employeesengaged, keeping employees
(20:51):
happy. But also employees willthen start to think, Oh, my
employer does really care aboutme. You know, they're they.
They're touching base with me.
They I make a difference. I'mappreciated, and I think that
that is what a lot of employeeslack, that feeling they don't
feel appreciated. So this isawesome stuff. Sam, my my last
(21:13):
question that I'm going to bringto the table today is with all
of the continuous advancementsin workforce needs, what
innovations is one huddlefocusing on to remain ahead of
the curve right now.
Sam Caucci (21:32):
Sure. The game never ends.
Tara Thurber (21:37):
(laughs) Right?
What's next?
Sam Caucci (21:41):
And again, we're still, we're very much, and
we're not in that very earlystartup stage anymore, but we
still try, we pride ourselves instill trying to operate as a
startup, you know, because itand we act that way. We just
constantly trying new things,challenging, you know, we were
taking shots at 10 things at atime that most people would say
(22:04):
it's too many be disciplined.
But every now and then, one kindof, you know, one or two takes
off, and we learn a lot from it.
No, for us, one of the thingsthat we've learned is that
frontline employees don't owntheir learning. And it's, it's
one of these. Every day, on1Huddle, I open up our platform,
and I see how many employeeswere added and how many
employees were subtracted, andthe subtraction of employees
(22:27):
that were let go, terminated forwhatever reason, and that number
is a big number, and it's, it'sa shocking number when we look
at a lot of the environmentswe're in, and what we've
identified is that when thatindividual leaves, they really
struggle to signal what skillsthey have to the next employer.
(22:50):
And you've had guests talk abouthiring and talent
identification, you know before,and you're an expert on this as
well. I think for us, we knowthat it's not so much a skill
gap as a willingness gap fromemployers and employees have
skills they just not maybe don'tdo a great job at presenting
those in the fashion an employermay want. So we're working
(23:13):
really hard every day on twofronts. One is we continue to
sell into enterprises, and we'retrying to build invest in class
product to help organizationslike tau be the best they can
be. But the other side of it iswe have to equally care a heck
of a lot about our end user. AndI talk to a lot of other
(23:33):
founders that are in the HRspace, and they have tech
products, whether it's payrollor HRIS or ATS or LMS, and I say
all the time, that we need tospend as much time focusing on
how the end user uses ourproduct as we do the champion
employer who's mandating it. Andyou know, so for us, we're
spending a lot of time using AIand helping our end users either
(23:57):
get the skills they want quickeror be able to signal the skills
they have faster. And you know,that's a lot of the innovation
that was coming out of onehuddle right now and over the
next bunch of months, is we callit player first for us. So
leading with a player firstmindset every day.
Tara Thurber (24:17):
Player first. I love, I love that. And I really,
I think it's super importanttoo, because I a lot of players
may not realize some of theskills that they actually have,
and that is such a huge additionfor either employees that might
(24:38):
have been let go or, you know,went through it all, they now
can walk away with knowing thatthey have other skills.
Sam Caucci (24:48):
Right on the money, it's one of those things we
don't always think about. But Iuse this example internally when
you use Netflix.
Tara Thurber (24:55):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (24:55):
Netflix has never asked you or me, what type of
shows do you like.
Tara Thurber (25:00):
Right.
Sam Caucci (25:01):
It just watched what you did, and it said, okay, Sam,
you're watching, you're watchingthe 30 for 30 sports
documentaries a lot here, like,here's the next thing you should
probably watch. And I think it'sthe same thing for employees.
And you know, I look at a lot ofproducts that you come into you
could pick on, like an Indeed,even, or some of these other
applicant platforms, and theyask you, what do you want to do
(25:22):
with your life?
Tara Thurber (25:22):
(laughs)
Sam Caucci (25:22):
I mean, I don't know anybody that can answer that
question, whether they're like,15, 18, 25, 55, and they ask
you, like, what are you good at?
I don't know. So to me, I thinkthis is where technology can
play a really powerful role is,and we do this with one whole
we're not going to ask you whatyou want. We're just going to
try to encourage, it's like aplayground, like, here's a bunch
of stuff. Let's see what youengage with and the stuff you're
(25:45):
doing well at, guess what? We'regoing to show you more of that.
