Australian HR tech company enjoying strong growth

Reference checking innovator, Xref, has seen exponential growth this past year. According to Xref, they have increased profits by 834 per cent. Sales increased 36 per cent and staff by 24 per cent.

Lee-Martin Seymour, Xref co-founder and CEO, is extremely proud of his company’s ability to thrive in an unpredictable climate: “Such strong results are also a sign of unquestionable demand by businesses for data-driven technology solutions for a constantly evolving labour market.”

He added: “Our technology solutions are designed specifically to help local and global companies not just solve these problems, but gain a sustainable competitive advantage through strategic talent acquisition, retention, and trust.”

In the statement announcing their recent growth, Mr Seymour expressed what these results mean for talent attraction.

“Talent remains on the move, and employers are facing an extremely competitive market. Shifting salary expectations, shorter tenures, remote working, sector transformation through digitisation, and lowered geographic barriers have all contributed to a dynamic and unpredictable employment market,” said Mr Seymour.

In conversation with HR Leader, Mr Seymour discussed how Xref has retained and looked after staff during their growth.

“When a company grows, it needs to pay extra attention to ensuring that existing staff feel valued and are having their career needs met, and that new staff feel welcomed and enter an environment they are excited to be in,” said Mr Seymour.

“Retention is a key focus of the new team, because we wouldn’t be in this positive position of growth today without the hard work of our original team.”

Commenting on Xref’s key HR principles, Mr Seymore added: “We take a people-first approach when it comes to our staff. There are three key areas we focus on in this regard. Firstly, it doesn’t matter if you have trail mix and bean bags or even segways in your office if on payday you’re not compensating your staff appropriately and on time. Failing to do so will ruin any and all other goodwill you might be trying to create with other perks. We also offer birthday leave, a mandated shut down between Christmas and New Year.”

“Secondly, we are an innovation-led business. We don’t copy the competition; we are instead constantly bringing new innovative products to market. To do so requires encouraging our people to be both creative and vulnerable. Those two points go hand in hand, because you can’t be free to be creative if you aren’t allowed to be vulnerable and make mistakes in the first place. Every mistake brings us closer to something better and something that is eventually brilliant.

“And finally, our offices look cool. Our workspaces are light and bright and simply a nice place to physically be. We think that is important for the mental health of our staff, and augments the rest of the work we put into empowering and uplifting our employees.”

Xref automates reference checking to make the hiring process easier. They contract to over 1,300 companies worldwide, and have acquired 1.3 million new users in the last 12 months alone, according to their recent statement.