Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - HR Tech Giants Announce Major Leadership Changes & Product Launches

[00:00:00] And we also get a few different organizations that have kind of just expanded their offerings within the HR tech space.

[00:00:06] We're going to start with Paychex that have HR Analytics Premium Plus. This has the built-in Gen AI, right?

[00:00:14] We've been talking AI. It took us a while to get there, but you know, we were going to talk about it, finish off the year the way we more or less started it.

[00:00:20] Isn't it crazy though, Stacey, that we, at the beginning of the year, it might have been one or two episodes where we're like,

[00:00:26] Oh, it seems like people are talking about AI. We'll have to keep an eye on it too. It's like...

[00:00:31] 2024 is definitely going to be like the year AI, like just a year, right?

[00:00:37] I mean, to be honest, 2023 was a bit of that too, but I think this year it's been a little bit more of show me the money on this.

[00:00:45] Like what am I getting out of it this year, right?

[00:00:49] Welcome to the HR Huddle Podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group,

[00:00:54] the ultimate resource for all things HR.

[00:00:59] It's time to get in the huddle.

[00:01:02] 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.

[00:01:15] We break down the news of the week and help you make sense of what it means for your industry and our industry and how it can impact your organization.

[00:01:22] We are recording today on December 4th, 2024.

[00:01:27] This might be our last recorded session before the new year, Cliff, because you and I are going to take a couple of little breaks.

[00:01:32] And we're bringing you all the news that you can use this week.

[00:01:34] I'm your host, Stacey Harris, Chief Research Officer and Managing Partner for Sapient Insights Group.

[00:01:39] And we are a research and advisory firm.

[00:01:41] And joining me today for our conversation is my co-host, Cliff Stevenson, Director of Research and Principal Analyst for Sapient Insights Group.

[00:01:48] Cliff, welcome to the show again.

[00:01:50] And all the tea that we've got to spill.

[00:01:52] And it's good tea this week, isn't it?

[00:01:54] Oh yeah.

[00:01:55] The true sense.

[00:01:56] The true sense of when we talk about spilling the tea in the colloquial sense, we're going to be there.

[00:02:01] We're holding that though as a teaser.

[00:02:03] Don't worry, this tea is so hot that it will be piping.

[00:02:06] It'll be just the right temperature.

[00:02:07] This won't be like the McDonald's coffee.

[00:02:09] This is going to be just right because that's how hot this tea is.

[00:02:12] I'm excited for it.

[00:02:13] Wrapping up the season with it.

[00:02:14] We are covering a lot of other topics today.

[00:02:17] What else are we talking about today?

[00:02:19] We've got some promotions, right?

[00:02:21] Yeah, we've got a lot of stuff going on internally.

[00:02:23] We're going to talk some M&A news.

[00:02:25] We've got a lot of personnel moves, including stuff that came down today for us,

[00:02:30] for you listeners and viewers that will be a week from now.

[00:02:33] But we've got all of that going on, a lot of us going in,

[00:02:37] and a lot of just expansion of capabilities.

[00:02:40] I'm honestly surprised that we saw so many of these kind of updates.

[00:02:45] This time of year, a lot of people, a lot of organizations are kind of like,

[00:02:50] let's just hold off, especially because there won't be any budgets for a bit, as we know.

[00:02:54] But we've got quite a few.

[00:02:55] So there's kind of some new and exciting stuff going on and some kind of cool stuff going on with us here, too.

[00:03:02] Yeah, we've got lots of stuff going on.

[00:03:04] So I know you and I just got back from Charlotte.

[00:03:06] We just did a big strategy session with one of the big solution providers.

[00:03:10] What was really cool is we got to use what's always nice when we get asked to come in and do strategy.

[00:03:15] It's always based off of the voice of the customer feedback.

[00:03:18] So what are the customers saying?

[00:03:19] What do they want to see?

[00:03:20] Where are they at?

[00:03:21] What are the big things they should be paying attention to?

[00:03:23] So that was pretty awesome.

[00:03:24] And we did. We got to do that yesterday with both.

[00:03:26] I got to ride the train there.

[00:03:27] You get to take a flight and come back.

[00:03:28] Yeah, very jealous.

[00:03:30] And like you said, using the comments because there's so many.

[00:03:34] I think we said it's probably roughly around 8000.

[00:03:38] And all of you, if you've taken the survey, thank you so much.

[00:03:42] Believe me, we read them all.

[00:03:43] We go through that.

[00:03:44] But not only that, we use every opportunity we can to share that feedback with the solution providers.

[00:03:52] And it's especially cool in a situation like this where every single comment note, nothing was considered too small.

[00:04:00] It wasn't just broadly people like this.

[00:04:02] They saw each one and said, OK, we can fix that.

[00:04:04] We can fix that right now.

[00:04:05] This issue with an integration or whatever the case may be.

[00:04:08] That's wonderful.

[00:04:09] It's great to see that it helps the users, right?

[00:04:13] They have that being fixed or getting a better experience.

[00:04:16] But it helps those organizations to say we're not going to lose this personnel for something that was fixable.

[00:04:22] And they had no other way of expressing it because a lot of people, they don't.

[00:04:25] They're not going to search around all over trying to figure out exactly how to get help.

[00:04:29] And it's not going to go to the same level sometimes within the systems as it does when they work through the survey.

[00:04:35] So that was just, it was heartwarming, which we needed because it was freezing in Charlotte.

[00:04:39] It was freezing in Charlotte.

[00:04:40] Yes.

[00:04:41] Yeah.

[00:04:41] Yeah.

[00:04:41] And like you said, I think it's when they're taking screen grabs and sending them off to their product people.

[00:04:46] I do think people, I think we forget sometimes that we're oftentimes sitting at a table where action can happen.

[00:04:52] Right.

[00:04:52] And that's a powerful thing to be able to take that data and do that.

[00:04:55] And so just a fun day that we had.

[00:04:59] We also want to just let everybody know, I think most people know at this point, but if you haven't received your details,

[00:05:04] if you were a person who participated in the research this year, you should have received your full report is available online now.

[00:05:10] And if you're someone who didn't get a chance to participate, but you'd like to get a segment of the paper or you'd like to buy the full report,

[00:05:16] that's available online as well.