And guess what the stuff you'renot doing well at, we're not
going to continue to badger you,like Duolingo will to tell you
to keep playing this level untilyou somehow cram and learn it,
because that doesn't make youfeel good either as a frontline
worker. So I think that, to yourpoint, is a huge area let people
explore, because I don't know,unless someone has a crystal
(26:08):
ball, we don't know what thejobs are going to look like in a
decade, five years, 20 years,there's a lot of ideas, but I
don't think anybody could have,you know, there's a very, very,
maybe small minority of peoplethat predicted the moment we're
in at this moment. And I thinkorganizations and society and HR
leaders should work every day tobuild great build well rounded
people. The jobs will come next.
Tara Thurber (26:33):
Everything about this is amazing. Sam, I'm so
excited that you joined ustoday. And thank you so much.
One last thing to kick this offis, let's give the audience your
top five biggest impacts of1Huddle.
Sam Caucci (26:51):
Sure, yeah. I mean, I think the top five biggest
impacts for H1uddle first isfaster onboarding. For
organizations, need to getpeople from zero to 60 quickly.
How do we do that? I think thefirst one is faster onboarding.
Second is lifelong learning. Thegame isn't over just because you
got the job. How do we how do wetransform the back of house
(27:11):
worker to the front of houserole to the management role, to
the franchisee to maybe startingtheir own franchise? So I think
upskilling and cross skillingpeople is another is another big
1/3. Is internal talentidentification, like being able
to quickly know what skills youhave within your organization.
So organizations being able toalmost have X ray vision into
(27:34):
the skill levels of theirpeople. Fourth is skill scoring,
which has to do with being ableto identify gaps in knowledge
before they become revenue gaps.
The Tao story I used earlier.
Along that way, they were ableto identify what questions
people were struggling with andthen intervene. And also,
(27:56):
everybody's struggling with aspecific question. And there's a
there's parallels. It empowersmanagers to do better better.
And I think the fifth impactarea is letting end users own
their stuff on 1Huddle. One ofthe benefits is that when you
leave a job, those users, I saidyou the next alert you get from
one huddle gives you a fullreadout. We call it a skill
(28:17):
wallet of all the things you'velearned and earned while playing
one huddle at that brand. It'syour property, it's your data,
and hopefully you can take thatto the next job to help you
better position yourself to winthe job and win the right job
and pay you the rate youdeserve.
Tara Thurber (28:35):
That's fantastic.
Sam, I'm loving all of theseimpacts. I think 1Huddle has so
much to offer for the employeeand the employers. So thank you
again, so much for taking timeout of your busy week, and I
appreciate you, and I hope youhave an amazing rest of your
week.
Sam Caucci (28:53):
Thank you, Tara.
Tara Thurber (28:56):
We are to DefinedTalent coming to you at
Top5 Make it a great day.
Hey everyone, welcome back to Top5 brought to
you by DefinedTalent. We are aresults driven partnership
service working with clients toconnect them with quality
talent, as well as working tomake an impact within the HR and
recruiting industry. We talkstraight about today's
professional world with realworld professionals, experts in
recruitment, job seekers andbusiness owners alike, have a
(00:24):
question for us, send it in, andyou might spur our next
conversation. I'm Tara Thurber,Founder and Director of
Partnerships at DefinedTalent.
And joining me today is SamCaucci, CEO of 1Huddle. Hey,
Sam, how are you today?
Sam Caucci (00:41):
Hey, Tara, thanks for having me.
Tara Thurber (00:42):
Absolutely. So Sam, I just want to dive right
in here. And why don't we juststart giving the audience a
little bit about your backgroundand the why behind 1Huddle?
Sam Caucci (00:54):
Sure. Yeah. So you know 1Huddle we are on the
surface as a technology company.
We we try to make the process ofgetting employees on, boarded
up-skilled, continuouslydeveloped. We try to make do
that in a more engaging and moreeffective way. We do it using
games. You know, the the kind ofconcept from this came from
(01:15):
probably a little bit too muchtequila along the way, but most
definitely was contributed by Ispent most of my career in
business development roles inorganizations where getting
sales people up to speed quicklywas of the utmost importance,
and along the way my experienceswhen it came to the onboarding
(01:41):
process and then the continuousdevelopment process, oftentimes
working with HR and L & D teamsthat were, I think, very well
intended, but the solutions thatthey were utilizing that were
really kind of stuck inyesterday. I mean, it was
manuals that we were printingout that sales reps wouldn't
(02:01):
read. It was videos that theywould just click through. I know
none of your listeners have everjust clicked through a video and
a compliance training before. Iknow nobody has ever done that,
but our experiences were thathappens way too much. So, that
experience kind of spurred thejourney of trying to think of,
how do we do we do this better,and how do we do this in a way
(02:21):
that employees look forward to?
