Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - A conversation on recent acquisitions, AI’s impact, targeting frontline workers, plus new data on compensation trends and DEI investments.

[00:00:00] We have to remember that every action we take in a business creates a reaction by our employees, and behaviors, if that's what we're trying to really change, are really hard to change once you lose trust. And I think that's going to be the number one conversation we're going to have to have is that, yeah, we're in a market where there's more resources for the moment, but that is not a long-term conversation that we can have inside of most of our organizations. And you've got to remember that once you lose trust, it's really hard to gain it back.

[00:00:29] So just be very wise about how you're managing things in this environment. And let's just be real honest, let's not as an employer, because you have an abundance of resumes, get too cocky because, you know, things will change quickly, especially based on what we're seeing in the labor numbers. So 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.

[00:01:05] Welcome everyone to Spill in the TNHR Tech, where we focus on the hottest HR tech news everyone needs to know to be in the know. We break down the news of the week and we help you make sense of what it means for our industry and how it can impact your organization. We are recording today on March 13th. We're almost to St. Paddy's Day. That is my youngest son's birthday. So always a big day for me, Cliff. So I do love St. Paddy's Day, but it is, we're wrapping up towards the end of first quarter for those who are on an annual spread.

[00:01:33] So we're going to be focusing today on bringing you all the news that you can use this week. And I'm your host, Stacey Harris, the chief research officer and managing partner for Sapient Insights Group, a research and advisory firm. And joining me today, as usual, is my co-host, Cliff Stevenson, director of research and principal anglers for Sapient Insights Group. Cliff, what a week for tea. We were busy last week. I'm pretty sure we're going to go over this week. There's a lot of things that are brewing. What's all the areas we're going to be talking about today?

[00:02:00] Well, we're going to start off by talking about where we'll be at some of these big holidays, including Cole's birthday early or mid-March coming up, St. Patrick's Day. Cooking a special dinner tonight for him because we won't be here next week. Yeah, that's so exciting. You told me we're going to be cooking. I'm very excited about that. We do have some M&A and some acquisitions quite a bit. We're going to be talking about AI. I don't think that's any surprise, but in a lot of different directions. So that's pretty cool.

[00:02:28] We're going to be talking about frontline workers that we have known has been kind of a hot topic. Happens a lot of times during these moments of economic uncertainty. But, you know, just really kind of cool stuff, cool uses of technology, interesting directions for things to go. We've got some people movement. And as you mentioned, we had said we've had so many news stories, so much M&A activity.

[00:02:55] And we got some reports out that actually shows this. You know, we're data people. This is what we believe in. So we kind of knew it anecdotally. But to see some of these reports come out, we're going to talk about that, about what's happening in the HR tech industry as a whole. Spilling the tea there. And then, you know, we want to talk a little bit about some new tools that are coming out from companies you may have heard of, some you may not have.

[00:03:20] And some reports that have come out just in general with some very interesting topics. So and if we have time, we might even talk about some legislation affecting AI. And if not, then we will make sure that it's in the show notes. It's in the show notes. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot to cover. Legislation is, I think, is on everybody's mind. But the problem is we don't know where it's going to land, right? Right. So we'll talk a little bit about all that.

[00:03:43] So just real quickly, where you can find us over the next probably three to four months right now is next week, you and I will both be at iSolve's user conference analyst event. They're kind of doing March 16th through the 18th in Scottsdale, Arizona. That's going to be really nice. We're going to get a chance to talk to a couple of customers. We're going to get a chance to talk to several of the iSolve team members to learn more about what they're doing right now and how they're sort of doubling down, I think, in what we call the upper SMB or lower mid market space. And so that'll be exciting to hear a little bit more about.

[00:04:12] And then, Cliff, you're going to be in Las Vegas as well, kind of jumping on a flight over to talk to ADP's student executive summary group March 18th and 19th. And you'll be over there in Las Vegas. And then I'm going to be going April 1st to Anaplan for their customer event in New York. So let's hope the weather is good by then in New York. So please let me know if it's going to get any better up there. We just booked that one because we've been having some conversations about workforce planning and where the market's heading.

[00:04:40] I had a really great conversation with a good friend of mine, Rupert, recently about how this market is changing and shifting. And so we're going to bring back some data on what's happening in the Anaplan space. Rupert Murdoch? No, not Rupert Murdoch. Sorry. No, I have to go look what Rupert's wants. I was going to say, I don't know what Rupert's wants. But, oh, yeah. So then we'll have a webinar that everyone can join in on, right? Not long after that. Yeah. Rupert Bader. See, I think it was a B, but now you're asking me to look up last name. I'm sorry.

[00:05:16] Conversations. Yes. And we are going to be at the HiBob webinar. That's April 22nd. You and I will both be sort of jointly doing that. And that's going to be interesting. It's going to be the HR Tech Playbook, Smarter Investments for Long-Term Growth. That we're kind of talking about what we'd like to talk through is sort of the difference between sort of how you make decisions with your HR technology and whether you're going to go on the value side or the increase in efficiencies and what's driving those buying decisions. That's right. So, yeah.

[00:05:42] And then April 22nd, I'll be heading out to Workday's Innovation at Napa Valley, which is exciting. And then back to back. So I'm going to do a John over to see my grandkid who is in Hawaii between that time. We're going to the Oracle Analyst Summit April 29th. So both those are going to be out in California, Redwood side. And then Cliff, I'm going to be doing the ISOL People Connect May 6th and 7th, do another keynote there, speaking to the regional event.