[00:05:17] All the segments are up and there's even a few free segments.

[00:05:20] If you go out to our website, look down at some of our assets, our change management section is out there and available for download.

[00:05:26] We also, I think have our blueprint section, which is always kind of interesting to see sort of adoption numbers and how they've changed.

[00:05:31] So those are available for anybody who has the ability to go download.

[00:05:34] Great stocking stuffers.

[00:05:36] Yeah.

[00:05:36] Great stocking stuffers.

[00:05:37] People are saying that.

[00:05:38] Well, we will be actually hopefully getting a chance to pick up some stuff.

[00:05:44] So I've got lots of events that we're going to be doing.

[00:05:46] I will be in next week.

[00:05:48] All right.

[00:05:48] It's next week already, right?

[00:05:50] Like I'm getting ready to head to Atlanta for our, we're doing just kind of a research leadership.

[00:05:55] Well, it's our whole company leadership conversation this week.

[00:05:58] One of our team members is getting married.

[00:06:00] Congratulations to Alison out there.

[00:06:02] So by the time everybody listens to this, she will be hopefully on her honeymoon this weekend.

[00:06:05] And then I'm coming back and I'm jumping right on a flight to Amsterdam for the Workday European customer conference.

[00:06:10] That's going to be fun and I think going to be cold.

[00:06:12] So I'm going to be figuring out which parka I need to pack for that, but that's December 12th to 14th.

[00:06:17] We'll be putting some updates online for that.

[00:06:19] We also are, have available on our website where the, well, I don't know if it's on our website.

[00:06:24] I think they have to go maybe to the two places to sign up for this.

[00:06:26] You're going to be doing an I solve masterclass on HR analytics and planning.

[00:06:30] Correct.

[00:06:31] That's right.

[00:06:31] Also December 12th, as you mentioned, although that will be virtual.

[00:06:35] Anyone can go check that out.

[00:06:36] I will be physically in Paris, France.

[00:06:40] So not too far from you, Stacy, I'd have to look, but I believe it's closer than we are right now, even though we're in the same country.

[00:06:47] So really looking forward to that.

[00:06:49] I've been working hand in hand with them.

[00:06:51] I was at your masterclass that you just recently did very well attended, very engaging group.

[00:06:57] You know, you know, it was awesome.

[00:07:00] It was just really neat.

[00:07:01] Everyone's raving about it.

[00:07:02] I feel like I'm being overly happy about it, but maybe it's just the season or something.

[00:07:07] It is the season.

[00:07:09] And I do think it's always good, like you said, when we get a chance to share some of the data.

[00:07:12] And we've been in that one, that particular masterclass that I did, we shared a lot of insights.

[00:07:16] We've been gathering on how to how to build an HR system strategy.

[00:07:19] This one, you're going to be sharing, I think, a lot more data on what's happening in HR analytics and how people can think about sort of building some data governance, which we did a big panel on at HR tech conference.

[00:07:29] We had lots of people at that event.

[00:07:31] So I think there will be a lot of good nuggets that come out of the one that you're going to be doing December 12th, too.

[00:07:35] Yeah.

[00:07:36] Present and future proofing your data set, right?

[00:07:39] Especially for anyone that uses AI.

[00:07:40] And look at that.

[00:07:41] Longest we've ever gone without mentioning AI.

[00:07:43] You have to have your data right.

[00:07:45] But also for any use of data, this has always been true.

[00:07:48] Nothing has changed in that matter.

[00:07:50] It just means there's probably more sources coming in.

[00:07:53] And we've got a lot of data talking about whether it's emerging tech or standard tech, how industries are using this, what's successful, and some of the use cases we hear out there.

[00:08:03] So yeah, it'll be a good session.

[00:08:05] I'm also running a repeat of our big key finding session with Irem on December 18th.

[00:08:11] So if you didn't get a chance to catch us at the HR tech conference or at our spooky Halloween, what did we call it? HR trick or treat or something.

[00:08:20] Yeah.

[00:08:20] Right?

[00:08:21] Or data treat.

[00:08:21] I can't remember now.

[00:08:22] Tech or treat.

[00:08:23] Tech or treat.

[00:08:24] That was it.

[00:08:24] Yes.

[00:08:25] Sorry.

[00:08:26] I still have my costume left over as the OSHA supervisor.

[00:08:31] Yes.

[00:08:32] Yeah.

[00:08:32] Cliff and I are memories.

[00:08:34] We've been on planes and trains and we're getting ready to get on more today.

[00:08:38] So that'll be fun.

[00:08:39] So if anybody wants to join us for that, please do.

[00:08:41] That'll be, that's through the Irem organization.

[00:08:42] And we really do like to support them and their, and their members.

[00:08:46] And then last, but by no means least, if you are interested in doing a little bit more next year on building your HR system strategy or change leadership, and you have a little bit of training budget left this year, we are just reminding everybody that you can go out, register, sign up for, and pay for our next year's cohort for building an adaptable HR system strategy that starts in March.

[00:09:06] We had 10, 10 organizations last year in that we cap it at just about 20.

[00:09:12] And we do find that the feedback so far has been, this is both operational and strategic.

[00:09:18] And that's what I love to hear that people were able to actually get some work done.

[00:09:20] For me, it's all about that.

[00:09:21] And they made some really good connections and participants.

[00:09:24] And then with the change leadership one, I think is going to be starting in January or February.

[00:09:28] So be sure to sign up for that.

[00:09:29] If you need more details, people will be happy to have some conversations about it.

[00:09:32] But so that's all the stuff we have going on.

[00:09:34] And that's just before the first of the year clip, which is really just a couple weeks away, which is hard to believe, right?

[00:09:39] I know.

[00:09:39] Unbelievable, right?

[00:09:41] And you know, normally at this time of year, it's a little slower, as I mentioned, but we do have some, you know, kind of one big news in terms of mergers and acquisitions.

[00:09:50] JobGet acquired Snagajob.

[00:09:52] So, you know, frontline workers, that's been a really big topic.

[00:09:56] We've talked about this.

[00:09:57] We've presented this.

[00:09:58] We're always looking for more ways to gather information on this.

