Back by demand: Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - Employee engagement and the ethics of leveraging AI to improve workplace wellness.

[00:00:00] Welcome to the HR Huddle podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR. It's time to get in the huddle.

[00:00:15] Welcome everyone to Spilling the Tea on HR Tech where we focus on the hottest HR tech news everyone needs to know to be in the know.

[00:00:26] We break down the news of the week and help you make sense of what it means for our industry and how it can impact your organization.

[00:00:33] We're recording today on January 9th, 2024. We're into the new year bringing you all the news you can use both this week and going forward.

[00:00:42] I'm your host Stacey Harris, Chief Research Officer and Managing Partner for Sapient Insights Group, a research and advisory firm.

[00:00:49] And joining me today are actually a couple of special guests. Our first up is Cliff Stephenson who's our Director of Research and Principal Ansel for Sapient Insights Group and who's joined us on a regular basis.

[00:00:58] Cliff, do you want to say hi to everyone?

[00:01:00] Hi everyone.

[00:01:02] And then most importantly, we have a special guest today. We have Dr. Jared Conrad who is VP of Human Insights and Executive Director of Workforce Institute at UKG.

[00:01:11] Jared, do you want to say hello to everyone out there?

[00:01:13] Hello everybody. I'm excited about our conversation here.

[00:01:17] Yeah, this is going to be a great one. Normally we don't have guests at our session but we actually started this conversation October, was it 10th, 11th or 2023, right?

[00:01:28] Yeah, maybe.

[00:01:30] I think it goes back to that.

[00:01:32] It was like a lifetime ago.

[00:01:33] It does. Things change so fast. So we actually did a live recording not too long ago at the HR Tech Conference and as all things go technology doesn't always work as well.

[00:01:42] So we're re-recording today because we thought the conversation was amazing and we wanted to make sure that we got some of this really cool nuggets to the audience.

[00:01:50] We also have a little bit of tea that we're going to be spilling today on some new things that you're doing, Jared, and with some of the make-a-trends you have.

[00:01:56] So we were excited that we were able to actually get some additional time with you to actually redo the interview and have a conversation.

[00:02:02] Cliff, I know you and I have been talking about how excited we are about getting a chance to talk with Jared.

[00:02:07] Is there anything else going on right now that we want to make sure that we sort of tell the audience about the conversation and where they can get maybe some information on Jared after the call?

[00:02:16] Yeah, we should mention there'll be notes in the link in description, but you can do easily to search because Dr. Jared Conrad has quite a presence out there.

[00:02:27] That's J-A-R-I-K. I think that's probably the easiest way.

[00:02:31] And especially if you look for the mega trends, you'll be hearing that term used a lot, but it's a very specific group of predictions and sort of the insights that he's been bringing.

[00:02:43] And he's going to be talking through some of those as we go through today.

[00:02:47] I have a prediction of my own that will probably end up mentioning A.I. at some point.

[00:02:53] Maybe.

[00:02:55] Yeah, that's how we should grab the conversation.

[00:02:58] Yeah, I don't think one can have an interview these days without mentioning it.

[00:03:03] Oh yeah.

[00:03:05] Take the box.

[00:03:06] Yeah, we should also note that Dr. Jared is an author and so maybe we can start off with a conversation a little bit about just a little bit about your background and how you got into heading up the Workforce Institute at UKG.

[00:03:17] Could you maybe give us a little bit about the work that went into your new book and what's your role in the Institute?

[00:03:23] That's an interesting, I think, job role inside of any organization, right?

[00:03:26] Yeah, man, that could take all our time.

[00:03:28] I guess the short version of it is I spent almost 25 years now in and around human resources.

[00:03:36] I say in and around because I went to graduate school to study human resources before I later got a doctorate degree.

[00:03:43] It's always been a focus.

[00:03:45] I worked in public sector, in private sector, in the nonprofit sector, in various HR roles.

[00:03:51] And then I went out on my own, but I was doing HR related consulting and executive coaching.

[00:03:56] So still around the world of HR.

[00:03:58] And today, while I don't do HR on a day to day basis for our company, we are customers of primarily HR people within organizations.

[00:04:08] So these are my people, HR folks.

[00:04:12] The Workforce Institute one is just really unique.

