After more than 30 years in human resources, Jodi Armit realized that no tool could give leaders a full picture of their people. That gap inspired her to build Alokai, an AI platform designed to unify employee data into a single actionable dashboard.

“Alokai is an HR application that becomes the one source of truth for how an organization really works,” said Armit. “It turns millions of disconnected human resources and work performance data points into one living model that shows who is, or who should be, doing what, instantly.”

Fixing an HR blind spot

“One of the things I realized really quickly is that we don't have a proper tool to help us get our work done effectively and efficiently,” said Armit. “We in HR have all these disparate systems and none of the systems talk to each other, so you can’t get a full picture of the organization or the employee.”

Alokai taps into performance reviews, project histories, skills inventories and informal records to create one clear profile for every employee. Leaders can now see not just what people do, but the experiences, skills and potential they bring.

“And so the use cases for this are multiple,” she said. “If you wanted to do a restructuring, then you now know exactly what the person's doing and what their success in that role is, because we have a proprietary success scoring methodology. It tells you where they're working in the organization, who they're working for, how they get along with their team members, it gives you the full picture.”

Making talent visible

Alokai simplifies transitions by helping leaders map roles, match people to positions and anticipate development and growth needs.

“You can create roles and drag and drop people into these roles and immediately it'll tell you if they're going to be successful or not,” she said. “But the other cool thing is it'll tell you where gaps are.”

The platform assigns each employee a success score based on criteria like culture fit, leadership and years of experience and acts as a guide for leaders to address skill or experience gaps.

It also evaluates cross-functional experience and side projects, creating a nuanced understanding of each person’s capabilities.

Simplifying organizational change

Armit and her co-founder and CTO, Dave Macaulay, are also exploring how Alokai can streamline mergers and acquisitions.

“So, you acquire a company, you've got your employees, you get the acquired company's employees and you create a new org structure based on the purpose for acquisition. It then looks at both companies' data points, pulls them together and says who should be filled into what role, within the new organization,” Armit said. “I basically went out and built the tool that I needed while I was in HR for 35 years.”

Built and shaped by HR leaders

Alokai is now entering beta and the founders are inviting HR professionals to test it.

“We need people to beta test it. HR people or leaders who are willing to give us a group of people and plug it into the system and help us break it,” she said.

When users log in, Alokai asks what they want to accomplish. HR leaders can select things like org design, development, restructuring or recruitment and it creates a tailored company view. It highlights reporting lines, matches employees to roles and identifies areas for growth or success.

“This is my dream,” said Armit.

A tool for the future of work

Building Alokai in Waterloo Region has also been rewarding, thanks to the local tech community.

“Communitech has been an incredible support and until I reached out to them, I was floundering,” she said.

With a clear mission and strong community backing, the team is focused on getting Alokai into the hands of leaders who need it most, helping organizations in transition consolidate their data and better understand their teams.

“It'd be so great to get this into the hands of the appropriate people.”

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