[00:10:01] And that's really where these two organizations really excel.

[00:10:06] You know, JobGet definitely, you know, in the hourly worker space and Snagajob, which has been kind of in the same sort of area in terms of working with those types of not, I wouldn't want to say one off, but not quite

[00:10:21] contract either.

[00:10:22] You know, it's a lot in the gig and contingent area and they're going to operate still as standalone organization.

[00:10:27] I should say that Snagajob will operate as a standalone within the JobGet platform.

[00:10:32] So any users of either of those won't notice much difference, just increase functionality, which is what you hope for, right?

[00:10:41] And then I think the frontline worker conversation, we've been talking a lot about this because we recently pulled some data, as you said, for this for a, another client who's doing sort of walkthrough for their customer.

[00:10:52] And so, you know, I think it's a little interesting on this is that as much as we're seeing a lot of layoffs and we're seeing a lot of big struggles for particularly small businesses and mid-market businesses right now, we are still seeing in the frontline space and in the service industry, a hard time getting skilled workers to do those jobs.

[00:11:10] And it's a mystery because used to be when we had these troubles in the market and economies, that was not the place where that was an issue, right?

[00:11:18] And it really is an issue right now, as far as we can tell.

[00:11:20] Our data is showing that there's still a hard time getting people who work at the frontline positions for most organizations, right?

[00:11:27] That's right.

[00:11:28] And I guess if there's a, you know, something we could take from the COVID years that we did well was really figuring out how to protect and elevate and work with those frontline workers, you know, of all different kinds, not just, you know, the kinds that you might normally think of.

[00:11:49] You start to really realize the importance of so many of the people doing these jobs and the types of services you can get to them, right?

[00:11:56] And how, not just to find them, but then how you can support them.

[00:11:59] So we also had some, we had some personnel changes, all positive.

[00:12:03] We've got Lori Jeffries, who's going to be the new director of product management at ADP.

[00:12:08] Talk about an industry veteran.

[00:12:10] I don't necessarily mean a long time because she's quite young, I'm sure.

[00:12:15] But if you look at the organizations she's worked for, right?

[00:12:19] She was with Dayforce, you know, and, you know, before that, you know, Ceridian, you know, same sort of company, you know, and working at ADP, you know, and then, you know, moving up through there, just as she had done at Dayforce.

[00:12:32] So really, really understands the space.

[00:12:35] So really good.

[00:12:36] Yeah, and even before Ceridian and Dayforce, she was at what used to be Will's Towers Watson, but I would assume sort of their product side for the benefits.

[00:12:44] And before that, with Infor on their product management for their HR service delivery.

[00:12:48] And if anybody remembers that HR service delivery product tool at Infor, it was one of the top ones back in the day.

[00:12:53] That was part of their acquisition at the same time they were doing the Lawson and everything.

[00:12:57] And so I was quite excited to hear about Lori coming into this role at ADP.

[00:13:01] I think it's an opportunity with ADP launching Lyric, which is sort of a rebranding, but also some new updates to what was NextGen HCM previously.

[00:13:11] There's, I think, a real opportunity to see that area grow for ADP.

[00:13:16] They own the global space that we talked about, I think, in our last conversation.

[00:13:20] And I think people are looking to them to say, are you going to hold on to this?

[00:13:23] And are you going to be able to grow that opportunity within the organizations?

[00:13:26] I know I was just at ADP a few weeks back, and I was recording a session on their integration platform, which I'm very excited to see come out.

[00:13:36] Because I think that's a new thing that we don't usually see as much for the mid-market and SMB spaces, right?

[00:13:42] Right.

[00:13:42] And so they were giving me a deep dive into that.

[00:13:44] And we got a chance to talk quite a bit about sort of their goals for beating the needs of the mid-market and the global.

[00:13:49] And so that was kind of fun to get a chance to really sort of see their vision for where they're heading.

[00:13:53] And I'm excited to see Lori go into this role.

[00:13:55] I think it'll be a good opportunity to see how she brings all that strength she brought in from benefits and HR side and the service delivery side into this picture.

[00:14:04] Yeah.

[00:14:05] And speaking of, now this is a little more, I wouldn't say to call it a circuitous path, but when we saw that Workday announced that Rob Enslin would be a president and chief commercial officer.

[00:14:16] Now there's SAP experience in there, but also some work with Google, Google Cloud and UiPath where there's some AI work, which must have been kind of early on.

[00:14:27] So really understanding the market needs and where that's headed, obviously aligning with some of those strategies coming up.

[00:14:36] I don't think there's anyone that knows Workday better than you.

[00:14:38] Stacey, is this one that you looked at with a raised eyebrow or does this make total sense to you?

[00:14:44] It makes sense.

[00:14:45] I mean, one, we saw Carl move up.

[00:14:47] I think they had that dual sort of president model.

[00:14:49] That's been a big thing for them.

[00:14:50] They learned, I think, quite a bit when they were starting to create that model from a leadership perspective that you just can't have one person who kind of oversees everything.

[00:14:59] So I'm not surprised they've sort of built this out.

[00:15:01] But I do think that from a revenue perspective, an approach to how they're going to be sort of thinking about growth for Workday, that has definitely got, has to see some changes because how they got here is not how they're going to get to the next 10 years.

[00:15:18] I think that's been the big mantra of what we're seeing, that what they've been doing has really worked for a long time.

[00:15:23] But there are some new things they're going to have to focus on because they now have a really big part of the Fortune 500 HR.

[00:15:30] They need to grow that on the finance side.

[00:15:32] They need to grow that on sort of their partnership models.

[00:15:35] They need to grow that internationally.

[00:15:36] And the only way to do this is to rethink a little bit of that revenue model, I think.

[00:15:39] So this doesn't surprise me.

[00:15:41] It doesn't surprise me where his background is from.

[00:15:44] I do think that we're seeing leadership shifts in all of the big companies in our space right now.

[00:15:50] Everybody's had a bit of a turnip.

[00:15:52] Some of that, I think, is because of many of these companies have matured and grown up, is a good way to put it right.

[00:15:57] They've gotten to a point where they now need different leadership.