[00:04:15] It's one of those things where I have this unique background and interest, and we happen to have a company where this fits.

[00:04:22] We consider ourselves a think and do tank with the Workforce Institute.

[00:04:26] So certainly we focus on research studies and either sponsoring studies or conducting our own research.

[00:04:34] But also we want to figure out how do we translate that information into something actionable?

[00:04:39] So yeah, this is good information, but the average person is out there like, well, what do I do with that?

[00:04:44] And so we really have a heavy focus on that.

[00:04:47] We have somewhere around 20 thought leaders and experts from various industries on our advisory board.

[00:04:55] Many of those people are actually practitioners as well to keep us honest on whether or not this research is relevant and realistic.

[00:05:04] And again, we do anything from sponsoring research to putting together quizzes and assessments and guides and playbooks and things to help organizations.

[00:05:14] So that's one of the hats where at UKG another hat that I wear is very interesting as well.

[00:05:19] I lead this group called Human Insights and people like, well, what is that? What does that mean?

[00:05:24] We I use the term thought leadership loosely because a lot of people have ideas about what that means.

[00:05:30] But that's what we do in Ted Talks, right? That's what thought leadership is.

[00:05:33] Exactly. We do have a formal mission and it is creating and delivering thought provoking actionable content and resources that positively impact work and the people who do it.

[00:05:45] So we're very focused on the people in organizations.

[00:05:50] How do we understand what makes people tick and how do we help them tick in a way that's more beneficial for themselves and more beneficial for their organization?

[00:06:00] So that's the whole Human Insights piece. Cliff, I know you have the psychology background.

[00:06:04] So much of what we do delves into psychology and which I think, by the way, it would be a terrific skill for HR people to have.

[00:06:14] If they go back, they got those psychology books. If you've taken those courses, almost everything you deal with every day, you can go back and find out kind of a roadmap to handling that stuff in those books.

[00:06:27] The more things change, the more they stay the same as it relates to who we are and how we operate.

[00:06:32] So that's kind of a long and short. It's really a unique opportunity inside our organization because we get to not only understand what's going on today, but to in some ways predict or anticipate what's going on in the future world of work so that we can help inform our product team to be thinking about those things and that we can better equip our customers to be ready to be proactive and not just reactive when these things come to pass.

[00:07:01] Yeah, I love the idea that you guys have this kind of institute inside of the organization.

[00:07:06] Right? I mean, every tech firm tends to have some group that's doing thought leadership or strategy at some level.

[00:07:13] But I think the nice thing about and this started, I think, back in the day when it was Kronos, there was a Workforce Institute before and then Ultimate had a version of their own.

[00:07:21] I think when that organization sort of merged, it became the Workforce Institute and HR Insights.

[00:07:27] And what I love about it is that this organization is one of the largest HR tech firms in the market, arguably depending on sort of when you look at the numbers as far as time and attendance goes, you guys probably have one of the largest audiences for actually helping people sort of get into work and then sign in and all the time and attendance work, which is a really important component for that.

[00:07:46] Cliff and I have had this conversation for quite some time about the fact that you can change when you go into an organization and you do a consulting project or you do an opportunity where you go in and do a little coaching and mentoring.

[00:07:56] It's great. You can change the life of that one person in the company as a whole.

[00:08:00] But when you change something inside of a system or a process that is being used by thousands of companies, you can really have a huge impact.

[00:08:07] I mean, Jerrick, have you seen that kind of transition because you were working inside of individual companies and the kind of individual systems?

[00:08:13] Do you think this kind of impact that you're able to have now is really more sort of as more scale and scope because of the idea, the fact that you're working with technology now?

[00:08:24] Yeah, I'll answer that two ways.

[00:08:26] I am just deeply gratified when I am at a conference or at an airport or somewhere and people walk up and say, hey, I saw you speak in so-and-so city.

[00:08:38] And I still remember when you said XY and I took that to my organization and we've been doing this ever since.

[00:08:43] So when you hear anecdotally the impact that you've get that my team has made, I'm proud of that.

[00:08:49] And certainly from an organizational standpoint, I mean, we are not shy about the fact that it's more than just about technology for us.

[00:08:57] We realize that technology is the tool, but we're trying to get into, again, the psychology, understanding the workplace, understanding people in the workplace and helping our customers deal with these challenges that sometimes don't even involve our technology.

[00:09:13] So it's a personal thing for me to, Stacey, to be honest with you, because so many of the topics that I talk about, I think they're just so important for society.

[00:09:22] So everybody on my team has two or three areas of focus that we are.

[00:09:27] We've been doing a long time, so we've developed a level of expertise.

[00:09:30] My areas are emotional intelligence, health and wellness and DEI and B.

[00:09:37] And these are things that I would be talking about even if I weren't at UKG.

[00:09:42] So there's only so much I would have been able to do with these things as Jared Conrad, get out there on my own.

[00:09:50] There's only so much. But when I come in an organization like this and those things that are important to me line up with the purpose and the vision of our organization and they're important for our organization.

[00:10:02] And we get to use our resources to try and help change the work, not just tell you what's going on with the workplace, but influence how work is done.

[00:10:12] That is, I mean, it's deeply gratifying.

[00:10:15] Yeah, it's really powerful, right? When you think about the number of people that we're impacting whenever you're doing anything that has to do with HR, I think, right?

[00:10:23] Like in Spoodle's lives, their work and the topics that you talked about are really positive.

[00:10:28] I know Cliff, you had a chance to read through some of Jarek's book.

[00:10:32] And I know you and him have talked a lot about sort of how some of this ties together with some of the trends we got out of the annual HR system survey.

[00:10:39] You may want to talk a little bit about what we saw in the survey and ask Jarek a little bit about some of the trends we're seeing in the market as well.

[00:10:47] Yeah. And before we dive in, I also want to point out that you'd mentioned at the beginning, Jarek, that you were really trying to do was affect lives in a positive way.

[00:10:54] And I think that is so interesting because in the work that we do, we're looking at data and we're just looking at change.

[00:11:01] Right? We talk a lot about here's an organization doing this. Now they're doing this. Right.

[00:11:05] But not talking about is it is this positive? Is this good? Because that is a subjective feeling.

[00:11:10] But that doesn't make it any less real or any less important. In fact, it's more important, I would argue.

[00:11:17] So I find that sort of stuff fascinating.

[00:11:19] As we've seen, for instance, this is a stat that we have talked quite a bit about.

[00:11:25] I promised we'd talk about AI. So now we have to.

[00:11:28] Is that a vast majority of organizations don't have a plan in place or don't know, which to me is the same as not having one,

[00:11:37] whether they have a plan in place for using AI ethically,

[00:11:40] which is amazing because we've all seen the stats on the amount of organizations are using it.

[00:11:46] But that goes right back. We can say, OK, here's some data. Some people are using it.

[00:11:50] But are they thinking about humans? Are they using it ethically and what even that means to them could be different.

[00:11:56] But those are the sort of conversations.

[00:11:59] And one of the things that I'm guessing you're probably running into is one of the sort of newer challenges that organizations are facing is

[00:12:07] how is AI not just being used to increase productivity, but how is it making people feel?

[00:12:13] How is it affecting their day to day lives? Is that something that you're starting to hear more and more of, I would imagine?

[00:12:19] Absolutely. I think at UKG, I'm happy that we start with the ethical considerations.

[00:12:25] But again, we're an organization whose tagline, our purpose is people.

[00:12:28] And so you would kind of expect that from us.

[00:12:31] But that's kind of how we start this idea that just because you can do something, that doesn't mean that you should do it.

[00:12:37] So that's baked in. I think it's so important to start there because it's hard to unring the bell on some of this stuff

[00:12:43] if you get too far down the road without considering that.

[00:12:47] One thing that I've been kind of saying, and this is a Jared Conrad thing I've been kind of saying,

[00:12:52] is that so much focus on tech and AI specifically has been used to how do we make things better for people?

[00:13:00] I hope that we can start to use this technology to make people better because people are struggling in so many ways.

[00:13:08] I mean, and this gets into my health and wellness talk where I think about these broad dimensions of health

[00:13:13] whether it's mental health or physical health, emotional health, family health, workplace health.

[00:13:19] I call it professional health. I mean all these different dimensions of what could be described as wellness.

[00:13:25] People are struggling. We're not doing better in any of those categories if you compare us to 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

[00:13:34] I hope that we can start to use it to better understand why that is, how that is, and how we can change the story.

[00:13:42] Because ultimately when you think about our day-to-day interactions with people in our organizations,

[00:13:49] we bring all that stuff to bear. And if we're struggling in all those dimensions,

[00:13:54] we can create the best technology in the world and we're not going to be able to overcome that unless we take that stuff into account.

[00:14:03] So Cliff, that's from my perspective. I hope we're starting to think about it's got to be productivity can't be the only measure.

[00:14:11] It's one of them. Efficiency is one of them. It's important.

[00:14:16] But there's a whole host of other measures that we have to take into account if we're thinking about long-term success in our organizations.

[00:14:24] Absolutely. I know both in one of the highlighted megatrends we saw was in this sort of undercurrent,

[00:14:31] this chronic anxiety that's going to be this part of the workforce.

[00:14:35] And I'm highly paraphrasing here, but there was a quote that you used that when you're talking about mindfulness,

[00:14:41] yoga is all well and great if your organization's giving you that.

[00:14:45] But more importantly, it's having a living wage where someone can meet the needs of just having enough food.

[00:14:50] I've taken this kind of to an extreme example when I tell people about this quote.

[00:14:54] It's like one of my favorites is, yeah, yoga is great, but food is better, which is really going far down the line.

[00:15:00] But again, I think it does speak to this idea of the stresses that had come to the forefront during especially the pandemic years.

[00:15:10] It's almost like we said, OK, we're past that, but I don't know if we are.

[00:15:14] What are your thoughts on how we're going forward?

[00:15:17] I know that you've certainly written about this and one of your books, I believe, is Search for Humanity, right?

[00:15:23] So clearly this is it's such humanity.

[00:15:26] In fact, I'll give everyone the full title so they can find it in their store.

[00:15:29] Why we fight, how to stop and the role businesses must play.

[00:15:32] But I think this speaks to that, right? When we're talking about wellness, we're talking about the full you and how you are as a human.

[00:15:38] So how does this play out in our offices and the people listening?

[00:15:42] What does this mean for them as they're going forward in 2024?

[00:15:46] Yeah, I mean, this is, I think, just a really important conversation.

[00:15:50] So, you know, we've been here, we developed this set of megatrends and our first megatrend, number one megatrend for 2024 is redefining the employer-employee relationship.

[00:16:00] And that's not new, right? We've been talking about that for about as long as I've been in HR.

[00:16:05] But it's the tagline associated with this that there is no one size fits all.

[00:16:10] So when you think about employees, and this may be the biggest promise of AI that allows us to do this a little bit better.

[00:16:17] But I think we fall into this question. What do employees want and what do they want?

[00:16:21] And we try to get this bucket or that is across the board.

[00:16:25] It depends on the employee. And then we create these subcategories to try to better understand people.

[00:16:31] So we get generations. Well, then wires want this baby boomers want this.

[00:16:37] They never talk about Gen X's, by the way.

[00:16:40] We just we're used to this stuck in the middle.

[00:16:43] But so we try to come up with these shortcuts to understand people and we know that we're not we can't just be separated by generations.

[00:16:51] I mean, if you look at I'm holding my phone right now, if you go into my music on my phone, you would be sure I was a baby boomer.

[00:17:00] So, yeah, we got to think about the fact, OK, generations, there may be something we can pull out of that, but we can make a whole lot of decisions based on that.

[00:17:10] What about personality style? I remember the big five personality styles, extraversion, introversion, all that stuff.

[00:17:17] Well, that's not the only thing that we can pull out of that.

[00:17:21] What about personality style? I remember the big five personality styles, extraversion, introversion, all that stuff.

[00:17:28] Well, those things still apply if we still have different personality styles.

[00:17:33] You put that together. What about life stage?

[00:17:36] If I'm in your organization and I am recently married and just have a baby and have a young family,

[00:17:42] the way I think about comp and benefits and work hours and all that, it may be very different than someone who is nearing retirement and whose life is in a different place.

[00:17:53] So we got to take that into account.

[00:17:56] And then another thing that you add to all that is just these elements of diversity.

[00:18:00] If I'm a woman, if I'm a person of color, my life experiences have been shaped by that as well.

[00:18:06] I see everything through a lens of a person that might fit in one of these underrepresented groups.

[00:18:12] So you put all these things together, then you're closer at trying to understand what makes this person tick.

[00:18:19] We don't have mechanisms to do that very well now as people.

[00:18:24] Number one, we're dealing with our own stuff.

[00:18:26] Number two, we just we don't have ways to figure all that out.

[00:18:30] And again, I hope this is a promise of AI.

[00:18:32] Maybe we can use it to to provide some more customization.

[00:18:36] So it's not that you're saying this or you're feeling this way because you're black.

[00:18:40] It's not that you're saying or feeling this way because you are a millennial, but maybe it's because you are black millennial that is an introvert that has blah, blah, blah.

[00:18:51] I might be able to help us do that in the step of a fig.

[00:18:54] And I love how you're looking at this from the individuality perspective.

[00:18:58] I think that's been a thing I've said about technology for quite some time, but I think AI might give us the closest we've ever been able to get to the reality of that conversation.

[00:19:10] I've had a couple of conversations recently with a couple of HR leaders and business leaders on this point.

[00:19:17] Before we get into that stage, though, I think AI is going to make it really tough for HR.

[00:19:22] They're on the front lines of this constant push for innovation right now.

[00:19:27] I'm constantly pushing innovation through employees.

[00:19:29] We just saw some pretty big things happen.

[00:19:32] I mean, Accenture just laid off 18,000 employees and noted that a big portion of that was because of the fact that they were replacing some of those roles with AI automated processes or expected them to be replaced.

[00:19:42] We saw that across the tech space, right?

[00:19:45] And yet on the flip side, we have a large part of our market and our industries where there's not enough people to do jobs, skilled labor work in the health care space, in frontline services,

[00:19:56] in spaces where things like data scientists, right?

[00:20:01] There's just not enough people to do that work.

[00:20:04] And so there is this bit, I think, of a quandary where HR, I laugh about being Gen X being the kid in the middle, but I think more than I've ever seen previously,

[00:20:14] HR is going to be the kid in the middle for the next couple of years because previously, I think HR wasn't actually...

[00:20:22] We didn't hear that at the dinner table, the conversations about labor and we didn't hear the conversations about compensation and conversations about diversity and inclusion inside your company at the dinner table.

[00:20:31] That's now a dinner table conversation.

[00:20:33] The CEOs have these expectations about what HR is going to do for them.

[00:20:37] Can HR do that work?

[00:20:39] And here is this mega trends and in the things that you've been seeing,

[00:20:42] How do you think HR can get through these next couple of years and really take advantage of that opportunity that AI could actually make the people part of the business more accessible to organizations?

[00:20:53] Yeah, it's interesting.

[00:20:54] I mean, it's a tough spot to be in.

[00:20:58] I mean, HR, it's a tough role when you do it right.

[00:21:01] When you do it right, it's a tough role, but it's...

[00:21:03] I mean, the opportunity is such a unique spot.

[00:21:06] I always say if employees are going to be the lifeblood of an organization, which so many organizations tout, then HR has to be the heartbeat.

[00:21:14] We have to make that happen.

[00:21:16] So it's just a unique place to be positioned within an organization.

[00:21:20] And you're right with still so much unknown about AI and what it's going to mean.

[00:21:26] And with this fervor around it and this race to get to these solutions, sometimes you take shortcuts and those shortcuts impact people.

[00:21:34] And oftentimes it impacts the most vulnerable of people who tend to lose out whenever something big wave sweeps an organization.

[00:21:43] So in some places, HR might be the only people to throw up the stop sign.

[00:21:47] Say, hold on, we got to consider maybe the unintended consequences of the things that you're trying to propose.

[00:21:55] But in order to throw up that stop sign, you got to be seen as a respected, credible voice in those conversations.

[00:22:02] Because if they don't respect you, then they're going to look right past that, maybe even to their own detriment.

[00:22:08] I think one of the areas that HR probably can take a more leadership role in this is modeling the right behaviors.

[00:22:16] There are many opportunities to bring AI into HR, into our processes.

[00:22:25] And the truth is most of the stuff that AI can help us with is the stuff that we didn't like doing anyway.

[00:22:32] So it's not a threat. I mean, we keep saying we want to be more strategic.

[00:22:37] For 20-something years, HR, we want to be more strategic, a business partner.

[00:22:41] We want to be credible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:22:43] Well, let's use AI to get rid of some of this mundane tactical stuff that's really important.

[00:22:49] It's got to get done. But let AI do it.

[00:22:52] It can do it faster and the product can do it much more accurately than we can so that we can spend some time on the people sciences, as I call it.

[00:23:02] Really understanding the people in organizations.

[00:23:05] So I think we can lead the way by figuring out what the applications of AI can be in our own organizations.

[00:23:13] And I don't like to think about it as workers going away as much as I like to think about it as work going away.

[00:23:21] I mean, there's certain aspects of HR that just, man, would give me headaches.

[00:23:25] And now we have a way to do this. We can automate this without any of us getting involved in that to the degree we were.

[00:23:32] Most of us would probably be happy with that as long as we feel like there's other work that I can do that's value added.

[00:23:41] And I'm probably going to be happier doing.

[00:23:44] Yeah, I think that's a great I think there's a couple of things that people could take those quotes and take them out and use them a little bit.

[00:23:50] Right. Because it is I always tell people I'm like, you've got to be cautious, but you can't be afraid of it.

[00:23:55] Right. You've got it. You've got to use common sense, but you can't not do it.

[00:23:59] Right. Even on the research side, we're looking at where and how we can invest in it.

[00:24:02] I think every organization is looking at that.

[00:24:05] And I do think that your point about the level of visibility of being a strategic HR function means that you do have the opportunity to at least voice the unintended consequences and make sure that people are aware of.

[00:24:17] I always tell people that HR can be the mirror to the organization.

[00:24:20] Right. They may decide that they're going to go a direction, but at least they see it when they're doing it.

[00:24:24] Right.

[00:24:27] You know, confidence and probably have to have a good track record.

[00:24:32] Have the credibility to be able to do that. Cliff, you were about to say something.

[00:24:35] Oh no, just remind me one of the things that we see with the strategic HR function in our survey year over year is that it's those that have that strategic HR function.

[00:24:45] They're highly correlated with having more innovation in the organization and some of the other stats people get.

[00:24:51] Okay, either more productive or they have better employee engagement, but innovation.

[00:24:56] And I think it touched on what you just said. Right. When you kind of don't have to worry about those little things, you can start thinking bigger picture.

[00:25:02] You feel less fear and that allows you to take more chances.

[00:25:05] That's where innovation and creativity often come from.

[00:25:08] Right. So you started to see, oh, okay, that connects the dots again, going back to, as you said, the human psychology behind it all.

[00:25:14] Yeah, this is fascinating.

[00:25:17] Well, this has been a great conversation where we've already run through our time like that.

[00:25:21] Like you said, Derek, earlier on, we could spend the whole time just talking about some of these concepts, just one of them.

[00:25:26] And we've gotten through quite a bit today.

[00:25:28] Before we wrap up today, is there anything else you'd like to maybe share with the audience?

[00:25:31] This is spilling the tea on HR tech.

[00:25:34] I know you got some new roles you guys are hiring for some new things you're doing over there at UKD.

[00:25:38] Anything you're willing to share with our audience to say, Hey, this is something that they should be keeping them aware of or on their minds?

[00:25:43] Yeah, absolutely. I'll do that.

[00:25:45] I'll mention real quickly the other megatrends.

[00:25:48] I talked about the first one.

[00:25:49] The other one is from buying and borrowing to building and mining.

[00:25:53] So it's really about introducing this fourth option into the traditional skills acquisition matrix, mining your organization for talent deep down within.

[00:26:02] And the other one is about the impending ESG gut check.

[00:26:05] So receipts are coming due on some of these areas around ESG, DEI, and all that.

[00:26:11] And it's putting C-suite in the spotlight.

[00:26:14] In terms of what's coming down the pike, we are about to put a posting out for lead economists that are reporting up through the Workforce Institute.

[00:26:24] We're really excited about this potential role.

[00:26:28] Again, we write a lot about the labor market.

[00:26:31] We do a workforce activity report.

[00:26:34] And we want to lean a little bit more into making sure that we understand and our customers understand more than just the headlines, but more the details around the economy and how it might affect them.

[00:26:46] People probably have heard of, if you've heard of UKD, you've probably heard about this great place, the work hub that we're excited about.

[00:26:53] We just introduced, it's just really exciting opportunities for organizations to really make progress in especially a DEIB number.

[00:27:03] So you mirror the data that we have at UKD with the best practices and the data in the background, that great place to work has you put it all together.

[00:27:13] And we hope we can have leaders and organizations that don't know necessarily how to make decisions because they don't either have enough information or don't quite know what to do with the information they have.

[00:27:24] We want to give them a little nudges to say, based on 30 years of research, 100 million data points, here are some things that will be successful if you do it.

[00:27:34] Here's some things that you probably want to do it this way.

[00:27:37] So we're excited about that.

[00:27:39] We think that's going to be a big boost to help organizations create a better experience for their employees.

[00:27:46] I love the great places to work on the DEIB conversation because I think a lot of times it's a very US-centric conversation, right?

[00:27:53] Especially in sort of our technology and our data.

[00:27:55] And the one thing about great places to work and then bringing their database to what you guys are doing is it's a multinational, international association.

[00:28:03] The group itself has lots of arms and legs across the globe.

[00:28:08] And that benchmarking data gives you a visual into DEIB in different countries, which is actually unique.

[00:28:15] Every country has its own DEIB challenges and ways of looking at diversity, equity, and inclusion, some more rigorously than others and some with differing views on it.

[00:28:24] But I think having a more global view versus a US-centric view is going to be really good for any organizations you're looking at.

[00:28:29] So that's, I think, a call out for what you guys are doing with that group.

[00:28:33] The other thing I was really excited to hear you mention on your mega trends is this idea of mining.

[00:28:39] We know we've been talking a lot about skills and skills management.

[00:28:42] We're actually seeing a bit of a decline in investments in it this year, and that's okay.

[00:28:46] Because I think what we saw is that people needed to step back and clear out their data and make sure they actually knew how to do this.

[00:28:52] And so I think we're going to see a lot of people sort of really taking stock of how the technology can help them this year.

[00:28:58] And so I think that's going to be exciting.

[00:29:00] And the ESG conversation, that one goes up and down.

[00:29:03] I'm glad to hear you guys are seeing some of that too, because we definitely saw it in our conversations, but it was much more of a cautious step, but definitely the European market.

[00:29:14] They have high expectations for how that's going to play across the market and the globe.

[00:29:19] And so I think if you're a multinational company, you really can't shy too far away from it.

[00:29:23] Yeah, now it's fascinating.

[00:29:24] There's a lot of push-pull going on.

[00:29:26] And we just think 2024 is going to be an opportunity for organizations to separate themselves from their peers.

[00:29:34] We call it the walkers separating the walkers from the talkers, because it's great to say all this stuff.

[00:29:39] But now that we're past the worst of the pandemic and all that, we're not in crisis mode anymore.

[00:29:45] It's time to start actually following through on some of these promises.

[00:29:49] Or you may lose it for a long time.

[00:29:51] If you don't do it in 2024, you're going to lose a lot of credibility and it may take a long time to recover.

[00:29:58] Yeah, definitely.

[00:29:59] Cliff, any questions on your side before we wrap up today?

[00:30:02] I just want more of a comment.

[00:30:04] I really like how big you think, Dr. Conrad, because when you look at what you've written and what you've done, you're thinking about how these sort of things at work can transform America, as you said in one of your books, or just transform the world and how we do.

[00:30:17] I think it's very important.

[00:30:18] It's very easy, especially for me when I'm looking at kind of little pieces of data and going, okay, this is important for this space.

[00:30:26] But then as you kind of get bigger, and as Stacey was saying in the beginning, when you start to really think about all those effects piling up like when you work at huge companies like UKG,

[00:30:35] and you start thinking about all the different ways that these sort of tiny, what seemed like small, just little way of life improvements, just little things that are part of your work.

[00:30:48] And it goes into that whole life work thing that's been going on at UKG too.

[00:30:52] Think about how this affects just your world.

[00:30:55] And it starts to be a bigger conversation than you just love to hear it.

[00:30:59] Yeah, well, I appreciate that, man.

[00:31:01] I have kids and open my book with the whole book is dedicated to them and hoping that they inherit a world that's better than the one that I had.

[00:31:10] And I'm hoping that my role, my team's role, our company, our unique approach is positively impacting that.

[00:31:19] I think we all have a responsibility to do what we can in that area.

[00:31:23] And I'm definitely, I'm trying to take advantage of that.

[00:31:26] The window that I have, the stage that I have to say what I think is important and what's more than about just about selling a piece of technology.

[00:31:35] These are bigger picture questions that I'm glad I'm at an organization that allows me to do that.

[00:31:40] Yeah, where's your GenX cynicism?

[00:31:42] Yeah.

[00:31:44] I get bouts of it.

[00:31:45] That's so optimistic.

[00:31:46] I get bouts of it, I promise you.

[00:31:48] Remove your GenX, your GenX card there.

[00:31:53] Now, I think the fun thing about GenX if you know us, right?

[00:31:57] We're cynical, but we have a positive view to the cynicism.

[00:32:00] That's right.

[00:32:03] Yeah, on that note of putting it all in categories.

[00:32:06] Thank you, Derek.

[00:32:07] We really appreciate this conversation.

[00:32:09] This is even better than what we ended up having at the HR Tech Conference.

[00:32:12] So I'm going to say this is a win for all of us.

[00:32:14] And really, this has been a pleasure.

[00:32:17] I think as Cliff said, I think what you're doing and the work that you're doing at the Institute and the work that you're doing with your sort of broader thought leadership is really making a difference.

[00:32:26] Right.

[00:32:27] And I think that's the power of all of this, right?

[00:32:29] The opportunity to sort of elevate the thinking and help everyone sort of figure out what more can they be doing.

[00:32:34] Right.

[00:32:35] So hopefully this will give everybody who's listening today a little bit of a few ideas, a couple of quotes, couple of comments.

[00:32:41] You can take back to your office to apply and put into practice.

[00:32:45] If you do want to get a chance to connect up with Dr.

[00:32:48] Derek Conrad, they can find you both, I think on the UKG website, on LinkedIn or through the Workforce Institute website.

[00:32:54] There's a website there as long as the mega trends can be downloaded there.

[00:32:57] So please make sure you avail yourself of that.

[00:32:59] Also, if you had any comments or questions about the data points that Cliff was mentioning on the annual HR system survey, if you listen to us on a regular basis, you can find that on the safety insights website.

[00:33:09] And as we're wrapping up today, I just want to say thank you to everyone who is out there supporting our annual podcast.

[00:33:15] To Cliff for, as usual, pulling all the questions and all the material together for our program.

[00:33:20] To Dr.

[00:33:21] Derek Conrad for being our guest host this week with us.

[00:33:25] Also, for anyone else who's interested in learning a little bit more about where we'll be at and what we'll be doing, please be sure to go to our website and sign up for our newsletter to get ongoing updates on the research launches, when we'll be speaking or visiting,

[00:33:38] and when you can participate in the annual survey, which is opening May 1st.

[00:33:41] So put that on your calendar.

[00:33:43] Be sure to listen to our sister, HR Huddle podcast.

[00:33:46] HR, we have a problem hosted by our CEO, Terry Zipper.

[00:33:49] The HR Huddle episodes.

[00:33:51] Like, comment.

[00:33:52] Those are really important to making sure that we continue to have opportunities to do these podcasts and share them with everyone to stay up to date with immediate breaking HR tech news and get all the behind the scenes content.

[00:34:03] You can follow us at safety and insights on LinkedIn.

[00:34:06] It's X now, I think not Twitter any longer and Instagram.

[00:34:09] Thank you to our production team, including Brand Method Media Group, who helps us produce our podcast run by amazing founder Kelly.

[00:34:15] Our marketing team, Lisa Renko and Summer Orlano, who makes sure all of this gets out and accessible by everyone.

[00:34:20] And most importantly, thanks to our listeners and community.

[00:34:23] We couldn't do this without you.

[00:34:25] And this is it for the episode of Spilling the TNHR Tech.

[00:34:28] We hope it's been just the brew you needed to start the engines running this week.

[00:34:32] We'll be back.

[00:34:33] Well, I don't know if it will be two weeks, but we'll be back in a few weeks with another pot of boiling hot HR tech updates and insights for everyone.

[00:34:39] So thanks, everyone.

[00:34:40] Bye.

[00:34:41] Thank you all.

[00:34:42] Take care.