Workday Rising Recap: Pete Tiliakos Joins Jon Reed of Diginomica

[00:00:09] Hey, this is Jon Reed on the last day of Workday Rising. My Vegas residency is just about to end. I've got a special guest treat for you all today because it's not going to be the southern drawl of Brian Summer today. He's off parts unknown. I got Pete Tiliakos. How you doing?

[00:00:26] Yeah, good, sir. Really appreciate the opportunity to be here, man. I'm a big fan of the show.

[00:00:30] Well, you know, it's cool because how you get on my podcast, in case listeners don't know, you just need to have some strong opinions and ask bothersome questions.

[00:00:38] Yeah.

[00:00:38] And I've seen you do that on a number of occasions. You have angles on the future of work. In fact, it says on your LinkedIn profile, it says you're a futurist. I usually don't get along with futurists, so this could be an interesting discussion.

[00:00:51] But you also spent a lot of time drilling in on payroll specifically. And actually, for those who think that sounds boring, it's actually a really big friggin' deal. And companies and vendors really struggle with how to make sense of that, especially in the modern landscape that we're dealing with now,

[00:01:07] where you can't really afford to have these siloed legacy data centers.

[00:01:12] Yeah.

[00:01:12] So you got a lot of work to do then.

[00:01:14] Well, yeah. I mean, yeah. No, it's a good point. I appreciate you pointing that out.

[00:01:18] Yeah. Look, I'm a former practitioner turned consultant turned analyst, right? And I studied this market and but have lived it, right? Walked a mile in the shoes of the leader that are out there. And you're right. I just came off stage with one of the CHROs from one of the vendors out there.

[00:01:32] And we were talking about just all that the CHRO is facing right now. And certainly, you know, with talent being not infinite anymore, right? You know, not necessarily right here in your back pocket. Companies are finding or in your backyard. Companies are finding themselves at a younger, probably at a younger maturity stage in places that they didn't expect.

[00:01:54] And now they've got a global workforce. And that's a whole other, you know, game, right? When you're talking about that. So yeah, a lot going on here.

[00:02:02] And I think the other really fascinating thing about your area of focus, because I tend to look at a pretty broad spectrum of things. Future of work is like part of it. I spent a lot of time on AI, but I think what's really fascinating about AI and HR in general is that you have kind of the more kind of basic administrivia of making the HR manager's life maybe a little bit better.

[00:02:27] But then you have a lot of high stakes stuff around recruitment, talent, all this kind of stuff where you can get yourself in a lot of trouble with the EU AI pretty soon or basically just screw stuff up in ways that are harmful to people.

[00:02:43] And so it really brings the issues to a head, I think, around like what kind of AI future are we going to have? And so it's an interesting area that you have staked out for yourself.

[00:02:51] Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're right on all those things. I think there's a lot of curiosity for how AI can help us, but also that guarded nature of like, hey, this is our people, this is our data, we could make a bad decision.

[00:03:05] And I was just asking this, you know, in that conversation with the CHRO is like, you know, are these organizations able to digest all this fast enough and move quick enough and make these decisions quick enough?

[00:03:17] And I think that it's going to bring itself to a head here with AI really proliferating very quickly. Again, so much excitement, but also we need some cautious guardrails around it, right?

[00:03:26] I think it's also really interesting from a worker vantage point because you have this, I got into this a little bit with Workday and actually my post on their finance course, I brought up this whole, I criticized, it's a great course, but I brought up a criticism around sort of a focus on productivity as a metric, which was a big topic of debate this week.

[00:03:47] And part of it is we think of a worker's perspective, like, you know, I don't want to lose my job to this technology. So, you know, these productivity metrics, it sounds so great to managers, maybe to me, it just stresses me out that I'm kind of working harder.

[00:04:01] And I think that's what's so fascinating about all this sort of data exhaust that's required for these systems is this could either make my workplace better and my manager will listen to me and do stuff in a more humane way, or I feel like I'm surveilled in a whole new way.

[00:04:17] There you go.

[00:04:17] So it's just, I think you're in a fantastic place to kind of like help companies figure out how to navigate that and vendors as well, right?

[00:04:25] In terms of like how to talk about this in a way that it feels empowering to people and doesn't feel like, you know, oh, this is a mechanistic technology that's going to come in.

[00:04:35] Big brother, right?

[00:04:36] Yeah.

[00:04:36] Yeah.

[00:04:37] No, agreed. And, you know, you bring up a good point. I mean, I think there's, you know, we hear a lot more now about the frontline worker, right?

[00:04:43] I think like the last conference, last rising, that was a big, big emphasis. It still is. But I think they brought out a lot of solutions to help with that. And I think you have to think about that from the perspective of there's a lot more HR happening on the frontline by the manager.

[00:04:56] It's not HR and coaching and counseling and, you know, making sure people are, you know, meeting the goals that they have for themselves, but for the company. So yeah, it's almost like, it's almost like if you're a leader now and you have direct reports, you're in HR too. You know what I mean? In some ways. And you've got to, you're the first line of defense for that engagement.

[00:05:13] Um, so yeah, yeah, a lot, a lot to think about right now.

[00:05:17] So as you and I were sitting here, we've commandeered an empty room and hopefully won't be interrupted, which is always like the suspenseful part. Um, but we're on sort of officially like day, day two of the full days and we're just about to wrap. Uh, so this has given you an opportunity to kind of come in for a couple of days here.

[00:05:38] Um, and you know, we've had some analyst sessions and then we've, you've also, I'm sure gone to some general sessions and talk with customers. So tell, tell listener a little bit about like what was on your mind coming into the show in terms of some of the questions you wanted to get addressed. And then let's kind of look at how, how far we got with those in the last couple of days.

[00:05:57] Yeah. I think, I think for me coming into this, I was really curious, like last, you know, someone said to me this week and I can't remember who it was. It wasn't an analyst actually. They said, uh, you know, I feel like work days more focused than ever. And I was like, that's a great observation.

[00:06:10] I think we all kind of came away with some of that from the innovation summit back in the spring, right? That the, the, the group was, um, the leaders were seen more, uh, relaxed and aligned and, and, and knew where they were headed, knew who they were, knew they were there headed. So yeah, for me, it was coming in this time was, you know, I think last year it was a lot of, a lot of theory around, around this, but now this year we're seeing the agents. We're seeing the, um, the use cases worth it. We're seeing the, um, the industry accelerators.

[00:06:36] Accelerators. A lot of emphasis has been put on that AI now to bring it to life and start actionbalizing that between HR and finance. So it's coming to life, right? And now it's up to the organizations to begin to digest. And as you point out, like start thinking about how they can make that impact, uh, you know, for their unique use cases. Um, and when you walk around, I think there's a tone of cautious optimism. Like you say, like a lot of excitement for what AI can do, but also we got to be careful because what about our culture? What about our people's data? What about, you know?