[00:16:00] I think other things is that this is a market that also has to now compete in the same space as all of the artificial intelligence,

[00:16:10] all of the enterprise system platforms, all of the consumer goods, like all this stuff kind of crunching down a little bit, too.

[00:16:18] And so there is, I think, a very different dialogue that has to happen for a lot of organizations about what is the system that I'm going to be using with my employees.

[00:16:26] Yeah.

[00:16:26] Well, that's a good segue into the next bit of news.

[00:16:29] It came off embargo just a couple hours ago as we're talking about that, and that's UKG naming Suresh Vital as their new CPO.

[00:16:38] Hugo Sarazin had that seat before.

[00:16:40] This will happen in January.

[00:16:42] So this has been announced, but the actual switch will happen in January of 2025, I should mention for anyone listening.

[00:16:49] It's like, does he mean a year from now?

[00:16:51] So coming up.

[00:16:52] And, you know, he had been, Suresh had been at Adobe, but then also at Alteryx, where he did some AI analytics.

[00:16:58] You can definitely see the path and where they're looking at, because as you said, these are, at least with Adobe, that are more traditional.

[00:17:07] Okay, this is a software, productivity software.

[00:17:11] We're blending those lines, as we always talk about.

[00:17:14] And then also really being on the cutting edge with Alteryx, which makes total sense with everything we know that UKG is trying to do.

[00:17:22] Yeah, this one, I don't know Suresh as well.

[00:17:24] So I didn't know that background or where he had come from.

[00:17:26] I think you got the chance to sit on the session.

[00:17:29] But I think it follows right on path of what we just talked about, right?

[00:17:32] Like his background seems to fit with sort of this idea that we need to broaden who we are and what we're thinking about.

[00:17:37] I think Hugo's done a really nice job over the last several years of rethinking the direction of what UKG was as a combined entity.

[00:17:46] And, you know, we've seen a lot of really good product people in the UKG space come both from Ultimate and from what was Kronos.

[00:17:55] And so this is, I think, it'll be an interesting opportunity here to see if they can broaden UKG's view of what it could be, right?

[00:18:06] Like that, it'll be interesting to see if that maybe changes and comes in a little bit.

[00:18:10] Yeah, that's exactly it.

[00:18:11] Hugo was very straightforward during this announcement that we sat in on and he used a lot of sports analogies.

[00:18:19] But I think about more, you know, what he was trying to explain, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong here if you're listening,

[00:18:25] but nothing's changed in terms of what UKG is trying to do.

[00:18:28] They're just changing how they want to get there, right?

[00:18:31] The strategy remains the same, it's just, you know, they're thinking we do it this way and this is the person we think gets us there to execute on the strategy.

[00:18:40] But the strategy has not changed at all.

[00:18:42] He's very clear on that.

[00:18:43] So what they said they were trying to do at Aspire, that's exactly it.

[00:18:47] Just a matter of, you know, maybe this is a better fit.

[00:18:50] So that's what you like to hear for anyone that's looking at that.

[00:18:54] So, you know, a lot of interesting news with people.

[00:18:57] And then we also get a few different organizations that kind of just expanded their offerings within the HR tech space.

[00:19:04] We're going to start with Paychex that have HR Analytics Premium Plus.

[00:19:09] This has the built-in Gen AI, right?

[00:19:12] We've been talking AI.

[00:19:13] It took us a while to get there, but, you know, we were going to talk about it, finish off the year the way we more or less started it.

[00:19:18] But isn't it crazy, though, Stacey, that we, at the beginning of the year, it might have been one or two episodes where we're like, oh, it seems like people are talking about AI.

[00:19:25] We'll have to keep an eye on it, too.

[00:19:27] It's like, boom, get in.

[00:19:29] Yeah, no, 2024 is definitely going to be like the year AI, like just a year, right?

[00:19:35] I mean, to be honest, 2023 was a bit of that, too.

[00:19:38] But I think this year it's been a little bit more of show me the money on this.

[00:19:43] Like, what am I getting out of it this year, right?

[00:19:45] Yeah.

[00:19:46] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:19:47] So the HRA Analytics Premium, that service had existed.

[00:19:53] You know, that had already been released.

[00:19:54] But now they've got the HRA Analytics Premium Plus.

[00:19:58] So it gives you a little more capabilities on anything, job matching, compensation, and the AI insights, right?

[00:20:07] And the ability to use Gen AI to say, all right, taking a look at what do, are there any recommendations?

[00:20:13] Do you see anything that stands out anomalous that just wouldn't be able to hope?

[00:20:18] You know, ideally, you would not have seen this with the human eye.

[00:20:22] So we're going to help you do that.

[00:20:23] You know, that's what they're trying to help out with.

[00:20:25] Yeah.

[00:20:26] Yeah.

[00:20:26] And this includes their new partnership with Vizier, which I think is a really big thing to call out.

[00:20:30] So because it includes accessing the data sets from the Vizier environment, both for a compensation perspective, but also just a general benchmarking perspective, which I think has really been good.

[00:20:41] So Paychex has been investing in analytics for quite some time.

[00:20:43] But I think, you know, there's always this challenge when you're dealing with really small SMBs, which is where Paychex has the bulk of its customers, is that it's hard to get enough data to work kind of and have some of those sort of long-term benchmark conversations, right?

[00:20:58] And so I think there's a real win here, both for Vizier and for Paychex.

[00:21:03] They're able to combine some of those data sets.

[00:21:05] I think the opportunity here is, you know, Paychex, I think oftentimes we hear, you know, Paychex has the outside of ADP that between the two of them, they have a really good thumb on what's happening in that really small SMB space, right?

[00:21:18] And they put out an annual, like we just got an announcement about their updated SMB report they put out every quarter.

[00:21:24] And I think that's going to give Vizier insight into a space they maybe not have had because a lot of their customers come from that enterprise or mid-market side.

[00:21:32] And vice versa, this is going to give Paychex some more insight into sort of companies that are growing because they're also trying to grow, I think, up space a little bit with who they're serving.

[00:21:40] And so I think this was a real smart move.

[00:21:43] Beaumont, Vance partnered and built this deal out, but Tom Hammond has been working on this for quite some time as well.

[00:21:48] Now, what I think is also interesting to note, like for a long time, Paycore was sort of the big Vizier partner in this space with that embedded analytics.

