AI in the Workforce: Navigating DEI and Emerging Workplace Trends

[00:00:00] What is going on everybody Ryan Leary Williamson Cup here with The BARF. This is the look back at the week that was so you can be prepared for the week that is. William, what's up brother? But we have some great news just fantastic stuff to go through today. I'm really I'm really excited. This is gonna be a great show. You sure? I am I'm gonna go ahead and bet I'm gonna bet the over on it. How about that? We're gonna bet the over on the Eagles Gabe. How about that?

[00:00:29] I'm down. I'm down. And I just read this morning, and I get to talk to you about it yet. Mmm. Kellen Moore was granted permission to interview with your Dallas Cowboys. Bring it. He was a good offensive coordinator. I don't know why why he left or why we got rid of him. You know, I thought about this today and here's my theory. Got it. I think I'm right. He left Dallas because he could. Yes.

[00:00:59] Jerry said, Kellen, go to the Eagles and take the job. We're getting rid of McCarthy next year. Yeah. You learn everything. Learn everything that they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. Go install the program that's gonna get him a Super Bowl and then come back here and be the head coach and dismantle the motherfuckers. Oh, that's exactly what he's gonna do. 100%. Exactly what he's gonna do. My youngest son, Van Allis, he wants Deion Sanders to be the head coach.

[00:01:27] I'm not a buyer of Deion. Does him and his son come as a package or something? I, I, I, like, is that the deal? When he told me that, I said, I'm down because the Cowboys are gonna suck until Jerry sells the team. Yeah. So we may as well have something fun because he would be fun. I mean, there's no doubt the press conferences would be fun. Like, you know, it's good. The losses will still accumulate, but it would be fun.

[00:01:52] Yeah. As long as the losses are accumulating, I don't care if I'm game with that. But there's just something about, I enjoyed watching him play. I did too. But I think it was his whole, where's he at? Colorado or whatever. Yeah. University of Colorado. All right. You gotta win. Back off, buddy. He did pretty well. They went, I think, eight and four. Yeah. Not bad. That doesn't qualify him as a professional football coach. Uh, no, but man, he's, he would be the CEO as he is in college.

[00:02:21] He would be the CEO of the team. And he has a great offensive coordinator, great defensive coordinator, and they would do their jobs. And so, and he'd be the face. That's how he would run it. Cause that's how he's run his college careers, uh, college coaching career so far. So he doesn't do X's and O's. He's not giving the speeches at the halftime and stuff like that. Like he's wearing the suits and he's making, making noise at press conferences.

[00:02:48] A hundred percent. And you know what? He's pretty good at that. Like if we're giving, if we're giving out stars. Yeah. I guess. I don't know. Whatever. I'm not into it. Good luck with them. All right. You ready to kick this off? I am. Let's go. Let's do it.

[00:03:15] Have you ever, or do you follow Adam Grant on LinkedIn? Do you know the name Adam Grant? I do. I sure do. Yeah. Okay. So Glassdoor welcomes Adam Grant as chief work-life expert. Ooh. So two workforce, workplace champions unite to make work-life better together. This is on Glassdoor.com. There's press releases. They're all kind of great, uh, stuff.

[00:03:44] First of all, to me, this is a huge get, uh, for Glassdoor. I think it's just amazing. Cause I, I like Adam. Um, I'm not, I think I have actually about him. It doesn't really matter. His advice to me, uh, through LinkedIn is commonsensical. It tends to emphasize patience and, uh, patience and empathy and compassion. And he seems like a decent guy. Uh, and he's a huge name. I mean, he's, uh, you know, Josh Burson-like type of name.

[00:04:14] Uh, so I think it's a great, first of all, I think it's a great story for Glassdoor and I'm happy for him. How, how much of this is less attached to Adam Grant versus what he'll do for the company? I think, I think, first of all, I think it's, it's, he's going to help the company. Sure. Back into the limelight. Uh, and you know, I wouldn't be shocked if they add a couple more big guns like that.

[00:04:40] To, uh, to pull some of that, that shine that they had back over the spotlight, back onto Glassdoor. And, uh, so, uh, Glassdoor has changed since, uh, since the acquisition a hundred years ago. Oh yeah. But this could be the, the resurgence or the start of the resurgence of Glassdoor being the go-to place. Yeah. Awesome. All right. You remember Business Solver, right? I do. Yeah. We interviewed, uh, John Shanahan.

[00:05:09] This was a little bit back on Inside the C-Suite. Yep. Fantastic interview. So it'll be somewhere around here. If you, if you haven't heard it, you need to go in and just, uh, search it out. John Shanahan on the, Inside the C-Suite podcast. Um, just really a wonderful human. And this, this is a, this story is legit. All right. He's, his story is legit. He's built the company from like 12 years old up. I feel like, right? Like, like, oh yeah, his, this is his number one first thing.

[00:05:35] Um, well anyway, this isn't like breaking, breaking news, but they are running their very first national commercial. Oh, TV. Oh, yeah. And so that's huge. Yeah. So at first I thought, oh, that's cute. Yeah. Let's let's watch. It was a fantastic commercial. I watched it online and I, and I thought to myself like, man, they, they put some cash into it. Like, this is legit. Like it felt like a work day almost like a work day commercial. I like that. I like that a lot. High quality.

