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A tech start-up has secured over $900,000 in investment to put every employee at the driving wheel of their career

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Tech start-up PlanDo, a new career management platform which encourages individuals to ‘self-direct’ their careers, has secured an investment of $916,000 in both cash ($450,000) and sweat equity ($466,000) to fund its expansion throughout Australia.

More businesses both in Australia and globally are deciding to ditch the annual performance review. Accenture, Deloitte and GE have scrapped theirs, confirming that businesses no longer measure things annually anymore and individuals, particularly millennials; want feedback on their performance more often.

PlanDo’s first major capital raising was oversubscribed by 40 percent and is led by some of Australia’s leading HR professionals which include Bob Barbour, HR Director at Lion and now a board member of PlanDo, Ann Whyte, CEO of Whyte Co. and Dr Travis Kemp, a behavioural scientist with both the University of Sydney and University of South Australia.

The new funds will go towards accelerating PlanDo’s business strategy to engage and work with some of Australia’s largest organisations which are struggling with expensive and cumbersome career and performance management systems.

How exactly does PlanDo work?

PlanDo is a consumer collaborative software-as-a-service (SaaS) career platform designed to change the face of career management and progression for $5 per month.

Subscribers use a variety of tools and activities to build personal insight about their strengths, skills, share and connect with people they trust, facilitate conversations, set goals, build plans, align their efforts (with teams and business) and track their progress as they move from role to role across their working lives.

“PlanDo is deeply committed to empowering for greater autonomy and control in the emerging work of work,” co-founder and CEO, Anne Moore stated.

“We’re about democratising the idea of career management that has been traditionally owned by enterprise, offering all the collaborative tools and resources that you would generally find within enterprise to career owners.

“We want to enable individuals to be self-directed in their performance and growth because it’s important to well-being in the increasingly unpredictable world of work.

“Our competitors sit on the enterprise side of the fence,” Anne pointed out. “All talent management systems that currently exist belong to enterprise, not employees.”

“PlanDo is the first consumer focused (personal) talent management system in the industry. Enterprise loves PlanDo because they recognise that business growth is closely linked to people growth. Individuals who ‘own’ their goals, vision, values, purpose, perform better and are more engaged.”

Anne Moore
Anne Moore

What is the story behind PlanDo?

“There were no tools in the market place that enabled people to take control of their work journey or experiences,” Anne told Anthill, about what sparked the idea.

With Australia having one of the highest proportions of part-time, contract and casual employees in the OECD and with about one-third of all Australian jobs part-time, there is a progressive move to shift the onus of career planning to the individual.

“Things are changing fast – careers are no longer linear and individuals want to be able to manage their career paths in the most seamless way possible.” she remarked.

“For many of us, we’ll hold many roles throughout our working life and the ability to be able to track our progress and keep that record with us is invaluable.

“PlanDo enables individuals to really take control of their careers while allowing them to work more collaboratively with their employers, resulting in greater job satisfaction and performance.

“There is also the rise of casualisation, the consumerisation of tech (and the workplace), and decreasing tenure – that we wanted reach – to make a difference to the lives of people we would never meet.”

Anne was previously CEO of University of Sydney start up SydneyTalent (focus on work readiness and employability of pre grads – finding meaningful paid employment) and prior to that Human Resource Director for iconic local and global brands with 30 years in HR.

Co-founder, Alan Burt previously owned and sold an IT services business to global firm Lanier which was then acquired by Ricoh (Fortune 500). He is currently CTO for Ricoh APAC.

Anne saw the need and showed Alan what she had in mind. He was the technologist who saw the opportunities with scale.

Alan as the managing director of a small business had seen the need first hand for simple effective tools that would grow skills and the business at the same time.

PlanDo was then developed to fill this need.

“PlanDo is purpose driven,” Anne highlighted. “It’s a partnership between subject matter expertise and technology that is delivering value for its users everyday where it counts – their individual livelihoods and life/work aspirations.”