[00:21:57] Now, and we know that Vizier has been doing this with other organizations as well, but for SMBs, that was kind of the win-win for them.

[00:22:04] This is kind of now putting another feather in the cap and saying there are others who have that access.

[00:22:09] So we'll watch this space a little bit, but analytics data, benchmarking data is becoming more important to the mid-market and SMBs.

[00:22:16] And SMBs.

[00:22:17] Yeah.

[00:22:18] They have to start sort of giving them access to it.

[00:22:21] Yeah.

[00:22:21] Yeah.

[00:22:22] And, you know, the sort of traditional model of analytics won't work with most SMBs, right?

[00:22:26] They don't have historical trend data or it wouldn't be meaningful because you're working with smaller data sets.

[00:22:31] By having access to this, they can say, what is it like for, you know, companies of our size in our region, but all in our plan.

[00:22:39] And only those that have that massive data set can provide them with the insights they need for future planning.

[00:22:45] Exactly.

[00:22:46] Yeah.

[00:22:46] And speaking of future planning, planned now has operational workforce planning application.

[00:22:51] That's live.

[00:22:52] That's on their site now.

[00:22:53] You can check that out.

[00:22:55] So, you know, if you are trying to do some of that scenario planning and that analysis, Annaplan has that.

[00:23:01] And I like it too.

[00:23:02] You know, there's a lot of interesting features of it.

[00:23:06] I do like the integration with their financial products because that's a differentiator for them and gives them the ability again to do something that you can't necessarily do with many of their competitors.

[00:23:21] Yeah.

[00:23:21] This one, I got an early walkthrough of the team who was sort of working on this and building this.

[00:23:26] And, you know, I was impressed with how they were thinking about sort of the workforce planning in a much broader sense than I think Annaplan has been able to in the past.

[00:23:36] Right.

[00:23:36] We had a lot of conversations about how they go into that system and how they focus on the different personas who are doing workforce planning, how they think about the kind of key questions that go into workforce planning.

[00:23:47] Right.

[00:23:47] Right.

[00:23:48] So I was excited to see this come out.

[00:23:50] I think there's a lot of improvements.

[00:23:51] They'll continue to improve on this is sort of version 1.0 of where they're at on this.

[00:23:55] But I do think you're right.

[00:23:56] The connection to their financial planning is critical.

[00:23:59] This will be a direct competitor to what we're seeing happening over at Workday with adaptive planning.

[00:24:04] Right.

[00:24:04] This is a direct competitor to some of the other organizations that are trying to build out workforce planning in a more people centric way versus just a financial centric way.

[00:24:13] Right.

[00:24:13] And so I think this is going to maybe drive some more innovation in the market.

[00:24:17] What I'm hoping is that we're starting to see all these organizations push a little bit more.

[00:24:20] So, yeah.

[00:24:21] Absolutely.

[00:24:22] And this one is pretty interesting.

[00:24:24] This one is, again, this is a couple of weeks older.

[00:24:26] This is from People Matters now.

[00:24:27] People Matters Octopus.

[00:24:30] This is a couple of weeks older.

[00:24:58] It's an AI tool that can help you do that.

[00:25:01] Right.

[00:25:01] So, you know, just and it's a pretty interesting concept.

[00:25:05] They call it an AI powered solution navigator for, you know, HR tech.

[00:25:09] That's kind of cool.

[00:25:10] I mean, I could see that.

[00:25:13] It seems a kind of specific use case and you need to have a fairly large partner ecosystem.

[00:25:19] Right.

[00:25:19] Because it's just working within, you know, I would assume people matters for this to be useful to you.

[00:25:25] But I'm not, you know, putting it down.

[00:25:26] I just find it kind of interesting.

[00:25:29] They clearly felt that there was a market need.

[00:25:31] And we have talked to organizations who say, oh, we, you know, we realize people aren't finding the tools that they need within our marketplace.

[00:25:39] And, you know, how can we express that better?

[00:25:42] So perhaps this is a sort of reflection of those sort of needs.

[00:26:13] Yeah.

[00:26:15] I think AI can do it as well.

[00:26:16] Another organization that we, that actually works with us on sale.

[00:26:19] Right.

[00:26:20] They do something similar to this.

[00:26:21] Right.

[00:26:22] Every organization has their own way of how they're getting paid or how they're getting funded for this.

[00:26:25] So I think that's always an issue.

[00:26:26] Like, like I always say, follow the money.

[00:26:28] And that gives you some insight as to how, how that data is being used and, and where it's coming from.

[00:26:34] But I am, you know, interested in sort of seeing in like this whole ecosystem is continuing to grow.

[00:26:41] And I do know that the buyers tell us all the time and we cover biggest and small organizations, but we don't go all the way down to every I-9 checker or background checker in our data.

[00:26:51] We simply can't.

[00:26:52] But we're told all the time that it's so hard to just figure out who is an option for what you're trying to do in this market.

[00:27:00] Right.

[00:27:00] Yeah.

[00:27:00] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:27:01] I, you know, I, the closest I think we probably come to it is when we're looking up different, you know, apps on our productivity, such as Teams.

[00:27:11] It might have been a sort of tortured segue, but I'm going with it because one of the last stories is that, or the last, before we get to the really juicy stuff, is that Alight is launching Alight Work Life on Microsoft Teams.

[00:27:25] So collaborating with them to help, you know, anyone that has a Light Work Life and Teams do things like recommendations for benefits, virtual assistants that you can just have on all the time, 24-7, authorization, those sort of things that can be handled by that.

[00:27:42] But you could do it within the Teams platform, right?

[00:27:45] So the idea is to make it seamless, make it in the moment of work or however you're doing it within a system that you may already be using for somewhat similar purposes.

[00:27:56] So those kind of work together.

[00:27:58] It's if, you know, we've noticed sometimes that stories seem to follow somewhat thematic issues, even if it didn't seem so at first.

[00:28:05] And I really think here we're seeing, again, that blending of office tools, productivity tools, just what we do for work and HR type things.

[00:28:15] We knew that this was coming.

[00:28:16] We've been talking about this forever.

[00:28:17] You predicted it maybe even two years ago.