[00:06:06] And I'll then be heading over to Unleashed on May 8th to do a presentation on, it wouldn't be surprising, AI. But we're going to have one of Workday's customers who will be coax presenting with me. And we'll be talking about how they're investing in AI on a practical level. And then you'll be at WorkHuman, right? Where's that going to be at? That's going to be over in Denver. So at the Gaylord there in Denver. That's always a really good event.

[00:06:29] As I talk to people that haven't been, it is very sort of people-focused, which makes sense, right? They're in that engagement recognition space. It's a big networking event. They always have speakers outside of HR tech. I think I've seen George Clooney, for instance, and Selma Hayek there. So, you know, really about celebrating the people. Yeah. And usually right about now we are going to Qualtrics. And we didn't get to do that this year.

[00:06:57] Qualtrics is doing Think Aguilera. So I know Tammy was letting me know. So it is always good to see some of these outside speakers and people talking. But we'll be wrapping up the UKG event. Then they do their Analyst Day in Miami on May 22nd. Cliff will get to stay in the Florida area. I will be traveling down by then. Hopefully all the weather will be turned up in a positive direction. So it's going to be a busy couple of months. And then, oh, and then we have one last event happening in May.

[00:07:23] So you and I will be then flitting from Miami to back to Las Vegas again for Cornerstone Spark event, which is May 27th and 29th. I'm speaking at their executive round track. Cliff will be attending and doing some podcast sessions there as well. So exciting stuff. And then we've got a lot of other things after that. But we've decided we're going to keep it to the three-month window. I think that's a lot.

[00:07:44] So now that everybody knows where we're going to be at and if they want to reach out to us or want to touch base with us when we're at any of those events, let's talk a little bit about what's going on. Lots of acquisition. I think we're going to start there, right? Yeah, we are. It's hard to know what's the biggest one. But I think the one people have heard of will be DEAL, acquiring Safeguard Global's payroll division. I always have to be careful here because I've heard it reported as acquiring Safeguard Global. It's just the payroll division, but that's still a major part.

[00:08:13] And we're going to talk a little bit, too. There's been some interesting analysis done on sort of the motivations and everything that that brings. But, you know, in general, what we're doing is just basically adding a lot more global payroll abilities, really getting into the ability to serve different types of customers in different geographies.

[00:08:38] And so also this brings in some of the Workday partnerships as well, right, Stacey? Yeah. Since Safeguard has that partnership and agreement with them. So, you know, basically it is an expansion in terms of reach. And as Thomas Otter, I think, we'll go into his in detail more, you know, believes that this will be a revenue generation, if I believe. Yeah.

[00:09:07] I mean, this is really basically I'm assuming that DEAL is going to be taking the Safeguard payroll customers and trying to move them onto the DEAL platform. That would be my expectation on this, right? It's not it's not filling a hole for them, per se. Right. It's acquiring customers to some extent. What's as interesting is what Safeguard Global is keeping. And I don't know all that. So we don't have all those details. It's one of the conversations. Safeguard shows up a lot in our data, especially for global payroll, right? They're one of the largest global payroll, right?

[00:09:34] Because they have sort of the aggregate model, aggregating model. What I didn't hear in this, and I think we're going to get more detail on, is Safeguard's employer record business. I'm assuming all that's staying there. Their contract management business, their outsourcing of HR business, their all of that stuff, I think, is staying with Safeguard Global, my expectation would be. They've got a big sort of global recruitment business. And then so we're really just getting what is the global payroll from what I'm reading in the newsletters. And we'll get more details on this.

[00:10:00] But I think that kind of emphasizes what we're seeing happening in the market, which is this sort of separation of the services from the software and the technology. And there's more and more of that sort of, you know, do I get them all in one? Or can I keep managing a new technology and all the updates you've got to have with the new technology and manage all the services and all the outsourcing models? And some organizations are doubling down. ADP continues to show that you can bring these together, and that's a big part of what they're offering.

[00:10:28] And then you get someone like this where you're kind of seeing them separating. So that's going to be, I think, part of this conversation as we look forward, especially global. Global is really hard to do services and tech at the same time, right? Oh, absolutely. And we've seen stumbles there before. So being aware of that and moving forward will be a big part of any possible success. So for the next one, I'm going to caution anyone that's listening to this with their children in the car.

[00:10:55] When I say that BTS is acquiring Soundboard, I do not mean the K-pop superstar band BTS. I know that there's a lot of stans. This is BTS Group AB, which is a global consultancy. I think BCG, Boss Consulting Group, or one of those writ large. They are acquiring Soundboard. Soundboard was a fairly new company founded in 2016.

[00:11:18] We knew them, of course, as doing coaching and leadership development. A lot of the work that we do as well at Sapient Insights Group on some of the change management and leadership development is something they had done on some more of the tech side. And so we've been knowing none of them for quite some time.

[00:11:42] In fact, Christine Tao, one of the founders and CEOs, made a nice post, Stacey, that you sent to me kind of talking about the motivations and what she expects for the future. And she was very impressed by where they look to be going and sort of the reasons for doing this. It wasn't just the sort of money, but because they wanted to expand the reach and bring some of these lessons into their consultancy practice. Hi, I'm Steven Rothberg. And I'm Jeanette Leeds. And together, we're the co-hosts of the High Volume Hiring Podcast.