[00:06:04] So congrats to the team there. Cause this is a milestone. Like it's not just the car payment, right? Like write a check for 500 bucks. No, this is a lot of money. This is a lot of money. And we need to email him and the rest of the team there and tell them how cool it is. Because there's just not that many people of the, of the tech folks in our space that, that can do radio ads. Right. TV commercials. Right. Or spend their money that way. Yeah.

[00:06:32] So I'm really, I'm really happy for it. Yeah. Well, the commercial is damn sexy. Congrats, John. Congrats to the business solver team. And yeah, go, go check it out. It's pretty cool. Employers, uh, situated in the path of Los Angeles wildfires are in a precarious position, having to decide between keeping their businesses open or putting employees in potential danger or closing. Yeah.

[00:07:00] So this is on the LA times or from the LA times. And so this is a touch. Uh, this was a real tough one for me as I, as I read the article, I'm saying like, you know, the, the phrase money never sleeps is true, but bills never sleep. Right.

[00:07:17] Like, so the, for the company and the employees, they're going to, they need money while this devastation is happening at the same time, they still got car payments or they still have rent or whatever the bid is that they, so, I mean, no one should be put in harm's way. Like, yep. Check basic. Uh, but I'm really hoping that local and state and federal programs can make up for some of the, the loss of the difference for folks to make it easier.

[00:07:44] Uh, we have natural disasters all over, you know, the U S so like check this one's, this one seems to be a magnitude like Katrina, you know, like, like here we are in it, in different water, fire, got it. Right. But total devastation. Right. And so, you know, it, it'd be tough as a business owner if we, you, you and I owned a bike shop and we were on the edge of the fire, not in the fire, obviously. No, what would we do?

[00:08:14] You know, uh, that would be, I can see that being very difficult. Yeah. So absolutely. I don't, I don't think there's much that can be done. It's just, it's one of these things that employers got to do the right things and they'll be compensated for it. I mean, the, the, there's going to be compensation for this somewhere, somehow I have, maybe I'm naive. That's my thought. So. All right.

[00:08:41] So PF Chang's has a, has voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against UKG. Okay. So the case here is that UKG failed to preserve, uh, critical employee data. I remember this. Yeah. It was a while back. Right. Leading to, it was like an operational compliance issue on PF Chang's, uh, side. Anyhow, they went after them. They said that they did all the wrong things. It caused a lot of issues.

[00:09:11] Yeah. They lost significant files for, uh, employees, personal information and you know, all of this stuff that UKG was covering for them. Yeah. Somewhere along the line, they shook hands and, uh, it's all good now. So they, they're just dismissing the case. They voluntarily dismissed the case. They retrieved, uh, I guess a significant number of their, of their files, uh, which made them, I guess it was pleased enough.

[00:09:37] And so they're going to bear each bear their own costs for legal fees and go their separate ways. Uh, PF Chang's of Kung Pao chicken is to die for a never ate there. I've never eaten there. No, I haven't. Oh my God. I won't even tell you any more about it. It just, it just felt too expensive. Nah. I don't know why. It just felt too expensive. I mean, they're all expensive now because of inflation, but. Can't buy eggs for $5 a dozen. Kung Pao chicken is fantastic.

[00:10:06] Anyhow, I think we'll see more of these types of things where data leaks whose fault is it? Yeah. Is it the software provider? Is it the people administrating the data on the company side? Yeah. I think we're just going to see more of this type stuff. No. And the, with AI, I think, especially as AI is managing some of that data or interacting with some of that data, security and privacy of that is going to be yet another thing we have to look at. And yeah, you know, these things happen.

[00:10:36] They've been happening. Forever. Since HR software has been around. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm glad they worked it out. Yeah. I'm happy for both parties. Yeah. Love you, KG. Darisha's going to cover their own fees. Yeah. Seems like an expensive argument. Let me, let me tell you a little bit about this one. Looking for a job is set to get less miserable this year. Around two thirds of employer employers plan to add permanent head count in the first half of 2025. Okay.

[00:11:06] So this is a wall street journal. So we'll take the source as legitimate. And of course I, I keyed in on the less miserable because I think that's funny. Uh, I like the idea that employers, just the idea that it's being published to wall street journal saying employers are hiring in the first quarter, in the first two quarters. Hmm. Cause I think everyone is tired of this malaise.

[00:11:32] Uh, I also think like it or not, uh, I think a Republican government will grow the economy. That might be a popular idea, but that's what I think some of this is going to be attributed to. If it's grown the economy, who the hell cares? Right. If it's grown the economy, if it's, I think there's jobs. I think that's where most Americans are at or where you're talking. They're like, I don't care. I just want eggs to be cheaper. Yeah.

[00:11:58] And it's, I've got something later I'll talk about where it's just the length of searching for jobs is, is insane. Oh yeah. Even for people with experience. Oh yeah. Like, you know, it's, it's the real deal. So that's a good story. And now it's time for the plum stat of the show. When people flourish business thrives, unlock the benefits of 360 degree talent insights at plum.io.

[00:12:25] All right, William, I've got another stat for you. All right. For it. Yeah. This is on culture and it's got a lot of money tied to it. So I want to get your take here. We need you to speak. Mm hmm. According to plums research, the annual spend on culture related turnover cost companies around. Let's start that over. I read that wrong. Turnover comma. There we go. All right. Ready?

