HR & Payroll Tech Marketplace News & Updates (Spring 2026, April)

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_00] Welcome everyone to another episode of the HR & Payroll 2.0 Podcast. I'm Pete Tiliakos and as always, I'm joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome, Julie.

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_02] Thanks, Pete. And we just wanted to make sure we haven't missed anything from a news department, right?

[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Yeah, it's time for what I would call a spring market news update. It's been a lot of activity. We've been on the road a lot. We need to talk about that. I don't think I've been home more than maybe a total of 72 to 96 hours all April. So I'm happy to be home this week. That's nice. I'm getting ready for PayCon. I know you're gonna be speaking there and I'm sure all of our friends out there are heading over. So yeah, you want to talk about some events? You've been on the road too.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_02] For sure. More than is usual. And for me, it's always a combination of client events and some of the things, the industry events that we do together that you do. But yeah, it's been a lot more than usual. I think I'm almost platinum already this year, which is scary.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_00] No, yeah, I am. I know I am. I've already been overseas, as they say, over the pond more than once. And so... Same here. Yeah, yeah. But the places we will go. So, all right, where do you want to start?

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_02] Why don't we just start with a quickie of like what sorts of the main things we've both been at?

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_00] Well, I've been to a bunch of places, but a couple that I want to highlight really is I went to CloudPaymakers in Malta. That was amazing. If you haven't been to Malta, you got to check it out. A lot of my friends have told me about Malta by way of their cruise destinations. But I spent a couple weeks there at spring break and then went to the event. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. I don't know if you've ever been, Julie.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_02] I have not, actually. To either Malta or the CloudPay event, which is kind of new, right?

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_00] You got to do both. Yeah, the CloudPay event, this was the fourth year. Yeah. And it is something that they started, you know, for their clients. And it's an invite. I think it's invite only. Maybe it's opened up to all clients. And there's a very handful, small handful of analysts that show up. A couple of partners, handful of partners like GP was there. I think Eberry was there, of course. A couple of other, you know, workday slanted. I think an SI was there as well. But anyway, the point of this is it reminds me a little bit of ADP Rethink, right?

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00] It's a very private executive, you know, client and maybe even some prospect gatherings where we got together and really just networked a lot of education and updates on what's going on with CloudPay. But also just how they're doing things with their customers. They're very, very, I thought, very transparent with their customers. They shared their NPS score while we were there, plus 23. Very positive. They're proud of that. They're proud to share that, which I think, you know, how many global payroll platforms are doing that?

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_00] But I think it's indicative of a lot of the work that they've been doing heavily on that customer experience side. But really just a great event, right? A lot of learning and again, a good exchange. But yeah, maybe I could share with you. Yeah, just some of the takeaways, but I'll pause there.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_02] Sure. Well, let me just say, first of all, I know you and I have spoken about this and you advise these vendors all the time, right? I just say kudos. This is four years that they've done this, as you know, outside of the ERPs and, you know, Workday or ADP. A lot of the providers really don't do client events like this, much less, you know, kind of that tailored for the senior leadership. It's an investment. It's a big investment of time and money.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_02] And I'll just say from the client perspective, those leaders want to do that primarily to network with their peers who are also using the same platform. And I really wish more of the providers would do that sort of thing because it's generally very well received. But it's a lot of investment to pull together a community, an event, you know, resources. So I just think it's awesome that Cloud Pay is that far along with it.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, no, I think they did good. And I think it's they built a bit of a community is what it really has become. And you're right. There's, you know, there's there's a lot of learning and a lot of exchange and a crazy story, Julie. I tell you a crazy story before I tell you some of the updates. So I'm at the event. Right. And of course, I find the Atlanta people. OK, so I run into a practitioner who is from the Georgia chapter here. And she and I were talking about how she was from Atlanta. I'm from Atlanta. And she said, oh, there's another lady from Atlanta here.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_00] Now, I live in the suburbs in Dacula. It's like Dracula with with no R. OK, Dacula. So she says, oh, well, you know, this lady lives in Dacula as well. And I said, you don't say that's crazy. So whatever. I forget about it, but I knew she was there. And I thought, oh, we'll run into each other later at the event. It's a small place. There's a lot of dinners going to happen over the next couple of nights. I'll run. So like a day later, right. Hallway. We're passing each other. And they you know, she says, hey, here's the you know, here's the Dekula lady.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_00] And so I'm thinking to myself, there's no way this person is from the same same little place I am. Right. So we start to talk. Right. And I say, hey, I live over kind of close to the school. I live by an elementary school, Daniel Park or Fort Daniel Elementary School. I live in Daniel Park neighborhood. And she says, that's crazy. I do, too. And I said, no kidding. What neighborhood do you live in? She said, I live in Daniel Park. I said, I live in Daniel Park. So we keep whittling this down. OK, now we're 5000 miles from home, Julie.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. We live 500 yards away. That's so funny. And she just started her job a week ago. Right. She's a global payroll leader and she just got this job. I can't remember the company. But my neighbor, not only that, let's make matters worse. It's one of my daughter's closest friends. She my daughter and her son are very close friends. They ride to school together all the time. I've never met this poor woman. But our kids are like close. And my wife and her had met, but I've never met. So I was embarrassed.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00] But how on earth do you? That's payroll. Yeah, that's payroll in a nutshell. Right. There it is. Anyway, yeah. So that's my feel good. My feel good story from CloudPay paymakers. All right. Let's talk about CloudPay, though, for a minute. Tell me. So CloudPay is they're in good shape. They're doing really well. I say customers are really happy. Julie, one thing I thought was interesting. You know, CloudPay is very well known for what they do in the workday space. Right. They've done a lot there. Now they're pushing a bit deeper and getting a bit closer to with Oracle.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_00] So for the Oracle users out there, I think they've even put some of that announcement out there. But let me tell you something anecdotal that I noticed, Julie. I would argue about 90% of the people that I ran into, I didn't really count them. But most of the customers I ran into, nine out of 10, were workday customers.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_02] Oh, for sure. That's been their piece by.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_00] And a lot of them have a more than average amount of their countries with CloudPay. So that's really positive. A lot of CloudPay presence. But here's the interesting thing. I ran into more customers that were either just renewed with Workday or are intending to renew with Workday. So I thought that was pretty positive when you think about what we're hearing in the news. And I'm going to talk about Innovation Day. We're going to do a separate episode. It's way too much to talk about. But that was just anecdotally popped out at me. And I thought that was interesting.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00] So I thought I'd share that with you because I know you're out there helping people.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, I think that's awesome. And what a way to go. Like also extending out into the Oracle network because unlike SAP, Oracle doesn't make a whole lot of bones about the fact that they would love a partner that would do that. And so that seems like a really logical next place. Yeah, totally.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00] And not building out a lot of payroll, right? I think they've got about 12, maybe 14 countries at this point. So anyway, look, CloudPay is doing good. I got to spend some time with Roland Foles, the CEO. Now he's from the fintech world, from the payments world. And as you know, CloudPay is go to market. They were an early mover on payroll and payments together. Yes. End-to-end capability. They get a lot of help from their partner, Eberi. And now Navro is involved there too. But one of the things I really, I spent a lot of time with Roland. Him and I talked in the evening.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00] We talked the market. We talked CloudPay. But one of the things that really stood out with me, to me, from him is his passion for this industry and for payroll's potential. Very refreshing. Very refreshing to be a non-sort of founder, if you will, and having started in this space. He's coming to the space. And I thought that was really cool. And I think it's a good indication of why the customers are happy. The flywheel, I think I even told this to Tim Johnson, the head of sales.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00] I said, you guys, your flywheel is really starting to show, right? It's starting to all come together. The product, the customer care and all that. So congratulations to them. I think they're doing really well that way. And over on the product side, Julie, I mean, look, obviously payments and payroll infrastructure are key to them. Doing a lot more with APIs. They want to make everything bidirectional and real-time, you know, payments in the flow, payments available on demand for their customers. And certainly being with Navigator, right?

