Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - HR Tech in 2025: Major mergers, net neutrality, and much, much more

[00:00:00] I thought for a moment that you were saying, well, AI is kind of taking the jobs and so that's creating competition. But this is, that's a different take on it, I think, which is the impact of AI on the recruiting technology market, right? Which, I mean, we've had a lot of conversations about this, but, and how that's giving people an uneasy feeling about looking for jobs, right? Like that, you know, we do have a lot of conversations about what AI can do for businesses and there's a lot of power in that. But do you care that it might actually be making

[00:00:30] your candidates uncomfortable? And that's an interesting conversation to have, right? Because we do see a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the amount of sort of AI that's popping up in everyday life, right?

[00:00:41] 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.

[00:01:01] Welcome, everyone, to Spill the Tea on HR Tech, where we focus on the hottest HR tech news everyone needs to know to be in the know.

[00:01:08] We break down the news of the week and help you make sense of how that is going to help you and your industry and how it can impact your organization.

[00:01:16] We are recording today on January 3rd, 2025. Cliff, how did we get to 2025? We are here in the new year and we're going to bring you all the news you can use this week and next.

[00:01:27] I'm your host, Stacey Harris, Chief Research Officer and Managing Partner for Sapient Insights Group.

[00:01:33] And we are a research and advisory firm. And joining me today is my very special guest and host, co-host, Cliff Stevenson.

[00:01:40] Cliff, say hello to everyone. It's the first of the year.

[00:01:43] It is. Yeah, Director of Research here. If you're just joining us, you decided my resolution is to listen to more HR tech-centric podcasts.

[00:01:51] Welcome, welcome. Glad to have you.

[00:01:53] This is a great place to get all of that insight, right?

[00:01:56] Cliff, we have a lot of news going on this week, but we're just easing into the new year in 2025, right?

[00:02:05] Can you maybe give us just a little bit of insight into where we're going to be heading for the conversation today?

[00:02:11] Yeah, there's going to be a lot of merger, acquisition, and partnership talk.

[00:02:16] Nothing, I would say, huge. You know, if you think about some of the really big news that we had, maybe like ADP acquiring workforce software.

[00:02:27] Nothing at that level, but some recognizable names, some expansions of capabilities in the market,

[00:02:35] and also one big U.S. regulatory sort of legal thing that happened involving striking down net neutrality that was today, or the second it might have been.

[00:02:47] So we're going to talk about that and its impact. That was definitely one that is the most new, but we're going to talk a few different companies.

[00:02:55] You're going to hear news from Plansource, from UKG, from Deal, from Cloud Connectors, on and on. So stay tuned for that.

[00:03:03] Yeah, and we have some new stuff coming out this year from our research side.

[00:03:07] So we'll talk a little bit about that because I know you have been sort of digging into the small business side of things,

[00:03:12] and we're hoping to get a report out soon on what's happened in the SMB market.

[00:03:16] We've been spending, myself and Cindy Maurer, one of our other colleagues on the team,

[00:03:19] been spending a lot of time right now focusing on benefits and what's happening in the benefit space.

[00:03:25] And if you've ever wondered what a HR technology tech credit is in the benefit space,

[00:03:30] we now know all about it because we've been digging into those questions.

[00:03:32] So lots of good stuff that we'll be covering today.

[00:03:35] A couple of quick promotional items just to let you guys know what's going on with us

[00:03:38] if you're interested in doing any of the projects or seeing any of the work that we're doing.

[00:03:42] One is we do have out on our website now fully available the annual HR System Survey white paper that is now available.

[00:03:50] I believe if you are listening to this at this point in time, we will be having a new year discount running.

[00:03:57] I've talked to Terry a little bit about this. We're probably going to be launching that.

[00:04:00] So if you're interested, let us know. We'll have some promo codes.

[00:04:03] Maybe we'll add it to the bottom of this podcast.

[00:04:06] So that's for the new year, just to give you guys a little bit of an uptick on building and developing your HR System Strategy

[00:04:12] and all the insights you might need on both vendors and well as the practices around that.

[00:04:17] Also, if you're just looking for a segment, you should know that our website now has every segment of the paper.

[00:04:22] I think there's 14 segments out there, Cliff, right?

[00:04:25] Now that's how many segments are in the full annual paper of 250 pages, correct?

[00:04:30] That's right.

[00:04:31] Yeah, everything's out there and including some that are sort of more broad-based,

[00:04:35] that aren't specifically focused on specific companies that are free of charge.

[00:04:40] So if you want to take a look and see what are the sort of things we talk about,

[00:04:45] you can take a look at that and then figure out what are your specific areas of interest.

[00:04:48] And we have all of those available too.

[00:04:50] Yeah, we have a really nice change management paper, I think, that's out available on our website,

[00:04:54] that's in our resource area that people can download.

[00:04:57] I don't think that's that – we have not added a price point to that one, right?

[00:05:01] That's right.

[00:05:02] But it's all important.

[00:05:03] I think we end up talking about it quite a bit.

[00:05:06] As we had alluded to, there's going to be a lot of integrations and mergers and new companies going.

[00:05:12] And if your company is doing anything like that or even purchasing a system that is going to affect how your company operates,

[00:05:19] some of these really large HR systems probably require some change management efforts.

[00:05:24] And that's why that's in there.

[00:05:26] And I think it often gets neglected to the detriment of the organizations that neglect it.

[00:05:30] It does.

[00:05:31] And one of the reasons that we really emphasize that and wanted to make that more accessible,

[00:05:36] because it is oftentimes, I think, that what we found in our data this year is that people are spending less and less on change management every year.

[00:05:45] And they're wondering why things like HR technology adoption and why things like behavior changes aren't happening in the organizations.

[00:05:52] And as much as it feels like with the technology, it should just be able to be rolled out and be done.

[00:05:57] It isn't that the technology is often very hard.

[00:05:59] It's actually just the idea that you've got to make a behavior change and you've got to be sort of motivated and incentivized to make changes to what is kind of normal to you every day.

[00:06:07] Right.

[00:06:07] And so I just think people forget sometimes that it's hard to change as human beings.

[00:06:11] Right.

[00:06:12] So as much as we do it all the time.