[00:12:12] Are you involved in hiring dozens or even hundreds of employees a year? If so, you know that the typical sourcing tools, tactics, and strategies, they just don't scale. Yeah. Our bi-weekly podcast features news, tips, case studies, and interviews with the world's leading experts about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to high volume hiring. Make sure to subscribe today. Yeah. Yeah. The big conversation around coaching and mentoring is, are you bringing a platform? Are you bringing a platform with coaches?

[00:12:42] And Christine was trying to build something a little bit different where she was sort of creating this network and this platform that would support the coaching models, right? And I think that was, I was excited to see where she's going with this. I also think it's a tough time right now for coaching and mentoring, right? We know that much of the finances behind coaching and mentoring programs and coaching and mentoring solutions were oftentimes tied to, not oftentimes, but oftentimes tied to the DEI conversations within organizations.

[00:13:09] And we know as that market is being impacted by the social conversation and the government conversations that are going on, that's having an impact on leadership development around the world. And how do you disconnect or connect or think differently about the conversation if the words like DEI are being challenged within your organization? It's the best way that you can put it, right?

[00:13:34] And so I think it's a good time to be part of a bigger organization that has, one, more legal capacity and, two, more ability to kind of speak broadly about the conversation on leadership development. Because we're going to have this conversation, I think, for at least the next couple of years here in the U.S., but globally as well. So, yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting you mentioned that, you know, as you know, we're going to be talking about some of those topics a little later on from some news that's come out involving HR technology.

[00:14:03] But the last of the acquisitions is Employ, the group, you know, that has Jazz HR, you know, among others. Clever. Clever, yeah. It has. I was just going to, because we're, they're called Employ, Inc., but they have a group of JetSag, Job, Like, that was the name. I couldn't remember at the moment. Those three had been combined under the employee brand, right? Yes.

[00:14:27] And, in fact, Steve Cox, CO, met with us personally at HR Tech this last year and talked a lot about their vision. And so this is a big part of that, right? Because Pillar is one that you already knew, Stacey. And, in fact, you had highlighted about, oh, this will be interesting because of the tech that they have. So Employ acquired Pillar. So Pillar is also very new on the talent acquisition side, but another sort of AI-focused tech, would you say so? Yeah.

[00:14:57] Yeah. So I highlighted them in 2022 as one of the emerging technology organizations to watch. They were on my HR Tech presentation, and they were an organization that I had a chance to brief with. So not too much more than briefing in there. Matt, I think it was the gentleman who did the briefing in the time. It was a really, Tim Sackett had brought them to my attention. So just a kind of like, I think he's connected with them, and he's well-known in the recruiting space. But they were primarily starting out as a video interviewing sort of platform.

[00:15:24] But what was really interesting was it was a video interviewing platform that also included the ability to give feedback to the interviewer, not just the interviewee. Oftentimes, when we think about video interviewing, there's a lot of feedback to the interviewer about what they could have done better. And then there's a lot of issues there now, especially with AI. And there was some real important lawsuits that had been came down around that about not judging people based off of sort of how they came across in video.

[00:15:51] What Pillar did was flip that a little bit, was actually started to give feedback to the people who the managers who were giving interviews. Particularly, they were highlighting maybe how a question might have been asked that might have been a biased way of asking the questions, how it could have been improved. So it was like a coaching tool for the people giving interviews for the people who were the managers versus the candidates. It also had a criteria that it had built out of like 50 different characteristics and how you would rate people on those.

[00:16:19] And that was kind of, and we've seen that in this process before. But it was built off of this idea of if we have some standard ways to do evaluations and assessments, we will remove some of the biases and get much more. Because you're not just looking at overall, does this candidate feel like they're the right candidate? You're starting to get specific commentary on creativity, specific commentary on skills and capabilities that we're looking for for this specific job. And you're able to start to rank and rank that in a little different way. So it was really interesting.

[00:16:49] It had a lot of AI early on already built into it. It had an embedded natural language processing that I thought was really, really powerful. I often had, when I had first talked to them, I said, boy, it's a hard market right now. Then there's so many video interviewing tools and so many recruiting tools. Had they thought about flipping this to more performance and coaching and mentoring, right? With some of the tool capabilities. What it looks like here is they're doubling down on the recruiting industry and tying pillar to JobViteLever and JazzHR,

[00:17:18] which I'm assuming they probably will, is going to make those tools that much more interesting. So I think, well, it was a good pickup, I think, and definitely a good pickup from a technology perspective for them. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the sort of points that Steve Cox had highlighted in this, the CEO, talking about promoting responsible hiring practices throughout, right? So that's in all of the different ways you might engage with any of these platforms,

[00:17:45] helping combine those insights that are given from the AI to improve the hiring experience for both sides. So another sort of AI-based talent acquisition, a bit of news. Now, this is not an acquisition, but instead would be a partnership, a sort of direct partnership between HireEasy and TauRu. HireEasy is an AI, they call it AI first.

[00:18:09] I just call it, you know, AI-enabled talent acquisition platform that does, uses AI in all the forms, right? Through the sourcing, through the recruitment marketing, all of that stuff, and the analysis, is with TauRu, who does recruitment marketing slash advertise specific for frontline workers and trades people. As we know that they often work in different boards and different areas to be found.