[00:07:05] So, and I think there's a lot of, um, I think, uh, when you, when you listen to organizations that are out there deploying it, a lot of them have already deployed it on their front end with their partner or with their, with their product or their customer. So they've failed fast and learned there. And now they're starting to say, Hey, how can we make this a reality for our employees? Right. Cause they deserve the same experience as our customers and we've learned. Um, so yeah, I think there's a lot of folks that are, that are excited about things, but again, as you point out, they have to take that cautious digestion of what is it?

[00:07:35] You know, what is it going to mean for our culture? Uh, you know, our, our organizations, that sort of thing. So, yeah.

[00:07:40] And I know you've, you've had a, like a long dialogue with work day around, around payroll and, you know, one of the things about payroll that I like is a topic. Some people may say, Oh, it's a little bit bland, but I think to me, what's fascinating about it is it puts you right in the nexus of like, uh, localization, globalization, like good luck exporting your North America, you know,

[00:08:05] your American payroll rules to any other, you know, geography. And so a company like work day that got a start in North America and then, and then gets global, like, you know, faces a lot of interesting challenges around the payroll aspect. And so, so how have you seen this evolving? And then where are we at now?

[00:08:24] Yeah. Well, look, I think that payroll has always been incredibly important, but I think it's been somewhat, I don't know if marginalized is a word, but it's just sort of been like an afterthought. It's like electricity. If you go over and flip the light switch and the lights come on, you're not going to go. It's like in my house, the wifi goes out. My kids are like, ah, you know, dad, what do you know? My, my 20 somethings, but it's the same thing with payroll. Like you don't hear anything unless somebody doesn't flip the lights.

[00:08:49] So doesn't come on. Right. And so I think what happens in that is employers have, and especially the C-suite have looked at payroll as a cost center. Right. And you could argue that you can, you could easily argue that.

[00:09:01] And you could say, well, but at the same time, what I think they're finding out is, is that it's a massive organizational agility enabler, right? Or not. So I, I, you know, McLaren is out on the floor, right? There's a McLaren, uh, you know, I don't know if you got to go over there and check it out. There's a great simulator out there. McLaren is a, as a, as a customer that gave a great time.

[00:09:22] Right. Yeah.

[00:09:23] Think of an organization today as, as a race car, right? You might have all the best technology. You've got the best talent, right? You've got the best pit crew. So you've got all the best people. You've got all the best intentions. You're doing all the right things. You've got core HR, you've got finance, whatever. But let's suppose that you didn't transform payroll in all that. Well, your race car is now sitting on cheap tires and you're not going to pivot around the corner and win. Um, if you can't scale and expand and be resilient. And the reality of it is, is that now or not now always,

[00:09:53] when you have something go on in your life, right? Who's the first place you call for an employee? It's generally payroll, right? So that, so the data set that payroll is sitting on is incredibly accurate, possibly the most accurate in the organization, incredibly rich in insights. And yet the organizations have commonly overlooked it, right? And not really thought of payroll as, Hey, someone we ought to have at the table in our discussions around this new strategic thing that we're doing, right? Payroll was, it's good enough.

[00:10:22] If, if it can limp along, Hey, you're getting the checks out the door. What, what, what do you need innovation for? Right. Um, and I think what companies have come around to the realization of is, is that payroll is as essential to the, the, the, the HR experience as it is to the business outcomes. And it's either a strategic enabler or it's not. Um, and those that can't pivot and handle are, are going to be those that aren't going to be able to scale. They aren't going to remain agile. Um, and sadly they're missing out on the opportunity to take all that great data and pair it with their

[00:10:52] business data, their operational data, their operational data, maybe some external data, HR data, finance data, and now have this picture that gives them the ability to see around the next corner and maybe predict. Right. I think we heard McLaren use that, that, that, um, that same analogy of, you know, now with work day, I'm able to see around the next corner. And I think that's what payroll can, can offer. But again, it has to be in a modernized state where it can handle for what you're trying to do. And if that's mergers and acquisitions or, or look.

[00:11:20] Getting paid daily, for example, that's a, that's a flex, that's a whole flexibility conversation, right. About the employee experience, right. We, we want to come to work and have our own experience, right. Whether that's, you know, the time I work, where I work, how I'm paid, all of that sort of thing. Um, but I think that organizations have come to the realization now, like I said, that payroll has to be modernized in line with everything else. And let's remember, like, you know, you could, you could argue that the chicken or, I say it's, it's payroll's chicken or egg moment.

[00:11:50] Like, uh, finance or HR doesn't really matter. They got to work with both. They've got to integrate with both. And if it's the largest hit to the P and L, right. It's the largest business expense in the organization labor. Um, that's a big, that's a big deal for me if I'm the CFO, right. So it's as important to me as it is maybe the CHRO for that employee experience and all the great things that payroll, uh, payroll does.

[00:12:11] But, um, I think what, what, what I'm really in my research and really seeing organizations realize is payroll is an enabler to strategy or a detractor and you can decide, right. And, and if you're dragging around on these and you've got all this great technology and insights and, and talent and everything, and you've laid it on top of bad tires, it's gonna be a problem, right. If you, if you pay people wrong, all that stuff goes out the, out the window, right. Goodbye. It doesn't matter how much ACM, uh, you know, human capital management strategy that you, you employ.

[00:12:41] And all the great intentions you had, the trust is gone now with that worker and, you know, we could go on and on. Right. But, but I think that's the, that's the, that's what the C-suite ought to be thinking is you looking at payroll as another strategic enabler for them, right. And a partner in the business to advise them along their path, right. They're compliance experts. And they, and they know generally, you know, when I managed payroll at the Walt Disney company, I often knew more about HR's processes than HR did because I had to follow that flow back and forth up and down the street.

[00:13:12] Um, and I think it, it, it, it, it, it, payroll has been overlooked for that reason and, and the other reasons that I've pointed out. And it's so much more now than just a paychecks, right. It really is data and insights and the ability to, to exercise whatever strategy you're trying to, um, you know, achieve. So.

[00:13:30] So I think what you just said kind of makes me think about, you know, Workday when it was founded 20 years ago or so, like there was a modern SaaS oriented like approach at that time.

[00:13:44] But like any SaaS company, like markets do change, right?

[00:13:49] And so Workday has to go through a modernization process also.

[00:13:53] Yeah.

[00:13:53] And so I think about the payroll challenge under two sort of areas.

[00:13:59] One is modernization, which is kind of what you just described.

[00:14:02] Yep.

[00:14:02] If you get that done, then applying AI to that conversation really makes sense.

[00:14:09] Oh, yeah.

[00:14:09] If you don't have that done, then forget about like having a really effective AI conversation.

[00:14:15] So there's that.

[00:14:16] But then there's also the globalization, localization conversation, which is a little bit different because you can't just go to an AI and say, please globalize my payroll for me.

