We are visual creatures! Our eyes give us so many clues about what someone is thinking or feeling that can’t be picked up through listening alone. There are many advantages to working from home, but one of the drawbacks is the physically separation from colleagues and being unable to see them or their body language.

We know how important this visual contact is, especially between managers and employees. That’s why we introduced the new integrated video calling feature in Appraisd. In the Customer Success team, we’ve really come to appreciate this ourselves, having more of our catch-up calls with our clients over video. They really help to make us feel connected and on the same page.

So... you’re probably familiar with the names of our CS, finance and marketing teams from communicating with us regularly, but our tech and product design teams generally stay out of the public eye. They are crucial to our work at Appraisd and are responsible for building the new features that you value using every day, so we thought we’d introduce you to some more of our wonderful team...

Roly Walter, the Founder of Appraisd, is the lead singer for his kid’s school Dad's band and once played ‘Love is strange’ from Dirty Dancing alongside a member of Coldplay 🎸. He advocates for an agile approach to performance management and believes that lockdown has improved employee check-ins.

Phil Durrant, our Tech Lead, has been ski mountaineering in Japan and is responsible for managing our Chief Canine Officer 24/7 ⛷.

Dave Zoellner is our Technical Support Specialist in Florida, USA and he manages our live chat for clients in the USA and Canada while we’re sleeping. He started pilot training at the age of five and became a licensed private pilot before he could drive a car. Also having a 1st degree black belt in Taekwondo, an advanced open water scuba diving qualification and a love of sky diving, he’s basically Appraisd’s answer to James Bond 🐱‍👤.

Richard Brereton, our Customer Success Lead, is a qualified Divemaster 🤿 and discovered a new dive site in Mozambique that is now named ‘Brereton’s Contours’. He leads the CS team at Appraisd and plays a vital role working closely with our clients to help them maximise engagement amongst their employees. Click here to read what he has to say on how to engage users for maximum adoption.

Tasnia Begum, one of our Customer Success Managers, can list all of the English kings and queens since William the Conqueror to the present day 👑. She also wrote a blog recently on how our working from home check-ins can help your employees and managers stay connected while working remotely. Read what she has to say here.

Rosalind Bygott, one of our Customer Success Managers, has made Alex James (Blur) a cappuccino, Ruth Wilson (Luther, The Affair) a flat white and George MacKay (1917, Pride) an americano ☕. She joined Appraisd in early 2019 and you can read more about her background here - her facts are a clue!

Bricky is our Chief Canine Officer and knows how to sit and lie down. He is also expertly skilled in scratching wooden floorboards and eating pig’s ears 🦴.

Abhishek Kapadiya, our Senior Software Engineer, can speak five languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and French 😜.

Andrew Ward, our Sales Manager, is a listening volunteer for Switchboard LGBT+ helpline and is a (nearly) qualified Personal Trainer 🏋️‍♀️. He advocates using a continuous performance management mindset to complement a traditional process. Read more about his thoughts here.

There are more lurking in other corners too... but you'll have to pay us a visit to meet them (c'mon guys, don't be shy!)