[00:18:35] So to combine all of that, I found pretty interesting, and I think it's a signal towards something we have noted on the show prior, that during moments of economic uncertainty, which we are definitely in and are going towards, I'm not trying to jinx it, that's just where it's at, we see more people that are going to be in frontline workers and have greater reliance on them.

[00:18:59] And so being able to quickly get those people into your organization and find the right people for different types of works, for all sorts of contingent labor will be key. And so I think this is another signal that the market knows this and is looking for ways to be sort of exclusive partners and work together to do volume hiring of these types of people that don't sit in traditional spaces that we might see it as sort of knowledge workers.

[00:19:27] Yeah, and I don't know Hire Easy or TauRu very well. You probably know him better than I do. But what I am intrigued by is this. We know the frontline worker model has been a conversation that's been around for quite a while. We were asked to do a couple of sessions on it last year, and they were very interesting. What I think is also interesting is this trade worker model, right? We added trades as an industry to our data set last year, I think the year before, it's over the last two years.

[00:19:53] And it had pretty quickly jumped up to like 6% or 7% of our data set, right? Like it was, you know, we have a lot of industries like agriculture, it's like 1%, but we still have it because, you know, people are tracking it. But the trades, I think, is an area where we're seeing not only, not just because it used to be just single shingle trades was a model, right? We are seeing more companies that are trade-based that are growing and rapidly growing and becoming regional and becoming specific in their sort of very focused approaches in the market.

[00:20:22] And so I do think as an industry, that's growing rapidly, and we're going to see more of that and the need for training in that. Because that is the area where I, one of my favorite things, there was an AI conversation I was listening to just the other day by one of the people who does sort of MIT education in it. And his comment was, you know, I asked one of the robot makers about how quick, when's the next time that I'm going, how quickly am I going to see a robot who comes and replaces my hot water tank? And he's like, the guy blanched and said, no, probably not in our lifetime, right?

[00:20:51] Like that is an area where we are unlikely to see AI do replace the whole role, but they will improve it. And so we are looking at that sort of need to have bigger companies in that area, right? Yeah, you know, and it's interesting too. I think it also speaks to a broader thing that's been happening over the last 10 years or so, which is the democratization of HR tech. Meaning that we are seeing HR tech used in areas we didn't see. It used to just be like, okay, it's in these type of workers and this sort of space needs to need these tools.

[00:21:19] And now we see it in small businesses, right? That are, have access to these things like, you know, compensation management and being able to hire people in different areas and get access to that data and think strategically about these things because they have access to the technology. And that was going to be the case for frontline workers too, as we see learning and training pushed to POS systems or, you know, on the job sort of work on demand pay. That would be, you know, only of interest to certain types of workers, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:21:49] It's interesting because, you know, a lot of these companies, even we see it in advertising. You know, we see the UKGs in the work days on sports things and everyone's going, well, who are they? And I'm like, well, I actually know that one. But it shows that they see a broader market. More people need this sort of tech. And I think this is once again, like, okay, let's take this that we used to use for just a specific type of worker.

[00:22:11] And now let's combine all this, you know, let's give access to these tools so you can quickly find the certifications you need that are so important for trades at a glance that may not be as important in some other types of work. But, you know, so different types of tools for different people. So that's pretty interesting. Speaking of sort of broad based appeal, we have some people movement, right?

[00:22:34] So we see Stephanie has been promoted to executive director of workforce and international labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. So, yeah. This one, I think you and I were like, you're like, why did we post this one? And I had called her out because, one, I've seen Stephanie write early on about the labor shortage market, right?

[00:22:57] Like she has had, she's been a voice in this space about labor shortage market and what's coming and what's impacting that because it doesn't feel like we're in a labor shortage market right now because there's so many resumes and so many people out of work and a lot of layoffs going on. But in reality, we know it at a certain point, we're going to get to a point where we need people to do the jobs and there's just not going to be enough people to do the jobs. And she's been talking about that a lot. So I was excited to see that she had been elevated to that executive director role here because I think we need people who have that understanding in those spaces, right? Yeah.

[00:23:26] And also I noted that she is directing the U.S. Chamber's Data Center Initiative, right? So taking a more data-centric approach to these and not just going, well, it doesn't feel like that. And it's like, oh, here's what the data says so you can make more future-looking decisions, something that we are very keen on at Sapient Insights Group and certainly on this show. The other one of note was Andrew Taylor joining Solarix as their chief technology officer.

[00:23:53] Interesting, Taylor, Andrew joined previously at Alight doing some engineering. And I think that's really important just broadly when making these sort of hires. You know, taking someone from the engineering side into these executive roles I think helps, especially when sort of crafting these policies.

[00:24:14] Exactly your example of the person talking about what are the possibilities for fixing a water heater or how do we use this technology, right? How will these robots help? If you get someone from outside, you know, that's kind of done more. And I'm not saying anything bad about academia or theory, but Hev's not doesn't really understand the technology, but they're the ones making the executive level decision. You might end up getting a Boeing, right?