And, you know, 1Huddle was born.
Tara Thurber (02:28):
beautiful, beautiful. I actually, I found a
statistic too, where 70% ofemployees prefer online or self
paced courses, and then it'sfollowed by online, instructor
led training, in person,training and hybrid learning.
But 80% of employees wantpersonalized learning, and 68%
(02:49):
they want non-work relatedtraining. So I think looking at
these statistics and thenbringing in 1Huddle, it's
phenomenal. It's a phenomenaloption for employees and
individuals to train and upskilland have some fun while they're
doing it.
Sam Caucci (03:08):
Yeah, I think what we've learned is that the medium
is only part of the solution. Imean, for really, if the goal of
an organization is to build thebest workforce, you know that is
the goal. The goal is to create.
And I fundamentally believe yourcustomer experience can never be
better than your employeeexperience. It's like law of
gravity here. So you wanted tocreate the best workforce. Then
(03:30):
what it takes is not justdeveloping some of those stats
pop out at me, because it's notjust developing people for the
job they're in right now.
Tara Thurber (03:42):
Right.
Sam Caucci (03:43):
It's about developing them for the next job
and or developing them beforethey clock in and after they
clock out. And an interestingstat on 1Huddle today is nearly
28% of all games played fromfront line workers at Lowe's
hotels to sales reps at MadisonSquare Garden. 28% of all
(04:05):
gameplay is on somethingpersonal or professional
development related, and thatmeans workers are exploring
games on things that you knowaren't food safety train now
they're exploring things thatare they find a personal
connection to they feel like itsupports them or helps them, or
is just edutainment in some wayseven, and I think that's a
(04:27):
really important part of thelearning experience. It is
totally different than the kindof old school academic watch
module one, then watch moduletwo, then watch module three,
and then you're quote, box checktrained. That stuff just doesn't
doesn't work anymore.
Tara Thurber (04:43):
Yeah, absolutely doesn't work. And just talking
to candidates, it's oremployees, it's a struggle, like
they Oh, I have to do it. Andyou're right with the click
through. I know I've probablydone some click throughs way
back in my past. So completelyunderstand that aspect. What
would you say some of the keychallenges 1Huddle is solving
(05:05):
for companies that struggle withthe traditional LMS platforms,
and how is it redefiningemployee training in general?
Sam Caucci (05:14):
Yep, and it's important to note, Tara, that I
think that when a brand isconsidering their technology
stack for people development.
Tara Thurber (05:25):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (05:25):
This is not either or, it's an and.
Tara Thurber (05:27):
It's an and.
Sam Caucci (05:28):
So we work with organizations that have an LMS,
and we we sit on top of it. Wehave organizations who they
think they need an LMS, and theyprobably need something smaller
first to really get rolling. Soit really just depends. For us,
when we when we look at a brand,the big challenges that they're
often faced with is, how do youget everything in one spot so
(05:51):
everybody knows it? You know, sonthat's a big like benefit of
1Huddle. If we wanted to takeeverything and put it in a
single place, make sureeverybody has access to it.
That's step one. Then step twois creating an environment where
they don't need to access itbecause they know it. So they
know it. If I'm the chef, Idon't need to look at the recipe
card, because I know thematerial. And that second piece
(06:12):
for 1Huddle. It's all aboutaccelerating onboarding. How do
we get people from not knowingto knowing as fast as possible,
and that transfer of knowledgesome ways. Here's one data point
back for you. 87% of what youlearn in a classroom training,
according to all the latestcognitive science research on
(06:35):
learning, is forgotten within 30days. 70% is forgotten within 72
hours of a live trainingsession. So, for us, the second
piece is transfer knowledgequickly, but in a way that it
sticks, so that the employee canstep back and access it when
they need it most. So that'sprobably the second prong. And
then, finally, is givingleadership insights into where
(06:58):
their skills are right now, andthis is a huge gap today that we
see with organizations. Because,they look at training as a, you
know, training is, is pasttense, you know, it's, did you
do it? Did you not? Pass/Failparticipation, and that's it. It
doesn'twhereas I, we think thatwe look at learning as more of
(07:20):
like we're taking your pulse andright you know, you're not going
to flat line. You always have,where are you right now at any
moment in time? So givingleadership, we create a single
metric, kind of like a netpromoter score. We call it our
skill score, on 1Huddle, everyplayer, every department, every
location, has it. And it's an itinforms operations L and D
(07:46):
people, HR on, where should wefocus next? And it allows,
allows the HR and L & D team toget closer to the P and L with
the organization, which I thinkwe would all agree. Talent
Development, I'm sure all yourlisteners agree talent
development does have an impacton revenue, but sometimes it's
(08:06):
really hard for HR groups to,again, get a metric that can sit
on a dashboard very early in aboard deck for a CEO, and that's
what we try to do.