[00:12:56] According to plums research, the annual spend on culture related turnover costs companies around $223 billion. So my question to you is, do we need more eyes on culture? Uh, yes. So we'll say yes, comma, uh, define culture. Right. So, uh, the anthropologists would, uh, define culture in much different ways than we would.

[00:13:26] Um, so in, and the companies themselves define culture differently. Right. So every company, every company, every company, every employee, every executive. So the thing is, that's a big number. So if the answer or if they ask is we're spending that much and it's a B billion. Uh, yeah, we need more eyes on turnover. Yeah. If it's culture related.

[00:13:52] Now turnover to me is not a bad thing. Not all turnovers. It's, it's a dead tree in the forest. If it's regrettable turnover, meaning someone we wanted to keep. Correct. Then I care a hell of a lot about that. Now I would care a hell of a lot to learn if it was something cultural that drove them away. That gets, gets us to that point.

[00:14:19] But like you and I, uh, last year and this year we've talked about RTO more times than, than we need to, but some would classify that as culture. Sure. Right. The culture of the office versus the culture of remote. And so, and, and people basically saying, yeah, X out. I'm not going to go to the office. Uh, and so digging into what type of talent are we doing with?

[00:14:47] Is this, is this regrettable turnover? And if so, what are the drivers of that? So should we study it more? Hell yes. Yeah. Yeah. We a hundred percent. We need, we, I think we definitely need to study this more. And I've always had, this is always just kind of in my thought, but defining what culture is or defining how we build or how we install culture.

[00:15:16] Right. And I, and I say that, I feel dirty saying that cause I just don't feel like it sounds right into a company. I don't think it always depends on the leadership of the company, more the person who's doing the work. That's, that's the definition. That's where you're playing in the space of defining culture. Is it top down? Meaning the board and the C-suite define, you know, values. I think they believe it is, but I don't think it actually happens that way. No, it doesn't. It's the receptionist.

[00:15:46] It's grass, it's grassroots. Right. It's the bottom up. In most cases, in most, in most companies that last a long time, the culture is your everyday communications. Right. It's your everyday interaction with customers and stuff like that. That's your culture.

[00:16:04] So, uh, it historically has been a, the C-suite goes off, they go to Napa, board members are there, and they define their values, their vision, their mission, all those types of thing. And they think that's culture. Uh, and, and also pre COVID the office was the definition of culture.

[00:16:30] We have a foosball, we have massage tables, we have this one here, that's culture. And I think when it comes down to, if you really get employees off to the side and, you know, anonymous, if you will, if you said, listen, we can do all of these culture programs, go to baseball games and do all this stuff, or we could just pay you more. They're going to get paid more. I, I know. I'm going to go, I'm going to go 98%. I'm going to get paid more money.

[00:17:00] Yeah, no, absolutely. Dude, just give me more ducats. I don't, I don't need that. I, yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll pay for my own baseball game. I'm good. Yeah. That's a lot of money though. I mean, and it's a lot of money. It's a big number. Big number. To be driven by that. So, well, there you go. There's our thoughts on, on culture, the plum stat of the day. And there you go. The plum stat of the show. All right, William, here we go. We're back to DEI. All right.

[00:17:27] The board of Apple has joined Costco to say yes to DEI. Okay. So let me explain a little bit ago. Costco said, hell no. This is how we do our stuff. And this is how, what we believe in. And this is what we're going to do. And they, and their board said, no, we're keeping our initiatives. Right. They kind of, they kind of changed some people's thoughts. And so Apple's board jumped on board to this, right?

[00:17:56] They jumped into the game and said, they are now urging their shareholders to vote against a proposal by the National Center for Public Policy and Research to end the company's diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yeah, it's a very, it's a conservative think tank. Yeah. So what do you think? I mean, like, here we go. Now we've, we're on the opposite way. It's just shareholder advocacy, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:18:22] So what, what happens with publicly traded companies is sometimes people will buy up enough shares and they'll, they'll basically be able to, to leverage the company. And so programmatically, they don't like the, you know, the, the CEO, they, they don't like the direction of the company, but whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so you're, you're, we're going to see more of this on, on both sides. Yeah. We're going to see this because we've talked about Harley Davidson and Tractors of the Law and John Deere.

[00:18:51] There, there's a lot of publicly traded companies in here that their shares can be purchased by liberal, we'll just use liberal and conservative, if you will, liberal folks that would like for these, with DI programs to not just be funded, but double down, triple down on these, on these programs. Yeah.

[00:19:13] And to hit the, the, the lofty goals of having a truly diverse, an inclusive, you know, workforce. Yeah. And you're also going to have to see the other, and this is an example of conservative, you know, thoughts on DI and they just want to, there's a better way to, in their minds. It's a better way. There's a better way to spend money to get to the same thing or not. Right.

[00:19:40] And, you know, the not part is they just don't believe in DI at all. Right. And it's at its core. So I think we're going to see more of this. Yeah. Not less. I think it's just going to be kind of, I hate to say abortion, but I think it's going to be things alike, like abortion. It's going to be cultural in the sense of you're either for it or against it. Yeah. And honestly, I don't think much is going to change in the companies that are getting rid of this.