[00:14:26] Right.

[00:14:26] Right.

[00:14:27] So I think you got a little bit of clarity you were saying around some of that stuff you talked about before you and I started taping around the marketplace options and stuff.

[00:14:36] So what are you seeing?

[00:14:37] You said you see some progress there?

[00:14:40] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:41] So let's maybe go back and have maybe a little short history lesson, if you will.

[00:14:45] So remember, do you remember this last year on stage?

[00:14:48] They gave a like a workday always gives like a kind of like a lifetime achievement sort of customer award.

[00:14:54] Right.

[00:14:54] Like one of their long, you know, innovative customers.

[00:14:57] And they had, I think, like their fourth or third customer on the stage last year.

[00:15:02] And do you remember Neil saying he was the gentleman who convinced me that we needed to have payroll in workday?

[00:15:07] They didn't start out wanting to put payroll in there.

[00:15:09] Right.

[00:15:10] They thought, let's leave it up to the payroll guys.

[00:15:13] And I think, I think that that's a really interesting starting point where workday was maybe pulled towards something that, you know, is important, but maybe at the time it wasn't the emphasis that it has now.

[00:15:27] Right.

[00:15:27] And so I think, you know, you come along with that and then, you know, of course, workday got really out in front of a lot of the talent stuff and they really went hard.

[00:15:34] Obviously, core HR at the beginning and all the, you know, the operational stuff.

[00:15:38] But I think they went really hard on talent for a while and kind of neglected the blocking and tackling, if you will.

[00:15:44] Right.

[00:15:44] That would need to set up those those great, you know, home run moments over on the talent side.

[00:15:50] And I think what happened was, you know, COVID obviously thrust us into a world where remote work became incredibly important.

[00:15:58] Right.

[00:15:58] Incredibly, incredibly viable for what we were dealing with.

[00:16:03] And a show, I think a peek into what the future was going to be.

[00:16:06] All right.

[00:16:06] And now I think you've got employers who are right.

[00:16:09] Everyone is struggling for talent in every sector, in every space.

[00:16:13] Like there's there's so many drivers of that.

[00:16:15] Now that you have to get talent wherever it is and you've got to open up multiple channels of opportunity to take to attach yourself to that to that talent.

[00:16:23] And that could be contingent skills.

[00:16:25] That could be skills in some other location.

[00:16:27] That could be whatever.

[00:16:27] Whatever, you know, you go back to the productivity thing used to be through bodies at a situation and and linearly you got more productivity.

[00:16:36] That's not the case.

[00:16:37] Right.

[00:16:38] Now you need skills, the right skills at the right time.

[00:16:41] And so I think what you have is the convergence of this sort of globalized nature of talent.

[00:16:47] Right.

[00:16:48] The globalized nature of business with all of the technology we have.

[00:16:51] But HR and payroll didn't necessarily keep up with that.

[00:16:54] So what was happening is everyone.

[00:16:56] You mentioned that the deep localization.

[00:16:58] Look, you can have the payroll technology.

[00:17:00] You can have the engine.

[00:17:01] You can have all of that.

[00:17:02] But like you still often have to have boots on the ground to go and exercise and finalize those last mile things, the compliance that it locally.

[00:17:10] So, for example, I do some work with a vendor in Africa.

[00:17:13] And one of the things I noticed is.

[00:17:15] In some places in Africa, you have to come down to the local office of the legislation or whatever the local, you know, government and turn in your reports with wet ink.

[00:17:25] Like there's no facts.

[00:17:27] There's no, you know, there's no there's no API.

[00:17:29] Like, how do you do that?

[00:17:31] That's not technology.

[00:17:32] Right.

[00:17:32] And someday we'll get there with those sort of things.

[00:17:34] But the point is, those localizations are compounded when you start to go.

[00:17:39] I mean, U.S. is its own bear.

[00:17:41] Right.

[00:17:42] Sixteen thousand plus entities here when you think of all our states and locals.

[00:17:45] But when you start going and taking that template of the U.S. and trying to do payroll in other places, it doesn't fit because it's different.

[00:17:53] And there's different local requirements.

[00:17:55] And you're right.

[00:17:56] That, I think, has created a lot of that's where the complexity and the difficulty in achieving, you know, air quotes, a global payroll has been really, really hard.

[00:18:05] And the tech just wasn't there to help with that.

[00:18:07] And now I think we're getting there.

[00:18:09] So I'm not sure if that's I might have given.

[00:18:11] Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:18:12] But but I think in a roundabout way, Workday has has caught up to that and a little bit.

[00:18:16] They were catching up a little bit.

[00:18:18] I think they knew that they've brought forward, you know, more of their a few more engines.

[00:18:23] Right.

[00:18:24] We've got Ireland are coming live.

[00:18:25] I think next year we saw Australia come up.

[00:18:28] So they've got like five countries, the big countries they can handle, U.K., Canada, U.S.

[00:18:32] But there was gaps in their ability to go and and and target multinational organizations.

[00:18:38] They had this great marketplace of partners, but there just wasn't a lot of clarity around it.

[00:18:43] And I think they've brought a lot of clarity around that now with the Global Payroll Connect and the Global Payroll Hub.

[00:18:49] And they've really said, look, we're going to focus on the experience and the data and the control point of Global Payroll.

[00:18:56] But we're going to leave all of that localization and orchestration and all the hard stuff to the experts.

[00:19:02] And that's our partners.

[00:19:35] We're going to leave all of that.

[00:19:42] That ability to bring them the engines and the capability and the managed services on the ground to handle those countries where Workday doesn't necessarily want to build a calc engine, but they do need to compete.

[00:19:54] So Germany, right, or Belgium or Netherlands or any of these, you know, kind of high volume areas where they need to go head to head with their peers.

[00:20:01] And in order to do that, payroll has got to be a part of that.

[00:20:04] And I think they're leaning on those partners and saying, let's let these experts come in here and compliment.

[00:20:08] You know, we'll focus on what we do best.

[00:20:10] You focus on what you do best and let's meet in the middle for our customer.

[00:20:13] And I think that's what you've seen now with the Global Payroll Connect.

[00:20:16] And there's still that, you know, Workday is always giving their customers options.

[00:20:20] There's still that options, but they're being a little more prescriptive now with, you know, how to go to market with some of these things.

[00:20:26] And I think they're solving.

[00:20:27] And remember, you know, I'm going off on another tangent here, but like some of their competitors, many of their competitors, right?

[00:20:32] Like the Dayforces, the UKGs, they offer services with their software, right?

[00:20:37] And that's a common sort of expectation where Workday has said we're going to stay out of services and we're going to let our partners handle that.

[00:20:44] And that's where they hand that off.

[00:20:45] So, yeah, a lot of clarity.

[00:20:47] I think in short, a lot of clarity around Global Payroll now.

[00:20:50] Yeah.