[00:24:40] You might get a, you know, and here's what we could do to save money rather than here's what we could do that actually is within the realistic vision of the product. So I just enjoyed that background, right? So. Yeah, Solarix, I think for anybody who doesn't know them is a provider of cloud-based benefits administration and communication solutions. And as Cliff had noted, what was Andrew's previous role was as that leading the healthcare navigator and platform engineering teams at Alight,

[00:25:06] which I think what we are seeing is the benefit space is changing dramatically. I had quite a few conversations about this just the other day, is that there's a real sort of shuffle taking place around what is a benefits platform? How do we get out of just administering and how do we get into managing and strategically thinking about benefits, particularly here in the U.S. where it's such a big part of cost for employers, but even outside the U.S. where it's becoming a differentiator and gathering talent for many organizations.

[00:25:36] And so we really do have to think a little bit about sort of how we're rethinking the benefits platform. And that's, I'm not surprised by this move and by seeing more, we're probably going to see more moves in the benefits place. We just saw PlanSource get a whole new sort of leadership team. They've got their new marketing team. We're getting ready to have some updates with them. We know Aptia has come out from under Mercer and they're doing a lot of new things inside of what they're doing. We've seen a lot from Alight themselves, also rebranding, refiguring it out. I think we know that Workday just launched their wellness application.

[00:26:04] We're going to see this market shift pretty rapidly, I think, in the next two years. So it's a space to keep watching for both new approaches to doing it strategically, but also new sets of data to help us make better decisions, both at an employee level and a business level around this. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And as you said, as we've been talking about, it seems like there's been a lot of M&A activity, but Drake Star put out a report that we saw a lot of chatter about.

[00:26:33] We were kind of collecting the best commentary or some of the best insights that we saw. I'm going to be referencing Anita LaTink's commentary or her sort of insights on this report, but we'll also have the link to the report itself in the show notes. So take a look at that. But what it showed was that we saw Q4 had the highest level of M&A activity in 2024.

[00:27:00] So, and it's looking like it's going to continue into 2025. There's a great trend line that you can see on there where you see the sort of NASDAQ composite, right, on sort of, it's going up. It's certainly going up, but it's, you'd have to be blind not to see the sort of pink line that's above it. That wasn't, we did not pay to make sure it was pink, but the actual HCM activity far outpaces it and is continues to go up. So just really amazing stuff.

[00:27:29] So there was a company expects 9.4% annual market growth in the HR tech space. The number of M&A transactions has been climbing both in deal count and value meaning, not just that we see a lot of them, but there are of increasing value. Some ones that were highlighted were ADP, of course, acquiring workforce software and OnPay raising 100 million in Series B.

[00:27:58] So it's really, it's really impressive. And it's nice to see that because as I've mentioned, this is a period of utility in the economy. We're, you know, heading towards globally down period has happened cyclically. I'm not trying to, again, you know, be the doom and gloom person, but in our space and HR tech, we see because of something Stacey mentioned earlier, people are looking to get, you know, they're saying we need the greatest value. We need to know what's going to happen in a shortage.

[00:28:27] We need to have the ability to meet our client needs. Just because things are down 5%, 10% doesn't mean that it's completely wiped out. We just need to extract the greatest value we can out of the goods and services we provide. So we need the right people and we need to make sure that we're being efficient and effective. And clearly that we're in the right space to be. So a bit of positivity to offset.

[00:28:52] I was going to say, I'm like, I know, you know, sometimes as we're listening to news, there's a lot is overwhelming. But I think, you know, we saw a huge uptick in investment in HR-based applications coming out of COVID. It dropped a little bit, quite a bit last year, kind of went off the cliff almost last year. And that's part of what we're seeing is sort of a re-pick back up again. Some of it, to be very blunt and honest, as you're pointing out, Cliff, is that it's a good time if you've got money in the bank to pick up technology that, you know,

[00:29:23] might not do as well through what could be a recession, right? And so this is a good time to pick up on talent, a good time to pick up on applications. But it's also a good time because of what's happening in the AM market to get ahead of competitors by, you know, pulling out those elements where people have done the R&D that you didn't have to pay for, right? And that's a little bit of the conversation we're going to have in a minute. And it kind of leads into the conversation about what we're seeing in the broader benefits payroll, right?

[00:29:51] Yeah. In fact, PlanSource, this was very recent, last couple of days, they've said they're heavily investing in AI in ways to help HR teams to, you know, have chatbots. This will be powered by ChatGPT, but also generate reports, data visualization tools, all with an eye towards increasing efficiency. There's a well-known PlanSource, if anyone would know this, costs for healthcare are going to go up, right?

[00:30:20] So that's going to, again, increase that pressure to be efficient, to be effective, to give value to your people. And a way to do that is going to be for them to increase the amount of AI tools that they use. So across the board, they are looking at ways that they can help give those insights, answer questions, you know, not just the simple sort of chatbots of, okay, it's easy keyword and moves on,

[00:30:44] but to really make predictions and help you understand how to, you know, better administer your benefits for your people and for the people themselves that are using it to get the right answers they need in a timely way. Yeah. PlanSource predicts based off of their data, and we'll have to see if this holds true, but, you know, we know the cost for healthcare, for employers expected to rise for the healthcare costs for their employees, particularly here in the States, but it is global,

[00:31:10] has been rising every year for the last several years, but they're not assuming another probably 7% increase over this next 12 to 24 months. And because of that, organizations, as I've said, are looking for ways to better understand. So they're announcing kind of are unveiling their AI plans and roadmap, but it's always kind of an interesting thing when a vendor kind of launches their roadmap, not all the tools quite yet. So I think, you know,