[00:20:07] I think it's all going to be, time will tell because time will affect what happens. A hundred percent. Here. No. There you go. All right, Ryan. Well, let's continue the DI thread because meta announces end of DI programs. Read the internal memo.

[00:20:28] This is at CNBC and it's on a lot of different sources, but basically they got a leaked memo that basically said they'll have less. They'll. And they've said, you know, in the last couple of months that they were going to have less of a focus. Yeah. Kind of it was fuzzy. Like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to focus on belonging and, you know, some other stuff, whatever.

[00:20:52] But this is, according to the leaked memo, they're gutting all DI programs. All. Yeah. So if you're in that area, that program or staff or whatever, that's gone. Yeah. For me, meta is a California company, a California-based company. I'm a bit shocked, actually, at meta. So this is interesting.

[00:21:22] So shocked because it's in California. Yes. Right. And it's got California vibes. However, the recent look of Mark Zuckerberg changes my thoughts on him so much. Oh, yeah. He was that nerdy little dude. Now he's a boomer. Now he's a big nerdy boomer, right?

[00:21:43] Like, but he, something happened in the last year or two where I think he grew up, right? He came out of the Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook in a dorm room. Wearing a hoodie. Got it. Yeah. And now he's come out to a point of, no, I'm Mark Zuckerberg, bitch. This is an adult company. And this is what I'm going to do. Yeah. We're going to run the world.

[00:22:09] And so now he's in politics, but now he's vocal about it. And I think he feels empowered to be vocal about it. But I now see that happening throughout all the news that we're reading of the company, right? It's really interesting. And I think that's one to watch because I think, I don't know, man, something's off about this guy. He's, I think he's a little jealous of Elon. 100%. And Jeff Bezos. Yeah.

[00:22:38] They've taken over like, they look like Dr. Evil, right? Like they look the part. And then you got Zuck, who's always been this like soft little guy, you know, all this. He's shredded. Have you seen pictures of his shirt off? Yeah. Yeah. Now he's like, no, I'm here. Here's my hair. Here's my face. And let's go. But he just looks weird to me. I don't know. Work Jam launches shift bidding for frontline teams.

[00:23:03] I've been a huge fan of Work Jam since I first met them at HR Tech a couple years back. Loved what they were doing. This is just another thing. So it's kind of like not breaking news, but you know what? I love the feature. And this is an issue that happens on both the employer and the employee side for shift working. I can only work certain shifts.

[00:23:27] My employer has to schedule, you know, has to hire 400 waiters and waitresses to work and get one 40 hour week build out. Right. Right. And so, but I might say I can't work Wednesday and Thursday or I can't work Tuesday and Monday. But they schedule me anyway. Trigonometry at a certain point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's difficult. I get that. Right. Like, sure. You throw it in a text chain and all, but there's a lot of employees. That's really hard to do.

[00:23:57] There's software that does this work jam. However, now offers shift bidding. This is awesome because now the employee says, here's what I can work. Now the manager has the tool set to say, here's what everybody can work. Build my schedule. Yeah. So it's taking away. This is what I love about this. One, it makes it easy. But two, it's taking away bias and preferential treatment. Right. And I haven't seen it live, but from what I'm gathering, this is, this is the.

[00:24:27] This is the problem that a lot of shift workers face. Well, he likes William better. So he gave him three to eight instead of me. I got to work fucking overnight again. Like you get darker if you want it to. Yeah. Yeah. Like, so it's, it's, it's a preferential treatment thing in my opinion. And this solves that. This takes that away and creates a much better environment. Everyone's happy and everybody gets to work. I love it. The efficiency part is just, you had me at that. Done. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:56] So check it out. Work Jam. I love work. We need to get work jam on. We talk about them two or three times already. Yeah. So if you're listening, work jam. Come on. Come talk. Come talk to us. All right. Let me give you this one. Okay. This is from the wall street journal as well. Balance of power shifts back towards bosses with tight labor market. Workers face return to office mandates, smaller bonuses, and no more pet sick days.

[00:25:26] I knew I'd have you. No more pet sick days? I knew I'd have you at pet sick days because of your love of pet insurance. So there's a quote in the article. I'm out. I literally all, I was laughing out loud. And so this is a direct quote. So we'll reintroduce time off for a sick pet in four years when the economy changes again.

[00:25:50] But for now, you shouldn't get time off to care for a sick poodle. End quote. Who said this? John Freche. F-R-E-H-S-E. He's a consultant. I think he said what many people are thinking. Absolutely. He did. Yeah. So to see it in quotes, dude, like I literally, I'm like, oh, shit. All right. So we should get John on.

[00:26:20] John, like I'm with you a million percent. Like I have no disagreement with this at all. You don't get off for a sick fucking dog. I get it. But I don't like the idea of we'll bring it back in four years when we can. Yeah. Might not. That's weird. That's weird. Might not. Might not. Might not. Might not ever come back. But I'm with you. I'm actually with him on this. It's like, I love my pets. I love all that. But I don't get to take off when my dog has to go.

