CEO Spotlight: Pamela Glick of SyncHR
Pamela Glick, CEO, SyncHR
Prior to joining SyncHR as its CEO, Pam spent 15+ years in consulting, first as a Partner at Andersen Business Consulting leading the PeopleSoft practice, and then as a Managing Director at BearingPoint where she led various global Oracle and PeopleSoft solutions. Since joining SyncHR in its very early stage, Pam has led all aspects of bringing the product to market and continuing to scale the business, including raising several rounds of financing. The SyncHR team has a distributed workforce of 75+ employees with offices in Denver, CO (headquarters), Oakland, CA, and Sofia, Bulgaria.
Please describe what your company does today.
SyncHR is a cloud-based software technology company with a focus on changing the traditional nature and functionality of human capital management systems. Our goal is to deliver a solution that better serves the business by transforming the way companies engage, empower, and leverage their workforces toward the achievement of their business objectives. Our target market is companies of a few hundred to a few thousand employees.
How has SyncHR been impacted by the current pandemic?
Like many businesses, the current pandemic has had an impact on our sales as well as existing customers. We saw a number of our sales opportunities in late March 2020 and Q2 go on hold, however, sales have been picking back up in Q3 and we continue to gain momentum. Given our recurring revenue model which is based on active employees per month, we also saw a dip in revenues as customers laid off and/or furloughed employees; however, over the past several months this has been rebounding and we've only had a couple of customers who have gone out of business as we serve more of the mid-sized enterprises versus small businesses which have been more significantly impacted.
Being a technology company, we already had several employees working remotely and have transitioned to an entirely remote workforce and continue to operate that way. As a result, engagement has become a key driver for our leadership team. We have implemented a number of initiates to drive increased employee engagement while we continue to work remotely.
What aspect of your team or company culture are you most proud, and how are you maintaining it?
Given the nature of our business, the pandemic has driven increased demand for enhanced product capabilities as well as support from our care team. I'm incredibly proud of how we've reacted as a company to educate our customers on the ever-evolving legislation and aid available to help them manage through the pandemic and take advantage of these programs to minimize layoffs and/or furloughs. We've done this by quickly implementing new product enhancements to provide automated and streamlined ways to manage the complexities and maximize the benefits of these programs.
What is the most important thing you're working on right now, and how are you making it happen?
I recently secured a strategic partnership to provide long-term stability and viability for the company. As a result, planning for 2021 and how we hit the ground running with this new partnership at the beginning of the year is the most important thing I am working on right now. Time is being spent on an in-depth analysis of what each organization brings to the partnership and how to optimize the collective whole toward achieving strong overall results in 2021 and beyond, as well as gaining alignment on what our overall strategic plan and goals are.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve received as a CEO?
The importance of Reflection and Intention as two powerful forces to use to my advantage as well as being honest and accountable, but not overly critical or harsh with myself. Being a CEO is a difficult job!
What has been the most meaningful aspect of your engagement with the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network?
The networking. The Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network is an amazing group of individuals who bring a wide variety of experiences of having been there, done that, and have been so gracious and generous with offering their time, advice, perspectives, and their networks to help work through the many challenges I've faced.