With Yna, Pentacode is among the top three entries in the competition’s Organizational Performance category. This voice-controlled enterprise AI is designed specifically to help the restaurant, hospitality, and other deskless industries manage HR processes more easily, quickly, and accessibly. The winner will be announced on September 15 at Zukunft Personal Europe in Cologne.
Pentacode, a provider of HR software and AI-powered personnel management for the hospitality industry, is a finalist for the 2026 HR Innovation Award with its corporate AI, Yna. In the Organizational Performance category, Pentacode ranks among the top three entries out of all submissions.
“This nomination is an important recognition for us,” says Lorenz Strasser, founder and CEO of Pentacode. “Most HR solutions are designed for desk-based work. From the very beginning, we developed Yna for deskless industries such as the restaurant and hospitality sectors. Yna supports employees who work in the kitchen, on the floor, at the front desk, or on rotating shifts and rarely sit in front of a screen. Voice control makes HR processes accessible to all employees, with or without a desktop. The fact that we’re among the finalists shows that digitalization is effective when it reaches the everyday work lives of people who have been overlooked until now.”
Award for Digital Innovations in Human Resources
The HR Innovation Award recognizes companies that drive the further development of human resources management through new ideas and forward-looking products. The award is presented in four categories: Recruiting & Attraction, Organizational Performance, Learning & Development, and Corporate Health. From all submissions, the jury selects three finalists per category.
In the Organizational Performance category, the jury evaluates digital solutions that optimize HR processes and improve organizational performance and collaboration, particularly applications for automation, AI, and data-driven decision-making. With Yna, Pentacode is the only finalist whose solution is specifically designed for the hospitality industry and for employees without a fixed office workspace.
Voice Control: A New Dimension in Human Resources Management
This is precisely the target audience Yna serves in its day-to-day operations: In the fall of 2025, Pentacode became the first company in Germany to launch fully voice-controlled AI for human resources management. Yna enables users to manage shift scheduling, time tracking, cost control, and legally compliant documentation using natural language—either on a computer or via mobile devices using push-to-talk on a smartphone. It understands more than 30 languages and recognizes dialects and accents. Since its launch, 800 hotels and restaurants have been using the company’s AI.
Whether this approach will also win over the jury of the HR Innovation Award will be decided on the first day of the Zukunft Personal Europe trade show in Cologne. Every year, tens of thousands of industry professionals and hundreds of exhibitors gatheratEurope’s largest HR trade show for presentations, workshops, and networking. The awards ceremony will take place on September 15 starting at 2:30 p.m. on the “Blauer Salon” stage.
Caption/Copyright: Pentacode’s enterprise AI, Yna, makes complex HR processes accessible through natural language. © Pentacode AG