[00:26:48] He has a bad stomach and is just shitting all over the house. Like, yeah. I don't know. Whatever. I'm with you. I'm with you, John. Clearly, William is not. All right. JBS USA, who is a leading, a leading processing company, has agreed to provide $4 million to support individuals and communities affected by. Drum roll, please.

[00:27:18] That's my, with the, out of sound effects. That's a cheap drum roll. Oh, there's no sound. Unlawful child, child labor practices. Huh. Turns out hiring minors is a bad thing. What? Now, they did not hire them directly. So let's just be clear.

[00:27:37] By extension, all of their processing plants, however, their facilities that they contract with tends to hire 13-year-old people, which is not allowed. So. That's why labor unions started, by the way. This is the exact child labor laws. Yeah. This is one of the reasons. Yeah. Many reasons, but one of the reasons labor unions came about. So the DOL found out about this. They got wind. They obviously didn't work.

[00:28:06] Not only were they just hiring minors. They were in hazardous, endangered situations. Using sharp objects. Yeah. Working with chemicals. All of the above. Like, eh. Not a good thing. So I can't say good job, JBS, for stepping in. No. No. You're just cutting a check because you have to. But this is why the DOL exists, right? That's right. This is why we're safe. So there you go. Don't hire 13-year-old kids. You'll be good. I think that's a fair statement. All right.

[00:28:35] It is time for acquisitions. Where are we at? What do you got for me? Ryan, I love the name of this company. Transcarent. Transcarent. I like it. I love it. It's one of those bits. Transcarent will acquire Accolade for $7 per share in cash. So a private company is buying a public company, which represents a total equity value of $621 million.

[00:29:04] And this is on statnews.com, so you can kind of read a little bit more about the acquisition. So Transcarent's wayfinding and care experience combined with accolades, advocacy, medical, expert opinions, primary care, will deliver kind of on the promise, a Transcarent's promise. So they're both rolling parallel. They're both innovating. They're both using AI. In fact, they're using generative AI.

[00:29:32] They're doing cool stuff, and one buys the other. It's not often that you see a private company and buy a public company. It's more often the other way around. But this is huge. I mean, that's a lot of money to buy not a competitor. It's more of a collaborator. So I'm happier for them and the offerings that they're going to bring to the market. I'm not a fan of the name like you. All right. I got one here.

[00:30:01] Paychex announced its acquisition of Paycor for $4.1 billion. Congrats to everyone there involved. We know a lot of Paycor people and Paychex people. So congrats there. Expanding its footprint in the SMB market. Now, here's why that is. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why this is actually very significant.

[00:30:28] The one that I'm focused on is that, and we say this all the time, payroll is important. You got to get payroll right, right? Getting it right is important. It is the top HCM investment in the SMB space for 2025. 52% are prioritizing this very thing in the SMB space. Because you got to get it right. You got to get it right.

[00:30:57] Now, in the next two years, 75% of the SMB market, at least surveyed, et cetera, says they are going to be looking at their systems to either upgrade or make a change. Yeah. This is a big deal. This is the biggest, I think, area in SMB to focus on in the tech space.

[00:31:25] Yeah, and I think for me, first of all, it's a great acquisition. Paychex is down market, and Paycor started down market, and it got pulled up because they added in more talent management and other things to their offerings. So it wasn't just payroll. They had a recruiting product. They had all these different products. And they acquired one of our previous partners, too.

[00:31:55] So they've been pulled up market. This makes complete sense because it gives them a better offering to go against ADP. At the end of the day, that's who they're – I mean, all the pays, there's tons of players. But really, everyone's chasing ADP and always has been or has been for a long time. So the combination of Paychex and Paycor, they've got down market. Let's say they've got a little bit of upper market, if you will, not true enterprise.

[00:32:24] But they have a little bit more upper market. They just got more market share. Yeah. And so now that combined solution – and they don't necessarily have to combine it on the same tech platform. They can keep it separate just based on how many employees do you have. One gets routed to one. One gets routed to the other. It's like the employee of the world, right? You have jazz. You have lever. Job fight. Right. That's perfect. Depending on where you're at, you get spun off. Yeah. Well, there you go.

[00:32:52] Human Resso, our friend John Baldino, his company has acquired Rabbit. That's R-H-A-B-I-T, analytics, strengthening its position as a leader in talent development and HR innovation. This is on PR Newswire. So just put in Human Resso and you'll find the story. So we love John. He's a good dude. We went to a party at HR Tech. Just a good guy.

[00:33:19] So basically what this is for the folks listening, this is a services firm, a consulting firm that buys a tech firm. And so why I think it's going to be really, really good for them is now they can consult with their clients and it can be based on data. And so I think this is just a wonderful acquisition for John's company. Yeah. And good for their clients. Yeah. Yeah. It's always fun to see someone's name in lights. I know.

[00:33:48] Especially when you work with them. So congrats, John. Congrats to the team. We love you all. All right. Here's one for you. Okay. Bring it. Grammarly. You love you some Grammarly. Yep. Yep. So Grammarly has announced its intent to acquire productivity platform, Coda. So this is 100% workplace productivity. In fact, they label it workplace productivity.

[00:34:17] So they are specifically saying we're here workplace. We're not just – and a lot of workplaces use them. They use them at an enterprise level. But they are now specifically coming out and saying this is workplace productivity. You know, I couldn't help but think though. Google – Google's getting shit on from all angles here, right? They did not move fast in this area. They did not. They did not. They're sitting on all that data. Data, money, everything. And it's like – and they're doing a lot of stuff.

