Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - How data integration and AI are shaping Workday’s HR tech strategy.

[00:00:00] We leverage the AI to summarize comments and to show you trends of where sentiment is going up and sentiment is going down and summarizing and suggesting to a manager, here's what you can do about it. That isn't tied to skills in any real way at all, but it's still adding a tremendous amount of value in things that HR teams otherwise had to go pull that data down, crunch it manually, hire a third party to work through it, come up with recommendations, maybe hire another third party to actually implement that thing.

[00:00:25] And so I think that's an example of a place where we see AI even outside the sphere of skills that's adding value.

[00:00:33] 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.

[00:00:52] Hi everyone, I'm Stacey Harris. I'm Chief Research Officer at Sapient Insights Group and this is our quick takes at the HR Technology Conference for Spilling the TNI at HR Tech.

[00:00:59] And I have two amazing guests here for you. We're going to be talking about what's going on in HR technology, both from a pay and a time management and a talent management perspective today.

[00:01:10] Joining me is Christina Golt, who is the general manager at Workday for Workforce and Pay. Make sure I got it right.

[00:01:18] You got it right.

[00:01:18] And then also is David Wachtel. Did I say it right?

[00:01:22] Okay.

[00:01:22] Who is the general manager on talent management at the Workday environment.

[00:01:26] That's right.

[00:01:26] So first of all, can you guys just give me a quick overview of what does your roles entail?

[00:01:30] Because a lot of people don't know what that means. Is it more about product? Is it about working with the customers?

[00:01:35] What's the general manager role mean within the Workday environment?

[00:01:37] Yeah. So the general manager role is part of product and technology.

[00:01:41] So it is a product role in terms of being responsible for the direction of the product and the teams actually building the products.

[00:01:49] But definitely spend a lot of time with our customers.

[00:01:51] There's also a go-to-market aspect, working with our sales teams to make sure they fully understand what we're doing and building for them.

[00:01:59] Which I think is really powerful because I don't think a lot of people who actually buy the technology understand all the things that go into building it sometimes.

[00:02:05] So I think it's a really powerful thing just to understand all the layers of people that have to get done.

[00:02:09] We make it look simple, right?

[00:02:11] I'm trying.

[00:02:12] A lot of teams getting behind the picture, right?

[00:02:14] You got to understand what's going on.

[00:02:16] Now, I know also what you guys do is have to integrate new applications when you guys acquire them.

[00:02:20] And a recent acquisition was the HiredScore acquisition with Athena and all the work that she has done in the past.

[00:02:26] We've talked about her on Spilling the T on HR Tech, so our audience knows already a little bit about her.

[00:02:30] But tell me a little bit about what that takes to integrate that kind of thing into an organization as big as Workday and a product that's as sort of built out as Workday.

[00:02:38] Yeah.

[00:02:39] I mean, I can start with Athena over the past 11 years built such an incredible company based like outcomes oriented from the very beginning,

[00:02:47] trying to actually up level and create better results with their customers.

[00:02:50] And we actually saw that at Workday years ago.

[00:02:53] And we fast tracked them through the partnership program.

[00:02:56] And I'm going to get to the integration point.

[00:02:57] But we fast tracked them through our partnership program because we've actually been building integrations with HiredScore for over four years.

[00:03:04] Like we, our customers, our mutual customers that have been using HiredScore and Workday together have been doing that for a long time.

[00:03:10] And we've been working really closely with HiredScore to make that integration better.

[00:03:13] So when we acquired them on day one, we had a live integration and we had Fortune 100 customers that were using it.

[00:03:19] And so it's really just kind of green field from there because now that they're part of the Workday ecosystem,

[00:03:24] we're looking at the areas where we can bring HiredScore's unique strengths into the Workday technology.

[00:03:30] And some of the first places we're doing that are in our recruiting product and in our talent optimization product.

[00:03:35] So in recruiting, we're taking things like their spotlight capabilities and their fetch capabilities, which we can talk more about,

[00:03:40] and pulling them directly into the Workday recruiting experiences.

[00:03:45] And then we're using similar technology out of HiredScore to power things like CareerHub and some of our internal mobility stuff.

[00:03:50] Very cool.