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00] I think it's Navigator, they call it, right? Their UI is now the same for all customers. And that's going to be the go-forward user experience. So a lot of positivity coming out of there. And certainly AI, you know, they're dabbling in that, starting to work on, you know, different pieces and parts there. So I think a lot of good stuff to come from CloudPay.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, and thanks for mentioning the whole, the payments component, right? Because they really were a pioneer in that. Yeah. In combining those two things together. And it's something that other providers are, I would say, rapidly jumping on the bandwagon for. Oh, yeah.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:09:19] [SPEAKER_02] And so they've just had, you know, probably well over a decade, I want to say. It feels like it's always been there. They've just had such a long time being able to make that work.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_00] For sure. For sure. Yeah. No, well, good. Let's talk WorkHuman if you want. I can tell you about that one. I just came back from there. I came back from Orlando. Now, I didn't get to stay for the whole thing. I just, I had to get back and I wasn't able to do it. But I was there for the analyst day and I was there for the keynotes. So I saw, you know, the CEO keynotes. Now, let me tell you about WorkHuman's event, WorkHuman Live.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, please. I don't usually do this one. I don't know if people know this before.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_00] I don't know if people know them very well. I don't play in this world so much, but I certainly will absolutely take briefings from vendors all across. It's talent, rewards, in their case, recognition and rewards. And certainly data and insights that they have out of that platform. So what I think is really, really interesting, they used to be called Global Force. I don't know if people know that. It reminds me of Globo Gym. If you ever watched Dodgeball, I love it. You ever remember that? I don't know if anybody out there has watched Dodgeball. Hopefully you have. But yeah, Global Force was their name.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_00] And they had an event called WorkHuman or WorkHuman, I think it was the event. And then people were like, hey, that ought to be your name. You ought to rebrand to this because they have this whole human empowerment. You know, it was down in Florida, right, Julie? So they had the mascot was Humanity, as in Manatee, right? Named Hugh, right? Get it? So, you know, very Florida and very WorkHuman. And that's what they do, right?

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_00] They are a reward and recognition platform, really the market leader. And fundamentally have some really interesting data and insights. They also have some other talent capabilities like performance management and some things that there might be lesser known for. But the event itself, I'll come back to the product. The event itself is really, really unique. I've officially branded it your favorite analyst's favorite event. And the reason that I say that is because almost every analyst that I told I was going there,

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00] and I'd only been to a WorkHuman analyst day up at their corporate offices in Massachusetts. I had never been to the event. It just never worked out for me. So I went this time. And before that, I kept telling folks like, hey, I'm going to be going to WorkHuman next because we're always on the road together. Compare notes, where you're headed, where you're headed. And WorkHuman just bubbles up every time. Oh, I can't make it. Or, oh, I can't wait to get there. It's a wonderful event. Here's why it's really cool, Julie. One, it's people-oriented all the way. Human-centric, human empowerment, right?