[00:06:14] The other thing that's going on is that in March, we are starting our second cohort education series session on building an HR system strategy and adaptable HR system strategy.

[00:06:25] So if you are someone who's just trying to figure out how you get an HR system strategy done, what's really nice about this cohort education program is you will build one as you get through the program.

[00:06:37] So it's a six, it's a five month program with two sessions each month.

[00:06:42] It provides all of the tools and technologies that you need to build your HR system strategy, but you do it with a team and it gives you a lot of the advice and the guidance.

[00:06:52] And there's some leadership and education and coaching in there.

[00:06:55] So if you have an education or a leadership budget and you're looking for ways to spend it with your HR technology team or your head of HR or your CHRO, who's maybe having to go in and develop a new HR system strategy, all of that would be relevant for this cohort series career.

[00:07:10] Just ping us, send me an email and we will make sure that you get into the conversation and we get you on the list.

[00:07:15] Yeah, I think the networking aspect of that is often one of those things we were thinking about as we were developing this, but we really saw it happen the first time we did it.

[00:07:25] And those people are still connected and still helping each other out, especially as they move through jobs.

[00:07:30] And that's something that's very hard to, you know, kind of pin down in a curriculum, but is extremely important and has some of the longest lasting effects.

[00:07:40] It really is interesting.

[00:07:42] So we've had people who've moved to different jobs and then they've hired people from the cohort already.

[00:07:46] And that was kind of cool.

[00:07:47] I was like, oh, this is a neat thing to come out of the cohort program.

[00:07:50] And then we also had four of our cohort members go to HR Tech Conference in the fall and they all attended together and it helped them all sort of split things up, even though they want a couple of them were from smaller companies and get new data.

[00:08:02] And insights where they were able to work with and talk to other colleagues and that.

[00:08:05] And that was kind of interesting and fun, too, to see them sort of collaborate and work as sort of, you know, networked colleagues from different companies.

[00:08:12] And one of the things I think we're adding this year to the cohort education series is a end of year sort of capstone that that offers the opportunity to go to the HR Tech Conference and do some collaboration there.

[00:08:24] So a lot of new things that we're adding to it this year.

[00:08:26] So if you're interested, let us know.

[00:08:28] We are also working on a smaller change, change leadership cohort effort.

[00:08:32] So if you're interested in that, that'll come a little bit later in the year as well.

[00:08:35] Two of the things I think that we're going to be doing it just so people know where we'll be at.

[00:08:39] If you are going to be in the Arizona area, I've got two sales kickoff sessions that we are doing.

[00:08:44] I will be at both of those.

[00:08:46] One is the last week in January and the other one is in the middle of February.

[00:08:51] One is for the Cornerstone sales team.

[00:08:53] We're going to be telling them a little bit about what we're seeing in the data, where the market's heading.

[00:08:56] Same thing for the Vizier team.

[00:08:58] Again, talking a little bit about their sales teams about how we're seeing the changing needs of the HR technology audience.

[00:09:04] And this is something I think that a lot of people don't realize is that with our data and all the information that the market shares with us, we're able to sort of say, hey, maybe you should think differently about how you approach sales.

[00:09:14] We're going to be sharing with them.

[00:09:15] So any comments that you guys gave us around like what you would like to see in your sales process, how you would like to be addressed as a buyer, what kind of education you want available.

[00:09:24] That's all the kind of stuff that we share with the audience as well.

[00:09:26] So they feel like they have a little bit of an insight, insights into what's happening in the market.

[00:09:31] So that's going to be fun doing that.

[00:09:32] And it'll be a little bit warmer from where I'm at in Arizona.

[00:09:35] So I'm looking forward to that.

[00:09:37] And then Cliff, you and I are doing a webinar in February 18th, correct?

[00:09:40] Yeah, webinar February 18th.

[00:09:42] I believe it's 1 p.m. Eastern time for HR Executive Magazine.

[00:09:48] I don't know if we know the exact title yet, but we know it's going to be about how HR leaders are spending their money in 2025 and taking all of the data from our survey, obviously, to inform this.

[00:10:03] And trying to go beyond just what are the trends, but specifically where is that money going and what does that tell us?

[00:10:09] So helpful if you're looking at budgeting, if you're thinking about how others are doing this, we'll be, of course, breaking it out as we always do by sizes or industries or wherever we see some differentiation.

[00:10:24] So looking forward to that one, definitely.

[00:10:26] Yeah, and we'll be talking a little bit in that one about how the strategy should be looked at so you can prioritize that budget.

[00:10:32] Because it's always a hard, around this time of year, you have a budget, but you know you've got to get to the end of the year and you've got all these plans.

[00:10:38] You've got like, where do I invest the time and the money and make the most out of it?

[00:10:43] So we'll be talking a lot about how you help make those decisions in the organization.

[00:10:46] So it's a really big conversation these days.

[00:10:49] But speaking of budgets and spending, Cliff, I know we have a lot of news coming out of the vendor space this week.

[00:10:57] A couple of them have been doing acquisitions, right?

[00:10:59] Maybe let the audience know a little bit about what acquisitions we're seeing take place.

[00:11:03] Absolutely.

[00:11:03] Deal, who's certainly no stranger to spilling tea on HR tech.

[00:11:07] We've talked about them before.

[00:11:09] They acquired Assemble.

[00:11:11] And that really adds to, I think, the deal portfolio.

[00:11:15] They've often touted themselves as sort of an all-in-one, all-inclusive platform.

[00:11:19] Others do as well.

[00:11:20] But with Assemble, they're getting the compensation management, global compensation management.

[00:11:25] And that's no small feat because that's often a missing piece when some of these platforms say that they kind of have everything.

[00:11:32] Because usually they'll have everything through a partnership or through, you know, part of their sort of network.

[00:11:37] But here now they're saying, no, we're going to bring this in-house, which obviously adds to the ability to integrate that sort of data through all sorts of different HR tasks, right?

[00:11:48] So you can use that for talent acquisition or for future planning.

[00:11:53] But it just also adds a lot of transparency, which could become critical for any sort of regulatory environments.

[00:12:00] Anything to do with pay equity.

[00:12:02] You want to be able to have all that information sort of at a glance and quick access.

[00:12:07] And we know we've seen compensation in the conversation quite a bit last year.