[00:03:51] And it makes sense, right, that it's going into the recruiting area first and the talent area first because it was definitely a focus for Athena and the work they did at HiredScore.

[00:03:57] You know, it's interesting.

[00:03:58] You're going to hear a lot this week that we're going to be talking about something called platform clusters is what we're seeing happening from a buying perspective.

[00:04:04] And a lot of it has to do with who's in your marketplace.

[00:04:06] Who are you already partnering with?

[00:04:07] Because they're much more likely to have something that's going to add value to the organization if you're connecting with that.

[00:04:13] Christina, one of the areas I know you guys have been spending a lot of time on, though, is building out your own time management, scheduling.

[00:04:19] And the global payroll conversation is huge for you.

[00:04:21] How does something like HiredScore sort of play into that picture?

[00:04:25] Because I think one of the things we keep hearing from Athena is this idea of orchestration, right?

[00:04:30] And I know orchestration, when she explained it to me when we were having the conversation was it's not just knowing sort of the data and where it needs to be at, but it's also knowing who needs to be in the conversation, which is really powerful because it means I'm not replacing HR or replacing the operations team.

[00:04:45] I'm bringing them into the conversations when they need to be brought in.

[00:04:47] And can you talk a little bit about maybe how that plays out in an area that seems not all the time as sort of connected sometimes to what's going on in talent?

[00:04:55] Yeah.

[00:04:55] I mean, the way you're talking about it, when you think about an orchestration, right?

[00:04:59] It is, it's sort of like end to end, how does something happen?

[00:05:02] That you're actually achieving that transformation, if you will, because it really does change how you work.

[00:05:07] And so when you think about things like workforce management, right, there's so much opportunity there to figure out, like, you know, how do I make sure for my frontline workforce that they're getting what they need when they need it so that they can get the job done?

[00:05:19] You know, from, you know, from, you know, the entering of time shifts, allocating shifts, resourcing, all of that through, you know, all the way through to getting to the payroll.

[00:05:31] And payroll has all kinds of opportunity, too.

[00:05:33] When you think about, you know, globally, you know, regulatory compliance, all of the things that you have to do, there is such a big opportunity for that orchestration.

[00:05:43] And I think one area that we didn't necessarily talk about when you think about talent acquisition and hired score and that orchestration is for your contingent workforce with Vendley.

[00:05:52] Yeah.

[00:05:53] And that is work that we're doing right now as well.

[00:05:55] Yeah.

[00:05:55] And we did a lot of conversation on that last year when we were here at HR Tech.

[00:05:58] And I think we actually have a paper that went out that we did on that because contingent workforce is a growing place where HR is sort of stepping into that.

[00:06:05] Right.

[00:06:05] So I do, I think it's going to be interesting to see sort of how all these pieces start to get tied together.

[00:06:10] We just had a conversation with quite a few of your guys' customers actually just yesterday.

[00:06:14] And we were talking about the AI conversation for Workday, right?

[00:06:17] Shocker.

[00:06:17] Yeah.

[00:06:18] Not surprised.

[00:06:20] I mean, have you hit your bingo card yet, guys?

[00:06:23] We told them, do not make AI a drinking game.

[00:06:26] You're going to be drunk before the end of the day.

[00:06:28] So, but I do know that for them, it's very much tied to the skills conversation right now.

[00:06:33] To them, the AI, the Workday of Skills is a really big conversation.

[00:06:36] Do you think that this will allow you to expand a little bit beyond skills?

[00:06:39] Not that skills is not central to everything, but we do know sometimes, like you said, like payroll and the work that we do in succession and the work that we do in sort of maybe just understanding the workflow of HR.

[00:06:52] Those are all things oftentimes that sort of get kind of seen in the background sometimes when you're dealing so much with skills and talent and conversations like that.

[00:06:59] Is that going to get more, do you think, with this?

[00:07:01] Yeah, I think, I mean, from somebody who spent a lot of time in skills and with a lot of customers, I think skills continues to be at the core of so many conversations.

[00:07:08] But we're also hearing customers ask for skills and other things now.

[00:07:13] So, like, it's skills not on an island as, like, some destination that we all go to and we get there and we're like a skills-based organization now.

[00:07:22] We pat ourselves on the back and we say, we did it.

