Twine Solves For X — The Employee Retention Issue

Finding the right person for the right position is a struggle that most human resources (HR) professionals face on a regular basis.

Sometimes, the answer to finding the best candidate may be in a business’ “back yard.”

One startup company that’s looking to solve the employee retention conundrum for human resources is Twine. Winner of University of Pennsylvania’s inaugural Wharton Startup Challenge contest last month, Twine is a software platform that uses automation via smart technology to help pair internal employees with upcoming positions to be filled.

Founded by two MBA Wharton students, Joseph Quan and Nikhil Srivastava, the goal of the platform is “to boost retention and significantly reduce hiring costs by efficiently hiring from within.”

Twine’s founders developed the platform because of the state of today’s up-and-coming workforce. When discussing this with Wharton’s Knowledge@Wharton publication, Quan commented on this directly.

“You’re witnessing a sea change in the labor market, where these millennial employees are jumping ship every two, three years because they’re feeling like they’re outgrowing their roles,” said Quan. “We find that there’s a subset of 10 percent, 20 percent, maybe even 30 percent of the market that really has forward-thinking HR departments and people analytics departments that focus heavily on those issues, but it just didn’t get the reception initially that we had wanted. We are starting to work with this pilot contingent of companies that are really passionate about these issues, and they’ve been great strategic partners in helping us advance this mission.”