[00:20:50] I think one really interesting thing about Workday is that they tend to be very deliberate and then they kind of like push fast once they kind of get the basics in place.

[00:21:03] So, it can make you kind of impatient for a while and then you have to rethink your assumptions.

[00:21:08] And like one example of that was like about, I don't know, like maybe five, seven years ago when people asked me about Workday, I said my biggest criticism of the platform is it feels too insular to me because I'm very much like a believer in like that stop talking about vanilla SaaS and start talking about creating a platform where your partners can really push the envelope with industry solutions.

[00:21:32] Let customers build add-ons and, you know, change from this whole like that.

[00:21:39] It's not just about custom on-premise shit versus like vanilla SaaS, like create a really different kind of platform.

[00:21:48] And finally, they did with Xtend.

[00:21:49] Yeah.

[00:21:50] And in fact, now I give them a hard time for not featuring it enough because so much cool stuff is happening.

[00:21:56] Like they'll mention casually like, you know, Target built 10 apps on Xtend, which is kind of a big deal.

[00:22:02] But you hear these stories all the time.

[00:22:05] Like I think I was just in a session where one of their health customers built this big vaccine app on Xtend during the pandemic.

[00:22:13] They did it in a matter of a few days.

[00:22:15] Yeah.

[00:22:15] But they're still using this kind of stuff.

[00:22:17] And so I think the same is kind of true for, you know, the parallels to payroll are right there.

[00:22:24] Like, you know, using a platform like that to engage their partners and saying like, yeah, they don't have to go to every country if they do this right.

[00:22:31] Right.

[00:22:31] Yeah.

[00:22:32] And it's just a different mentality.

[00:22:34] And so it's interesting because Workday does have a lot of kind of a deliberate play.

[00:22:39] You see that with their public cloud adoption where I don't think I'm allowed to say the number yet because my buddy Holger Mueller is still getting.

[00:22:46] Yeah, I think that's India.

[00:22:47] But he's still getting permission.

[00:22:49] I told him once you tweet it, I'm going to share it.

[00:22:52] Yeah.

[00:22:52] But basically they've like tripled their public cloud like adoption of running on Workday from.

[00:22:58] Yes.

[00:22:59] From a number of months ago.

[00:23:01] So it's like it goes from a start to an accelerant.

[00:23:04] And then the AI strategy is very, very similar where like a lot of the sort of quote unquote features and new bots and stuff are still forthcoming as far as generative AI is concerned.

[00:23:16] But they've made a whole lot of progress on the architecture and the platform.

[00:23:21] Yeah.

[00:23:21] Which they announced under the Illuminate sort of banner this week.

[00:23:26] But like even since we met with them this spring, for example, I've noticed one of the stories I'm going to write about a little bit is they've dramatically downshifted their reliance on external large language models even from six months ago.

[00:23:40] Which is a pretty big deal in terms of just making it that much easier to like protect customer data at all times.

[00:23:47] Right.

[00:23:47] Because they don't really, from what I can tell from hearing from Shane Luke who runs AI, they're not even really, the only times they're really using external models right now from what he says is not even for day-to-day gen AI stuff for customers.

[00:24:01] It's for their own experiments is when they like using the external providers.

[00:24:07] So like this is a big change.

[00:24:09] And so the sophistication by which they talk about how they use, they, you know, basically train smaller models at a larger ones and all of the things that they've done there.

[00:24:20] I've written about this the last couple of days in Digitom if you want to check it out.

[00:24:23] But the point being like a lot of deliberate moves.

[00:24:27] And then I think the next phase you'll see is a whole lot of, you know, agents, apps, whatever.

[00:24:33] Like, but that's always how they seem to roll, you know?

[00:24:35] So you have to keep that in mind with them where like you can get a little bit like they're moving slower and then they tend to pick up speed and they're like, we want to do this responsibly.

[00:24:45] And that's what they said about Xtend too.

[00:24:47] The same thing they're saying about AI in a way is like, we wanted to do this responsibly.

[00:24:51] The same thing they said with Xtend is like, we had a whole lot of things we wanted to make sure we got right about that, you know?

[00:24:57] So I could criticize them for being a little slow on it.

[00:24:59] But the point is once they do it, then they start moving faster.

[00:25:02] Yeah.

[00:25:02] So.

[00:25:03] Agreed.

[00:25:04] Yeah.

[00:25:04] I mean, I think Workday is, you're right.

[00:25:06] Deliberate is a good word.

[00:25:06] I think they're very, I wouldn't say cautious, but they do want to get it right from the beginning.

[00:25:11] Yeah.

[00:25:11] And yeah.

[00:25:12] And you know, I would say that I feel like Workday, because I do a lot of work with a lot of the global payroll providers, a lot of different firms in that space.

[00:25:20] And I've, and I've helped facilitate some conversations of getting some of those partnerships off the ground.

[00:25:25] I think Workday is really hitting a stride with its partners right now.

[00:25:29] And I think it's perfectly timed because let's face it, their partners are going to be the path that they, like what you just said, they can't build it all, right?

[00:25:37] No one can build everything.

[00:25:38] They know what they're good at.

[00:25:39] They know what they're not.

[00:25:40] They know where they should place their bets on, you know, ventures and other things to help them, but they're leaning on their partners.

[00:25:46] And I think, you know, it's going to be so essential for, for their international growth and adoption.

[00:25:51] It's going to be essential for the sector, right?

[00:25:52] I was really excited to see some of those sector accelerators, industry accelerators, as they're calling them.

[00:25:57] Um, so I think all of that is going to be where the partners can really shine and bring forward some of these things.

[00:26:03] And let's don't forget the microservices extensibility.

[00:26:07] It's, it's even empowering the customers to build their own little, um, you know, solutions and, and, and not have to have IT involved in all that.

[00:26:14] So yeah, I love that.

[00:26:15] It's some great, like the target story was a really great story.

[00:26:17] I think they were using it for rewards and some other things too.

[00:26:20] So yeah, very cool.

[00:26:22] So did you have any, uh, moments the last couple of days that really stand out in terms of like debates or discussions, hot topics?

[00:26:31] Was there anything that like really grabbed you?

[00:26:33] I'll tell you what I'm really excited about.

[00:26:35] Um, I'm really excited about Venly.

[00:26:37] Venly is the, uh, you know, equivalent to fuel glass for SAP or, or maybe, uh, I'm trying to think of another vendor, but, uh, so you're thinking about your contingent workforce, your VMS, your vendor.

[00:26:47] Yeah.

[00:26:48] You think about the data, there's plenty of data out there.

[00:26:50] You can go look at the world economic forum, Mercer.

[00:26:53] Everybody's got data on the fact that contingents are really, um, the future of talent.

[00:26:58] Right.

[00:26:58] And for many of the reasons we talked about skills acquisition, right.