[00:31:36] part of this is getting ahead of the conversation for where PlanSource wants to be and where they want to be known for. And some of it is saying, hey, there's a new way to think about benefits. We have to be part of that conversation, right? So I was pleased to see them come out with this. I think this fits with the new team conversation. Like I said, we'll get more updates here in another couple of weeks when you are briefing with them. Yeah. That's right. And speaking of exactly that, you know, difference between that, Engagedly launches

[00:32:03] an entire agentic AI framework, right? Using AI agents across their platform, their talent management, writ large is Engagedly, right? So then they will have a supervising what they're calling a super agent, but basically just a coordinating AI agent called Marissa AI that helps bring all those together. This actually reminds me of something we talked about, I think two shows ago about Workday,

[00:32:29] putting together a model of keeping all of your AI sort of under a register, right? So an employee of record for AI agents. I think that's a little bit of what they're trying to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of interesting that they're moving in that way too. But again, using AI across a bunch of different ways, helping with goals and task management, again, with any of the data and insights that need to be pulled, we've seen value in that,

[00:32:58] that sometimes can be time consuming. And it's something that AI can do. Again, I like to see this move towards using an AI and using an AI framework in ways that help sort of ease the burden of people rather than replacing people, right? Rather than saying, okay, this is something we know you can do, but here's a way to do it faster. And there's also less worry about anything sort of going wrong.

[00:33:24] We may not have time to talk about, but that's always concern of like, you know, there needs to be human oversight of this. And here we're saying, look, we're just trying to find ways to give you information and to highlight sort of interesting tidbits that might be coming out of here that you should be aware of that it would be hard or impossible for a human to see and bring those up. Yeah. I think there's kind of a difference than what we're seeing in our data. There's really

[00:33:50] three, three kind of levels of AI that are sort of organizations are trying to balance inside the organization. And we've been, maybe it's an opportunity for me and I could put out a little blog on this in the next couple of weeks is that, you know, first you have to get your data all in order because your agents and none of your agents, none of your AI can work effectively unless it knows where it's able to get the data and you have a amount of all that. So a lot of organizations working on their sort of intelligent data, lake warehouse, whatever, you know, it's going to be

[00:34:16] capable to work within the AI frameworks. And, and so I think a lot of these agent frameworks that are coming out in some of these organizations, in some of these platforms is, is they're now saying, Hey, I have the data inside at least this system that's all clean and relevant. And so I can put, pull something across that. And then there's kind of three levels. The first level being that we're seeing organizations really think about AI specific insights, which means guidance. And that's

[00:34:40] different than agents and chatbots. AI guidance is something that you have to understand where that's coming from and to use it, you have to have good judgment and you have to have good understanding of sort of how to read AI specific stuff coming into you. But it is to your point, seeing all of those, those things that you oftentimes are missing. The second level that we're seeing, which is, is oftentimes where there's a lot of confusion is what we call AI chatbot.

[00:35:04] So they're a little bit more like help pools, right? And some of them have a brand new all in agentic AI. Some of them just have what is traditional machine learning algorithms with some constant feeding and updating. And, and those are just as good at what they need to do, which is sort of gathered data and information and share it back in a way that makes sense. The agent model, from what I can understand, and most of the time we're talking to organizations is agents tend to be

[00:35:32] technology that can do the work for you. But here's the most important part is that it still needs human oversight, right? So it needs to be managed. And because it basically acts like a human being a lot more like the RPA, but with the ability to learn and overcome challenges where an RPA is more guided and flow managed. So this, this world needs clarity. And I think we're going to have to keep working on it, but it's, it's a really important component. And I do think that these frameworks and these models,

[00:35:59] these organizations are putting out have to be watched carefully for all of that, right? Yeah. Well, you know, that's interesting because it's such a good segue to something Steve Thomas wrote. So I would, if you don't mind, I want to jump to that really quickly. So Steve Thomas on LinkedIn, he had put out his thoughts on what he saw was some pricing models coming out. So sort of the way that AI agents are being sold. Now, again, this isn't when

[00:36:25] they're embedded within an HR platform, he's talking broadly about how they're being approached to the market. And he saw it as three tiers, knowledge worker at 2000 a month, software developer at 10,000 a month, and a PhD researcher at 20,000 a month. And he pushed back on this because almost for the reasons you said is because at its heart, an AI agent is just, you said, right? It's autonomous, self-improving software that connects complex and unstructured data sets,

[00:36:52] right? And so, you know, basically it's taking all of the sort of information you've got and bring it up, you know, and it's sort of more human-like model. So he says there shouldn't be tiers, you know, if it can do it, it can do it more or less. And, but, you know, he says something like an employee question on benefits and answers. And it's like, okay, that can be in that chatbot model that you just mentioned, Stacey. This doesn't necessarily require that it, you know, there should be

[00:37:20] a different sort of pricing model, but that's kind of, you know, he's putting this as an opinion. It's not necessarily, you know, our opinion or, or, you know, anything else, but it does go to that. And the people are starting to think about that in these tiers so much so that even the pricing models coming out of the complexity that is needed to do. But I do think it's a good way to reframe it in the way you said to get people as always thinking about what is it you're trying to accomplish?

