It’s no mean feat that in the new normal of fast-paced workplaces, remote careers, and rapidly shifting skills driven by AI, some companies like Assurdly can do the impossible – increased their employee happiness by 100%.
How they did this with a simple but long-forgotten HR strategy is what every CEO or HR manager needs to know. Or company leadership would probably face grumpy employees and missed targets.
After all, can a company become successful with disengaged or unhappy employees? Probably not.
In a world where the best jobs are remote and finding good talent is now more challenging than rocket science, companies with any chance of success must be adept at making employees happy. If they cannot, tons of other companies would be more than happy to seduce their employees away.
Finding and keeping good talent is even more difficult when you consider that many finance, tech, and creative companies are now remote first or even 100% remote.
In Nigeria, where smart companies like Assurdly have their team spread across the nation, it is doubly difficult to keep talent. This is what keeps Unyime, the Managing Partner at Assurdly, awake at night. “Our staff have to provide their power and the internet to deliver on their jobs,” she said. “But this is extremely difficult for even the best of them.”
Having steady power to do their jobs with power packs is a good solution but can require upfront cash commitment that most young people cannot come up with. The young people at Assurdly, a company helping the likes of Mono, Coronation, UBA, etc., to succeed in their technology delivery, are also facing the same challenges of raising cash to buy power packs and alternative generators.
“So, we are doing what responsible companies do – help the staff to have access to salary advance to buy power packs, backup internet, other devices or other personal necessities that would enhance their professional work experience.” Ezekiel, the Co-founder, chipped in.
But then, the manual process of managing loans is cumbersome and even tedious for traditional lenders. How much more for a consulting company like Assurdly?
However, Assurdly has friends in tech places and has partnered with Lendsqr for years.
In 2020, Assurdly helped Lendsqr to pivot their lending-as-a-service platform and launched their early customers like Kredi Bank, P2Vest, and BlinkCash. It struck everyone that if they have built this massive lending ecosystem for big lenders, why not use the same tech in a smaller package for Assurdly?
Maryam, the Operations Manager, has this to say. “The Lendsqr platform solves this easily for us. The solution addresses all the needs a growing company like us needs to manage employee cash advances and loans.” “There is no glory in self-punishment,” she added. Maryam continued that it was a little scary that none of the Assurdly leadership has ever given out loans before, even though they have been lucky in their careers to have had a couple of personal loans meet immediate needs.
Lending is the DNA of Lendsqr, and the partnership produced the most fantastic experiment possible. Lendsqr, working with the Assurdly team, created a simple profile for the company, set up simple loan products without complex risk profiles (as the risks are minimal), and now every hire in Assurdly has access to the loans that can be used to fix “urgent” things. The HR team doesn’t need to think about deductions and calculations – everything flows seamlessly from requests, approvals, disbursements, and repayments.
For Unyime, the most important thing is that the platform removes the distractions plaguing her team; now, everyone is focused on helping her local and global companies deliver projects and products with quality and precision.
But that’s not all. The team would be happy if the staff could see loans from bigger lenders and not just Assurdly. Because as the team expands, Assurdly cannot be distracted from becoming a lender. Lendsqr is taking this on, and in months, everyone will be able to see loans from other providers.
Ezekiel said, “the Lendsqr platform is perfect for other companies, and we would gladly recommend it to other HR and Operations managers everywhere.”
If you are a CEO or HR manager looking for ways to keep your employees happy and focused, you can start with Lendsqr to power your simple cash advance and asset loans for your staff. Best of all, it’s free to use. You can also reach out to the Growth team at [email protected].
Assurdly is one of the fastest-growing consulting firms in Africa, helping banks, fintechs, and others launch their products with assurance and quality. They have helped companies like United Bank for Africa, Coronation Group, Woven Finance, Lendsqr, Mono, OnePipe and others launch products faster and more cost-effectively. The duo of ex-Interswitch Unyime Tommy and Ezekiel Udoh founded the company in 2019.
Lendsqr is helping every African, from the bottom of the pyramid to professionals, such as those working at Assurdly, to have access to loans to build their best lives. Lendsqr does this by helping lenders scale using technologies and data in the most cost-effective ways. Lendsqr, with over 2,000 lenders in its ecosystem, powers the likes of Kredi Bank, Urgent10k, Irorun, SnapCash from Sterling, and many more.