[00:34:46] Like, obviously, they're not just fucking sitting there. But, like, AI productivity search, productivity search, like, everything, right? It's like rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. Same shit. Like, they're eating their lunch right now. And I don't know that it'll be forever and for long. But anyway, what they said was this. I'm going to read this direct quote. We are creating a unified workspace that combines writing assistants with advanced document creation and collaboration features.

[00:35:16] So, I like this. I love this, actually. And the CEO of CODA, Shasir Mehrota – I butchered your name. I apologize – will become the new CEO of Grammarly in this. That's cool. Yeah. That's – you don't see that every day. No, no. So, this is growth all around. And I'm really interested to follow their journey. I just hope my price for my – It's going up $10. It's going up $10. Exactly.

[00:35:44] So, Carrot, K-A-R-E-T. We've talked about them before. Acquires Byteboard, B-Y-T-E, board. We talked about them, too, yeah. We talked about them to pioneer the future of talent evaluation. So, I found this on Carrot.com. And so, here's the deal. Carrot's game is for measuring and evaluating technical talent. They've been very singularly focused on that.

[00:36:12] Byteboard is a skills-based technical assessment solution. So, it makes sense. This is the market we serve as Carrot. There's Byteboard serving the same market with a different product. Let's go ahead and consolidate these things together. So, it makes sense. And they've – Carrot, for everyone listening, they've made three other acquisitions like this in the last 20 months.

[00:36:37] So, you can kind of see a path here of what they're doing and why they're doing it. I think it makes a hell of a sense for their customers and their offering in particular. Yeah. I agree. So, speaking of market consolidation. Okay. Employer.com has made a $30 million cash in stock offer to Level. So, I think this is the same deal. This is a consolidation in the market.

[00:37:07] Now, I don't – I think there's more to the story here. Level just hasn't done well. They haven't resonated with the market for whatever reason. So, they were kind of in distress or they were in distress and Employer.com is going to pick them up. So, we talk about this all the time. Do you build or do you buy? This is a let's buy to expand. And essentially, they're just buying assets here. Right.

[00:37:36] They're buying assets of the company. So, there you go. Another one off the market. And Employer.com is a sister to or same company as Recruiter.com, right? That's a good question. I don't know. I'm pretty sure it is. I think it's Jesse. We'll have to Google that. Yeah. But anyhow, a great pickup again. Yeah. If you're going to buy it, buy it on the cheap. All right, Ryan. Let's get to some research.

[00:38:05] Got three stories for you. I'm going to get your reactions to these. Okay. So, first one. As many as 22% of jobs posted online are ghost jobs or positions for no hiring activity ever took place. This is from QuartzQZ.com. And to me, that number has to be higher.

[00:38:31] Like it's – I look at 22 and I'm thinking all the people that have been trying to build talent communities and all that stuff. That just – it just seems like a low number. But what's your take? No, it's higher. I think it's higher. I don't think it's much higher. Okay. I think it's probably in the 30s, maybe 40%, something like that. But I don't think it's as bad as maybe the report might make it out to be.

[00:39:00] I think it's done – most of this is done with good intention. And I think most of it is done because they don't have the resources or the budget to buy the software that can actually do this for them without posting fake shit. Right. Yeah. Remember that – I can't remember the company's name that got rid of fake jobs? Oh, yeah. That was a couple weeks ago. Yeah, it was a couple weeks ago. I think it was like Morgan Stanley. It was somebody like that that just said no more. If it's not a real job, don't post. Yeah. All right.

[00:39:30] Yeah. I just think they don't have budget for it until they – Well, the economy definitely could be impacting that. Yeah. All right. Second story. Some 63% of global employers believe that the skills gap is a barrier to future-proofing their business according to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025. Okay. Okay.

[00:39:57] So, WeForum, World Economic Forum. So, WeForum.org. Sorry, my bad. So, 63%, Ryan. That automatically gets me to think of, okay, what are the other 37% of the jobs? Are they – the skills – are they stagnant? Like they don't need new skills? Because we're talking about the skills gap, future-proofing the business.

[00:40:21] So, like is that number – shouldn't that number be 100% or 90-something percent? Or what's your take? So, I want you to read that back to you one more time because I read it a different way. All right. 63% of global employers believe that the skills gap is a barrier to future-proofing their business according to the – Employers believe, not the employees. That's correct.

[00:40:53] Yeah. I mean, I guess that sounds right. I mean, you can't have 100% of everything. No. I don't think – I don't think a lot of employers are on board with skills as being like the driving force over the next decade. I think they've always thought it was skills, but I don't think it's that now. And it depends – it also depends on where these employers are. Was it – are they talking about tech companies? Are they talking about finance companies, health companies? Because there's a lot.

[00:41:22] If it's all health, sure. Tech, sure. But if we're talking something that's heavy with administrative or heavy with warehousing, probably not skills. It's probably the ability to – it's probably getting the volume of people they need in the job. So I think that's about right. Yeah. There's some great stocks in that report. So definitely if you're interested in the World Economics Forums, take on things they've got – I just pulled out one.

