Parim's new software puts management, staff and clients on the same page
It’s not sexy or exciting. Or is it? PARiM have created a workforce management program that puts the management, the staff and the client all on the same page. Sound complicated? With easy-to-use drag and drop shift allocation, a simple dashboard, colourful display features and slide switches it’s actually straightforward and intuitive.
It all seemed a long way off when PARiM’s founders, Riko Muttik and Risto Urb received their initial funding from The Start Up Loans Scheme back in late 2012. A couple of months later their application for a top up loan was accepted. This meant PARiM was the recipient of the largest Start Up loan for a single company, showing some belief in the concept and the two young programmers. The Government’s Start Up Funding scheme, fronted by James Caan, has now funded more than 20,000 businesses with over £102m.
The programming started when a friend of Riko’s, a manager working in the security industry, approached him out of frustration at the cost and complexity of the software options available to manage his staff.
“The software’s purpose is to liberate a company’s management from the time spent doing mundane, repetitive tasks. We aim to allow people to make themselves better managers and their businesses more efficient. We recognise that the work environment today can be a very busy, fast moving place and not having enough time to do everything can be stressful.”
PARiM also aims to encourage staff engagement by combining visibility and transparency with informative automated communication and a self service staff portal. Riko adds “The system allows management to create open shifts that staff can then apply for. Indeed in some of our clients the staff effectively completely self schedule, freeing up the management from what was previously a very time consuming, paper-heavy task. “
“With a full time development team of five based in Estonia, and 12 new versions already launched in 2014, things have moved really fast this year. Our users give us fantastic feedback and great development ideas. They understand our purpose and that we are always looking to simplify the system and add useful features.”
To some, it may indeed seem neither sexy nor exciting, but think what exciting things you can get up to with your newly liberated hours!