[00:37:48] Not what could you do, but like, what do you need to do? What do you need to do? What, what's the outcome we're trying to achieve? If we got to keep going back to the outcomes, that's if I can just remind people, they do a lot of cool stuff. You got to have an outcome you're trying to achieve though, right? Absolutely. So, you know, going back though, to some AI information, you know, stuff that's going out. This one's a little more in the traditional, you know, of course there's going to be

[00:38:14] some AI backing, but this is salary.com's tool, salary IQ, that it will now be in 30 countries. So this is a compensation intelligence tool. So of course we know that all of these tools have an AI backing, but that's not really what they're pushing here. What they're saying here is that we're taking all of this data, you know, all of these data points that we've had for some time and now allowing it to reach out to a more global audience, using all of their, they have the

[00:38:43] proprietary AI that they use for that, but they understand that the real value is in all of the data that they've been able to gather, right? And taking all of that across all these and give it some time to gather that historical data before using it for any sort of predictive models. And you can sort of anticipate these broader economic changes and make your own decisions accordingly.

[00:39:11] Yeah. I always tell people, if you really want to understand skills and talent and the amount of data that you can gather in the market, I would highly look at all of these, what we call compensation solution providers. And there's not many of them in the market, right? It's a pretty small, small market. We're going to talk about two of them here just today. Okay. So this salary IQ, I think is a really interesting one because it, it is, it is directly connected to what we're seeing happen in sort of the general talent management, or we're seeing

[00:39:40] talent intelligence platforms come up, right? And I put quotes around that and I don't usually do air quotes, but talent intelligence, the term has been sort of used and bandied around quite a bit. And there's not really a good definition for it. Definition we have, at least in our research, based off of the buyers, what the buyers are putting budget towards, is they're looking for technology that will help them gather insights externally from their company on compensation,

[00:40:04] on skill sets, and on data from sort of the market as to, as to what are the newest roles that are coming out around all those things. So it's the three things we generally say. It's usually a request for compensation, a request for skill sets, and a request for sort of job roles and understanding how those are all sort of being mixed together. A salary IQ gives you a component of that, and they do do quite a bit with the skills as well. And so I'm interested to see sort of like how much this can either connect

[00:40:32] with or work directly with talent intelligence technology, because that external view is the hard one to get, but it's the most critical when you're looking forward for your organization. You're going to do a lot of internal assessing, a lot of internal skill management, but when you're looking forward, you got to really, really go with that. And that kind of leads into what we're seeing in the next conversation, right? On Payscale's data, right? Yeah. Payscale just put out their 2025 best practices report, compensation best practices report.

[00:41:00] Some interesting highlights there that I think were two that really stood out to me, and I don't know if there's others you want to talk about, Stacey, but their plan to give an increase, organizations plan to give a 3.5% pay increase in base salary, down slightly from last year's 3.8. Now, normally that's marked, you know, the COLA, cost of living increase, you know. But in years where the economy's a little harder to predict globally, that's where those tools really come into play, right? Because

[00:41:29] determining those sort of changes obviously has long-term effects. It's not the same as bonuses or anything like that, right? That's compounding. It goes on year after year. So the more data you have, the better access to that, but also understanding what does the rest of the market offer? Are we online? You can really see the value of having these type of tools. But one that touches

[00:41:52] on something that you mentioned earlier on the DEI, which is another one where we have seen sort of conflicting reports, because I think the big stories, bless you, are if you're not watching on... Sorry, yeah. If you're not watching on YouTube, you miss the air quotes, but you also miss the disease. Is that overall, this was fascinating to me, more organizations are in favor of DEI than not. Only 11% said they plan to pull back on DEI investments, while 28% plan to increase investments.

[00:42:22] Now, we've seen that in a few other ones. We haven't gotten our 2025 data yet. Please make sure you take the survey and add and let us know what you're doing there. But that is something we had heard anecdotally. We knew that the news stories were about the US current administration being soured on that. And we knew that stories would get out into the broader media if they made a sort of public statement about their stance on it one way or the other. But we knew internally that companies

[00:42:49] are saying, no, this provides value to us. This has nothing to do with public relations. We're not hiring people because of some mysterious quota. We're hiring people because they bring value to the organizations. This is how companies are run. So the more data to have, the better you can make these decisions based on what's best for your people and your company and not based on what you

[00:43:13] think is going on out there. Well, based off of public opinion, right? And that's a hard place to be in the market right now. Nobody wants to be on a canceled list, right? But I do think you've got to make decisions that are good for your company, right? And in some cases, good for your company ends up being public relations nightmare because terms get, you know, if you're an organization that has a lot of government contracts, you have to sort of address some of that challenges, right?

[00:43:43] But if you're an organization that is on the stock market, sometimes you're making statements to affect the stock market that don't have a lot to do with how your company is run or the money or the revenue it's going to make actual in the numbers, right? We see this all the time with layoffs and AI and all that kind of stuff. So I think in reality, I always tell people, look at the data, follow the data. I have a blog post I'm working on right now, which is, and I'm really working on this idea of follow the data, don't follow opinions or perceptions, right? Yeah, that's right.