[00:27:02] We've got the creator economy, giving people younger people, especially just more pathways to getting into the workforce and being able to do different things.

[00:27:10] So I think that that VMS capability is really, really essential right now, especially for the enterprise.

[00:27:15] And what I'm, I'm, I'm loving about it is that I think it's a great, I think it's a win for work days clients because they're going to need to manage contingent workers, right.

[00:27:24] They're going to need to manage.

[00:27:25] And, and I don't know if you've ever been a consultant in a big organization.

[00:27:27] It's a crappy experience if you're this contract worker, right.

[00:27:31] And, and, and if I'm a manager, I need visibility into all of my workers, my, my, my employee and workforce, whether they're full-time, you know, contingent, temporary contingent, long-term, some sort of, um, whatever.

[00:27:42] Right.

[00:27:43] I need visibility of all of that.

[00:27:45] And I need the ability to curate a direct sort of talent, uh, pool.

[00:27:49] Um, I'm excited about that.

[00:27:50] And I think with them bring, and that's another, you know, payroll is a really big, I wrote about this last year.

[00:27:56] Payroll and I'd say Venly, um, are going to be essential, um, uh, you know, connectors for HR and, and, and the finance adoption, dual adoption use case.

[00:28:08] So if you're going to get more workday shops, if you will, right, those that are going to kind of pry their, their, their partners out of their hands, right.

[00:28:15] For finance and HR, you're going to have to hit on these things.

[00:28:18] And I think Venly is another step forward.

[00:28:20] Uh, bringing that forward is going to be more another way for them to weave and have a great story for the CFO and the CHRO because that, that solution, that, that chat or that, you know, that topic of contingent workers is going to straddle both the HR side and the, and the finance side.

[00:28:35] But, and I think what got really, what also got me excited is number one, they're bringing hired score, the, the talent, you know, intelligence acquisition they made, which is brilliant into that, which is going to help with, Hey, do I hire a contingent worker right now?

[00:28:48] Should I hire a full-time?

[00:28:50] Should I promote John?

[00:28:51] Should I, you know, what is the best path to solving this, this talent need?

[00:28:54] Um, so I think that's huge.

[00:28:56] And then of course I love the, uh, and I'm going to screw up the name.

[00:28:58] Is it ever ever salt the, um, or ever ever sort, sorry, the, uh, the CLM.

[00:29:04] The document intelligent acquisition that they made.

[00:29:06] Right.

[00:29:06] It's like a, what do you call it?

[00:29:08] Contract life cycle management.

[00:29:09] Yeah.

[00:29:10] Yeah.

[00:29:10] And, and think about that, right?

[00:29:12] It's beautiful for your contingent experience, right?

[00:29:14] Between finance and HR, trying to sort the legalities of you getting contracted and coming on.

[00:29:19] Um, and it's ability to move unstructured data and give insights to contractual information.

[00:29:25] I think that was a beautiful play.

[00:29:28] That was a little quiet little thing that happened this week, this acquisition, um, that I think

[00:29:32] is going to be more than a fold.

[00:29:33] And I think it's really going to be a connector for, uh, a couple of different things there.

[00:29:38] So yeah, I'm excited about Venley.

[00:29:39] So, so yeah.

[00:29:41] Um, I want to follow up with Venley in a sec real quick, but the, the, the acquisition

[00:29:47] was interesting because I, uh, readers, you can check out my piece on Workday's, um, financial,

[00:29:54] uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

[00:29:55] course for machine learning and AI, which I also kind of tied into the evolution of the

[00:29:59] finance leader.

[00:30:01] And one thing that came up both in the sessions that I attended and also in a customer discussion

[00:30:08] with a chief accounting officer at data stacks was this whole notion of that so much of what

[00:30:15] they need for, you talk about like the kind of data that they're going to really apply

[00:30:19] with AI is in documents and like, and what a pain in the ass and it's the same as true

[00:30:24] for HR, right?

[00:30:25] But what a pain in the ass it has historically been to try to get the right information out

[00:30:31] of these documents.

[00:30:32] And so there, there's definitely like, I think an excitement from people around what

[00:30:36] can be done there to speed that up and make that easier because you know, your AI is really

[00:30:41] only as smart as what you put into it.

[00:30:43] So like, so, so we're going to hear a lot more about this whole concept of document intelligence

[00:30:48] and what this means.

[00:30:50] I agree.

[00:30:51] I agree.

[00:30:51] It's a, it's a crummy process.

[00:30:53] Like, I think that that's one of the things that I'd love to see more of in the future from

[00:30:57] all the vendors in the HTM space is really starting to think about these, what I'd call,

[00:31:02] I call it orchestration, but you know, you think about like things that are not transacted

[00:31:07] in finance or HR, but maybe housed in something else.

[00:31:10] So let me give you an example, leave, leave administration, right?

[00:31:12] It's a, it's a pain in the ass, a horrible process, a horrible experience for most people.

[00:31:16] HR does their thing in the, in the system, but then, you know, sending someone off on

[00:31:21] the leave can, depending on policy and type of organization can trigger things like, do

[00:31:26] they get to keep their company car?

[00:31:27] Do they get to keep building access?

[00:31:29] Do we need to backfill them while they're gone?

[00:31:31] Do you know, there's a lot of things that sometimes happen in HR, but there's a lot that

[00:31:35] doesn't.

[00:31:36] And then like, how do you orchestrate all that so that the employee doesn't feel this really

[00:31:39] crummy choppy experience.

[00:31:40] And, and I think something like Evasort is a step in that direction, right?

[00:31:44] Because we've all been a contractor maybe before, right?

[00:31:47] You've done contracting with vendors, I'm sure.

[00:31:49] It's not the best experience when you're dealing with this very rigid procurement group.

[00:31:54] And maybe you're an employee, like you're not a vendor, right?

[00:31:57] You're just a guy trying to bring your skill to the table and help with whatever project

[00:32:01] the customer's on.

[00:32:02] Yeah.

[00:32:02] To treat you like a vendor.

[00:32:04] Yeah.

[00:32:04] It's, it's not, it's not a great experience.

[00:32:06] So just connecting the dots on things, I think, and, and, and making use cases that are touching

[00:32:12] one area of the business, but maybe, but maybe belong somewhere else.

[00:32:16] And it's not in the HR system and it's not in the finance system.

[00:32:18] I think that's where we've got to get some orchestration between the two.

[00:32:22] And that's what I hope AI, you know, generally is going to do.

[00:32:24] And maybe in some ways, like I think a good example might be the, the, the, the new announcement

[00:32:29] with Salesforce and Workday, right?

[00:32:31] Like I think that's a technology where there's a lot of things going on that are not HR in

[00:32:36] the business that people are using Salesforce for.

[00:32:38] And you can, there's going to be an opportunity for that integration and orchestration between

[00:32:42] the two to help, help bring that experience to another level.