Tara Thurber (08:17):
Awesome. It's amazing. The the advantages that
can come from that too, whenwe're thinking about employee
engagement and retentioncompared to the other training
solutions. How is 1Huddle'sgamified approach improved that.
I mean, you just gave me somestatistics as well, but tell me
(08:40):
a little bit more on on how it'simproved internally for
employees.
Sam Caucci (08:45):
Sure. So we have two studies that we point to. Both
were academic research studiesconducted by the University of
South Florida's Graduate Schoolof Business. They came in and
took 1Huddle and looked at itsexecution across a few different
environments, and I'll give youthe cliff notes here. They found
that a group that learns on1Huddle gets from not knowing to
(09:09):
knowing 45% faster than atraditional learning management
system. And they put us upagainst a small company you may
have heard of called LinkedInLearning.
Tara Thurber (09:18):
(laughs)
Sam Caucci (09:19):
So they said two different cohorts. One group
learns just by playing games,and this is the key to the
learning piece. Struggle andfailure are critical to
learning. They areuncomfortable. However, that
process, which is calledgenerative learning, leads to
stickier, longer, lastingretention. So one group just
(09:39):
played the games, didn't haveany videos, didn't read any
manuals. Second group, that'show they learned. They watched
the video, they read content,and they spot tested that group
over time again, they found thatthe group that learned by just
playing games got there 45%faster. So we tell brands again
if it takes you six weeks toonboard an employee. So, we can
(10:01):
get there in as much as halfthat time, which is a big cost
savings. The second part of yourquestion is, once you learn it,
can you retain it? And is itstickier long term, we find that
players that learn on one huddleretain as much as 91% of the
content learned after 30 days,by the way, LMS is a loss is 11%
(10:27):
okay, it's an absolute flip whenit comes to knowledge retention.
And I think the magic ingredientin here is not, is low stakes
quizzing, like method ish, lowstakes quizzing and testing
yield very positive outcomes,because from a cognitive
(10:49):
behavioral perspective, thebrain doesn't like to fail, and
when it does, retains itsfailure and learns from that
event. It's a survival instinct,whereas the alternative is, is
not there's an absence offailure, which makes the content
very shallow, called kind ofshallow learning, right? And we
(11:09):
just, all we did was we tookthat learning and we wrapped it
in a game, because who wants tofail? I mean, by the way, like,
Oh, this is all really goodresearch that we were stumbling
upon. And we said, well, whatare we going to do, like, come
out with the testing app likethat? Nobody's going to really
want to do that. And that wasthe key. It's got to be
effective and engaging. And wesaid, well, the average worker
(11:31):
today, everybody's a gamer. Soone of the things we talk about
every single everybody, whetherit's your mom doing Wordle, you
know, Grandma doing a crosswordpuzzle.
Tara Thurber (11:41):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (11:42):
Someone that's even crazy about the reward points on
their Chase account, likeeverybody understands gaming
mechanics. So we knew that thegaming piece would drive
engagement, which, is really thebrings the whole platform
together, because when peopleplay games, when they're not
supposed to or not don't haveto, then we're doing something
(12:04):
special.
Tara Thurber (12:06):
Wow. And then the data that comes from that, I
mean, that's that's even themore magic. Diving into that is
there any way you can share somespecific examples how 1Huddle
has transformed trainingoutcomes for clients in key
industries?
Sam Caucci (12:23):
Sure, yeah. Toa Hospitality is a client of ours,
and they're fun to talk aboutbecause they are in dealing in a
high stakes hospitality serviceenvironment. Also, 165 million
US workers, 15 million of themare in hospitality. And I think
100% of them churn every likefew minutes, unfortunately,
(12:45):
given how chaotic hospitalityis. So Toa Hospitality had a
property in London that theywere struggling with an
initiative they called one morecocktail. Okay, so everybody
here that's, you know, been arestaurant or been to a bar or
been to a towel property knowsthat there's a special today.