[00:12:10] We saw investment in partnerships with Compa, with what was going on with Workday.

[00:12:14] We are seeing compensation conversations about benchmarking data, kind of come up with the pay transparency conversation, right?

[00:12:22] But it's also in the States, but also in Europe, at pay equity conversations.

[00:12:25] So I think we're going to see more of this, if not acquisitions, deeper partnerships, deeper data sharing on the compensation side over the next couple of probably six months to a year as we're trying to figure out where that market sits, right?

[00:12:39] That's right.

[00:12:40] And, you know, another one where we see this sort of idea of, you know, finding maybe not missing areas, but finding complementary areas was Lightcast and Guild who announced a partnership.

[00:12:53] So, you know, taking the sort of skills taxonomies and skills reporting to kind of blend those two together to give you full insights into anything skills related.

[00:13:06] One of, I think, your predictions for this year is that we're going to see a lot more about skills.

[00:13:10] And, you know, you'll have to tune in to see exactly where the spending is going there.

[00:13:15] But clearly these organizations are partnering, knowing that that is something that people are looking for, right?

[00:13:21] Yeah, and it's an interesting one, right?

[00:13:24] Because Guild has the idea of investing in sort of formal education.

[00:13:29] So companies are actually investing in formal education for their employees through sort of a voucher kind of a program model, right?

[00:13:37] And then sort of connecting that to the skills conversation, I think, is really interesting in the sense that it's not always sort of formal education in the sense of I'm going to get a four-year degree in this.

[00:13:48] But it's also a lot of, you know, what kind of skills do I need but I can get through higher levels of education maybe for a point area that I need in skills, right?

[00:13:57] Not just the full four-year degree.

[00:13:59] So there's a little bit of that interesting dynamic, I think, taking place with that Guild and the Lightcast conversation is this idea of what is the taxonomy of skills that I need to sort of connect?

[00:14:12] And how do I connect that to labor market data?

[00:14:16] And how do I connect that to the language that's being used at universities and the language that's being used in businesses, right?

[00:14:23] Yeah, that's the thing.

[00:14:25] A lot of the skills discussions is about, you know, the relevance of the skills.

[00:14:29] Is this, you know, truly the skills I'm looking for?

[00:14:33] It goes beyond just the names but being able to sort of have provable value to those skills.

[00:14:38] So, you know, having the sort of supply and demand put together, which I think actually is a pretty good segue into yet another.

[00:14:45] So that was a partnership.

[00:14:46] This is a true merger.

[00:14:47] Cloud Connectors and Joined.

[00:14:49] And if you're not familiar and you're looking for this, Joined is spelled J-O-Y-N-D.

[00:14:54] So a little bit of fun there.

[00:14:56] I always like that name.

[00:14:58] So, you know, here, these are two companies that focus on integrations in slightly different ways, mostly on the sort of tech side.

[00:15:06] But Cloud Connectors with their platform as a service and Joined with their sort of integration kind of just allows you to really, no matter sort of what sort of integration you're trying to do, they're really trying to get across all of the different possible scenarios and give you those full capabilities.

[00:15:23] You know, that comes with, obviously, hopefully faster deployments and that sort of thing.

[00:15:29] But, you know, I also like that they highlighted that they would be being able to expand their services and support.

[00:15:36] That's often left behind on these kind of things that are really focused a lot on the tech involved.

[00:15:42] And for most people, they may not really understand the need for these different types of tech, but they can understand the needs for these sort of services and support.

[00:15:49] So that you have assistance through what can sometimes be a slightly challenging thing, you know, getting all these integrations to happen.

[00:15:57] I think we've mentioned every year in a report the total number of systems at your organization.

[00:16:03] I can, I'll make my own prediction.

[00:16:05] It's going up.

[00:16:07] We've seen it go up every year.

[00:16:09] It's going up a lot.

[00:16:10] So the need for these integration services is high.

[00:16:11] Yeah.

[00:16:12] Yeah.

[00:16:13] Yeah.

[00:16:13] And I think what's interesting on this is that we've seen integration platforms as sort of a conversation that we've had in the market for quite some time.

[00:16:20] A lot of people might know something like a MuleSoft, right?

[00:16:23] Or even a Worketto, right?

[00:16:25] Something like that, where they make integration across a lot of systems sort of part of their conversation.

[00:16:30] I can remember having an early, early conversation about MuleSoft where someone said, oh, this will never work to have an integration platform because there's so many proliferations of integrations that you need and different types of data that needs to be crossed.

[00:16:41] But we are seeing that these things are becoming really valuable to organizations, especially if you have a lot of integrations, right?

[00:16:46] It's ways to make connectors.

[00:16:47] It does mean that you have to kind of know the software that they're working with.

[00:16:50] And I think what's really interesting with both joined and the cloud connectors is they're HR focused.

[00:16:55] And we've seen this for a while.

[00:16:56] And I think the companies who use them, who value them, do get a lot out of the fact that they know the HR business, right?

[00:17:02] So when they're talking about passing data back and forth, they understand that employee, you know, the word employee might be different.

[00:17:10] And they understand maybe the difference between sort of part-time and contingent and full-time and what that looks like inside of data sets, right?

[00:17:19] That's the kind of depth that you're looking for from someone who's an industry-specific integration platform tool, which is what we get out of both join and the cloud connector.

[00:17:27] So I do think this is a really good thing to see come together.

[00:17:31] I think this is a hard place sometimes because a lot of times an IT function wants a larger application that looks at integrations across all applications.

[00:17:40] But I think for an organization where they have a very large HR IT function and an HR IT function that has a lot of different systems that they're managing,

[00:17:48] an HR-focused integration platform can be a really powerful tool in their data set that can then connect into even larger integration platforms.

[00:17:56] So I think this works really well for organizations who are just trying to figure out how to manage the amount of not just connections,

[00:18:03] but data that they want to see going back and forth.

[00:18:06] That's really the power of something like this is you might be able to get more two-way data connections on something like this versus one way, right?

[00:18:12] No, that's exactly it.

[00:18:13] And I think that it's a bit of future-proofing.

[00:18:16] I think that I might have even said something like this on the press release that, you know,

[00:18:21] if you're thinking about using this sort of data to make business decisions,

[00:18:25] especially for anything used for AI or predictive analytics,

[00:18:28] you need to be able to have, you know, a really true, you know, up-to-the-second type of integration.

[00:18:36] And I felt that this was kind of a response to this growing need for a more data-driven, maybe an AI model.

[00:18:43] And this sort of merger is a step towards getting you that data in a way you can trust.

[00:18:50] Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:51] I was excited to see this because I do think that it's a market that probably don't need a ton of players in the space,

[00:18:56] but you need a few in the space.

[00:18:57] I think you really make it powerful.

[00:18:58] Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:59] Absolutely.

[00:19:00] But speaking of integration, we've got even more integration conversations, right?

[00:19:04] That's right.

[00:19:04] That's right.

[00:19:06] And Experian.

[00:19:07] If you haven't, if you're kind of new to the HR space or you don't really dig deep in systems,

[00:19:11] Experian is not a name you would probably associate with HR tech,

[00:19:14] but they have been making inroads for quite some time with different functions and capabilities.

[00:19:21] And so the UKG and Experian integration, I think, fits along with what we had talked about with Deal earlier.

[00:19:27] You know, if you're really trying to be an all-in-one platform, then you need to have everything.

[00:19:31] And that includes things like unemployment taxes and unemployment services and some of the employee data that kind of carries over and outside.

[00:19:43] Even things like, you know, they call out the work opportunity tax credit claims, which is USA-based thing.

[00:19:48] But all of the sort of, you know, verification and other types of employee data that sort of sit outside of a normal day-to-day function,

[00:19:59] but have a whole lot of really time-pressing and can be very tough to do type of tasks, especially around tax season coming up.

[00:20:10] That's going to be a big deal, I think.

[00:20:13] And I think UKG users will be very pleased with this integration because around that time,

[00:20:20] you do end up working on things that you normally wouldn't have to do and scrambling to find records and getting all that information ready.

[00:20:27] So you can see that this is pretty good timely information or timely integration to have been rolled out.

[00:20:34] Yeah, I really like this kind of a conversation that we're seeing in the market.

[00:20:39] And partnerships, you see a lot of partnerships, right?

[00:20:42] I think this goes very much to that, what we've been calling the platform cluster or the anchor systems, right?

[00:20:50] And the fact that if you are an organization that has UKG as your core HRMS environment, right?

[00:20:57] You are really looking for those deep integrations, those deep partnerships they're creating to ensure that you're going to be able to still get some of the tailored things that you need for your industry,

[00:21:08] like the work tax claims, which may not be the work opportunity tax credit, which may not be important for everybody, but is very important for some industries, right?

[00:21:15] And you want to find someone who can do that well, even if UKG isn't really supporting that.

[00:21:19] But you need to understand that relationship between UKG and Experian to get that right, right?

[00:21:24] That's right.

[00:21:25] And continuing on with this idea, at least of integrations or connections, PlanSource rolled out some news that they're going to have a partnership integration with the Hartford,

[00:21:39] one of the leading USA-based American health insurance providers.

[00:21:44] And so for anyone that's using this for benefits, I think there's a lot of benefit here for the actual end users, right?

[00:21:52] We've been talking a lot about helping administrators, but here, you know, if you are someone that, you know, is using or is a, I guess you'd call it a customer,

[00:22:00] an employee served by PlanSource, being able to just sort of have a, you know, glance at your benefits,

[00:22:06] be able to sort of quickly get the information you need.

[00:22:09] You know, there is obviously a lot of benefits on the administration side,

[00:22:13] but I think we could see a lot of, you know, just sort of, you know, I think the term they use is simplification,

[00:22:19] which, you know, if you deal with benefits as an end user or administrator, that is one of the problems is the complexity of it.

[00:22:27] Often regulatory in nature, but, you know, anything that can be done to allow you better access to information,

[00:22:33] to your benefits and allow you to sort of shop around and find the best deal for you, I think is welcome.

[00:22:38] So I don't think, you know, I don't see any downside to this one, that's for sure.

[00:22:43] Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing, and just so people are aware, if you're interested in sort of getting more details on,

[00:22:48] but we've got a full benefits section in our whole paper, which has basically kind of a user experience,

[00:22:54] some vendor satisfaction rating, and some insight into sort of who's playing in this market on benefits in the annual HR system paper.

[00:23:00] And we are adding sort of a standalone paper probably in the next couple of months on,

[00:23:04] that will include our benefits sort of model that we're working on right now.

[00:23:08] And the reason we're building that model is because we've been getting a lot of questions from practitioners,

[00:23:12] vendors and brokerage community on sort of like, how are things changing?

[00:23:16] What is new in the benefit space?

[00:23:18] And this kind of partnership, I think, is one of those things that feels a little bit like it's a morphing model that we're seeing in the market, right?

[00:23:25] So which has been around for quite some time, it's been one of the standalone sort of administrative benefit applications.

[00:23:33] Many organizations might know them through their relationship with UKG.

[00:23:37] So they are also one of the premier offerings that UKG offers from a benefits administration model as well.

[00:23:44] So they label underneath them.

[00:23:45] But what they've really done with what they call their boost program, which is this boost model, is this idea of identifying, you know, the top tier carriers.

[00:23:57] And that's what Hartford is basically an insurance carrier, right, of plans and programs.

[00:24:05] And they basically are saying that if you as a customer are, and as a broker too, because it used to be just for brokers.

[00:24:13] Now it's kind of wider, more broadly available, I think, to all their customers.

[00:24:16] If you are using one of these organizations in our boost program, Hartford now being one of them, then we're going to give you a bit of a price.

[00:24:25] Price breaks probably the wrong one.

[00:24:27] But it will be a little bit of a less of a cost is a better way to put it, right?

[00:24:31] A little bit more value for your money because we already have these integrations pre-built.

[00:24:36] The data passing back and forth is easier.

[00:24:38] And you get more real-time data as well, right?

[00:24:40] Like that conversation you just had, Cliff.

[00:24:41] And I think that kind of sort of understanding of the nuances between the difference between, oh, yes, we have a relationship with that carrier to, oh, we have a special relation to that carrier.

[00:24:52] And we actually have built integrations with that carrier.

[00:24:55] And who's brokered that relationship with the carrier, which oftentimes is the broker themselves and has that relationship working.

[00:25:03] Those are all the things that a benefit administration leader has to think about as they're going through this process and making sure they understand.

[00:25:12] And I do think that real-time benefits data is more critical than it has ever been, especially in the U.S., but really across the globe we're seeing, right?

[00:25:21] Because, you know, when you need to have information about life or short-term disability or your health care or discounts that you might have available, it does you no good if it's available two days later.

[00:25:35] It has to be available that day.

[00:25:37] And that's why real-time data is really important in this space, right?

[00:25:40] Yeah.

[00:25:40] We had a conversation earlier today, I think, with Naya.

[00:25:44] Yeah, with Naya, yeah.

[00:25:45] I like how they describe themselves.

[00:25:47] I think it's like the last mile, you know, which is a lot of pulling together all of this data and getting access to that, which just shows.

[00:25:54] And they've had a lot of fast growth, which shows that people are looking for that sort of work to be done.

[00:26:00] So any of these integrations as well.

[00:26:01] It's pulling it all together.

[00:26:02] That's really the hard part for the employees.

[00:26:05] So, yeah, I think it will be interesting to see how many more of these we see in the conversation.

[00:26:10] But we also have perplexities.

[00:26:13] This one, I think, is a little different.

[00:26:14] So can you maybe explain this?

[00:26:16] Yeah.

[00:26:17] So perplexity acquired Carbon.

[00:26:20] And I'll admit I didn't know Carbon before this.

[00:26:23] This was brought to our attention by our friend Jason Everbrook.

[00:26:25] Yeah.

[00:26:26] Thank you, Jason.

[00:26:28] And so perplexity, I knew.

[00:26:31] They've been around this space.

[00:26:32] I think of them, I think they call themselves an answer engine or something, which makes it sound like they're Google.

[00:26:38] But I think of them more as being able to search internal files.

[00:26:41] Anyone that's ever tried to do this in a workspace knows the problem with this, where you're going, okay, if I just try and search these terms, it's going to show up in a million places.

[00:26:50] How do I do this?

[00:26:51] Being able to get answers from all of your work documents is hopefully the end goal.

[00:26:59] And that's what Carbon does because Carbon has a lot of these connections, these integrations, right?

[00:27:04] And so they use the example of trying to pull in from Google Docs or from some of your internal work spreadsheets and find the answers you're looking for.

[00:27:14] They talk about doing transcripts of earnings calls in real time and then being able to quickly search for that, those sort of things.

[00:27:22] So, again, just as we were talking about earlier, this is a sort of future play, you know, as AI is becoming more and more important.

[00:27:30] I think that, you know, we're looking at that, you know, how do we get all of this data?

[00:27:34] How do we get these connections made?

[00:27:36] And I think Jason made this sort of same point, right, that he thinks that this is a 2025 specific sort of play.

[00:27:44] 2025 on, I should say.

[00:27:46] So, you know, he said one of the points he thinks that, you know, he had a term, it's knowledge, AI, or was it?

[00:27:53] You don't search for data, the data finds you or the information finds you.

[00:27:57] So that's, I think, moving towards that ideal.

[00:28:01] Yeah.

[00:28:01] And this is an issue.

[00:28:02] So if anybody's been in the knowledge management space, like Xylene back in the days, right?

[00:28:06] Document sign, all those, right?

[00:28:08] Like these are tools that organizations have.

[00:28:12] I've, this has been sort of the holy grail for quite some time, which is how do I surface all the information that is in my company in a way that makes it accessible and usable by the people who are in my organization, right?

[00:28:24] To make better decisions.

[00:28:25] I think the one thing that's been sort of interesting in the space is we have seen that AI, this is the hope, I think, for a lot of people of what the new, at least the chat GPT level AI is going to be able to offer them.

[00:28:37] I know even we're working with the idea that a lot of people have told us that our paper is so big now that it's hard to figure out answers.

[00:28:43] Can we use AI to help people find the answers inside of that big 250-page paper in a way that is relevant, contextualized, and doesn't just pull a stat because it thinks that, you know, somewhere, someone said 48% and AI together, and all of a sudden that's the answer.

[00:28:59] And how does it do it in a way that doesn't always allow you to think that it, because the AI conversation challenge right now is that it puts forth an answer as if it's right, instead of putting forth an answer with we're 80% possible that this could be right, right?

[00:29:15] And so I do think we have to look to some of these more rigorous, some of these tools that are really looking at this sort of knowledge management space with a little bit more contextualization is probably the best word to use.

[00:29:27] I know it's overused a lot, but more ability to contextualize an internal business documentation.

[00:29:33] I think this is what we're going to be seeing with these kind of things.

[00:29:37] Perplexity's got some of that in its background.

[00:29:39] Carbon has some of that in its background.

[00:29:41] Carbon signals.

[00:29:42] I'm excited to see where this goes.

[00:29:44] I have been, I can remember working on some of the earliest knowledge management systems back in, I want to show my age, but so I was working on knowledge management systems in 2004, 2002, right?

[00:29:57] So almost 20 years ago at this point, over 20 years ago.

[00:30:01] And at that point in time, it was the idea, oh, can I teach a program to go find a keyword and then pull up that document because of keywords in it.

[00:30:13] Now we've got the idea that maybe it can read it without me having to teach it.

[00:30:16] It can understand the context.

[00:30:18] I will believe this when I see it.

[00:30:21] So I'm excited to get maybe some briefings on this and see how well it's working.

[00:30:25] We've seen AI do some interesting things with our own data.

[00:30:30] About 20, 30% of the time, it's right.

[00:30:32] 70% of the time, it's not yet, right?

[00:30:34] So there's a lot of work in training those systems to understand the context that it's reading, right?

[00:30:39] That's right.

[00:30:40] I think the AI would say it's right 105% of the time.

[00:30:43] Yes.

[00:30:45] That's a struggle with numbers.

[00:30:46] But, yeah, I do think the point also is the curation of sources, right?

[00:30:51] If you're just saying just search these documents and that can help too with being able to quickly find and attribute where those answers came from.

[00:31:01] So, finally, this one was one we mentioned at the beginning.

[00:31:07] I don't know.

[00:31:08] It doesn't really matter.

[00:31:09] It was Thursday, so it was yesterday.

[00:31:11] Okay.

[00:31:11] The Federal Appeals Court struck down the FCC net neutrality rule.

[00:31:16] And although this had been ongoing, that's basically the end of it.

[00:31:21] So the net neutrality one is down.

[00:31:24] I'm sure groups like EFF will continue to fight this, but it's going to be an uphill battle to say the least.

[00:31:33] So, basically, oh, man, how to shorten this.

[00:31:39] But the idea being that there was some oversight, at least within the U.S., of these companies that were service providers for Internet, right?

[00:31:47] And that the opponents of net neutrality basically didn't want to have that government oversight.

[00:31:54] And those that believe in net neutrality believed it helped stop things like rate hikes and censorship.

[00:32:03] Now, I can tell, Stacey, you've been thinking about how this will affect HR tech.

[00:32:08] And I'll admit that as a consumer, as a user of the Internet, like I think we all are, I immediately started going, oh, boy, my bill is going to skyrocket.

[00:32:16] And I hadn't really thought about the specific aspects of how this might affect HR tech.

[00:32:20] So I am dying to hear what you are thinking about this.

[00:32:23] Yeah.

[00:32:23] So this is an interesting one because I remember when it first hit the market, this was during the Obama era, right?

[00:32:31] So this would have been 2010, I guess, right?

[00:32:35] So that would have been timeframe 2011 when net neutrality first came out.

[00:32:38] And part of this was the idea that what was happening, what was starting to happen, is that the Internet providers were saying, well, and this was in the early days of streaming, that if you're like, and this was back in Napster days.

[00:32:52] Is that the right one?

[00:32:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:32:54] It was, right?

[00:32:55] Not that I know anything about that.

[00:32:57] Movies and videos and audio, right?

[00:33:01] They were pulling down a lot more than a person who was just basically doing regular searches on the Internet or looking up, you know, websites.

[00:33:10] And so they were starting to say, well, I want to charge more for the people who are using it this way than the people who are using it that way.

[00:33:17] So I want to basically have a higher tiered price for everything they're spending, even though they're using the same amount of Internet that I'm pulling in, right?

[00:33:27] Like, so it was really the idea that they wanted to create an environment where not only was their oversight, but that there was no one got charged more for the type of data they were using.

[00:33:39] They just got charged for how much data they were downloading or uploading at the same time, right?

[00:33:44] And what was the big fear then, and I do think it will come about, is that particularly for SaaS, because SaaS was still new at that point in time.

[00:33:53] So cloud-based technology was, what if they start charging more if you're using business-based content versus personal-based content, right?

[00:34:03] What if they start charging more if you are a consumer of a certain product area, right?

[00:34:11] Like I, as Verizon, who's offering all of the, has the broadband access, could say, I'm going to charge more for someone who's looking at certain types of content, maybe because they're in an, or they're in a certain area code, I'm going to charge more, right?

[00:34:28] Like there's a lot of different ways in which this could go sideways pretty quickly if it's not overseen.

[00:34:33] Where when you think about telephone calls, and which is where this was originally based off of, you were charged, yes, you would have more for a long-distance call versus a local call.

[00:34:44] But you didn't get charged more if you were calling the president in that country versus your aunt in that country.

[00:34:52] You weren't charged based off of who you were calling, you were charged based off how far that call was.

[00:34:56] In this particular case, we could be basing our pricing on the kind of content that you have, that you have access to, not just how much you're using.

[00:35:07] And that's the fear that was in conversations around it in those early days.

[00:35:12] And that was why there was some oversight models being put in place.

[00:35:16] Now, this also could create a situation where the flip side of this, if I'm someone who's doing a lot of business, I could get a much better price for my content that I'm pushing.

[00:35:27] Or maybe if I'm getting advertising on it, but better price for that content, where someone who doesn't have the ability to pay for that advertising won't get that same price for the content, right?

[00:35:35] So it just becomes a really, there's a lot of different roads that we could go down that could have an impact here.

[00:35:41] This regulatory was pulled off of the books completely four years ago.

[00:35:47] So now four and a half years ago, right?

[00:35:49] It was one of the things that I know in the Trump administration that they chose to just basically walk away from after the Obama administration.

[00:35:56] I think President Biden had started to go back down this road.

[00:35:59] And again, we're assuming that with this latest judgment from the courts, as well as the new administration that's coming in, we're probably not, it is dead at this point, right?

[00:36:09] Now I think we're going to have to see if that's going to have an impact.

[00:36:13] Now there are some states who have some net neutrality requirements on the books.

[00:36:18] And I think that's something to be aware of is will this hold a little bit stronger because some of the states have put in place some of those regulations and requirements?

[00:36:25] So do I not want to mess with it if New York and California is requiring it?

[00:36:28] Do I bother putting in place something outside of that?

[00:36:31] And there are some countries outside the US.

[00:36:33] So Europe already has some net neutrality kind of components inside of their environment.

[00:36:37] So this might not be as big of an issue as it was in 2010 because other entities might be kind of creating a firewall around it, right?

[00:36:45] But there is some money to be made if you're able to figure out how to manipulate this and use it effectively, right?

[00:36:50] Yeah.

[00:36:51] Yeah, and I could have, I was, as you started to talk about this, and I was thinking about more and more, you know,

[00:36:55] it's not unfeasible that we start to see partnerships with providers.

[00:37:00] As we were talking about partner ecosystems, you know, maybe Comcast all of a sudden is the preferred provider.

[00:37:06] And, you know, if you're using this particular system with Comcast, then you're not going to, you know,

[00:37:12] we won't throttle it or whatever the case may be.

[00:37:15] Yeah.

[00:37:16] It wouldn't have been an option before.

[00:37:17] It sounds very convoluted.

[00:37:19] It sounds like something that's way out there, but it could have an impact on not just your pocketbook as a consumer,

[00:37:26] but it could have a very big impact on monopolies and businesses and those kind of things,

[00:37:32] which there's a lot of things that have that impact.

[00:37:34] So I'm not saying this is the only thing.

[00:37:35] This is just one of many where, again, it's really hard sometimes as a small business to break into a market,

[00:37:40] especially when it's when big companies are owning things.

[00:37:42] You know, we've had, we've heard this conversation about Google and Facebook for quite some time already, right?

[00:37:46] Meta.

[00:37:47] Absolutely.

[00:37:48] Yeah.

[00:37:49] Yeah.

[00:37:49] I personally find the Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF, EFF.org to be useful if you're trying to get more information

[00:37:58] or if this is a subject that you're interested in.

[00:38:01] They do a lot of the work on the legal aspect there too.

[00:38:04] Yeah.

[00:38:04] It's definitely while we're sort of understanding, especially if you are a small business trying to make decisions

[00:38:09] on where you're going to invest your time and energy on this.

[00:38:12] Yeah.

[00:38:12] Absolutely.

[00:38:13] Well, I'll just kind of mention really quickly, because we do have a little bit, you know, I know we got to wrap up.

[00:38:20] You know, it's 2025.

[00:38:22] I've got lots to do this year.

[00:38:23] Our friends at Greenhouse released their state of job hunting report.

[00:38:29] Looking back at 2024, finding, I would say, maybe not some great stuff.

[00:38:34] They said that 61% of job seekers have been ghosted, meaning that no one got back to them post-interview,

[00:38:41] which unfortunately anyone that's ever been on the job market will be all too familiar with.

[00:38:46] You probably assume it would be higher.

[00:38:47] But some DE&I ones that I found pretty interesting that over half of candidates, 53%, said that they found an organization's commitment to DE&I important,

[00:38:59] yet 64% reported that they faced some sort of discrimination or bias during the interview process.

[00:39:06] Oh, yeah.

[00:39:06] So, yeah, you know, it's that disconnect.

[00:39:09] So, you know, it's one of those things where it is important and companies sometimes struggle with, you know,

[00:39:15] does this matter?

[00:39:17] What is going on with that?

[00:39:19] And you can really see that, you know, when it comes to hiring, because, right, it does matter to employees.

[00:39:25] And these sort of tools that we're using to help combat this can have an effect.

[00:39:30] Yeah, and it does have an impact on, you know, the kind and the quality of candidates and the talent that you might be able to bring in the organization.

[00:39:38] But it also means that we can't, as much as there's a lot of shifts in sort of thinking about DE&I right now,

[00:39:45] we really have to just be aware that the population, the world in general, right, when you look at those numbers and stats, is just more diverse.

[00:39:53] And so if you as an organization aren't taking that into consideration, that's going to have an impact,

[00:39:59] especially if you're not sort of making sure your managers and your hiring staff are educated on what that means for you from a hiring perspective, right?

[00:40:08] Absolutely.

[00:40:10] A good pledge or resolution or something to keep in mind in this coming year.

[00:40:15] There's going to be a lot more on this topic.

[00:40:17] I can guarantee that.

[00:40:19] Yeah.

[00:40:19] So.

[00:40:21] Yeah, and then I think there was this stat on AI that 57 respondents attributed intensified competition to AI both of –

[00:40:29] and I thought, okay, so they're feeling the competition.

[00:40:31] Is that what that's saying?

[00:40:32] I was trying to figure out like what that was meaning.

[00:40:35] Yeah.

[00:40:35] So – and we should mention the make of this.

[00:40:38] You know, it's a good amount of people, 2,500 workers across the U.S., UK and Germany.

[00:40:41] Again, 57% respondents attributed the intense competition.

[00:40:46] They think that the reason there's so much more competition for work is because of AI, whether that's because, you know,

[00:40:53] peers are applying to similar roles and using AI in some way to sort of give them a competitive edge,

[00:40:59] or the companies are using AI and they are no longer being sort of having a personal touch,

[00:41:06] and that's what's causing some of the issues with them getting hired.

[00:41:10] So there's – they're worried about other – their peers using it.

[00:41:14] They're worried about companies using it.

[00:41:15] There's still, you know, there's still uneasiness about how AI is affecting the job market.

[00:41:21] It sounds like more people are worried about it than they think than it's, you know, helping them personally because they say, well, everyone's using it, right?

[00:41:28] Yeah, I thought for a moment that you were saying, well, AI is kind of taking the jobs and so that's creating competition.

[00:41:34] But this is – that's a different take on it, I think, which is the impact of AI on the recruiting technology market, right?

[00:41:41] Which, I mean, we've had a lot of conversations about this, but – and how that's giving people an uneasy feeling about looking for jobs, right?

[00:41:49] Like that, you know, we do have a lot of conversations about what AI can do for businesses, and there is a lot of power in that.

[00:41:54] But do you care that it might actually be making your candidates uncomfortable?

[00:42:00] And that's an interesting conversation to have, right?

[00:42:02] Because we do see a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the amount of sort of AI that's popping up in everyday life, right?

[00:42:09] Yeah, and it directly, I think, relates to the whole D&I conversation, right?

[00:42:13] Because a lot of the promise, a lot of the hope is about using these tools that would help eliminate some of the bias.

[00:42:19] But then they're going – or they're thinking, well, is it now just bias towards ones that have been written?

[00:42:25] And almost like how SEO was a thing, search engine optimization, use certain keywords to hopefully get your thing found.

[00:42:32] So you write it in such a way to manipulate the AI, to manipulate the algorithm into putting you at the top of the pile.

[00:42:39] You know, are you pitting your AI against their AI and the humans completely out of it?

[00:42:43] That's a dystopia that they're trying to avoid or that they're worried is happening.

[00:42:47] And it's certainly not helping that the job market isn't exactly robust.

[00:42:51] So it's just adding to the anxiety.

[00:42:54] So like you said, how you as a company present the use of your AI in the hiring process can have a big impact.

[00:43:01] Yeah.

[00:43:02] And, you know, I've had a lot of conversations with Athena Karp over at Workday on this with the acquisition they made with that platform that's sort of orchestrating the idea of the hiring process.

[00:43:13] And I do think that, you know, we are seeing a lot of positives come out of AI in the recruiting space.

[00:43:18] It is one of the spaces where we're seeing a lot more in our data.

[00:43:20] The number one way that AI is being used is job profile creation, right?

[00:43:24] So we know that it is being used for a lot of recruiting efforts.

[00:43:28] What I would say is that, you know, when it's being used to help coordinate, to help connect the dots, to help people sort of see the data that they need to be seeing, that's really valuable.

[00:43:40] When it's being used to select or pick is when I think we should really be making sure that we've got a lot of eyes on that and understand the criteria we're building around that, right?

[00:43:50] Yeah.

[00:43:50] Always transparency is the watchword with AI.

[00:43:54] Yeah.

[00:43:55] Well, what a large, I mean, considering that it's only, what, two days, three days into the new year, and that we have this much news that came out of just the holiday break, I have a feeling this year's going to be a little bit of a wild ride.

[00:44:07] It's 2025, you know, every time I sort of think about the fact that it's been 25 years, a quarter of a century since we hit 2000 and 2000 was felt like such a big momentous moment in my life.

[00:44:20] I don't know about you, Cliff, but I think, you know, we're going to see a lot of change this year.

[00:44:24] And I think that we're also going to see a lot of readjustment to the market as a, particularly in the HR space, that people are really rethinking the idea of HR technology and people-based needs.

[00:44:42] And I think that's going to be the theme that we're going to hear a lot of this year is that AI was a lot of the conversation last year.

[00:44:48] I think this year it's going to be, you know, what do people need?

[00:44:52] Where do we need to have their needs in mind?

[00:44:56] And how can the HR technology help get us out of doing the administrative work again?

[00:45:02] And I know we haven't had that conversation probably for almost 10 years.

[00:45:05] Like, it has been very much a talent-based conversation in the market.

[00:45:09] I think this year is going to be a really focused, big year focused on how do we just help people get their day-to-day work lives and personal lives done well and effectively and efficiently.

[00:45:19] And I don't know that's been the topic for a while.

[00:45:21] So I'm kind of looking forward to this year.

[00:45:23] It's a very practical year would be in my mind, right?

[00:45:25] I like that.

[00:45:26] I think also we have a big milestone from our data that hopefully we'll see in this survey is, you know, we've been doing the 55 by 25.

[00:45:34] Well, it is 25.

[00:45:35] So we have seen, especially in the last few years, a greater increase in the percentage of organizations that see HRs providing strategic value.

[00:45:46] This could be it.

[00:45:47] Definitely if everyone takes Stacey's advice to heart and really thinks about the impact on how people are going to be affected at your organization and, you know, how that in the long term really will help your organization.

[00:45:59] I think that's going to be a big step towards reaching that milestone.

[00:46:03] Yeah.

[00:46:04] Well, and so I think we've got some good headwinds into the new year.

[00:46:10] As we wrap today, just a reminder that if you're looking at where all this data that Cliff and I tend to mention a lot here is at, it is in our annual HR systems white paper.

[00:46:17] Now available in the research marketplace with over 200 HR vendors and this year's report and input from over 5,000 HR practitioners, which always just blows my mind.

[00:46:28] I think we're going to get less and we always get more.

[00:46:30] If you are a vendor who's interested in distributing and being part of the community, actually next week, I think Tammy will be sending out the first of our regular announcements saying sort of here's how you sign up.

[00:46:41] Here's how you get involved.

[00:46:42] Drop us a line.

[00:46:43] Connect with me on LinkedIn.

[00:46:44] Let me know.

[00:46:45] We'll make sure you get into Tammy's list and she can email you all the details.

[00:46:49] It's really not a big push.

[00:46:50] Really, the biggest thing for us is that we're trying to reach as many people as possible across the globe and across the market.

[00:46:56] So if you're interested in being a distributor, whether you're a consulting firm, a brokerage firm, whether you are an association or an organization, maybe just a user's group where you have connection with a lot of practitioners, or if you're a vendor as well, any of those are all open.

[00:47:11] Anyone can help participate.

[00:47:13] And you do get a lot of incentives from it.

[00:47:15] So you might be very interested in where that opportunity to do that lies.

[00:47:19] Also, go to our website to sign up for our newsletter if you want to know where Cliff and I will be at in the coming months.

[00:47:24] And that will also give you an update on our research as it's launching, the new benefits paper, the small business paper.

[00:47:29] We have an AI-enabled research effort that we'll probably be talking about in the next month or so.

[00:47:33] So lots of new stuff coming out.

[00:47:35] And where we'll be speaking and visiting as well.

[00:47:37] The new date for the new survey, because again, we're in 2025.

[00:47:42] Cliff, I'm going to have to open up my folder.

[00:47:44] I create folders for every survey year.

[00:47:46] Now 2025 is going to be, you have to open up.

[00:47:49] The new date will be May 1st to the public.

[00:47:51] So keep that on your calendar.

[00:47:52] We'll keep reminding you about that.

[00:47:54] Be sure to listen to our sister HR Huddle podcast.

[00:47:56] HR, we have a problem hosted by our CEO, Terry Zipper.

[00:47:59] And if you like these episodes and you're enjoying this or you'd like to hear more from us,

[00:48:02] please be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave ratings and comments.

[00:48:07] That really does help us a lot.

[00:48:08] And to stay up to date with the immediate breaking HR tech news and get all the behind the scenes content,

[00:48:13] you can follow us at Sapience Insights on LinkedIn, on Instagram.

[00:48:18] And I think we're getting some blue sky, right?

[00:48:21] Both you and I are on blue sky now.

[00:48:22] So you can find us on blue sky as well.

[00:48:25] So we're all trying to figure out where's the next big social platform.

[00:48:28] Thank you, Cliff, for all that you do to pull all this information together every month.

[00:48:31] I'm excited to start the new year off with all of this fun stuff and all the fun,

[00:48:36] exciting projects that you and I are both working on.

[00:48:39] Thank you to our production team, including Brand Method Media Group,

[00:48:41] who helps us produce this podcast run by their amazing founder, Kelly Kelly.

[00:48:45] Our marketing team, Summer Alano, Cindy Murano, as well as Terry Zipper,

[00:48:50] who are all helping sort of push this forward.

[00:48:51] And most of all, thanks to our listeners and community.

[00:48:54] We couldn't do this without you.

[00:48:55] You really do make all the difference.

[00:48:57] And that's it for this episode of Spill in the Tea on HR Tech.

[00:48:59] We hope it's been just the brew you needed to start the engines running this week.

[00:49:03] We'll be back in two weeks with another pot of boiling hot HR tech updates and insights.

[00:49:07] So thanks, everyone.

[00:49:08] Happy New Year.