[00:32:45] So I think Workday is thinking about it certainly, and obviously starting to make strides that way.

[00:32:49] Yeah.

[00:32:50] And that's going to be a big topic to watch as far as like the kind of partnerships that

[00:32:55] Workday and Salesforce are forming, because it's, it's going to be this whole thing around,

[00:33:01] you know, I'm about to write a piece on why AI agents are BS, but it's a little tongue

[00:33:06] in cheek because I think they are going to be useful.

[00:33:08] But one of the, one of the things is that when you tell an agent that you want it to complete

[00:33:13] some task, you don't want to hear that, well, I can't do that because that's some of

[00:33:17] that's in Salesforce and some of that's at Workday.

[00:33:19] Right.

[00:33:20] Yeah.

[00:33:20] It doesn't matter to me.

[00:33:21] Yeah.

[00:33:21] I don't want to hear that.

[00:33:22] I'm just trying to get to the end result.

[00:33:24] So it's going to be really interesting to see how well these companies do with these

[00:33:27] kinds of agent to agent sort of interactions.

[00:33:29] And will this sort of solve some of the so-called headaches around integration that have been

[00:33:34] such a bugaboo.

[00:33:35] So that's going to be interesting story to watch going forward.

[00:33:38] But they set the table there for high expectations.

[00:33:40] So we'll see if they can deliver on that.

[00:33:43] I wanted to ask you one, one more quick thing about Venly because I did a piece on

[00:33:46] Venly a couple of years ago and I haven't tracked them too closely, but

[00:33:49] I really did like their approach to the contingent workforce.

[00:33:52] And what I was kind of waiting to hear more on and I've been told that it's been happening

[00:33:58] is just more the integration.

[00:33:59] Because to me, like, it's not, I don't, I may be wrong, but I don't think about contingent

[00:34:04] workforce over here and like full-time employees over here.

[00:34:08] I think about the future work in a very like fluid kind of way.

[00:34:11] And so what I'm interested in is how it all sort of flows across.

[00:34:16] Like, I want to see how Venly kind of becomes much more fluid with whatever the customer

[00:34:21] is using within Workday to manage.

[00:34:23] Yeah.

[00:34:23] Because it's like, oh, I'm going to hire this contractor.

[00:34:26] They're going to go full-time.

[00:34:27] This person's going to go, you know, be a gig worker.

[00:34:30] Like all this kind of change is going to happen.

[00:34:32] This person's juggling three positions.

[00:34:41] Totally.

[00:34:42] Like, I mean, have you gotten a sense of the progress around that?

[00:34:45] I asked that.

[00:34:46] I asked, I said, what is the experience if I'm a Venly user and I'm a manager or a leader

[00:34:50] in procurement or HR?

[00:34:52] And what is it like if I'm an employee?

[00:34:53] And for the employee, it's largely the same as an employee who's, they're using the app,

[00:34:58] they're using the same sort of functionality in the HCM.

[00:35:01] Whereas your, you know, your procurement and your HR and your backend are more using the

[00:35:05] Venly.

[00:35:05] But Venly is sort of the place where it's all being coordinated out of, right?

[00:35:09] So the, you know, and I even found out there's a light time tracking or project kind of time

[00:35:14] tracking in Venly as well.

[00:35:16] So there are certain things that overlap a little bit, but largely the employee experience, if

[00:35:20] you will, is going to be on, it's going to be delivered through the HCM and the, you

[00:35:25] know, the Venly is actually the, the, the, the solution more for the practitioner side,

[00:35:29] who's managing a direct talent pool and workforce and that sort of thing.

[00:35:33] Or yeah, talent pool.

[00:35:35] Sorry.

[00:35:35] And so, yeah, so I, I kind of poked on that as well.

[00:35:38] And, and, and again, I think that, you know, you're, you're seeing more integration with

[00:35:42] things like hired score.

[00:35:42] You're seeing, you're going to see Eva sort or Eva, I always messed up Eva sort, uh,

[00:35:46] come into play.

[00:35:47] So I think workday is going to continue to push on, uh, on that solution.

[00:35:51] And, and it sounds like I can't say the numbers, but the growth is really, really impressive.

[00:35:55] I talked to two customers.

[00:35:57] Let me give you an example, John.

[00:35:58] I talked to a customer earlier, a hundred thousand employees and another 30,000 contingent,

[00:36:03] right?

[00:36:03] There you go.

[00:36:04] Yeah.

[00:36:04] I had another one, 27,000, I think it was employees, like 40,000 contingent and they're,

[00:36:10] but that's not active at any one time.

[00:36:12] They're constantly turning around more, you know?

[00:36:15] So, you know, and if that balance keeps going up, I mean, then they could become really a,

[00:36:20] a pivotal piece of, uh, of tech.

[00:36:23] I mean, literally I talked to one customer that they're all in on workday.

[00:36:25] They have everything.

[00:36:26] And, um, that's the one thing they were here with their eye on and they were the one,

[00:36:28] the 30% of their workforce being, being contingent.

[00:36:31] And it's really big deal for them.

[00:36:33] Um, and it sounds like, uh, you know, they're in 120 countries.

[00:36:37] Ventley is, uh, it sounds like mostly localized to, to almost, to most of the majors and more

[00:36:42] are coming.

[00:36:42] So yeah, I think you're going to see that solution really.

[00:36:45] I keep an eye there.

[00:36:46] I really want to watch.

[00:36:47] I mean, I, HR, HR tech vendors hate it when I say things like this, but I feel like the workforce

[00:36:53] has changed a lot faster than they have.

[00:36:55] And it's going to be interesting to see if they can catch up with us because, because our

[00:36:59] workforce has really changed.

[00:37:00] And to some extent, I think Workday and their peers have a responsibility to, to, to sort

[00:37:06] of define it like this tech, right.

[00:37:09] Or at least give you the tools to let you define it as an employer.

[00:37:12] And maybe you shouldn't define it as an employer.

[00:37:15] That's probably up for debate.

[00:37:16] But, uh, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, just like in the same way that Apple is, is,

[00:37:20] is changing and kind of dictating the way the mobile experience it was or whatever, uh, or

[00:37:25] any of the peer, their peers, I think it's the same thing for the HCM providers, right?

[00:37:29] They need to be setting a, um, you know, planning the flag and saying, this is the direction

[00:37:34] based on our, you know, thought leadership as experts in this space that we believe you

[00:37:38] ought to be heading.

[00:37:38] And then you, it's up to you to actionableize that in your organization and, and turn that

[00:37:42] into a, an enabler for what we're trying to do.

[00:37:45] So, uh, I want to wrap in a couple minutes, but just, just for our, our listeners in terms

[00:37:50] of my hot topics to answer my own question, my, a couple of the big ones were the productivity

[00:37:57] debate and why I don't think AI should be framed around productivity.