[00:28:20] And now we're seeing that come to fruition.

[00:28:23] Yeah, I think this is going to be interesting because I'm all for embedding a lot of stuff into Teams and Microsoft Office because, or, you know, Google environments, wherever we get our work done.

[00:28:32] But I do think benefits is a little bit of an interesting issue here because there's so much personal information on your benefits side, right?

[00:28:39] And so I do, it'll be interesting.

[00:28:42] I'd love to get, I think one of the things that we're going to be doing a lot over the next couple of months is digging into the benefits space.

[00:28:47] And I want to get an update from Alight on how this works just technically in the background because I think our buyers are kind of asking those questions, right?

[00:28:55] Right.

[00:28:55] Because it is, you know, if I'm sitting here chatting with my people, do I want a pop-up window of my benefits changing?

[00:29:02] I don't know, right?

[00:29:03] Like there's always that sort of, especially we all know, all of us who work on Teams know, you're never sure which chat window you're typing into, right?

[00:29:10] Like that's the big thing.

[00:29:11] Like, did I say this to the wrong person?

[00:29:13] Did I put this in there?

[00:29:13] Did I just share that to the whole group?

[00:29:16] Yeah, the whole group, right.

[00:29:17] We all know.

[00:29:18] We've all done that.

[00:29:19] So there is a little bit of like, where do we draw that line for embedding stuff?

[00:29:26] And the other conversation here, I think, though, is that from what we're seeing and we've had recent conversations with Aptia and which was the breakoff from the Mercer applications with PlanSource, with Naya and several others who are in this space.

[00:29:43] This market is ripe for change the next year.

[00:29:46] If I were a betting person and we know that in our data that benefits is one of the top places, particularly for those between 500 and 5,000 employees where they are going to be planning to spend more money in the HR tech space, I would watch this space very closely.

[00:30:00] HRMSs are flipping.

[00:30:01] We know that data.

[00:30:02] I think what's going to happen is we're going to see a lot of innovation, a lot of updating to what is going on in this benefit space.

[00:30:08] And then the following year, we're going to see some real changes because people are trying to figure out how this broker model works, how the carriers work together and how all of these organizations integrate the data safely.

[00:30:20] Right.

[00:30:21] So so I this is, I think, one of the first announcements I've seen where I'm like, you know, we need to get more insight here because this this is, you know, how the how this happens is just as important as what they're doing.

[00:30:33] Right.

[00:30:33] Right.

[00:30:33] That's right.

[00:30:34] So we promised you, listener, viewer, we're also on YouTube.

[00:30:38] We haven't mentioned that before, that we had some true tea in the in the truest sense.

[00:30:43] So this is interesting.

[00:30:44] And I really Stacey and I talked about it a bit in the green room.

[00:30:47] Is this really fit within?

[00:30:49] But I think it does because I think it hits on some larger topics with the HR tech space.

[00:30:53] So I'm going to run through the timeline.

[00:30:56] Stacey, to me, this is like my drama.

[00:30:58] You know, this is I'm all about this.

[00:31:00] So here's the timeline as best as I can figure it.

[00:31:04] And then we'll talk about it.

[00:31:05] So those of you who are listening to this, this would have just happened.

[00:31:07] You may not be aware of it.

[00:31:09] So, you know, I think is the big place.

[00:31:12] Yeah, this is it most came through LinkedIn, but this happened on site.

[00:31:14] So deal that's D to ease and then L that organization and Rippling got into a little bit of some kerfuffle here.

[00:31:24] So basically deal created a competitive page within their website, how deal stacks up against others.

[00:31:31] I'm on their site.

[00:31:32] It took me a while.

[00:31:33] It's deal versus competitors.

[00:31:34] And it's still up as of now.

[00:31:36] And it's I would say a standard one.

[00:31:37] They have a compared deal with Rippling.

[00:31:39] Remember that name.

[00:31:40] Papaya Global, On Top, Multiplier, ADP, Oyster, Omnipresent and Gusto.

[00:31:45] So they have a few of these.

[00:31:46] And when you go on there, they do what should be familiar to anyone who's ever seen these things before.

[00:31:51] Sort of the checklist box, right?

[00:31:53] Here's something we have.

[00:31:54] They have it or they don't have it.

[00:31:56] Right.

[00:31:56] And honestly, the big thing that they seem to point out is just the cost.

[00:31:59] You know, and they had a few other comments that were made.

[00:32:02] And well, Rippling publicly posted that they saw that and that they kind of had some fun with it.

[00:32:08] Made the snake game that we all might remember from our Nokia phones.

[00:32:12] If we had those, ask your parents if you're not old enough.

[00:32:14] And you'd kind of gobble up or whatever.

[00:32:16] You'd see all these marketing claims that were made, you know.

[00:32:19] And so they took some umbrage to this.

[00:32:21] To me, it seemed, you know, just my opinion.

[00:32:24] It seemed a bit overkill because it didn't seem like deal was really coming directly after Rippling.

[00:32:29] And they were like, oh, you know, this is and they said, oh, because they're selling snake oil.

[00:32:33] That was, you know, that's why it's a snake.

[00:32:34] That's snake oil stuff.

[00:32:36] They're saying basically this is nonsense.

[00:32:38] And then as if that wasn't like, wow, that's kind of coming on strong.

[00:32:43] That's a bit much.

[00:32:44] Then there was some posting about this supposedly from the head of sales.

[00:32:49] We have no way of verifying this.

[00:32:51] You know, Rippling posted this whole snake oil thing.

[00:32:53] And their head of sales was upset by this and made a rude drawing.

[00:32:58] I guess rude.

[00:32:59] Let's just say a rude response.

[00:33:01] Allegedly.

[00:33:01] Or, you know, it may or may not still be there by the time you hear this.

[00:33:04] But it was it was a bit much, you know, and then that was screenshotted and then said, you know, then Rippling commented on that.

[00:33:10] Wow.

[00:33:10] They really didn't like this.

[00:33:12] Calling him out for his response.

[00:33:14] So, you know, it's a little playgroundy.

[00:33:16] But I guess what stood out for me besides the sort of, you know, obviously there's some silliness to it.

[00:33:22] But I think there's some seriousness to it, too, for a couple reasons.

