Hartford Business Journal

8 Hartford Business Journal • November 26, 2018 • www.HartfordBusiness.com Reporter's Notebook Matt Pilon | mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com Health Care/Bioscience, Startups & Entrepreneurs, Government/Law and Energy STARTUPS AND ENTREPRENEURS Want to gauge employee morale? Hartford startup aims to help W hile some bosses may be unconcerned with ex- actly how their workers are feeling week to week, a longtime tech and human resources executive is betting many managers would like to have better intel. Richard Pummell, of Hartford, has developed a mobile app called Workon- nex to help employers regularly track — through brief sets of daily ques- tions with mostly one-click answers — employee sentiment. Some questions are general while others could be related to specific hap- penings, like product launches or new projects. The idea is to give managers more real-time and enhanced feedback, compared to what emerges from the typical annual performance review. Workonnex is meant to help employ- ers catch and address problems they might have otherwise missed or taken too long to notice, in the hopes of both retaining employees and keeping them on top of key work tasks. "It doesn't supplant direct interac- tion between people," said Pummell, who was formerly an operations manager at Hart- ford-based Foley Carrier Services. "It enhances it." The app, which Pummell said is currently in beta testing with six Connecticut em- ployers, includ- ing a fast-food franchise and a sports team, gauges employee sentiment with some of the following prompts: • Overall, I am able to stay on top of my workload. • I have not felt the need to take a mental health day in the last 30 days. • If I were to receive a job offer from another company, I would not ac- cept it. The app also asks about and helps track progress on work tasks. Over time, data collected might reveal cor- relations between, for example, em- ployees' moods and the time it takes to complete their work. But how comfortable will employees be with a potentially deeper shar- ing of their opinions with managers? Wouldn't some think it risky, or simply prefer to keep their heads down? Pummell acknowledges that's a hurdle, and one that has informed the design of the Workonnex app. The app's library of questions, he said, leans toward a positive or neutral tone, even if questions present the possibility of a tougher conversation. Identifying longer-term trends in the data is the most valuable function, he said. Employ- ers can also choose to make answers anonymous to put workers at ease. Regardless, there's a learning curve. Introducing it in a workplace requires an up-front discussion, and some level of trust. "[As a manager] … are you ready for the type of data you're going to receive, and how are you going to re- spond to it?" he said. "You kind of just have to check your ego a little bit." Pummell is targeting companies that have between 50 and 500 employees. There are competing employee engage- ment software products already on the market, but Pummell thinks they tend to focus on big employers. One of the biggest hurdles ahead for Workonnex is funding. Pummell said he has bootstrapped the startup for the past 18 months. He and his small team meet in coffee shops in the Hart- ford area or interact remotely. One way he hopes to connect with investors and further develop Workon- nex's strategy is through the relatively new Hartford Insurtech Hub program. Pummell has applied to be accepted into the program's 2019 cohort of 10 companies. Besides hoping that insurers might be interested in using his app in their workplaces, there's another connection, Pummell said. If insurers had access to real-time data showing how stressed out or tired employees are feeling on a given day, it may be a predictor of workplace accidents. Pummell hopes insurers might eventually encourage policy- holders to use his app. HEALTH CARE Hartford HealthCare plays lead role in 'pivotal' migraine device study A patch that delivers electricity to a patient's nervous system through their upper arm ap- pears to be a promising remedy for mi- graine sufferers, according to a newly released clinical study led by a Hartford HealthCare headache physician. The Nerivio Migra is a noninvasive medical device being developed by Israel-based Theranica, which hopes to begin selling it late next year, pending regulatory approval. Electrical or "neuromodulation" treatments are an evolving area in headache science, with companies vying to replace medication with safer and potentially more effective alterna- tives for the estimated 35 million to 40 million migraineurs in the United States. Placed discretely underneath a shirt sleeve, the Theranica device differs from several neuromodulation devices already on the market, which are applied to the head or neck. This month at an annual symposium of the American Headache Society, Theranica released the results of a randomized, double-blind clinical trial that tracked 252 acute migraine suf- ferers who used the device. The study, led by principal inves- tigator Dr. Brian Grosberg, direc- tor of the Hart- ford Healthcare Headache Center in West Hartford, found that the Nerivio Migra produced statisti- cally significant beneficial results for patients in several key areas that were measured. "The study endpoints cover all the main clinical benefits that are really important for patients," Grosberg said. The most important finding was that nearly 67 percent of patients felt pain relief two hours after receiving treat- ment, compared to less than 39 percent who received a placebo treatment. The odds of that result happening by pure chance are remote — just one in 10,000 — giving it strong statistical significance, according to the study. Also of significance, two hours after treatment, more than 37 percent of pa- tients reported being free of migraine pain entirely, and more than 46 percent reported feeling relief from nausea and light sensitivity. "We at the headache society, as well as our migraine patients throughout the nation have been waiting a long time for this — a drug-free acute treatment for migraine that really works well," Grosberg said. ENERGY & UTILITIES CT's energy demand, emissions fall as renewables grow A recent report from the U.S. Ener- gy Information Administration shows that electricity sales to Connecticut businesses and residents continue to decline, driven by the increased adoption of renewable energy, higher efficiency and other factors. Retail electricity sales fell nearly 2.8 percent in 2017 compared to the year before, reaching their lowest level yet this century, EIA's report shows. Since 2007, electricity sales have fallen nearly 18 percent here, compared to a national dip of just 1 percent. Meantime, carbon dioxide emis- sions from Connecticut power plants fell 8 percent last year, reaching their lowest level since at least 2011, while solar output (which totaled 447,000 megawatt hours) grew almost 30 percent, according to EIA. Dr. Brian Grosberg, Director, Hartford Healthcare Headache Center Richard Pummell, CEO & Founder, Workonnex

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