Sexual harassment. Discriminatory conduct. Behavior that crosses the line so far, it can damage a business beyond repair. They’re nightmares that can keep an HR executive up at night, and make companies worry that one employee’s misconduct can harm their whole team—and their enterprise’s future.
Dallas-based incident management technology company Work Shield is here to help solve that. And it’s received a $6 million investment from Tampa, Florida-based VC and growth equity firm Ballast Point Ventures to aid its mission.
Founded in 2018, Work Shield provides a comprehensive, integrated solution for reporting, investigating, and resolving workplace misconduct for employers across North America and beyond. It said it will use the funding to invest across all areas of its business.
“As a former employment and human resources lawyer, I understood firsthand the difficulty of tracking, investigating, and resolving issues of workplace harassment and discrimination incidents,” Work Shield CEO and co-founder Jared Pope said in a statement. “Given our founding team’s knowledge of the legal process for resolving Title VII issues, we always believed that we could build a more streamlined and efficient process to bring these incidents to resolution on behalf of our clients and their employees.”
“We’re excited to bring a sophisticated institutional investor into our company and are eager to get to work with Ballast Point Ventures,” Pope added. “We look forward to this next leg of the journey and to continue to deliver the only full-service workplace misconduct and analytics solution that manages incidents end-to-end, from intake through resolution.”
From left: Work Shield’s Director of Client Services Alicia Valdez; Chief Legal Officer Travis O. Foster; Co-Founder and CEO Jared Pope; and Co-Founder Jennifer Pope. [Photo: Work Shield]
A ‘growing spotlight on workplace culture’
Work Shield said its user-friendly employer intelligence platform allows reporting across multiple channels, empowering emplofpopeyees to report issues confidently and safely, while its dedicated team of employee relations and legal investigators ensures thorough and impartial investigations, all at the same time.
The company said its results have significantly outpaced national averages allowing for a quicker resolution process, employers staying informed with proactive real-time investigation updates, compliant incident management, and more insightful workplace analytics.
“As BPV has gotten to know Jared and the team over the last two years, we’ve been impressed with the growth and success that they have been able to achieve with a lean team and minimal outside investment,” Ballast Point Ventures Partner Robert Faber, who will join the Work Shield board of directors, said in a statement. “Given our focus on partnering with growing private companies with strong management teams across the Southeast and Texas, Work Shield is a great fit for us.”
“We’re excited to partner with Jennifer and Jared Pope, Travis Foster, and the entire Work Shield team to drive continued growth and solidify Work Shield’s strong position in the market,” Faber added. “Given the growing spotlight on workplace culture, Work Shield’s differentiated solution helps mend a broken system of being heard through efficient and comprehensive incident resolution.”
GIving employees access for reporting incidents, while ensuring employers’ peace of mind
Work Shield says it’s the first and only solution that partners with employers to efficiently manage reporting, investigation, and resolution of workplace harassment and discrimination issues in their entirety.
The company says it gives employees access to an immediate and impartial secure platform to safely voice workplace harassment and discrimination incidents, while employers are ensured peace of mind that every issue is investigated and resolved with care by Work Shield-certified investigators.
Ballast Point Ventures is a later-stage venture capital and growth equity fund founded in 2002 to provide expansion capital for rapidly growing, privately owned companies, with a particular emphasis on companies located in Florida, the Southeast, and Texas.
Quincy Preston contributed to this story.
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