[00:33:25] I don't think that that's very common in the HR tech space.

[00:33:29] And I don't think it should be.

[00:33:31] Not necessarily because I don't think, you know, if organizations want to be competitive with each other, that's fine.

[00:33:38] I do think there's a certain level of decorum we still have.

[00:33:40] But also we are in the HR tech space, right?

[00:33:43] We are selling technology designed to help people be better coworkers, to be more pro-social, to be compliant, to help them communicate better, to not say things that are legally actionable.

[00:33:57] All those.

[00:33:58] Because you don't want to give an example of you not performing that way to then say, and that's why you should choose us to do that thing.

[00:34:05] You know what I mean?

[00:34:07] It seemed a little strange to me.

[00:34:09] But, Stacey, you kind of gave me a little bit of a history lesson of some things I forgot.

[00:34:14] This has happened before.

[00:34:15] So maybe, because I don't want to sound like I'm too hard down on Rippling because I'm more like the popcorn eating GIF watching this.

[00:34:24] But at the same time, I do have an opinion on it.

[00:34:27] And that's my opinion.

[00:34:28] That's what I'll say about it.

[00:34:29] But maybe you could talk a little more about your kind of more nuanced view of that.

[00:34:33] Yeah.

[00:34:34] No, I mean, I think, you know, anytime you, it's a bit of a bad taste to anytime you're, I mean, calling out competitors in some ways is always you got to be very careful and walk that line carefully, right?

[00:34:47] I think the sharing any kind of personal information, real or not, but even in pretend or jest, is crossing a line.

[00:34:55] We should never, because again, that's, we're in the industry of not sharing PII, right?

[00:35:00] Like personal information is important to everybody, right?

[00:35:04] But outside of that, you know, we have seen, and this is why I told someone who had sort of sent it to me and said, oh my gosh, can you believe this?

[00:35:10] And I said, I'm not surprised.

[00:35:13] For smaller companies right now, those who are in the market who are not the big guys, these have been tough years, right?

[00:35:19] This has been a very tough year.

[00:35:21] Sales are down.

[00:35:22] Marketing's out across the board for everybody, right?

[00:35:24] So even if you're growing, but if you're smaller, it's a tough year.

[00:35:27] So I think one, this just shows that we have a lot of competition in the market and people are trying to figure out ways to differentiate and do things that maybe will call attention to themselves.

[00:35:35] We're talking about them.

[00:35:36] There is an old saying.

[00:35:38] That's right.

[00:35:38] All news is good news.

[00:35:39] You know, there's no bad news, right?

[00:35:41] But I do think the other side of this, though, is that we have seen this before.

[00:35:45] For those who go way back in the day when I used to work at Burson, there used to be what we call the LMS wars.

[00:35:50] Back then, there was all the guys, the Cornerstones, the what was the SAP SuccessFactors, LMS Plateau, the GeoLearnings and the Sabas.

[00:35:59] And right, like those were all fierce competitors back in the day.

[00:36:03] And I can remember us doing a panel with all of them up on stage that got very close to fistfights at one point in time, right?

[00:36:10] With their leaders.

[00:36:10] You know, we do see this when the market gets very, what I would say, oversaturated and people are trying to find different ways to differentiate them.

[00:36:18] You're not just now going off of features and functionalities or cost, but you're kind of going off of, you're trying to be the most aware.

[00:36:25] And me and I have both been talking about this, the mid-market space in particular, as well as this, can be highly saturated right now with a lot of players, a lot of people competing for attention here.

[00:36:35] And so it doesn't surprise me, it saddens me a little bit that we went this route.

[00:36:41] We also have a history of, there was back in the day when both Zenefits, which was also run by Parker, as well as ADP got into a kerfuffle about sort of data sharing and what that looked like.

[00:36:54] And that was a very open and public conflict that spilled out into LinkedIn and some other areas, right?

[00:37:01] We have seen a couple places where there has been open and public conversations that Deal has been involved in as well.

[00:37:07] And some of the other employers of records, right?

[00:37:10] Which is a very highly volatile space right now.

[00:37:14] My sense on all this is as a buyer paying attention to this, what do you think about it?

[00:37:18] One is I think, you know, be willing to ask your companies about this kind of behavior, whether you like it or not.

[00:37:24] Like, how do you feel about this?

[00:37:27] Could this risk their finances or their ability to do what you need them to?

[00:37:30] That's one question.

[00:37:31] Feel free to ask about it.

[00:37:33] Secondly, I think we should also, as an industry, really focus in on what we do well.

[00:37:40] That, to me, is the power of little nudges, little things.

[00:37:46] We all do that.

[00:37:46] But I think, really, if you want to be known, I'd love to be known for what I do well.

[00:37:51] And I think Rippling does some very unique things.

[00:37:53] They don't need to do this, is the sad part of it, right?

[00:37:56] Like, I think because they do some very unique things in the market.

[00:37:59] Their customers seem to be really happy.

[00:38:01] They get high user ratings, right?

[00:38:03] Deal gets high user ratings where I'm expecting to see them on our data set next year for the things that they do, right?

[00:38:10] I think they both have opportunities for their customers.

[00:38:12] And when you do this kind of stuff, it takes away from the things you do really well, right?

[00:38:16] Yeah.

[00:38:17] And it's interesting, too, because just today I was working with our good friend and colleague, Tammy Smith, looking at some of the responses as we gear up for next year.

[00:38:27] And, you know, one of the questions we ask in the survey is, you know, what caused you to change or drop your provider?

[00:38:34] And, of course, you know, there's cost and functionality.

[00:38:37] But a not insignificant number of people, I think it was around 4%, said that it was ethics, the values and ethics of the companies.

[00:38:46] So, when you think about a data set as large as ours, that's a lot of people.

[00:38:51] That's a lot of dollars that could be going out because the perception of your organization is sullied by this.

[00:38:58] Is that worth the potential reward of those?

[00:39:02] Because to think about and something to think about how you decide, you as a buyer or potential buyer, think about what's important to you.

[00:39:09] It's not always just functionality, right?

[00:39:11] You got to think about who's exactly running this company and what have they done in the past and what's going on.