You know, you drink, you haveone cocktail. The bartender is
(13:09):
potentially, should you know,from a service perspective, you
know, make the offer to you toconsider an additional cocktail
or another offering they werefinding that one in every 22
cocktails resulted in anadditional cocktail sold. They
were not happy with that number,and their goal was to bring that
(13:32):
down to one in 10. All they didwas launch a two game series on
1Huddle. So their strategy was,let's take the steps of service
that is supposed to be followedto confidently introduce
theoffer of an additionalcocktail, and then they'll do a
second game on all the talkingpoints around the cocktail. So
(13:55):
covering kind of both bases. Oneis process, second is product
knowledge. They rolled the gamesout to this single property in
London, hockey and Mayfair, andthey found that after six weeks
of doing this, they went fromone in 22 to one in six.
Tara Thurber (14:12):
Holy cow!
Sam Caucci (14:13):
So every six resulted in an additional
cocktail. What's crazier is,Tara, that that equaled $1.17
million in additional revenue,top line revenue for Tao. And I
think that speaks volumes again.
We prefer to talk about what theperformance outcome is of
(14:33):
getting someone there faster,versus just completion rates.
And that's probably one of thebest ones we talk about.
Tara Thurber (14:42):
That's wild, and it just starts with playing a
game for these individuals andgoing through and learning, and
then the outcome for that, Imean that that amount is
astronomical for just doing oneproperty.
Sam Caucci (15:00):
Yeah. Totally and, you know it was also one of
these things that I always ask,why do they play? You know, the
bartenders and the servers thatwere playing, we had two really
interesting spill out learningsfrom the games.
Tara Thurber (15:12):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (15:13):
The first is, people were playing at all hours. So
first five minutes of theirshift, last five minutes of
their shift, some were opting inon Wi Fi during break periods
where they coulda ccess gamesand do additional learnings. Not
even that game, but they werespilling over and doing games,
or playing games on generalspirit knowledge, or games on a
(15:37):
culture topic that was relevantfor the moment. So we saw that
that game created this likespillover effect. And then
second, we started to find that,because they didn't just turn
this game on for front of house,they turned it on for everybody.
And I think this is an importantpoint for talking aboutnobody
(15:58):
likes an unfair game. I say thata lot to brands.
Tara Thurber (16:01):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (16:01):
And the problem with learning today is certain people
get it and certain people don't.
There's these theaters ofaccess, and our product is
mobile. First, it's 95% of ourgameplay. You can play on any
device, but mobile is like theprimary use case. So the other
thing Tao saw was they havepeople in the back of house that
aren't even selling cocktails,playing that game and engaging
(16:25):
with that topic. And if we'retalking about how organizations
identify talent, some of thattalent might be right under your
nose. You didn't even know itwas there.
Tara Thurber (16:39):
And that kind of goes right into thinking about
how one huddle measures the longterm impact of the platform on
workforce development andbusiness performance. I know
we've spoken multiple times, andit to me, it's amazing for the
to be able to look at the backend, let's say, for somebody
(16:59):
that's serving but to be doinggames that are more focused
around management, or around,maybe it's around marketing and
having those data points thenright to to maybe think about a
shift in their role, or, um,upskilling and and promoting
them differently.
Sam Caucci (17:20):
I mean, company spend Tara, they spend so much
time trying to figure out theyou know, mindset, sentiment,
point of view of their guestsand their customer. The amount
of platforms that exist tofigure that out is wild, from
Google to Yelp to you name it.
The the amount of timeorganizations spend trying to
(17:41):
understand the skill level, thesentiment, the motivation
levels, the interest levels oftheir people, if it was, if it
was equal, I think that youknow, that's where the best
organizations thrive, is they,they are relentless about trying
to understand their people withthe same intensity that they
understand their guests, andwhen they do that, and again,
(18:01):
for one huddle, what we try tobring to the table there is not
just knowing what skills youhave and what skills you're
short on. That's one piece. Youmay have, some things that
you're missing, but alsounderstanding the current
engagement levels of anindividual on your team. If
you're playing 1Huddle, and youare on a 50 week streak, we talk
(18:22):
about this every day here,here's somebody, they're on a 51
week streak, and they just stopplaying. Something is happening,
like, when, when you are on, Imean, if you're on some if
you're played 1000 games, 2000games, you're, you're a super
user on 1Huddle, and then all ofa sudden, you're two, three
weeks out of playing. So we sendlike a flashing light to the to
(18:45):
the manager on the front line tolet them know, hey, Tara, we
don't know if something's upwith Sam here, but Sam is
something's happening with Sam.