[00:41:52] There's tons of them. And if you're into that type of stuff, don't tell anybody because if you're reading the World Economic Forums, you're not hip. You're not cool. No, no. No. It's Financial Times. All right. So – all right. Third story. Resume Now study reveals 65% of workers feel empowered to say no to extra work. Mm-hmm.

[00:42:18] So this is resume-now.com and they do a lot of – What was the number? 65% of workers feel empowered to say no to extra work. So boss says, hey, need you to do blah, blah, blah. The employers, the employees, the workers are like, yeah, no. I'm with that. I think 65 – I probably would have said that if you asked me outright.

[00:42:47] I probably would have said something like that. And I think that's just the sign of the times. I mean the workforce is changing and there's a lot – there's a different entitlement to the worker today than there was five, six, ten years ago. So see, I think – I look at it and as I read it, it's – I think it's what we're watching, a car crash in slow motion. Yeah. Because you've got the pull of the employee and the pull of the leadership. Yeah. And they both see this differently.

[00:43:17] Yeah. And again, in a tight labor market, the power shifts dramatically to the employer, the leader or boss. And when you're in a really – no, in a tight – yeah, tight market, it shifts to the candidate and employee. Sorry. Right. Said it the opposite way. And in a – where we have an abundance of talent on the street, that's when it shifts to the company. We're now with an abundance of talent.

[00:43:47] And so you can kind of see this. This runs counter to that. That's what's kind of fascinating is in an abundance of talent, you'd think that people would just say yes to everything. Mm-hmm. You know, yeah, I'll take on the next job. Yeah, you need me to do that? I'll stay late. You know, all that stuff. And they're doing it in an off market. And I think that's generational. Yeah, I think it's a couple of factors. One, I think 100% is generational. Yeah.

[00:44:14] I also think the political climate has changed how people address them or handle themselves in the workplace as well. Agreed. They're more empowered to say, no, I'm not doing that. Right. Like you can rise up against things. You can unionize now in your own little form. Right, right, right, right. You can do that so people will feel more empowered.

[00:44:37] I also think that the generational difference in the workplace, you have the younger group who grew up with saying no. Right. Right? Or given choices and participation trope. All that whole thing. They're in the workforce now. Yeah. Like, I'm not going to do that. Like, I was here eight hours. Like, I'm good. It's not a bad thing. I mean, if you look at it rationally, it's not a bad thing. It's just counter to what we've seen historically. Well, historically, yes.

[00:45:06] But now what we've seen historically, those people are still in the workforce as well. They're older. Yeah, they are. Now they're just like, they're like, dude, I've been working 40 years. I'm not doing that now. If you're not going to do it, you're going to get someone else to do it. Yeah. So you got two different spectrums there. It's a great study. I like that. Okay. Funding time. I've got one here I'm going to start with.

[00:45:32] This is Anthropic, which is an AI startup behind Claude, which is a chatbot, is in talks currently. So it hasn't happened yet, but they're in talks to raise $2 billion at a $60 billion valuation. Found this one on CNBC. But I wanted to talk about this because these guys are in an arms race. This is like the real deal, right?

[00:45:58] Like everybody, every company that focuses here on this is like they're going after it now. And every penny is counting for them. So they just want to fall behind, right? This market is expected to be $1 trillion with a T, $1 trillion within this decade or a decade. So like I guess technically, not this decade, but a decade. But that's huge. That's big, right?

[00:46:28] Anything with a trillion is – Turns out. Yeah. Turns out. Yeah. So Gen AI, this is a Gen AI thing, right? And this is affecting workforce planning, recruitment, everything that we do. This is it right here. And Anthropic is one of those companies that are – I'm going to struggle over the name. But other than that, I'm really happy for it. Anthropic. I like Anthropic. Anthropoc. All right.

[00:46:58] Let's go to Maki. M-A-K-I raised $28.6 million in a Series A to redefine HR with conversational AI agents. To your earlier point, this was on Business Wire. So the first things that come to mind, you know, $28 million in a Series A, that's huge. Mm-hmm. I like their mission statement. So you can go to their, you know, Business Wire, but you can click through and go to their site. So I read their mission statement.

[00:47:28] And I'll read it to you because it's actually really interesting. Our mission is to give human resources more than human powers, as we believe the future lies in a powerful mix of human ingenuity and AI-driven intelligence. Our AI agents, or our agents don't just assist, they do work.

[00:47:52] And enabling teams to focus on strategic priorities, unlock creativity and drive meaningful organizational impact. I think a lot of people think that already kind of natively. They think that that's what we should be doing and what these things and how it should help HR. This was probably the first company that really kind of clearly says, hey, this is about making the process better.

[00:48:19] And so that you can do some of these other types of things. So huge, we got to track them because $28.6 million Series A, there's not that many of those. Yeah. When do we stop, and maybe discussion for another time, when do we stop selling, when do companies that have AI or selling AI stop having to sell the excuse of we're not replacing the worker, we're allowing you to do this instead? Oh, I think that's going to go for a while. I think people are going to have to see it.

[00:48:49] I'm already sick of it. Oh, I know, as you should be. But I think people are going to have to feel it. You know what I'm saying? Like they're going to have to go, oh, because there's fear. It's like with any new technology advancement, there's fear first. But once you get over the fear, imagine going back to the horse and buggy and cars. The first person that bought a car. A lot of people pay for that shit now. They pay to go back and experience.

[00:49:14] You're going to pay to go back and experience working at a mundane job you didn't want to work and complained about. Not I. I'm going to go back and live. This is going to happen. No. All right. I got another story for you. Yeah. Holly secures, that's the name of the company, Holly, 2.2 million to solve million job vacancy crisis in government workforce. So this is also on Business Wire.

[00:49:42] What it got me to think about is we don't talk enough about government, HR tech, the work tech that supports all the municipal, federal, state, all that stuff. There's technology, HR tech that supports all those folks as well. So there's a real scarcity of talent. And so they've raised a round. And I think it's going to be good for everybody involved, the agencies that they serve. And I think it's a cool name. Yeah.

[00:50:13] Yeah. Oh, 100%. All right. I got one here. OnPay, an Atlanta-based provider of payroll and HR benefit solution has raised more than $100 million total in funding. So $63 million Series B round was led by Carrot Capital Partners. Right. So 25,000 small and medium-sized businesses across the United States, that's what they serve right now.

[00:50:40] That's a sizable chunk of companies that serve, right? Yeah, that's not a small play. Yeah. Now, they're only within the four walls of the U.S. Yeah, it's not a global system. They can access it globally through a VPN. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were very specific on what they're going to use it for, which I enjoyed. I appreciated hearing or reading in the announcement. But there was no mention of global expansion. So I guess they're just going to stay here.

[00:51:09] There's enough players there. Oh, absolutely. There's enough players here too. But get really good at what you're doing. You've got 25,000 people. Sorry. Let me rephrase. There's enough players and global payroll. Oh, no, absolutely. There's enough players domestically too. It's just enough players and payroll. Right. My take is in acquisitions in the A, we talked about paychecks buying PayCorps. Yeah, we did. Right?

[00:51:34] And this company, OnPay, gets $100 million. Okay. So, and again, they're not trying to go outside of the four walls of the United States. There's plenty of business to be here. Absolutely. So good for them. I think it's great. Again, as we said during acquisitions, payroll is critical. Yeah. And so you've got to get it right. So good for them. And good for being an Atlanta-based. There's not a lot of Atlanta-based HR tech plays.

[00:52:03] We haven't really just, who was that? Oh, CareerBuilder was out there, right? Yep. CareerBuilder was out there. There's a couple others. But just not- Not a lot. Not a lot of cities. Not a lot. All right. Buck. B-U-K. Buck. Santiago-based in Chile. I'll say Chile. You would say Chile. Based HR software provider. Raises $50 million. Series B, valued, and now at $850 million. Almost getting a unicorn status. Almost.

[00:52:33] They're right there. So Buck is a platform to manage payroll, track attendance, recruitment, all of that stuff. They are using this specifically to expand further into Brazil, grow in their sales and marketing

[00:52:52] in Mexico, and essentially just build their ecosystem across their entire regions in Latin America. Sorry. I didn't think of it. Well, I mean, that's what I love about this play is we don't normally talk about Latin. No. Because it's just, you know, we might have a Mexico player here or something like that. Yeah, very rare. Very rare.

[00:53:18] They're going and trying to tackle, I mean, Santiago, Chile is one of the older cities in South America. And so they're basically got a nice central place, and they can easily expand into all the other countries. The only change that they would have to make is going into Brazil. They'd have to have everything in Portuguese. I think they're already in Brazil. Yeah, it says that they are.

[00:53:46] So they've already kind of covered across that. But $850 million, $1 billion is a unicorn in market cap in our little space. So, you know, for the audience that's their listeners, this is a platform like a lot of platforms that you'd see in the United States. They manage payroll, track attendance, recruitment, performance, benefits, HR analytics. Like, there's several players here in the U.S. that does that.

[00:54:13] They serve 1.5 million employees across 7,000 companies. Yeah. Most interesting to me is that Workday was one of the investors in this motionless realm. And so I see a future acquisition. Yeah. I see a future acquisition or partnership, you know, however. But, I mean, first of all, good for them. Yeah. I've been to a wedding in Santiago, Chile. Love it. It was beautiful.

[00:54:42] We went down to Valparaiso. And it was like Napa and Sonoma on the way down. So it's two valleys and just wineries after wineries. And so it was beautiful. So good for them. Nice. Really. The name, I kind of struggle with that a little bit. Fuck. That's okay. Fuck you. What? What? Dude, why don't we? Why don't we? Bucket. Yeah, bucket. All right. There you go.

[00:55:11] Other than that, good news. Congrats. Congrats. And that's it. We're done. We did it all. Another successful day. Go Birds. We'll be cheering. I'll be cheering for you. I will. I will not be cheering for you. I will not be cheering for you. Coach Prime takes over you. Be cheering. No, I mean, if Dallas was playing Sunday and we were not playing, I wouldn't be watching football nor cheering for you. Come on. Whatever. I appreciate it. Come on. Anyhow, thank you all for listening.

[00:55:41] Thank you all for watching. We will see you next time. Please feel free to leave a review. Let us know we're good or bad. We'll take it. Tell us we suck. Till next time.