[00:39:17] And, again, you could see this in a positive spot, too, right?

[00:39:21] You could say, wow, they really fight hard or something, you know.

[00:39:24] So, it's not necessarily that it has to be one way or the other.

[00:39:28] It's just more broadening your scope of what do you think is important when you're making these decisions.

[00:39:33] Yeah, yeah.

[00:39:34] These kind of things, I mean, like I said, I know it makes me sound very old when I say, I've seen this or come around again.

[00:39:40] Yeah, yeah.

[00:39:41] I might do a tag out to Naomi Bloom and say, Naomi, how many times have you seen this happen?

[00:39:46] And she could probably go back to PeopleSoft and Oracle days and the battle between them, right?

[00:39:49] It happens in the market.

[00:39:50] But what I really like is that we're having the conversations.

[00:39:54] And we have the conversations because a lot of times we don't.

[00:39:57] A lot of times it all happens behind the scenes and you don't know what's really happening.

[00:40:00] And so, anymore, you know, as we wrap up this year, Cliff, I mean,

[00:40:03] what I've been so excited about, what really makes me feel blessed in our industry is that we have this dialogue with each other,

[00:40:10] with our community, that I get people who text me stuff in my LinkedIn commentary and says,

[00:40:17] Hey, have you seen this?

[00:40:18] I'd like to know what your thoughts are on it.

[00:40:20] Put it on the radio.

[00:40:21] Yeah.

[00:40:22] Yeah, I do call this radio show still.

[00:40:23] I'm sorry.

[00:40:24] I'm a little old.

[00:40:24] No, that's fine.

[00:40:25] It makes me sound much more important.

[00:40:27] Yeah.

[00:40:27] So, yeah.

[00:40:28] So, so shout out to all of our listeners out there that you guys, your comments to us,

[00:40:33] your LinkedIn commentary on, you know, what you'd like to hear us talk about.

[00:40:36] It really does make a difference.

[00:40:37] So.

[00:40:38] Yeah.

[00:40:38] Here on Cliff and Stacey in the morning, your drive time HR tech radio.

[00:40:42] I love it.

[00:40:43] I'm in now.

[00:40:43] I'm going to get one of those weird noise boards that we can play.

[00:40:47] Oh yeah.

[00:40:48] Morning shows are always so right.

[00:40:49] I was not a morning person.

[00:40:50] All right.

[00:40:51] Well, we got a wrap today because I know you were getting ready to get yourself off to Paris.

[00:40:55] I'm, I'm getting myself packed to go to a wedding this weekend and then off to Amsterdam to all

[00:41:00] of our friends out there.

[00:41:01] If we don't get a chance to see you before the holidays wrap up, we wish you beautiful holidays

[00:41:06] with your families, your friends, maybe a little time to get a break and everything.

[00:41:09] And if you celebrate Merry Christmas to you as well, but really a wonderful new year,

[00:41:14] because when we come back in the new year, we're going to have a whole lot of fun stuff

[00:41:17] to talk about.

[00:41:18] So, so make sure you come back in the new year.

[00:41:20] As we wrap today, it's a reminder that if you are trying to figure out where to spend a few of

[00:41:25] those training dollars, a great way is to buy the annual HR systems report and to make sure that

[00:41:29] you sign up for maybe one of the big cohort strategy sessions.

[00:41:33] Also, if you want to make sure that you have access to where Cliff and I are going to be at,

[00:41:38] what we're doing, any of the details, and you can't wait for every other week when we do our

[00:41:42] Spilling the Tea on HR tech, you can also go to our website to sign up for our newsletter

[00:41:45] to get an ongoing updates on our research launches, where we'll be speaking and where you can

[00:41:49] participate.

[00:41:50] And this year you want, definitely want to find out about where, when you can participate,

[00:41:54] because that's going to be a little bit earlier.

[00:41:55] I think it's going to be in early or the end of April this year, because we're trying to get

[00:41:59] out to the early HR tech conference, which is one week earlier than it was this year.

[00:42:05] That's right.

[00:42:05] So be sure to also listen to our sister HR huddle podcast, HR, we have a problem hosted by our CEO,

[00:42:11] Terry zipper.

[00:42:11] She's going to have some great upcoming interviews on that.

[00:42:14] And I think you're going to definitely want to listen to that on our HR huddle episode.

[00:42:17] And if you'd like to help support the podcast, please subscribe and leave a rating and review

[00:42:21] where you grab your podcast.

[00:42:23] Those always help to stay up to date with immediate breaking HR tech news and to get all the behind

[00:42:27] the scenes content.

[00:42:28] If you want to hear about what I'm going to be doing in Amsterdam at the workday event,

[00:42:31] follow us at sapient insights on LinkedIn X and Instagram.

[00:42:35] Oh, I'm not sure we're on X anymore, but LinkedIn and Instagram, definitely.

[00:42:38] And Facebook, but I will try and post also follow me personally.

[00:42:41] I'll try and post what I'm seeing while I'm out there in Amsterdam as well.

[00:42:45] So if you want to get caught up on that cliff, thank you as always for helping us pull all

[00:42:49] this together.

[00:42:50] Thank you for pulling that timeline together for the spill in the tea.

[00:42:53] Cause I don't know that I could have figured out where all that fell.

[00:42:55] Yeah.

[00:42:56] Thank our production team, including brand method media group who helps us produce our

[00:42:59] podcast run by their amazing founder, Kelly Kelly.

[00:43:02] If you do have podcast work you're trying to do in the next year, please follow up with Kelly.

[00:43:05] She does an amazing job in our marketing team, Summer Orleano and the rest of the team behind

[00:43:11] us here at Sapient Insights group.

[00:43:13] Thank you to our listeners and our community.

[00:43:14] We couldn't do this without you.

[00:43:16] You guys all know that we're sending you all big hugs for the end of the year.

[00:43:19] And that's it for the Spilling the Tea on HR Tech.

[00:43:21] We hope it's been just the brew you need to start the engines running this week.

[00:43:25] And we'll be back in two weeks.

[00:43:26] Well, it's a little over two weeks now with another pot of boiling hot HR Tech updates

[00:43:31] and insights.

[00:43:32] Thanks everyone.

[00:43:35] Bye.