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_00] But what I think is really fascinating is it's really not a WorkHuman product event. It's more of a industry event. And so before we got on, I still have the app. I didn't get to go to the classes. I wanted to. I didn't have time. But I was spinning through some of the content over the three, four days. And it's everything from HR topics like succession planning and AI literacy.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_00] But there's also things like leadership and change management and psychology and just a lot of organizational and human-centric content that really has absolutely nothing to do with their product. Now, they certainly have sessions for their products and they certainly have come over and demo in the expo. But I mean, just a really high-quality event for HR leaders, for any leader probably to attend. But I would say HR leaders, you ought to really consider it. I certainly will prioritize it next year. I will always prioritize it.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_00] The content, the learning content is what I want to go back for. I mean, I love the analyst update. It's really cool. But yeah, I would say this is a very, very different event. And I would encourage you to check it out.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, so because of that, I would guess there's not like the concept of big expo halls.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00] Well, there is, but there's not a ton of partners, right? I mean, UKG was there and there's a handful of their partners and such. But most of it is hands-on sort of stuff it looked like. But yeah, a little expo, I would say. Big expo, little area though for partners and such. So yeah, but it's just a little different in that way.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_02] That would be very refreshing. I can see where that would be refreshing compared to, you know. Yeah, not a constant sales pitch or something, you know.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_00] But yeah, so look, on the product side though, they're doing some cool stuff with their recognition reward data, right? They have some incredible insights on that. And what they've been able to do is pair that with predictive data from, I would assume it's going to have to come in from your HCM because there's going to have to be a number of data points here. I think we challenge that as analysts in the room. And the skills data that they have within their rewards platform and the understanding they have of the employee that's being rewarded and connect the dots on all that and can actually,

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_00] they're saying, can predict whether or not someone will be promoted to an executive, senior executive or executive level within the next five years. Now, it's pretty impressive if that's the case. But there's a lot that I think would have to go into that. So I got a lot of questions. I'm sure you do too. But I think it just shows you the power of what, when you can triangulate those data points with other third-party data points within your HCM, it's what we talk about with payroll and HR data all the time.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_00] You got to connect it to other things to see what the story is. You could see how this could be possible. So, and again, they've got a, you know, they've got succession tools and performance tools and that sort of thing in their solution. So interesting. Very interesting.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Nice to hear, right? I haven't been, that's not one that's been on my list either. So it's great hearing your insight into what, how that rolls up.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, it's good. They're also coming down market. They've been dominant, very dominant in the enterprise, coming down market and putting a little bit more emphasis on the frontline worker, right? I think they've been a little bit white collar focused. So, yeah, I think you're going to see them in more places. So keep an eye out. I know that's your side of the world, the rewards and all that. So, yeah. All right. And like I said, Workday Innovation Summit happened in Napa. I was there the week before last, before we went to World at Work, which we need to talk about. And I'm going to come back with, I need to still digest Workday.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00] There was a lot. You've probably already seen. I think Josh Burson has already put some things out. A great summary and a great podcast. I want to digest my point of view on it. And I'll give you, I'll give you that. But there was a lot of NDA this time, but far less than not. So that's great. So I'm careful.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_02] If folks are listening, we're going to do that one separately. And I just came back from being on campus with Workday for the last couple of days. So it'll probably fit a little bit better with that. We'll talk to that in a separate episode.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about World at Work. We were in San Antonio for a short stint. I was only there for a day. And we recorded. You want to talk about that?

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_02] Well, we did. I had to do one without you because you had to bail out, you know, one day earlier. So we did a total of six. So folks, if you want to hear more, you know, listen to those, including a collaboration. We kind of teamed up with some of our work-defined colleagues and had the equipment and the booth, you know, kind of all together as one shared. So that we can all get some good content out into the market.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_00] Shout out to the guys over at Totally Rewarding Chats, right? Sean and Paul, man, you guys helped us out. Appreciate that. And Julie, I don't know if you got to stick around, but you want to talk about that event? I've not been to it before. But I heard a lot of great things about the content. I did get to see it because we were recording.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_02] It was very cool. So I'll just say, you know, kind of some of the highlights for Total Rewards leaders. So first of all, when you think about who's present and who's bringing content and who's having conversations, you're getting more of the compensation vendors, you know, the DekuSofts, the HRSofts. You're getting more from, you know, that whole area of Total Rewards is really blowing up and blowing out. Folks are, companies are differentiating themselves and really looking to appeal to workers as part of their overall value proposition.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_02] So you get compensation, you get some benefits and wellness. You know, that's all moving into the wellness space, as you highlighted in our what focus on predictions for the year. And so that's, it just brings a whole different level of or different type of vendor to the practitioners with the idea of the Total Rewards space being a role in the organization, a leadership role.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02] The snippet that I heard the most about the content and the actual things that were there is, of course, everyone was, has AI on the brain. Yep. And what I think folks were most looking forward to, they were most asking about, and they were most looking forward to was, what are the use cases specifically for Total Rewards leaders that are being explored or that they're being challenged to rise to? And I think that's really important because a Total Rewards leader is dealing with compensation.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_02] I mean, we're talking some PII data, right? We're talking a lot of stuff where if you're a smaller organization, you might be the only person in the whole organization that can even look at that stuff. Right. So it gets harder and harder to try to figure out what can I do with AI? How do I do it safely? You know, where should I be poking around and starting? And I guess that's the universal theme that I heard the most about the content that was there for the Total Rewards leaders.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I mean, look, I didn't get to stay for much, so I didn't see any of that. But I actually heard a lot of positive comments about the event overall and how the quality of the attendees and the quality of the content there. So am I right to say that that's their flagship event? They do some smaller ones, I think. Yes, it is.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. It is, I think, the one that's best known and maybe best attended. It was not a small event, right? No. I don't know if I even have seen the estimates of how many folks were there. Yeah. But we have a little compensation practice, right? I say a little because we focus more down the market where people don't have big, heavy compensation teams. Yeah. And so this was, it's something that that team goes to regularly. Yeah. Because all of their client folks are there.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_00] I stopped by the booth, you know, shout out to Sam and Chelsea. And Chelsea and Chelsea. They came on.