[00:38:00] And I, I kind of took a little bit of a criticism towards work day around that and how it was

[00:38:06] framed in a particular course.

[00:38:07] But that's partially because they featured the work of a very optimistic person who's

[00:38:12] expert, I will say, uh, who's like, oh, gen AI is going to increase productivity by 3%

[00:38:17] or whatever.

[00:38:18] And I was trying to point out that historically, uh, 3% would be a huge thing that would surpass

[00:38:23] anything we've achieved with mobile phones or any kind of AI to date.

[00:38:27] So it would be a big deal if it happens.

[00:38:29] Um, so anyway, I just, I don't really like the productivity framing around AI.

[00:38:33] I think we need to talk more about making people's lives better, um, making their work better,

[00:38:38] uh, and not, not feeling like bringing the hammer down and creating this mechanistic dystopian

[00:38:43] workforce of the future.

[00:38:44] So that's been a great discussion and actually work day has some really, really good content

[00:38:49] on that.

[00:38:49] So I think work day does a good job on those themes.

[00:38:51] I was just picking a couple of times where I felt like they had framed it more in a way

[00:38:56] that I would not.

[00:38:57] So, so that was a really good discussion.

[00:38:59] And I, and I, I'm glad that work day people were really open to having that discussion.

[00:39:04] Um, and then today I, um, asked during the, during exec Q and a about a PR email I received

[00:39:13] about a company called Klarna, a fintech company that, uh, it's making gotten a lot of press

[00:39:18] for itself because they're ripping out work day and Salesforce and replacing with AI, which

[00:39:23] I think is a bunch of bunk.

[00:39:26] Um, I, I, I said during the question to the work day executive team, like that, I would

[00:39:30] love to send a robot to future conferences too.

[00:39:33] I'm not sure if that's incredibly realistic though.

[00:39:36] Um, cause I'd just like to hang out a home of my money slippers and let my robot do all

[00:39:39] the hard work.

[00:39:40] Um, and so, yeah, so they're going to build this, this, this, uh, platform of the future

[00:39:44] with AI.

[00:39:45] I think that's a total like overreach, but, but I will say this, it provokes a really fascinating

[00:39:51] conversation about the future of software and technology.

[00:39:54] And so I think the more interesting thing is not whether they can do it or not because

[00:40:00] certain companies that have specialist technologists are going to be able to do some really interesting

[00:40:04] things, um, that the average customer in like healthcare or, uh, or retail won't have

[00:40:11] time or energy inclination to do.

[00:40:13] Um, but it's a great conversation.

[00:40:14] So I will be writing about that.

[00:40:16] That's not been published yet.

[00:40:17] Yeah.

[00:40:18] Um, and so.

[00:40:19] Totally into that Klarna thing.

[00:40:20] I heard about it, but I did haven't dug into it a lot.

[00:40:22] So I'm interested to see where that goes.

[00:40:25] At the same time they did that, they're cutting a lot of questions.

[00:40:27] At the same time they did that, they're cutting 50% of their, their workforce.

[00:40:31] And so, like I said, I, I'm a little worried about like this sort of dystopian, like, like

[00:40:37] a handful of people inside of a walled garden somewhere have created this amazing, you know,

[00:40:42] technology, but we don't actually have any humans around working anymore.

[00:40:46] Um, so it's, it is really interesting.

[00:40:48] And, uh, but, but one of the things, um, that, that I think came up around that, that's fascinating

[00:40:53] too, is does your transactional system really become a commodity layer, which I think it

[00:40:59] does.

[00:40:59] It could.

[00:41:00] Yeah.

[00:41:00] And so, so, you know, what are the transactional vendors do about that?

[00:41:04] And of course they're all trying to do something about that.

[00:41:06] And they have been for a while.

[00:41:07] This is not something new.

[00:41:09] Um, you know, they kind of got the writing on the wall quite some time ago, I think when

[00:41:13] they realized that a lot of analytics and planning vendors have better relations with the C-suite

[00:41:18] based on their data than they did.

[00:41:20] So this is not something new, but it's a fascinating conversation and it, that will be continued.

[00:41:25] Yeah.

[00:41:25] So, so, so going forward, is there anything you're going to be watching like from the days

[00:41:31] here or something you're going to be tracking going forward?

[00:41:33] Yeah, I, I definitely want to keep, I'm definitely staying very close to the Venly, um, uh,

[00:41:38] stuff.

[00:41:38] I, I'm a big fan of that.

[00:41:39] Uh, I also really wanting to, I'm obviously going to be stay very close to this global payroll

[00:41:43] developments, how, how GPC is going to go on.

[00:41:46] You know, I'd love to talk to some customers that begin to use the Strata SKU and that sort

[00:41:50] of thing.

[00:41:51] Um, and don't forget, right.

[00:41:52] There's a lot of, there, there's other great, uh, providers in that, in that that don't

[00:41:55] actually have SKUs, but are fantastic part of that initial cohort.

[00:41:58] So like payslip for example, um, or safeguard or cloud pay, um, all long-term, uh, firms

[00:42:05] that have been in these walls as, you know, integrated partners, uh, delivering payroll

[00:42:10] for, for many of these customers.

[00:42:11] It's going to be interesting to see how I'll be interested to see what the adoption is and

[00:42:15] where customers lean, right?

[00:42:17] Are they leaning into that cohort?

[00:42:18] Are they going with more of a choice option?

[00:42:20] But I'll be, I'll be keeping close to that.

[00:42:22] I think there's, um, you know, it's going to, it, it, it's going to evolve, right?

[00:42:26] They're, they're, they're evolving their messaging.

[00:42:28] I think they sharpened it here because they announced this back in, well, they announced

[00:42:31] it previously to us, but it was, it hit the presses, I think in August ish when GPC came

[00:42:36] out.

[00:42:37] So I'll be keeping close eye on that.

[00:42:38] The other thing I'm really intrigued about, we, we didn't really get an update here.

[00:42:42] Um, but this is a huge part of their, of Workday's TAM.

[00:42:45] And I think this is really, really critical.

[00:42:47] And that is, if you guys notice, they made an announcement last year about a new go-to-market

[00:42:51] with Insperity, one of the PEOs.

[00:42:53] Now the PEO industry is, um, largely a, you know, a, a all in HR service that allows you

[00:43:00] to transfer risk in the, in the United States.

[00:43:02] It's primarily a U S sort of based concept.

[00:43:04] You know, we now have global EOR, which is similar, but different, you know, outside

[00:43:08] the U S but the, but the PEO industry, uh, is, is very close with that, that small business

[00:43:12] owner, right.

[00:43:13] And helping them get off the ground with the right set of HR out of the gate, the right

[00:43:17] insurances, work comp, all that sort of thing.

[00:43:19] And Insperity has said, look, we, we're going to anchor ourselves, uh, to Workday, um, exclusively.

[00:43:26] So they're more or less leaning on Workday as both a stopgap to, to the customers that

[00:43:33] they're losing when they're out maturing the PEO model, either it gets too expensive

[00:43:37] or it doesn't offer enough technology.

[00:43:39] Um, but I think what, but what I think Workday gains here is the ability to go into a market

[00:43:45] that they haven't really been that successful at, right.

[00:43:48] It's been the knock has been, it's expensive, right?

[00:43:51] Too expensive, maybe cost prohibitive, maybe too much enterprise grade technology for the

[00:43:55] down market.

[00:43:56] So I think Insperity is stepping up and saying, Hey, we're betting our, uh, our legacy on,

[00:44:01] on Workday.

[00:44:02] Um, they've got an exclusivity, I think for five years.

[00:44:04] Um, so they're going all in on Workday.

[00:44:06] I think it's like 150 million.

[00:44:07] I wrote an article.

[00:44:08] I can't remember, but it was, you know, uh, 150 million or so, um, bet.

[00:44:13] Um, and, but, but I think what's got to happen is the two of them are going to have to figure

[00:44:18] out PEO is an expensive service model.

[00:44:21] Um, Workday is unapologetically higher end price.

[00:44:25] Um, that's a very, very expensive stack for a small buyer or is that small mid market buyer

[00:44:30] going to go for that?

[00:44:31] And that's what I think remains to be seen that Insperity is going to have to become

[00:44:35] a really great economy of scale for Workday down market and give them that sort of, you

[00:44:40] know, the go-to SI for the SMB.

[00:44:42] And this could be an opportunity for Workday to open up a really interesting TAM for themselves

[00:44:46] where, you know, maybe some of your down market players have been dominating the pays as we'll

[00:44:50] call them, um, in the U S here, the pay comms, the pay elocities, these guys.

[00:44:55] So I'm keeping an eye on that.

[00:44:56] We didn't get an update here on this.

[00:44:57] I'm going to try to grab it at HR tech next week.

[00:44:59] Uh, we've got some meetings on it, but that's something to keep your eye on because that's

[00:45:03] an interesting market that that Workday is now pushing into that they are really bringing

[00:45:08] a machine gun to a, you know what I mean?

[00:45:11] To a knife fight.

[00:45:11] It's like these, these other guys have these other smaller, um, payroll oriented originally

[00:45:17] firms.

[00:45:17] Like I said, I call them a pays just haven't necessarily developed the enterprise grade

[00:45:22] level capabilities of a Workday.

[00:45:24] Now they've, they've caught up their HCMs.

[00:45:26] They're, they're, they're very robust for what they're doing.

[00:45:28] Um, but I think Workday is stepping into an arena now where they can be the 500 pound gorilla

[00:45:33] if they can make it a viable price point for the, right.

[00:45:36] And they've got to ready the product as well.

[00:45:38] I mean, PEO is a different, it's a different business model.

[00:45:41] It requires different, um, you know, there's some different nuances you have to provide.

[00:45:45] Like for example, certified payroll, when you're doing government contract payroll, you

[00:45:48] have to have, you know, certain labor rate, labor rates you use for that.

[00:45:52] You have to break it down by job code.

[00:45:54] And it's very complicated.

[00:45:55] That's not in Workday right now.

[00:45:57] So they've got to ready that in order for Insperity to be successful here.

[00:46:00] But I think next year we're going to hear a lot more about this, uh, going forward.

[00:46:04] And this is something to watch because I think this is Workday's, um, entrance into that small

[00:46:09] market and cracking that group.

[00:46:10] They haven't really, I mean, they did start there in a way, right.

[00:46:12] They had some small clients in the beginning, but I think they've really outgrown right

[00:46:16] now, what 60% of the fortune 500.

[00:46:18] So, um, yeah, saturated, probably cloud HR is probably saturated at that size.

[00:46:24] They've got to start looking at these mid-market firms that are ready for transformation too.

[00:46:27] So, yeah.

[00:46:29] Yeah.

[00:46:30] Well, I think that was an interesting side note because we had, you and I were to part

[00:46:36] of a group of analysts at the Workday Innovation, uh, gathering this spring.

[00:46:40] Yeah.

[00:46:41] And I had an analyst say to me earlier today that they felt like they lost track a little

[00:46:46] bit of a threat on the SMB part of the discussion that we were having this spring.

[00:46:51] So it'll be interesting to watch that because Workday has some interesting down market options

[00:46:55] to deal with and they have a lot of capabilities to offer, but there's a lot of questions

[00:46:59] I think around price and stuff.

[00:47:01] So it'll be interesting to see how they fare.

[00:47:02] Yeah.

[00:47:03] Yeah.

[00:47:03] Go, go back to what you said earlier about Workday kind of, kind of moving cautiously

[00:47:07] and then, and then being very deliberate once they do.

[00:47:09] I think this is that, right?

[00:47:10] I think, you know, I wouldn't say that they're still figuring it out, but I'm sure they're

[00:47:14] still fine tuning what the go-to-market is going to look like, how they're going to operate

[00:47:17] together.

[00:47:18] And I know those talks are already well underway.

[00:47:20] Um, and, and both organizations are really excited about, about this.

[00:47:24] I know Insperity really is.

[00:47:25] And I think it's a bigger win probably for Workday than it, than it might be for their

[00:47:29] partner because the partner, right?

[00:47:31] I, you know, has a limited, you know, maybe, maybe group that they can go after.

[00:47:34] Whereas Workday now is kind of open now to anybody that's an SMB that might want to be,

[00:47:39] you know, if they want to associate through the Insperity brand who has tremendous reputation,

[00:47:43] one of the biggest PEOs in the nation, right up there with ADP Total Source.

[00:47:47] And, uh, I guess it would be a Trinet, right?

[00:47:49] It would be the other big three or four.

[00:47:52] Um, so yeah, I think, I think this is really, really interesting.

[00:47:54] So this is one I'm, I'm going to definitely keep an eye on and I, and I hope to see that,

[00:47:57] uh, I expect Workday is going to open up a nice little TAM here that they can target.

[00:48:02] So yeah, at least that mature buyer down market, you know?

[00:48:05] Well, we're not out of topics, but we are at a, we are at a time though, because I'm,

[00:48:09] I'm running on fumes and, uh, I got a few days.

[00:48:12] Yeah.

[00:48:13] I got to crank out another article tonight, uh, if I can.

[00:48:15] So, uh, but thanks.

[00:48:17] This was an excellent conversation and thanks for bringing the knowledge.

[00:48:20] It was really good to talk with you.

[00:48:21] Appreciate you having me, man.

[00:48:22] I, uh, I'm a big fan and, uh, yeah, love it, man.

[00:48:24] So thank you.

[00:48:25] Cool.

[00:48:25] All right.

[00:48:25] To be continued.

[00:48:26] Thanks all.