Maybe you should go talk to Sam.
And this has been the most funwe're having, because, again,
talent data can, if it'ssurfaced the right way, can
(19:05):
transform frontline managersinto frontline leaders who can
take that data and then dosomething with it to intervene
and mentor and coach anddevelop, which I think is
exciting, because we're livingin a moment where you can't turn
the TV on without hearing AI orrobots or automation is going to
take someone's job. This pieceright here, is a human task that
(19:26):
allows frontline managers totruly be transformative in the
employee experience. But youneed the data to look at, and
you need to be an organizationto be putting the money behind
investments in technology likethat.
Tara Thurber (19:43):
Yeah, and that's huge when we think about just
mental health and the silencebehind it. So case in point,
somebody stops doing somethingthat they've been doing for so
many weeks in a row. Somethingis happening. So to empower
those frontline managers, toempower employees to then help
(20:05):
others. I mean, that's stuffthat you you can't even train at
times, for somebody to feelempathy or for somebody to learn
those leadership skills, it'sthe option and the data behind
it, for them to be able to feelempowered to step into that
role. I think that's one of thekey things about 1Huddle that I
(20:28):
personally think is such anamazing part within employee
development and withinbusinesses that want to create
career paths for individuals. Ithink that that's such a it's a
key for keeping employeesengaged, keeping employees
(20:51):
happy. But also employees willthen start to think, Oh, my
employer does really care aboutme. You know, they're they.
They're touching base with me.
They I make a difference. I'mappreciated, and I think that
that is what a lot of employeeslack, that feeling they don't
feel appreciated. So this isawesome stuff. Sam, my my last
(21:13):
question that I'm going to bringto the table today is with all
of the continuous advancementsin workforce needs, what
innovations is one huddlefocusing on to remain ahead of
the curve right now.
Sam Caucci (21:32):
Sure. The game never ends.
Tara Thurber (21:37):
(laughs) Right?
What's next?
Sam Caucci (21:41):
And again, we're still, we're very much, and
we're not in that very earlystartup stage anymore, but we
still try, we pride ourselves instill trying to operate as a
startup, you know, because itand we act that way. We just
constantly trying new things,challenging, you know, we were
taking shots at 10 things at atime that most people would say
(22:04):
it's too many be disciplined.
But every now and then, one kindof, you know, one or two takes
off, and we learn a lot from it.
No, for us, one of the thingsthat we've learned is that
frontline employees don't owntheir learning. And it's, it's
one of these. Every day, on1Huddle, I open up our platform,
and I see how many employeeswere added and how many
employees were subtracted, andthe subtraction of employees
(22:27):
that were let go, terminated forwhatever reason, and that number
is a big number, and it's, it'sa shocking number when we look
at a lot of the environmentswe're in, and what we've
identified is that when thatindividual leaves, they really
struggle to signal what skillsthey have to the next employer.
(22:50):
And you've had guests talk abouthiring and talent
identification, you know before,and you're an expert on this as
well. I think for us, we knowthat it's not so much a skill
gap as a willingness gap fromemployers and employees have
skills they just not maybe don'tdo a great job at presenting
those in the fashion an employermay want. So we're working
(23:13):
really hard every day on twofronts. One is we continue to
sell into enterprises, and we'retrying to build invest in class
product to help organizationslike tau be the best they can
be. But the other side of it iswe have to equally care a heck
of a lot about our end user. AndI talk to a lot of other
(23:33):
founders that are in the HRspace, and they have tech
products, whether it's payrollor HRIS or ATS or LMS, and I say
all the time, that we need tospend as much time focusing on
how the end user uses ourproduct as we do the champion
employer who's mandating it. Andyou know, so for us, we're
spending a lot of time using AIand helping our end users either
(23:57):
get the skills they want quickeror be able to signal the skills
they have faster. And you know,that's a lot of the innovation
that was coming out of onehuddle right now and over the
next bunch of months, is we callit player first for us. So
leading with a player firstmindset every day.