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_02] Who did an episode with us.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_00] Yep, yep. I'm excited to have them. So yeah, I went by and saw the booth and said hi to them. So look, I don't hang around that world quite like I do in more in the core HR kind of HCM kind of side. But there were a number of folks that I knew there, you know, folks, mostly vendor folks, but few practitioners as well that recognized me and said hello. So look, I thought it was a robust event and we got a lot out of it. And I hope we can come back and do it again. I'm hoping we'll do that same drill again.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_00] And maybe we can stay, you know, the whole week and maybe do some other things around the show.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, a little more Texas weather.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, yeah. A little more Texas weather would be great. It was terrible. But we got Mexican food. So that's, we checked that off our list. And we saw the Alamo.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_01] So we're living life.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_00] All right. And look, that's thanks to our sponsors. Let's be honest. I mean, without them, we didn't have a travel budget. And so, you know, thank you so much to OSV, Zoho, and then of course, Globalization Partners. Thanks to all three of them. And they made that possible. So we appreciate it. And Saver.com. Thank you so much for having us.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Okay.

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_00] I wish I could pronounce the Brazilian company that was doing all the recording.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_02] I'm going to say it's Quinta de Util is the name of the Brazilian company. We're going to go. There was another partner in that mix with us. And they brought, they brought all the, they did the heavy lifting, really. They brought the equipment and they brought the sound decks.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_00] Yes. And they crushed it.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02] They crushed it. They made it happen.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. I love it. They did a great production. So, all right. We'll see. All right. Here we go. So, Julie, I got a lot of news. You want to pop through some of these? Yeah.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_02] But I'm going to tell you two events that we didn't cover yet. Oh, oh. All right. Let's do that. Yeah. Let's do it. So, in February, because we kind of did our last update in January. So, February and March, just a couple of highlights. Dave first pulled together a really cool event. It was a bourbon tasting.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01] Ooh. All right.

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_02] That they paired with AI and featuring a lot of their, you know, they're doing a lot of embedded AI. I know we talk about it on our news events. So, we don't need to go into that maybe in super detail. But it was at Buffalo Trace. Super popular. You know, very much. And I don't know if folks know, but since I don't advise vendors like you do, I advise clients. Yet vendors that are really having events for their clients where they want some market insights

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02] and some, you know, something that's not kind of salesy and producty, right? Specific to them. That's how I get engaged in those types of events. Yeah. And so, my role in that particular event was really to bring forward market AI information kind of from that outside in lens. That's usually the role that I play in those types of things.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_02] Fantastic, smashing event. And, you know. I bet it was. It was amazing.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00] You know, the thing is, let me say this. Let me say this. And a shout out. I love Dayforce. That's a bold move because there are wives that won't allow bourbon at weddings. Yeah. To bring the HR squad, you know, through the bourbon trail, you're really got to be some confidence on that one.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_02] When it's a virtual event, control the portions, let's just say. I know, I know. You are encouraging something. It's sipping. It's sipping.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_02] And the name. I love the name that they came up with for the event. It was Distilling AI. It was just. Nice.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_01] I like it.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_02] A great, a really great name. I love some good marketing. That was February. I myself was out in Kentucky for that. And they did a fabulous job. And then in March, I think the thing that I want to highlight was, you know, I'm a regular at the Shared Services and Outsourcing Week. Yes. Yes. How was that? So March in Orlando is always their big multi-tower event. So HR, finance, supply chain, IT, they're all there. And HR is a portion of that. I always do some speaking.

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_02] And what I love the best is for the last 30 years, I've really been hosting HR networking dinners as a part of those activities. So the folks have heard me say this before. That event is not about vendors speaking to you or offering product to platform. It is really about practitioners telling practitioner stories.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_02] So there's always amazing stories there. And then, you know, just networking over dinner gives me a chance to bring, you know, I usually get most of the HR attendees at the dinner and they just love spending time with their peers, we shake it up so they get to know everyone and walk away with a Rolodex, right? By the end of the night.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_00] You want to pay con, a payroll version.

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, exactly. So there you go. I don't think I missed ADP meeting of the minds happened as well. And I missed that one. Same. I was out of town.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_01] I was in Malta for that. Yeah.

