Peer-to-peer review platform Hi5 shows success outside of SA

Peer reviews and 360s can be a daunting and challenging task for employees and companies alike. Cape Town-based startup Hi5 is looking to try and simplify the entire process.

To date, 90% of the signups for Hi5 have come from outside of South Africa, specifically from the US, UK, and Australia.

“I think the reason it’s doing well, is that it’s helping fast-paced companies take the laborious time intensive administration out of managing staff and replaces it with a solution to help managers focus on staff growth, which ultimately increases efficiency and reduces employee turnover,” writes founding partner, Gary Willmott.

Each employee is assigned five goals to carry out, which according to Hi5 is the optimal number of productivity. They’re then assigned five anonymous co-workers for reviewing throughout the year. Each employee is also sent five review reminders per year to complete their assessments. They can also publicly praise co-workers with Hi5!s, which are limited to five per year.

You can see a recurring theme here.

Read more: Taking your startup global? Here’s how to harness the power of an international network

Reviews can take around five minutes, which the company found are usually completed during lunch breaks or during a commute.

“We’re big fans of software helping us with the day-to-day tasks, however, we couldn’t find anything that was just right for us. Everything was really confusing and clunky, so we created our own solution using a really simple five-step process,” writes Willmott.

While licences for the SaaS typically cost US$ per month, the company is offering a discount to startups in South Africa. Those wanting to take part can use the voucher code SILCAP5 until 1 May for a US$5 package.

The software as a service (SaaS) was birthed out of a side-project at Urbian to help solve growth challenges.