[00:07:25] I think actually the conversation with skills and AI more broadly too, it's solving the same business problems that our customers have always had.

[00:07:33] Now, maybe they've evolved a bit and they've emerged and maybe they're happening faster than they used to happen before.

[00:07:37] But skills helps us solve those problems in interesting and new ways.

[00:07:41] And AI is just the next layer of that.

[00:07:43] Now, skills is powered by AI, but we already have a lot of AI.

[00:07:48] Like, Pecan Voice of the Employee is a really good example of one where we've used AI to survey your entire employee population.

[00:07:54] We leveraged the AI to summarize comments and to show you trends of where sentiment is going up and sentiment is going down and summarizing and suggesting to a manager, here's what you can do about it.

[00:08:05] That isn't tied to skills in any real way at all, but it's still adding a tremendous amount of value in things that HR teams otherwise had to go pull that data down, crunch it manually, hire a third party to work through it, come up with recommendations, maybe hire another third party to actually implement that thing.

[00:08:20] And so I think that's an example of a place where we see AI, even outside the sphere of skills, that's adding value.

[00:08:26] I actually like that example because we actually – so our awards are going out this week.

[00:08:30] Everybody knows that for the voice of the customer.

[00:08:31] And user experience and vendor satisfaction is a really big conversation we have with our research.

[00:08:36] And one of the things that came out this year was that Pecan rose to the top.

[00:08:39] They had been struggling for a couple of years, to be honest, with user experience and vendor satisfaction.

[00:08:42] But part of it, I think, was that they weren't as connected to what else was going on in the workday environment.

[00:08:47] And what we started to see this year when we looked at all the data points is if I had Prism, if I had People Analytics, and I had Pecan, the user experience and vendor stats just skyrocketed from that perspective.

[00:08:59] And I think that leads to what you're talking about, that all these tools are great, but if I can't get that data in a way that I can sort of show it to someone else in the organization, analyze it in a way that I can get some insight out of it,

[00:09:11] I think that's where the AI conversation is going when we're talking to organizations who are really leveraging it, right, is that it's not just about,

[00:09:17] the chat bot or the agent.

[00:09:19] I know agent's the new term that everybody's using, right?

[00:09:21] Yes, we are going to identify it.

[00:09:22] Every time I talk about agents, I'm like, we're going to have music going on in the background, right?

[00:09:26] I'm like, no, we're not going there.

[00:09:28] But it is true that agents are kind of the idea that I'm doing some of the work for you.

[00:09:31] But what we're seeing is this idea, especially for enterprise organizations, that they want AI to help them surface the things they should be looking at, right?

[00:09:41] Absolutely.

[00:09:41] And that's the most important thing to them.

[00:09:43] I mean, it really is the flow of data, right?

[00:09:46] That you're getting back to where an orchestration makes sense is like giving it to who needs it when to get whatever it is done.

[00:09:54] So being able to make sure that we're flowing through throughout the process.

[00:09:58] And to your point, the more it's connected, the easier it is, right?

[00:10:03] And you're actually able to get it to who, like, yeah, you can have individual things that do certain pieces.

[00:10:09] But when you connect it all, that's really where the magic happens.

[00:10:12] And that's really where we've been very, very focused on making sure that we do that, whether it's an acquired company or all the products that we build.

[00:10:20] And then partnerships now today, right?

[00:10:22] Where we partner, whether it's for payroll or for wellness or for all the different places with the work that we're doing with employment verification, right?

[00:10:29] You know, it is that it's all about data, right?

[00:10:33] And making that data much more seamless and really more valuable for our customers.

[00:10:37] It makes me smile because I think there are days when organizations are like, how important is background checking?

[00:10:43] And I'm like, it's really important, right?

[00:10:45] Employment verification seems like one of those small things that why should the big companies worry about it?

[00:10:48] But it actually, it's one of the things that give people headaches, right?

[00:10:51] And if you're in HR, you've got to do it no matter what.

[00:10:54] It's a cost to HR because they have to actually spend the time to figure it out.

[00:10:59] It causes problems with people, like just how they feel.

[00:11:02] Like, you know, I need to get this information so I can get a loan.

[00:11:05] I can get a credit.