[00:23:22] [SPEAKER_02] So if we're not mentioning it, guys, it's just because we were in too many different places and there weren't enough, there wasn't enough to go around to make sure that we-

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_00] I saw a lot of good, good updates from the posts from the exec summit. That they normally run. That's where the analysts normally get tracked. And Sarah Chastney, I think, went to that, I believe. And she posted from there. So if you guys know Sarah, follow her and check out her stream. She had some posts coming out of that event. So- All right.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_02] So starting back up on those, we're a little long in the tooth today. So let's take us where we need to go next.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_00] We could be as long as we need. No, that's cool. I totally forgot those events. Those were good ones. And yeah, I want to get an invite to the Bourbon Trail. I mean, we just did Napa with Workday, I guess, with the analysts. So I guess that's, you know, that's our Bourbon Trail. There you go. Similar, very similar. Okay. Let's start off with deal. Back in the news, man. This is what they do. There really is such a thing as deal speed, man. I have to give it to them. It's a real thing. Um, so look, the deal, the big deal, 2026, uh, they showed all this on March 20th.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_00] I've been storing some of these, Julie, for the last few months, basically. They got 40,000 plus customers now supporting workers in 150 countries and really becoming a system of record, right? I've, I've said this before. Deal is not just an EOR any longer. They're very much working their way towards being, uh, I would say a workday of, or an HCM for the globe and underpinning that with, with services of pretty much every kind. So, you know, if you look back at the February release, they had updates in performance. They had learning updates.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_00] I think they had survey analytics for that, or they added survey analytics. They added, um, some other areas to the platform that they built out, but now they have turned on their deal AI and AI workforce, which allows you to, um, leverage workflow specific agents for things like hiring, onboarding, payroll, IT compliance, and like all the other HCMs or like most modern platforms, you're going to be able to leverage their existing agents.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00] You can build your own, or you could bring an integrate in case you have some sort of internal LLM that you want to connect and use. So big step forward in AI there. And then, um, yeah, they got a couple of other things, a couple of updates on their pay experience around the mobile app. You now have a number of different pieces and parts all brought together in that, the deal card, the pay slips, uh, deal advance and some things like that. Um, and then of course they are, uh, also working towards, um, funding in USDC.

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_00] So a digital currency, obviously a stable coin version of the U S dollar.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_02] So that's cool.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_00] There's more, there's more, but that's, that's kind of there. And then I want to talk about one more piece of this.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_02] A little pause here. Um, oftentimes, you know, especially the stuff that you get to see and touch and hear about are the things that are coming, right. Coming up. And what clients are actually doing and how much they've adopted. So they're moving so fast, as you said, that they're in this space where things are probably evolving quicker from, you know, the availability and capability side than they are from the adoption side.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_02] And so, uh, so I love watching it. I love seeing where they're going and I hear their name a lot. And I think we will start to see, you know, more folks think of them beyond EOR.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, no, agreed, agreed. And look, here's the thing that I, I reason I paused, uh, one, I wanted to get your feedback, but two, one of the things I love that they've turned on to now is a new, what they're calling a native ATS applicant tracking system. So deal ATS, and it's basically going to really extend them into that sort of hiring, uh, elements, you know, adding to that layer of, of, of, uh, capability that they have with the platform. So I love this because I've been saying since forever, when I wrote the first, uh, market

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_00] analysis on EOR, that, that the opportunity is not just in helping employ the talent, but finding the talent, curating the talent, all of that part of it. That's why we've seen, I think some of the VMS is turning on EOR adjacent to these direct, uh, talent pools because they're curating the talent. They have the talent now they can execute on it. So that's an opportunity for the EOR space. And, and, and some of the, of the, I would say older generational players that are, that were traditional, maybe, uh, contingent workforce providers or MSP providers.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_00] A lot of them have to have EOR as well, but they tend to have the richer capabilities when it comes to recruiting because that's where they started, but often are, are regional and can't do it on a global level. So does deal throw some services behind this and maybe start to build that out? I'm, I'm really curious here. It's well-timed. We've got, I've even got more, uh, recruiting updates here on acquisitions. So it's very timely for the frontline. It's very timely for small businesses amidst midsize that they're working with. And I think it's a global, you know, global opportunity. So we'll see.

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. A lot, a lot going on, a lot of evolution and growth to make that all happen. And the same components that you would see in a PEO, you see an EOR and they do focus on the talent, you know, finding and getting the talent, which has an obvious connection point to an ATS and all the mechanics of operations and recruiting. So no small, no small thing to build out and solve for though. So yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. There's a lot of that. And speaking of recruiting, we got, we got more news here, Julie. Okay. Lay it on us. Yeah. You might've seen this. I got two updates here for these guys. Paylocity, right? Made a big splash with the acquisition or the announced planned acquisition of Grayscale, which is an AI powered recruiting automation platform. Falls right in line with SAP buying smart recruiters, UKG buying Chatter and turning on UKG Rapid Hire. And now you got Paylocity picking up Grayscale. You got deal added in ATS. Yes.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_00] You could totally see what's happening here. So yeah, just widened the platform and the value at Paylocity and probably brings, excuse me, some, you know, talent data, right? And a talent base. You're absolutely right. So the other thing, Julie, that they announced, I don't know if you saw this, but they announced something called Elevate Solutions or sorry, they launched Elevate Solutions to help HR and payroll teams scale more efficiently. That's the headline on their news release.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_00] Elevate Solutions are what I'm reading into it is just expanded outsourcing, right? It looks like deeper managed services. They've got Elevate Implementation, which manages sort of the activities of data validation and data maintenance and preparation for GoLives. They got Elevate Payroll, which administers payroll on behalf of clients. And then of course, they've got Elevate HR, which is ongoing HR operational support, including admin, audits, compliance guidance, policy development and best practice recommendations.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_00] So I think what you're seeing here is the deepening of services, probably competing on par with the breadth of services over at Paychex that Paycor got picked up and brought into. So and the demand, right? We know there's there's a huge demand for managed services.