Tara Thurber (24:17):
Player first. I love, I love that. And I really,
I think it's super importanttoo, because I a lot of players
may not realize some of theskills that they actually have,
and that is such a huge additionfor either employees that might
(24:38):
have been let go or, you know,went through it all, they now
can walk away with knowing thatthey have other skills.
Sam Caucci (24:48):
Right on the money, it's one of those things we
don't always think about. But Iuse this example internally when
you use Netflix.
Tara Thurber (24:55):
Yeah.
Sam Caucci (24:55):
Netflix has never asked you or me, what type of
shows do you like.
Tara Thurber (25:00):
Right.
Sam Caucci (25:01):
It just watched what you did, and it said, okay, Sam,
you're watching, you're watchingthe 30 for 30 sports
documentaries a lot here, like,here's the next thing you should
probably watch. And I think it'sthe same thing for employees.
And you know, I look at a lot ofproducts that you come into you
could pick on, like an Indeed,even, or some of these other
applicant platforms, and theyask you, what do you want to do
(25:22):
with your life?
Tara Thurber (25:22):
(laughs)
Sam Caucci (25:22):
I mean, I don't know anybody that can answer that
question, whether they're like,15, 18, 25, 55, and they ask
you, like, what are you good at?
I don't know. So to me, I thinkthis is where technology can
play a really powerful role is,and we do this with one whole
we're not going to ask you whatyou want. We're just going to
try to encourage, it's like aplayground, like, here's a bunch
of stuff. Let's see what youengage with and the stuff you're
(25:45):
doing well at, guess what? We'regoing to show you more of that.
And guess what the stuff you'renot doing well at, we're not
going to continue to badger you,like Duolingo will to tell you
to keep playing this level untilyou somehow cram and learn it,
because that doesn't make youfeel good either as a frontline
worker. So I think that, to yourpoint, is a huge area let people
explore, because I don't know,unless someone has a crystal
(26:08):
ball, we don't know what thejobs are going to look like in a
decade, five years, 20 years,there's a lot of ideas, but I
don't think anybody could have,you know, there's a very, very,
maybe small minority of peoplethat predicted the moment we're
in at this moment. And I thinkorganizations and society and HR
leaders should work every day tobuild great build well rounded
people. The jobs will come next.
Tara Thurber (26:33):
Everything about this is amazing. Sam, I'm so
excited that you joined ustoday. And thank you so much.
One last thing to kick this offis, let's give the audience your
top five biggest impacts of1Huddle.
Sam Caucci (26:51):
Sure, yeah. I mean, I think the top five biggest
impacts for H1uddle first isfaster onboarding. For
organizations, need to getpeople from zero to 60 quickly.
How do we do that? I think thefirst one is faster onboarding.
Second is lifelong learning. Thegame isn't over just because you
got the job. How do we how do wetransform the back of house
(27:11):
worker to the front of houserole to the management role, to
the franchisee to maybe startingtheir own franchise? So I think
upskilling and cross skillingpeople is another is another big
1/3. Is internal talentidentification, like being able
to quickly know what skills youhave within your organization.
So organizations being able toalmost have X ray vision into
(27:34):
the skill levels of theirpeople. Fourth is skill scoring,
which has to do with being ableto identify gaps in knowledge
before they become revenue gaps.
The Tao story I used earlier.
Along that way, they were ableto identify what questions
people were struggling with andthen intervene. And also,
(27:56):
everybody's struggling with aspecific question. And there's a
there's parallels. It empowersmanagers to do better better.
And I think the fifth impactarea is letting end users own
their stuff on 1Huddle. One ofthe benefits is that when you
leave a job, those users, I saidyou the next alert you get from
one huddle gives you a fullreadout. We call it a skill
(28:17):
wallet of all the things you'velearned and earned while playing
one huddle at that brand. It'syour property, it's your data,
and hopefully you can take thatto the next job to help you
better position yourself to winthe job and win the right job
and pay you the rate youdeserve.
Tara Thurber (28:35):
That's fantastic.
Sam, I'm loving all of theseimpacts. I think 1Huddle has so
much to offer for the employeeand the employers. So thank you
again, so much for taking timeout of your busy week, and I
appreciate you, and I hope youhave an amazing rest of your
week.
Sam Caucci (28:53):
Thank you, Tara.
Tara Thurber (28:56):
We are to DefinedTalent coming to you at
Top5 Make it a great day.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.