[00:11:05] Like, it actually affects their life.

[00:11:08] It has such an impact.

[00:11:09] Well, and kind of speaking about things that have an impact and being that this is spilling the tea on HR tag, can you guys share with us anything?

[00:11:16] I know there's a lot of stuff embargoed and a lot of stuff you guys can't talk about.

[00:11:19] Is there anything coming out that you think that the audience here would be interested in knowing that maybe that you're getting ready to launch that you think is really, really sort of interesting in some of the areas that you guys are both working in?

[00:11:30] And I'll start, David, with you because I know talent is a space you guys have been known for doing exciting stuff in.

[00:11:36] But is there anything coming out you think the audience might be sort of like, ooh, this is a sneak peek at what was coming?

[00:11:40] Oh, man, we're doing a lot of exciting things.

[00:11:42] I think a lot of stuff with partners, a lot of deeper integration with HiredScore, a lot of deeper capabilities in that sense, and a lot of AI investment.

[00:11:48] I think if I can talk about one thing that I think we're doing that's really exciting, it's actually not a talent thing.

[00:11:53] It's actually a platform thing.

[00:11:54] And I talk about what we're doing, the progress Workday's made in Xtend, and then the launch of Built on Workday, which is built by partners.

[00:12:02] I think for almost Workday's entire history up until very recently, if customers wanted enhancements or updates or improvements to the product, they had to fit into our backlog.

[00:12:14] And we think we move pretty fast through features, but we recognize that sometimes we didn't move fast enough for some.

[00:12:20] Xtend now lets customers build that stuff on their own, and there are thousands of apps on Xtend that customers are using in production.

[00:12:26] And Built on Workday, which is partners building capabilities on the Workday platform that can then become available to customers, and we're starting to see some early success there.

[00:12:36] I think that, I think, is actually the most exciting thing or one of the most exciting things we're doing at Workday right now because it is really going to be quite freeing, and we're going to see a lot of innovation and competition and acceleration in the things that people can do on Workday.

[00:12:48] And I know you guys recently announced a much deeper partnership with Salesforce, and we know the history of Salesforce and their platform and their extension model.

[00:12:57] Are you getting some insight from Mark on how to expand that capability?

[00:13:01] Yeah, Mark joined our team meeting the other day.

[00:13:04] It's always a learning opportunity.

[00:13:06] So definitely.

[00:13:07] They've done a lot before us, and so the partnership is actually very cool in terms of, you know, we have been good partners for a long time.

[00:13:16] But this, when we think about data and just kind of the full extent of the data, you know, we have your people and money data now adding that customer view to that, right?

[00:13:27] Again, connecting the dots throughout, that, again, is hugely beneficial.

[00:13:31] I think, you know, and we see, surprisingly enough, in our data, and the HR audience knows this, that they get brought into a lot more of those conversations than people probably give them credit for.

[00:13:39] So knowing where that fits and how it works with them is really important.

[00:13:42] So just kind of as our last question for you, what is, is there anything that you can kind of share that's coming down the road that the audience might be interested in knowing that, you know, is going to be like really wowing them maybe?

[00:13:53] Yeah, no, I think, you know, as Dave mentioned, I'm going to take a thread from the partner part, but actually in how it actually will fit with some of our applications that we're building.

[00:14:02] You know, you'll see more on partners throughout, but we just announced or introduced Workday Wellness at Rising.

[00:14:09] And that will be, I think, hugely beneficial for our customers in the sense that, you know, it is about the exchange, safe and secure exchange of data between customers and providers.

[00:14:19] And so when you think about that, you know, for customers being able then to see, you know, the usage of their benefits, like today to get that information is very, very difficult.

[00:14:27] They don't get it in a timely manner. It's very, you know, so being able to have that, to be able to make those decisions about a very big expense in their organization and to optimize what they're providing for their people.

[00:14:38] And then from the provider and partner standpoint, for them to be able to easily and more seamlessly actually provide that and then really get that back and forth.

[00:14:46] I mean, I think it's all goodness. And we're very excited. I will say the reception that we got at Rising, you know, we're seeing that people are very interested in how this will serve their business.

[00:14:59] So that's probably the top on my list.