[00:30:05] [SPEAKER_02] So yeah, and it's kind of funny because, you know, as we've seen these areas evolve, there's usually a focus on just subscription and subscription revenue. And then there's this demand for services, right? And people want more of the services. And then, you know, the services become either partner services or or bringing in services. And it just feels like the ones that are more purely subscription focused are going into services. Sometimes the guys who already have the services are really putting more of a laser focus on

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_02] subscription and trying to lean more into partners. So it's one of those things that's a constant dance. Like, when do I do an ad services myself? How do I grow or do I need a partner network? And yeah, and I would say everybody is moving and changing around a lot and striking that balance. So I'm not surprised at all.

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_00] Well, and I think there's a lot of I don't want to call it scope creep, but there's a lot of I mean, I hear it from the global payroll providers often. And the EORs, particularly where they're getting pulled to say, hey, you know, you're paying or you're doing X over in this country. Could you also take on this and that? And that this and that tends to be employment law help and offboarding. And yeah, exactly. So you see it in the U.S. as well. Right. Yeah.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_02] And listen, let me put this out there for the practitioners because we have a really big practitioner audience. When you're doing that, just the content and the contracting that happens for subscription type activities is very different than what you have or need or want when you start to get into the services side of the house. And so, you know, just just to have a little trigger there that that makes you think about the fact that, you know, everything from your terms to your service levels to, you know,

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_02] all the stuff that defines that relationship with a provider, if it's tech only, it looks one way. If it's tech and services or services only, it's got whole new dimensions that you might not be familiar with. So take a look at that. Good point.

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, great point. Yeah. No, something to think about there, you know, as a customer either way. Let's talk about some other stuff. So Gusto, Gusto picked up Mosey. I don't know if you saw this, Julie. It's an AI powered business compliance platform that helps with payroll tax, corporate registrations, compliance and general, you know, remote, multistate and international workers. Right. And the way this was positioned is that, you know, they want to bring, obviously that's a nice compliment to their, you know, payroll solutions. Right.

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_00] And so I think what they are really doing is, you know, going deeper into that compliance problem that a lot of small businesses have and don't often have the knowledge or the core capability to handle. And it's much better to often get an expert, right? Aside from just a lawyer. So what I think is interesting about this, I don't know if you saw this. I don't know if you know Steve Smith. He does a newsletter. I follow it. I've read it for a while. He tags me in it sometimes for various different analysts, things that go on. I think it's the Work Tech Weekly.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_00] So you can find that over on LinkedIn. So I don't know this to be completely true, but I would trust this coming from Steve. He's an excellent source. So if this is something he's willing to put in his newsletter, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this has to be true, is that Mosey had built a really strong solution, this compliance platform, and they were serving a lot of the customers of Gusto's competitors. So think Rippling, Paychecks, ADP types, right? So now that Gusto has acquired it, what I'm reading here is, and I need to go look into this,

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_00] I'm going to find out more about this, is that Gusto is telling their customers by June 30th, you're going to lose access to Mosey unless you switch over to Gusto products, right? Bold. So yeah, exactly. Very bold. Yeah. And so I think it's almost like a little bit of a shot across the bow, but I'm wondering how many customers are going to shed. Almost sounds to me like you're pitting the love for their HR tech. Maybe they're using Rippling and then their love for the compliance solution that they're using from Mosey. Is the tail going to wag the dog here? Interesting to see.

[00:33:57] [SPEAKER_02] So yeah, it's interesting because it's so different than the way this usually happens, right? If you think about, you know, Solergo going to ADP and they had the tight relationship with UKG and NetSuite. And I mean, there's just so many examples where part of why you bring somebody in is not only their features and capability, but their book of business.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah.

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_02] You know, so it's not the usual approach, let's just say.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. What would, yeah, well, I think it, I think it kind of signals, you know, that they feel confident they can maybe pull from these, these vendors, but we'll see about this. I'm going to, I'm going to look into more of this and try to find, try to follow this a little bit. And I'm sure Reddit will have some, some, some, some scoop. But, but I'm just curious what you, what would be your advice in this situation to a customer who might be on, let's say a Paychex product, maybe loves both Paychex and Mosey. What would you say to this?

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_02] Like you, you need to beyond just loving one or loving the other and feeling like you have an ultimatum. And this is no small decision for you to, you know, abandon one, somebody that you're using and go with someone else. And so this is a really big critical inflection point. If there is indeed an ultimatum and a choice you have to make. And, and I would say, you know, make sure at least across the, you know, the couple of things you're doing a fairly diligent job of trying to see what those puts and takes are.

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_02] And if someone needs help, that's exactly the sort of things that advisors like me in the space too, but take it seriously. That would be my number one.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_00] I mean, you know, no less important or critical or, or, or negative, but these are going to be small companies, right? Very small footprints. So it shouldn't be terribly gut wrenching to move, but it is a work, right? It's, it's, there's a lot to this. It's change and it's a, it may not be what you want to do. So I think it's an interesting approach. I don't, I'm not sure if, if I was running that business, I would have done it with such a short runway, maybe tip with them a little bit longer, but, but I get it.

[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_02] Longways oftentimes get extended, right? And, and I do think there's something to be said for, well, then where are they banking on the people on the experience layer being? Cause that's why people do, you know, like do and move. And you might not care as much about the product itself and the mechanics for operations, but you do care about the experience. So it tells me that maybe there's some element of experience that they're banking on being strong enough to carry the whole operational background, right?

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_00] That's what I'm thinking. They're confident in their product, I guess, and their service. So we'll see, we'll see how this plays out. So, all right. Uh, all right. Back to the EOR world, uh, global payroll world remote made another acquisition. I think this might be their fourth in the past 12 to 13 months or so rolling, rolling 12 months. They have picked up Braavos. They have picked up a French software company focused on identity and device management. Um, and basically, uh, helping them with their IT infrastructure sort of play in their, in their, in their system.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_00] Like we've seen with the ripplings and the deals all adding, uh, and even, even workday starting to, to think about some of that too. So look, dig back, right. They've grabbed Braavos. Now they've got, they bought an equity management solution with ASAP equity being like, um, profit sharing equity expense and expense management through Atlas. So lots of pieces and parts there, little, little accelerators to their, to their capability and their depth, um, for their platform. So kind of building similar to deal.

[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Some, and so many different ways of priorities to build out. So that's what I think you're highlighting. It's pretty cool.

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Julie, over to my pet peeve, leave administration, uh, Trinet, the, what, one of the big four PEOs picked up, uh, Cocoon. Now Cocoon is a leave management software, expands its leaves capabilities, obviously for SMBs and, and, uh, and obviously gives it some more automation there, which I love. But what's interesting here, Julie, is I don't know if people know this, but, but Cocoon is an ADP ventures investment. So that's interesting. You wonder why ADP maybe didn't gobble it up. I don't know.

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_02] Well, sometimes, sometimes you get comfortable having them as an innovation partner or venture partner or whatever, and maybe you're not, you don't have your eye on the ball. Uh, but I have a lot of questions about this because, you know, just like, I guess the, the big, the big gorilla in this space for tech only for absence management is absence soft. And there are a number of other things out there. And, um, Cocoon was one that's been on my radar for sure. I've seen them, you know, show up in a number of different places.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_02] But so what happens, you know, again, to the story we just talked about, what happens with the individual customers of Cocoon that are not Trinet customers or, you know, maybe outgrow in the PEO space with the big guys, you know, once you hit a certain scale and it's, you know, could be in the hundreds, right? Could be hundreds of folks. You, you risk, uh, having some growth concerns that make you think about, do I have the right tech stack and do I need to go somewhere else? So, so I love to dig around and find some more about this one.

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, no, it is interesting. Um, and there's, you know, I think there's, um, you know, obviously a lot of opportunity in these, in these, in these cumbersome friction processes like leaves. We've talked about it a lot on here. So a lot of opportunity for all the HR tech firms and service providers.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_02] Well, and even on the advisory side, I mean, it's one of the messiest spaces ever. And so we doing more than ever in that intersection of leave with core HR, with benefits, with payroll. I mean, it's, there's just a lot happens in that space and a lot goes wrong.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_01] So I'm not surprised to see. Yeah, totally.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_00] All right. Uh, let's go back to EOR again. I probably should have grouped these maybe a little bit better, but, uh, the reason this one is really interesting, Julie, I don't know if you saw this. I don't know if you're familiar with Revolut. Um, if you've flown to Europe lately, you probably know what the hell Revolut is because it's papered all over every billboard.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_02] And, um, that's where I've seen it from earlier this year. I definitely saw it. But, uh, other than that, I don't have a whole lot of experience to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_00] Well, it's, it's, it's FinTech, right? It's, it's, it's the, the ability, it's kind of like wise, I guess. Um, you know, one of the commercial apps and, and, and, and solutions, even some of the vendors out there use it, uh, for money movement. So, um, yeah, about 800,000 customers, they just turned on EOR, which is really interesting, which is again, and I, and think back to Payoneer, right? Payoneer, again, a money mover and a FinTech bought into the EOR space as well, uh, with Scott and I'm drawing a blank on the other one.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_00] But anyway, the point is these payments guys are coming the other way now. Right. So really fascinating here, 800,000 customers and global hire will now embed basically EOR services directly in their business ecosystem. So they basically have embedded, uh, in their payments infrastructure for their small businesses. They will now have EOR available. Now it's going to start in the UK, but they are, um, really saying that they believe that they can reduce the cost of EOR, particularly around currency, because they would be direct, right? They would, they don't need support for that.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_00] That's what they do. Whereas some others have to use someone like Revolut to move money. Interesting here. And I would not imagine that it's going to stop at the UK, right? Right, right. So it wouldn't seem to. Interesting threat coming the other way now, um, with some of these payment solutions, picking up, uh, picking up EORs or turning it on in this case. So.

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. And look how that even play out because we've had a number of EOR types of episodes that we've dropped. And, um, one of the big conversations in the EOR space is differentiating via services and fintech isn't that, you know, that's, that's kind of maybe the other end of the spectrum. And so, um, there's just a lot of different ways to, to.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_00] It's a beautiful adjacency. You know, it works really well. We had Andy on to talk about it. Uh, Andy Valentine from EBR to talk about why, you know, payroll is now a liquidity strategy. So, um, and I, I, I have to apologize. The other acquisition by Payoneer aside from Scott was our good friends, Boundless, D. D. Coakley and, uh, and Emma over at Boundless. So congratulations to them again. I know, I know we talked about that one, but, uh, yeah, really proud of her for that. Um, but so my point is you've got payments coming this way now and it's very easy for

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_00] them, I think, to set up this infrastructure and set it on top of, um, I mean, hell EORs are popping up every day. Yeah. Why not somebody who actually, you know, moves, moves money. Who actually moves the money instead of the reverse. Exactly. So, all right, Julie, I got one more and then I think we can, we can, we can bring this home if you'd like. And I'll just, I'm going to pause or go really easy on this one because I don't know a ton about it, but, uh, Phenom, I think you used to call them, uh, they used to be branded Phenom people acquire Plum, right?

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_00] And so what that does is, uh, is Phenom is now you probably see them a lot in the workday world.

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_02] I'm thinking the Plum market in the marketplace in the airport that I, you walk by, get your healthy snacks from, which I know is not that, but that's why I'm grinning over here.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_00] No, no. So what they're picking up though with Plum is, uh, is really psychometric and behavioral assessment capabilities. So that's going to be able to pair, uh, you know, to help with, you know, AI generated resumes, interview coaching, uh, and other capabilities that they have. And then of course, um, really bring, um, the ability for them to combine. I'll read this here actually differentiated layer around durable skills, job fit and behavioral traits, which complements Phenom's broader AI power, talent, experience and automation platform.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_00] So you're getting, um, a lot of capability here to coming together to solve, uh, a key problem here with the, uh, you know, candidates and, uh, and hiring. So pretty cool stuff. And, and I think you're going to probably see more of these types of acquisitions as we go. And, and now with you being able to use AI around things like human behavior and judgment, um, and fit for success, that sort of thing. I think this is, this is going to get interesting.

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. I think for sure, because where do you go when you're trying to get database or fact-based types of things that your AI, you know, can act upon, you know, when you first talk about it is what, what the heck kind of data am I going to get out of that? It sounds like shrinkology, right? Like, what am I going to get out of this that I'm going to bring forward? But I believe it's going to always go to the core, to the, to the types of data and structure that you can use to inform AI decision-making in your products.

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_00] Agreed. And, and to clarify, Phenom is on the TA side, the TA and the talent, um, talent experience side of things. And so Plum is really bringing, um, the other behavioral sort of. Behavioral stuff. Yeah.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_02] I'm thinking like, I don't, I don't know how you structure. I haven't really sat down to think much about how you structure some of the behavioral that I'm sure somebody has really thought it through.

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_00] Um, well, I mean, look, there are a right fit personality for certain types of jobs and there are right fit, you know, um, interests, I guess you could, I don't know what the word for interests are. Skills though. Right.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_02] It's, um, it is the culture is that cultural thing, the trust that you can build because you have that right fit, right. Yeah. Which is a little bit hard to grasp, harder to grasp than facts and figures.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. And now, I mean, look with, with, with, uh, Phenom already had strong, you know, AI capabilities, you know, now you can bring together some orchestration there as well. Right. I know we keep throwing that word around, but it's really, it really is the future for HR, right. It's, it's chaining all these things we do together, all the handoffs. Right. I, I can't wait to digitize handoffs. Right. I mean, because it seemed like back in the day, Julie, like every handoff meant more lines on the checklist. You know what I mean? So I don't want to see lines on the checklist anymore.

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_00] I just want to see no checklists and we have machines going and handing these things off and nudging us and telling us what to do. So I love it. I love it. So, uh, what else? Anything, uh, anything else you got, Julie? Cause if not, I think that's it for us. We got it all in.

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_02] No, I think this was, there was a lot to swallow. So, um, glad we fit it in. And then we've already said, we're going to do a separate one dedicated to some of the workday stuff that's going on. Um, but, uh, we wanted to pop in and make sure we started to share some of these things. It's been a couple of months.

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And for more on that, uh, Plum and Phenom, I would tell you to check out Tim Sackett and I know Madeline Lerano will probably have something as well. They study the talent space much, much deeper than I do. Uh, I kind of know surface level stuff. So on those guys. So yeah, they're very familiar with those platforms. So, all right, Julie, we're, uh, we're off. Uh, where are you going next? You going, you got any more? I'm, I got a few more.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_02] Well, we'll, we both have payroll Congress coming up. That's probably the big one that everybody will be talking about. I don't even know if this will drop before then, but, um.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_00] I don't think so, but it'll be soon after. So we'll have an update from that too. Uh, won't we? Yes, we will. What else? What else you got? I got Cornerstone. I'm going to see Cornerstone on Demand's, uh, annual analyst day. That'd be cool.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_02] All right.

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_00] Uh, what else?

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_02] Well, when I start looking out into joint, uh, when I start looking out into June, I've got a couple of big ones. The CHRO Summit is coming up from the conference board. Okay. Right. So that I'll be there in Chicago. And then also the SSOW that I'm always talking about shared services has an HR flavored version. You know, it's going to be in Atlanta in June. So I'm hoping that you and I will be able to connect there and maybe even pull some folks together from our networks and, and organize some sort of a dinner or meet and greet or

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_02] something cool.

[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. No, no. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Well, look, I'll be at a couple more analyst days. Cornerstone, like I said, SAP. Uh, there's one more in there. I'm somebody I'm forgetting. Of course we got Paycon and I know I'm forgetting something, but, uh, but look, anyway, thank you so much for listening. Yeah. Pack your bags. Thanks so much for listening. Please subscribe, uh, please share, like comment. We would love your comments. Uh, give us your thoughts. Um, and yeah, stay with us. We'll be back with more soon.