Workplace Tech Gets a Human-Centered Makeover: 3 Startups Leading the Way

Workplace technology has long focused inward, helping HR teams tame paperwork and optimize workflows. Yet, in the process, it overlooked outward-facing potential to truly empower employees. Case in point: Employee engagement hit an 11-year low in the first quarter of 2024 with just 30% of U.S. workers fully engaged at their jobs, according to Gallup. That figure ticked up slightly to 32% in the second quarter. What if technology transformed not just HR efficiency but also the daily employee experience?

Refreshingly, this year’s SHRM Labs WorkplaceTech Accelerator cohort answers that call. TransCrypts’ blockchain platform reduces HR’s hours of monthly verification workload to just one while granting employees greater authority over their own employment records. Refresh centralizes fractured HR systems into a single tailored “SuperApp,” easing access frustrations while allowing HR to personalize tools and messaging. Bites remolds boring training content into snackable, social-style microlearning, making development both mobile-friendly and engaging — a modernization for employers and employees alike.

Workplace technology need not force crude trade-offs between HR productivity and human empowerment. The future of HR tech offers both.

TransCrypts: Giving Employees Ownership of Employment and Income Verification

Before solutions like TransCrypts, employment and income verification drowned HR staff and frustrated employees alike. HR teams sank hours into tedious, manual verification paperwork, derailing more strategic goals. Meanwhile, workers struggled to access crucial records, miring loans and housing applications. Clearly, legacy processes failed both parties.

TransCrypts’ blockchain platform substitutes messy verification workflows with instant, secure digital confirmations — freeing HR staff from hours of administrative tedium. One client previously dedicating 270 monthly hours to confirmations saw workload plummet to just one hour, liberating recruiters to pursue higher-value initiatives aligned with company goals.

But crucially, TransCrypts also empowers employees with greater stewardship over their financial records through the blockchain, easing access frustrations that previously hamstrung loan and housing applications. This capability carries growing relevance as demand for workplace financial wellness solutions accelerates. The share of U.S. employees offering financial planning benefits doubled from 14% in 2023 to 28% in 2024. The platform’s Castello artificial intelligence chatbot delivers tailored insights to both HR and employees, optimizing decision-making.

By blending workload relief for staff with record control for employees, TransCrypts rescues both groups from administrative quicksand. Its more than 98% employee satisfaction rate speaks volumes. Once again, integrated technology doesn’t need to force trade-offs between productivity and empowerment when solutions can address all users’ needs.

Refresh: A One-Stop Hub for Employee Experience

Legacy HR systems do employees few favors, overwhelming them with disjointed communications, scattered training, and fractured benefits platforms that compel workers to hunt desperately for what they need. HR teams struggle to engage hybrid and remote employees across locations and roles. The status quo often neglects user experience.

Refresh consolidates all HR offerings into a single tailored “SuperApp” hub curated for each company. The platform simplifies access by segmenting tools and notifications based on employee population needs — location staff receive relevant communications, while corporate employees access appropriate training.

Better still, Refresh moves beyond consolidation to actively boost engagement. Features like real-time emergency alerts, challenges with rewards, and peer recognition help galvanize team connectivity for clients. One retail company reached 100,000 workers across 52 territories during a crisis. This capability proves crucial because 6 in 10 employees with remote-capable jobs now prefer a hybrid arrangement, validating Refresh’s ability to streamline communications and services for distributed teams.

The outcomes? HR teams administer strategic initiatives seamlessly while cutting the costs of fragmented systems. More importantly, employees feel truly empowered with frictionless self-service access to the exact tools and communications needed in the moment.

By centralizing and personalizing workplace technology, Refresh makes cogent experience design not a lofty ideal but a daily reality.

Bites: Making Front-Line Training as Engaging as Social Media

Legacy corporate training fails employees and HR staffers alike. Abstract theoretical materials miss the mark for distributed front-line teams that need hands-on building blocks to excel day to day. Not surprisingly, engagement and knowledge retention plummet as workers tune out overly academic, lengthy resources ill-suited to upskilling needs.

Enter Bites, which transforms tedious training into bite-sized microlearning modules primed for social engagement. Accessible via familiar channels including SMS and WhatsApp, Bites’ frictionless Tap-and-Learn model meets employees where they already connect daily — no new platform or app required. Short-form lessons help maintain motivation, and conversational formats prompt lively peer discussions to galvanize retention.

Further, Bites’ AI-powered content creator lets HR teams effortlessly turn existing materials into these social-friendly formats optimized for front-line worker consumption. This capability proves increasingly valuable because 81% of employers now practice skills-based hiring, up from just 56% in 2022 — underscoring a growing imperative for effective training solutions like Bites that rapidly close front-line skill gaps. A global optical retailer used this capability to completely reinvent its training approach, achieving remarkable engagement while cutting more than $30,000 in delivery costs per remote session.

In Bites, the trudge of learning gives way to friendly knowledge sharing that employees actually enjoy, organically integrating professional growth into daily rhythms. More pertinently, hands-on skills development can keep pace with front-line duties. Bites makes closing skills gaps not a chore but a digestible, shareable experience.

The Bigger Picture: What This Means for the Future of HR

Historically, HR technology prioritized back-office efficiencies, pursuing workflow and cost optimizations that boosted HR capacity but rarely employee experience. However, new expectations have reshaped norms: Workers now demand the same self-service access and personalized recommendations in the workplace that consumers enjoy elsewhere online.

Three trends demonstrated by the companies in the 2025 SHRM Labs cohort point toward this shifting landscape:

• Self-Service Access: Employees expect direct stewardship over their own HR data, whether that’s income verification records or benefits selection.
• AI-Powered Personalization: Training, communications, resources — all now require tailored guidance based on individual role, location, and aspirations.
• Automation and Human Connection: Simple administrative tasks should shift to automation, freeing up HR teams to pursue more strategic, human-centered initiatives such as building workplace culture and nurturing talent.

Promisingly, the likes of TransCrypts, Refresh, and Bites pioneer solutions aligning with these trends — not just optimizing HR workflows but empowering employees themselves. By blending backend efficiencies with human-centric user experiences, next-generation HR technology can transform today’s pain points into a more harmonious, elevated future of work for all workplace parties.