[00:15:02] I'm not surprised. We know at least in mid-market SMB, wellness and benefits are on the list of top five places they're going to expand spending, right?

[00:15:11] Yes.

[00:15:12] And that's in technology, not we know all the other things.

[00:15:15] We know, yes.

[00:15:16] We know why benefits are expanding.

[00:15:17] And it was interesting because we were at a session just earlier today where we were talking to brokers and partners and it was when a Workday representative, they're sort of sharing the wellness.

[00:15:27] And you could see the gears starting to go with the brokers because they're thinking, oh, I can give a better view across my brokerage platform, right?

[00:15:33] Yeah.

[00:15:33] And so I do think that this is, it sounds like it's going to be a tool both for the employees, for the enterprise big companies, but also even for these SMB and mid-markets who are really depending on their brokers to help them make decisions.

[00:15:44] And the more data, the better those decisions are.

[00:15:47] Exactly. Putting it to good use.

[00:15:49] Yes, exactly.

[00:15:50] All right. Well, I know we're getting ready to wrap up.

[00:15:52] I think we're getting close to our 15-minute time slot.

[00:15:54] So what I wanted to do is just one last question.

[00:15:57] We're here at HR Tech.

[00:15:58] We're in this amazing rock star bus, right?

[00:16:01] I do say I missed you guys had an amazing concert at your event last week.

[00:16:06] But if you had to sort of pick one big thing here at the HR Tech event that you are excited about or that you've seen already that you're like, ooh, this is rock star level conversation.

[00:16:17] I know I'm putting you on the spot, because we're only half a day in, but have you seen anything maybe in the Women in Tech HR or maybe just in some of the booths you've been walking around?

[00:16:27] Anything you've seen that you're like, ooh, people should be?

[00:16:29] That's kind of interesting.

[00:16:30] I hadn't thought about that before.

[00:16:32] I think that's my favorite part about HR Tech.

[00:16:35] I haven't gotten to do it yet because the conference is just starting.

[00:16:38] But the reason that I come back every year is getting to walk the floor and talking to as many companies that are out there doing really cool things.

[00:16:47] I'm particularly always excited about the really small booths, the ones that are over there, where it's just a person or two people on a platform with a computer.

[00:16:56] And I'm going to count.

[00:16:58] I'm going to see how many of those are TA startups, talent management startups, how many of those are payroll startups.

[00:17:04] We were talking about that.

[00:17:04] Taking some names down from your innovation area.

[00:17:07] How many of them are AI-powered?

[00:17:08] But yeah, I don't know yet.

[00:17:09] I'm genuinely really excited about the conference to go and just kind of see what the space is working on.

[00:17:15] Yeah, it's definitely – we are seeing a lot of on the floor.

[00:17:19] This is the first time we both got into, I think, the expo hall.

[00:17:22] And I was like, ooh, there's a lot of interesting things they're doing in the booths.

[00:17:25] Education, training.

[00:17:26] We're seeing a lot more of that.

[00:17:27] We're seeing a lot more focus not just on AI but on where the businesses are able to sort of expand, I think, the conversation of HR.

[00:17:36] So I'm excited to see what's happening.

[00:17:38] Anything for me, Christina, that you're excited to see?

[00:17:40] The speakers, actually.

[00:17:42] I was just at one of the keynotes.

[00:17:45] I think it was Charlene Liu who was talking about – what I appreciate is the conversation around AI beyond just the thinking about it to how we're actually going to apply it.

[00:17:56] And I think that there's going to be some interesting speakers talking about that.

[00:18:01] And I'm looking forward to seeing that.

[00:18:02] Well, we'll tell everybody how that kind of hands out when we do our Thursday session where we're going to wrap everything up.

[00:18:08] Thank you both for attending this conversation with me and for sharing some of your insights with the audience.

[00:18:14] And maybe in another year we can come back and see how everything has ended up with all the integrations and all the work that our guys are doing.

[00:18:21] So, all right.

[00:18:21] Thanks for having us, Christina.

[00:18:22] It's a great nice chance to talk to you guys both.

[00:18:24] Bye.

[00:18:25] Bye.

[00:18:26] Bye.

[00:18:28] Bye.

[00:18:30] Bye.