[00:44:12] And a couple of quick sort of shout outs here as we're wrapping up. I had alluded to a pretty interesting sort of thought experiment or, you know, framework that Thomas Otter had put out. I, in his newsletter and all the link to that as well in the notes, if you'd like to see more about this, but he was sort of explaining MNA, emergency acquisition through the lens of income statements versus balance sheets, right? Saying a balance sheet is, a balance sheet acquisition is

[00:44:39] primarily adding an asset, you know, sort of the now and income statement acquisition primarily about adding revenue. And he mentioned specifically deal acquiring the payroll business safeguard example of an income statement acquisition, adding revenue down the road. So if it's, if that's how you think, if you're a financial person might be worth reading that. Yeah. And I want to highlight that he also mentions the ServiceNow acquisition of MoveWorks. Sorry, I had so many works conversations.

[00:45:07] And this was a really big acquisition for them at $2.85 billion. And so just as a, as a highlight that it, that it's sort of tangential to the HR market, but it has a lot to do with adding AI automation into the employee experience and that workflow conversations. You're going to hear more about that. And that was an idea on the other side of that, which was picking up the talent and picking up the new technology. And so I think whenever you're looking at acquisition deals, you've got to look at

[00:45:35] what, what, what's it doing in that market? What are we trying to achieve? And then if you're a customer of any of those organizations, your first step should be beelining back to that company and having conversation once they get through all the disclosures, having conversation about how does this align with my business goals and my roadmap now, now that things have changed, right? Absolutely. And then finally, there was a kind of broad story that you might've seen

[00:46:00] listener watchers on CNN and, but it relates to everything we've talked about today. And I didn't want to leave it without us talking about it, which was a story about federal employees in Nevada, choosing the words that they use in Microsoft Teams chats because of the perception that certain words might get them in trouble. And I think I am interested in this because there's so much possibility

[00:46:26] and value and ways that we can make our jobs better and more efficient by using some of these tools like natural language processing, right? When we use these tools to elevate people or to recognize work or to find interesting things in the data, right? Those are positive uses. And whether you are a buyer or a seller of these, how you frame the why of these tools is just as important as a what of these tools, right?

[00:46:53] Not just what can it do, but why would you use it? Because this is what will happen. People will see, oh, this is recording all the words I use. And if you say something like, we'll make sure that you're not talking negatively about our company or even do something, even if you don't say it directly, but in some way you find people getting in trouble. If you're using it for that method, people are going to know, and then you're not going to get honest feedback and the tools will

[00:47:16] become useless if you're using them in this way. So again, it's just sort of a cautionary tale, but it has strong, just, it just has a sort of a lot of meaning for those of us that are in this sort of emerging HR tech space to think about how we use these tools and how we present them, because we already have seen a bit of pushback on, you know, I don't want this replacing me, or, you know, I don't want this sort of job. There was one story that came out of California about

[00:47:45] Senator there trying to say there has to be human oversight. It can't just be AI making these decisions. Well, that doesn't exist right now, but it shows that people are sort of concerned about that being a possibility so much so that there should be legislation. So anyway, just an interesting story that is clearly, again, breaking out of just the HR tech news all the way to CNN. Yeah, I, this one really, it threw me in. And when you and I were talking about this one,

[00:48:12] we have to remember that every action we take in a business creates a reaction by our employees and behaviors, if that's what we're trying to really change, are really hard to change once you lose trust. And, you know, I think that's going to be the number one conversation we're going to have to have is that, yeah, we're in a market where, where there's more resources for the moment, but that is not a long-term conversation that we can have inside of most of our organizations.

[00:48:38] And you've got to remember that once you lose trust, it's really hard to gain it back. So just be very wise about how you're managing things in this environment. And, and let's just be real honest, let's not as an employer, because you have an abundance of resumes, get too cocky because, you know, things will change quickly, especially based on what we're seeing in labor numbers. So, all right, just as we sort of wrap today, a couple of big pushes, just a reminder, we are going to be launching the survey in just another month. So if you, and there will be a lot of

[00:49:06] new questions in there, not just about how AI is being used, but, but what do you want it to be doing? So again, this is your opportunity to speak to the market and maybe give some of your feedback back as HR. Are you seeing what's coming out of these vendors? Is it a value to you? Are you feeling like it's hitting the mark or are they really missing the mark? Good opportunity to give your voice on that. We also want to just note that be sure as you're looking to follow us on where we're going to be at, what we're doing, go to our website and sign up for our newsletter. That's where all of that information

[00:49:33] can be found at and updates on research launches will also be in there. And that's the best place to be able to access information. Be sure to listen to our sister HR Huddle podcast, HR We Have a Problem, hosted by CEO Terry Zipper. And if you like these huddle, HR Huddle podcasts and episodes, and you'd like to see more of them, please be sure to comment and subscribe at our work defined location. That's our new home with all of our other collaborative events. And also to stay up to date with immediate and breaking HR tech news, especially as we go traveling, Cliff and I will

[00:50:00] be putting all of our updates on LinkedIn. We might get some pictures on Instagram, but those are the two places you can probably capture the best information on what we're going to be doing. Thanks to our production team, including Brand Method Media Group, who helps us produce our podcast run by their amazing founder, Kelly Kelly, our marketing team, Summer Olano and Cindy Maurer. Thanks to our listeners and community. We couldn't do this without you. Thanks again, Cliff, for putting all this together. I know we ran through a lot of stuff today. And that's it for this episode of Spill in the T on HR Tech. We hope it's been just the news you needed and the brew you

[00:50:30] need to start the engines running for this week. And we'll see you back in two weeks. We'll be here. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone.