Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - Salesforce & Workday’s bold move, UKG’s new CEO, and VC funding disparities impacting women and Black founders.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_03]: like Jennifer and her background and what she brings to this organization.

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I think UKG has a lot of opportunity right now to fix some things that they broke in the last couple of months

[00:00:12] [SPEAKER_03]: through kind of the pace at which they moved through the layoffs,

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_03]: also some of the challenges they've had over the last six months to a year

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_03]: with sort of the customer sort of changes that they've made around customer care.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of that was they were working on fixing some situations they knew had happened because of the merger acquisition,

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_03]: because the transition from on-premise workforce management systems to cloud workforce management.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_03]: They were going through some of the things that many organizations had taken years and years to go through in the matter of like two or three years.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the HR Huddle podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group,

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_00]: the ultimate resource for all things HR.

[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_00]: It's time to get in the huddle.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Hi everyone, welcome 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.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_03]: We break down the news of the week and help you make sense of what it means for our industry

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_03]: and how it can impact your organization.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Work recording today on July 31st.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_03]: So hopefully you're in the middle of your own summer getaway this weekend

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_03]: and hopefully by the time you get back you'll have time to listen in all the fun news.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm your host Stacy Harris, Chief Research Officer, Managing Partner for Sapient Insights Group.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_03]: We're a research and advisory firm.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Joining me today is also my co-host and our Director of Research at Sapient Insights Group, Cliff Stevenson.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Cliff welcome to the show again.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_03]: We've got lots of tea going on.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_03]: We were spent almost like a half an hour in the brain room just trying to get it all organized today, weren't we?

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's been no shortage of news.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: If anything we have to often cut stuff which of course as I always say you can find in the notes on both LinkedIn and YouTube.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Along with everything we're going to talk about and also because we're in the south of the United States.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We're thinking very summary but I realize we have our Aussie listeners and those of you in the Southern Hemisphere.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So hope you're staying warm which seems weird for considering our locations.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, a lot of news they didn't take a break for us even though we were gone a week going through the survey data.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_01]: You'd think the world would stop but it didn't.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_01]: It kept going. A lot of exciting stuff.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a fun week. We had the whole team here in North Carolina in our area on the Raleigh Dermaria.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_03]: We held a really great change leadership on diversity roundtable that was held at the Pendome headquarters here.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And we had Lindsay Beger who runs the CEO of 321 Coffee which is an amazing organization that is built around developing work

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_03]: and creating an environment for newer diverse workforces.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And is focused on providing service to the community through a great and amazing series of coffee and tea products.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_03]: So if you're interested in that follow us on our HR Huddle.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_03]: You'll see I think we're going to be out there. It's going to be a great sort of live podcast that we did at the event.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_03]: The roundtable was really interesting. We'll maybe talk a little bit about that today and some of the things that we heard there.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_03]: But we also spent the week as you said talking about the HR strategy and system survey.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_03]: 27th year, 27th edition. It was a proud kind of mom moment for me as I kind of sat back and listened to you and Tammy

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_03]: and the whole group take ownership of the research this year.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_03]: So I was trying really hard to kind of let everyone else take a big role in that research

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_03]: and because I've owned it and been sort of my baby for the last 10 years.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_03]: You guys did an amazing job this year, Cliff.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_03]: So just, you know, I don't often acknowledge how much hard work that effort is,

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_03]: but we got over a thousand more responses than we did the previous year.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I'll let you give the final numbers.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_03]: We had over 20% more distributors this year which meant the relationships we've created are really strong with the community.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And just data. Oh, good this year.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_03]: So much information about what people are doing on a real day-to-day basis with artificial intelligence,

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_03]: what they're doing and how they're leveraging the HR technology that they're using every day in their work environment

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_03]: and how they're building it into their change processes and their ESG discussions

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_03]: and their conversations about the outcomes they're trying to achieve as business leaders inside the organization.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm excited. That's my little ass-hoped box.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a good event this week, wasn't it?

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: It was amazing and I guess well this will be the first full announcement,

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: but although the final digit could change, it's 3,314 different organizations that took part this year

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_01]: even after the cleaning and consolidation and we just had more people than ever

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: and I want to thank you, the listeners and if you happen to be one of the people that took it.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I could just tell a lot of thought and care went into it.

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_01]: We had a larger number of people that took more of the survey, if that makes sense.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had my own sort of mama moment where it's like,

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_01]: okay well now I'm being very protective of the AI.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I almost don't even want to say everything.

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like no, that's all mine now.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But there's a lot of really cool stuff.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Everything from yes, those big AI stories, but maybe it's something like implementation

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_01]: and we just did so much of a follow-up on listening to feedback that we got from all of these survey takers

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_01]: and everyone that bought the report and used it said,

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_01]: we want to go deeper in. We want to know the why and there's a lot of the follow-up where you'll see,

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_01]: okay, there's less people doing this than we expected, whatever it might be, why is that

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_01]: or there's more people or just what are the reasons behind the change that you made

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_01]: and I love saying that because just being able to answer questions is what we're all here for, right?

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. So we're a couple of things I think just to kind of get a sense as to where you'll be able to get

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_03]: updated information because the survey is closed, although the reason the number keeps changing

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_03]: is not because we keep finding more people to get out

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_03]: because we've actually gone through all the waiting process.

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_03]: It's because before Tim and Kim finished consolidation, she's got to leave a link open

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_03]: and somewhere somehow people are still finding the link.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_03]: We've had like five completions, like real completions of the survey.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Since the survey has been closed, Tammy will be, she'll tell me never tell anybody that

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_03]: because she doesn't want me to know that it might still be open, but that's what's been happening, right?

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Like people come, I just have an email yesterday, someone's like, I missed it.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_03]: What do I do now? Yeah, it's tough.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_03]: We are closed at this point. Tammy can't take any more data

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_03]: and I think our cleaning team would revolt at this point.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_03]: But what I will say is that there's a lot of different places where you can hear us speak about it,

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_03]: where you can hear us talk about it.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_03]: There's also going to be an opportunity to buy a bundled grouping of that research

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_03]: if you didn't get a chance to participate and you aren't going to get the complimentary version.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_03]: What you'll have an opportunity is sort of buy a version that I can get this year's and next year's.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_03]: So that's coming out in the next week or so.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_03]: So you'll probably hear that about the time this drops in a week and a half.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And then also too, we love getting questions.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_03]: If something specific you're looking for, feel free to reach out.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's something simple that we can answer and we don't mind sort of passing on some information that we have.

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's something that is a little bit bigger, but we can maybe pull something out of the environment

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_03]: that will work for you and work within what you're trying to accomplish.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_03]: But if you're wanting to come talk to us and hear a little bit about where we're at,

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_03]: we're going to be in a couple of different places in the upcoming months.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_03]: One is we're going to be at the Oracle Cloud World on September 9th and 11th.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_03]: That's going to be you Cliff. You'll be there.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_03]: You'll be representing on the analyst front and hearing some of the updates that Oracle is going to be setting out that week, correct?

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. And for those of you that aren't watching this on YouTube,

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: they've never seen me before, just look for the told gentlemen wearing lots of pink.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: That's their company colors and I love it.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And I have updated and upgraded my wardrobe to feature lots of pink.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Cliff, that's a better pink wardrobe than I do at this point,

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_03]: which I didn't think that was possible. So we got there.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Also again, if you have not had the opportunity to sign up for the HR Technology Conference,

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_03]: we have $150 off code, which is I think it's sapient, but I'm not sure.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'll we'll put that in the notes, the code for the $150 off because we'll be speaking.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_03]: We'll be doing our keynote mega session there where we deliver every year the key findings from the HR System Strategy.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_03]: This year, we're going to be focusing on the voice of the customer session.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_03]: That is going to be held on Wednesday at 1pm.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_03]: So make sure you're there. Make sure you're signed up for that session.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Put it on your calendar so you don't forget.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be one way where you'll be able to get some of the early data before anyone else gets a chance to see it

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_03]: because the full report won't be out till October 31st.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_03]: The other way to maybe get a chance to talk to us is you're going to catch Terry Zipper, who's our CEO,

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_03]: speaking with Daniel Bouchon on Bouchon.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, Daniel at the Tuesday morning women in HR Tech panel at 930 on creating culture of data transparency.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_03]: That's really exciting.

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_03]: And then Cliff and I will be available on Thursday morning at 9.45 at the HR Tech conference

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_03]: on Ask the Experts for That's Gonna Be Myself and Cliff

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_03]: and we're going to be there talking about building your HR System Strategy.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_03]: So lots of opportunities to talk to us to hear about some of the interesting things that are coming out of this research.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_03]: We will be kind of all over the HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas doing podcasts, doing a bunch of interviews.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_03]: So you also will probably see us on the floor if you're a vendor reach out to us for a briefing.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_03]: We got a few slots for briefings open but not many left.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Also, right after that event will be in October 7th through the 10th at the ISOLD Connect.

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I thought that's located at Cliff. Do you know where the ISOLD Connect is at this year?

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It is in Orlando, Florida.

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Just down the road from here, right?

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Just down the road. I'll be taking the train over there.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. And then Unit 4 is doing an analyst event up in Pennsylvania,

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_03]: which I think I'll be attending November 6th and 7th.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And then UKG is going to be doing their Aspire event once again in the Las Vegas area again on November 12th and 13th.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And then we'll also be at the Workday European event on November 12th through 14th in London.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_03]: So busy fall season, and that's not everything yet.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_03]: We're still kind of trying to decide on a few events,

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_03]: but lots of places to see us and lots of places to connect on the research.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_03]: Cliff, that is what we're doing, but let's get into all this news.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_03]: We're already about 10 minutes in and we haven't even started talking about what's going on the rest of the work, right?

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of exciting stuff.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, I'd like to talk about some of the big stories first because there's quite a bit going on.

[00:10:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I think one of the biggest because it involves two of the larger companies in our world is Salesforce and Workday,

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_01]: who just recently announced a strategic partnership sort of centering around an AI agent.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_01]: If you'll remember we discussed AI agents as opposed to, you know, AI assistants or AI chatbots about two or three episodes ago.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to hear my sort of very glossed over explanation of, but you know, you can think of it as an AI powered control room

[00:10:56] [SPEAKER_01]: where everything's coming in all these different inputs are in so that you're able to create more efficient workflows.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Or you know, if you want to use something as simple as answering questions, sure it's there,

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's kind of able to pull in a whole lot of different inputs and use that to help guide decision making.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is an employee service agent as they call it.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_03]: It will be creating personalized assistant for employee service on use cases such as onboarding, health benefits, career development,

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_03]: both within the Salesforce environment and the Workday environment.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I think the interesting thing here is the connection between these two organizations

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_03]: and sort of being able to sort of live in each other's worlds a little bit more cohesively.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And you know, we've been talking about this for a while.

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Workday's been slowly getting out of their sort of me, me, me stage and getting into the partnership model stage.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Right? And this is just another, I think, example of how they're stretching

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_03]: and how they're really working towards this idea of how do we fit into the bigger picture ecosystem

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_03]: but still be the central tool for the data you need on your employee.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And that really is kind of the fundamental area where they're focusing here.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Now, the interesting thing is you also know that Workday's heavily moving into the financial space as well.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I think we're going to start to see sort of an interesting morph between Salesforce, Workday kind of HR initially

[00:12:16] [SPEAKER_03]: but then also the financial data as well.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And that I think will send some interesting shock waves to the market as that starts to build out.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_03]: We know that there's been a lot of sort of moving and shaking and sort of ERP sales sort of spaces, right?

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And so this is going to create, I think, some more opportunity down the road for synergies in places that we haven't even started to talk about, right?

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_03]: With the CRM, the finance, the HRM and the enterprise ERP kind of overall systems.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_03]: What I really think, you know, if you're in the HR space, what you really want to take away from this

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_03]: is you want to understand how those partnerships are working.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_03]: You want to leverage those partnerships as much as you can by making sure that you have sort of

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_03]: understanding the roadmaps for them.

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's going to be the really important thing for you in the HR space.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_03]: If your organization uses either of these applications or both of them,

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_03]: you want to understand where this fits into your long-term picture for HR

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_03]: because HR's got to make some decisions about the artificial intelligence they're planning to use.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it also fits into some of the data we're just starting to see, Cliff.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_03]: We won't tell you all of it because we're still doing a little bit of cleaning

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_03]: but we can tell you the use of just chat bots alone is kind of down from what we saw this week, right?

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. Exactly so.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's kind of moving on to that next level, right?

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And another thing and I touched on it that I thought was interesting is that there would be a shared data foundation, right?

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_01]: One shared source of data which obviously anytime you're dealing with AI,

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_01]: which I know sounds like we're kind of a skipping record,

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_01]: which I realized is completely outdated reference, but just on repeat.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: There we go.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Like song and repeat is that it's only as good as the data you have.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And you think about the combined data of those organizations

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: and what you would be able to leverage with all that information.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_01]: It goes well beyond as you just said, just HR or just this into something

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01]: that really gets into pure business, you know, ERP and beyond.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So I really thought it was neat and I think it leads into something we're seeing

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and we have been seeing of this sort of combination of what used to be fairly siloed groups

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_01]: to a certain extent is another story that came out this week, which was deal

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_01]: acquiring HOFI or HOFI possibly HOFY

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_01]: and that really brings them into sort of the idea.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: If you think about what's been interesting about deal is they've come up on the show a lot, right?

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_03]: They're in the data set pretty extensively this year even though they haven't distributed yet.

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And they had gotten savvy into that sort of people management.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_01]: They'd gotten pay space in Africa.

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_01]: They already had this sort of integrating of different pieces of work

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and I think this just goes further into it.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, they use this time to announce that they will be bringing out

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_01]: the sort of integration of these two companies and something called deal IT

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: which will be a global end-to-end IT service

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_01]: of being able to take this device management, data management

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_01]: combine it with everything they've already got.

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And what used to be a specialized service will now be part of a whole unit.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_03]: And this really, I think we got a couple questions about this from some organizations

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_03]: and some of the investment market, right?

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_03]: They're like, really? Where's this fit?

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think this is actually a pretty smart move by deal.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_03]: We definitely saw a rippling jump in with a kind of HR use case that includes an IT component to it

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_03]: understanding that particularly for the SMB market, which was where a lot of these organizations play

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_03]: the two things that connect most in the first couple days is paying people

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_03]: and getting them their equipment, especially if I do have a virtually virtual group of employees

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_03]: who are dispersed around the globe.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And doing that in a global way is really difficult.

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_03]: We know that deals got a lot of competitors coming up in the market

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_03]: who are looking at global payroll. Helios is going to be one of them.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_03]: They've already announced some of the work that they're coming out with.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_03]: We're definitely seeing rippling coming up as focusing on global plus this.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_03]: We're seeing a lot of the other pays, right?

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Starting to add deeper relationships on a global front.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_03]: So that global payroll is going to be a big conversation in this next year,

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_03]: particularly for mid market and SMB here.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think part of what deal and a couple of others are realizing is the success we're seeing

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_03]: come out of someone like a ServiceNow.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_03]: ServiceNow is another organization that has deep roots in the IT space,

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_03]: deep roots in sort of that help desk conversation.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_03]: But they're also sort of moving very quickly, very heavily into the HR space,

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_03]: the onboarding, the workforce, the rules you need to put in place

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_03]: for workflows to sort of manage workforce workflows.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Those kind of things are powerful and we're seeing those two things sort of merge together.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_03]: So it'll be interesting to see where this goes over the next six months to a year,

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_03]: but I'm not surprised by this.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think everyone should be really watching for these connections across the systems,

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_03]: particularly in the mid market SMB.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a little harder at the enterprise level, 5,000 plus

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_03]: because they've already got big systems managing a lot of these things separately.

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_03]: But we are seeing the need to integrate that data,

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_03]: which is kind of the Salesforce and the Workday conversation.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And getting on to what you mentioned about ServiceNow,

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_01]: that actually we saw some news from them,

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: that they exceeded what they were sort of expecting from the last quarter

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_01]: and raised outlook for future quarters,

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_01]: which may seem okay, well, that's of interest to investors,

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: but really it just shows the market and what people are seeing.

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_01]: We also saw paychecks at the same time,

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_01]: almost the same day announced that they had hit a bunch of different milestones

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_01]: within their retirement plans and the different services that they offer

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_01]: and software that offer around there.

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_01]: They have 120,401K clients now.

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_01]: They've added 34,000 employees to their paychecks pooled employer plan.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, another retirement plan.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I realized I was going to say, why couldn't they call it a pension plan?

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I realized it would be the same problem, the paychecks pension plan.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, those two are kind of, we were thinking of those together

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_01]: because it really just shows growth in these areas.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_03]: The market I think is growing in unexpected ways,

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_03]: which is part of why we're seeing this sort of weird mix of layoffs

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_03]: in one area and increases in other areas, right?

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's, it's hard sometimes to understand

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_03]: that some of the more traditional things that we've seen a lot of growth

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_03]: and a lot of investment over there are maybe not holding as much stability,

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_03]: but we're seeing sort of these fringe areas.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And they're not all AI driven.

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of them are just, such as better management of data

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_03]: because one of the things that we saw this year as well as last year

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_03]: is data management issues as a challenge for organizations.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_03]: Can't get to AI if I don't have good data, right?

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And so a lot of this is dealing with that data.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_03]: All the paychecks wanted just to upfront.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_03]: We, you know, again, sneak peek for those of you who are here,

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_03]: keep an eye out for benefits.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_03]: We're seeing a lot of movement in that space.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_03]: It will be a topic that you're going to see come out of the research this year.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_03]: It definitely shows up in what we're seeing investments.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_03]: It's not just investments in, I mean, retirement is one big conversation

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_03]: that we're definitely having in the market as the next generation starts moving

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and think about what they want their retirement models to look like.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_03]: But we're also seeing a lot of conversation

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_03]: about what kind of benefits make the most sense for workforces

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_03]: in all different regions.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And we're definitely looking at more personalized benefits

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_03]: for organizations and their employees.

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_03]: So that's a conversation I think you're going to see a lot more of in this space.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and, you know, speaking about, you know, all the stuff going on

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and personnel moves and layoffs and everything else, another big news.

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Definitely one I didn't see coming at all.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01]: UKG has named Jennifer Morgan as their chief executive officer

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_01]: which means Chris Todd will be stepping down.

[00:20:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is one definitely caught me by surprise.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Although I will say, you know, she's not new to the organization

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_01]: although she had been as a co-chief CO at SAP had been on the board for UKG since 2021.

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is someone that knows the organization well.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Have you had any, you know, thoughts on this?

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I know this is kind of new and we couldn't even talk about it for a while

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_01]: but I'd love to hear what you have to think about.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, the announcement came out.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_03]: They were holding this one really close to the best.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'm not as surprised.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I think, you know, there was a lot of transition between the merger and acquisition.

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_03]: We know the private equity firm that owns this group

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_03]: and the investors are really looking at probably doing something big

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_03]: with the organization in the next year, right?

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Whether that's an IPO or another sell or another big investment.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I think, you know, it has been a year of change

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_03]: in the UKG environment, especially for those who were past employees

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_03]: but even for the customers.

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I think part of what my expectation is here

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_03]: is that they were really wanting to head out of the gate,

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_03]: especially heading into next year and into this sort of fourth quarter

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_03]: with a big bang of, hey, we are taking seriously where we want ahead, right?

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_03]: And so Jennifer Morgan, I know her from her days at SAP.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_03]: She was a really strong leader in that organization

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_03]: and her time at SAP as co-CEO was shorter than I think everybody expected

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_03]: and they were really surprised when they had made some of the changes

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_03]: to the top of SAP and felt like she didn't get a chance to show

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_03]: the kind of things that she could bring to an organization.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_03]: So I really like Jennifer and her background

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_03]: and what she brings to this organization.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I think UKG has a lot of opportunity right now

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_03]: to fix some things that they broke in the last couple of months

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_03]: through kind of the pace at which they moved through the layoffs.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Also some of the challenges they've had over the last six months to a year

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_03]: with sort of the customer sort of changes that they've made around customer care.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of that was they were working on fixing some situations

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_03]: they knew had happened because of the merger acquisition

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_03]: because the transition from on-premise workforce management systems

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_03]: to cloud workforce management,

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_03]: they were going through some of the things that many organizations

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_03]: had taken years and years to go through in the manner of like two or three years.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And so it's really important to understand that this is one of the largest HR technology firms

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_03]: in the market.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_03]: It serves I think somewhere in the range of 80,000 customers

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_03]: when you bring in all the different pieces,

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_03]: especially with the great places to work data set.

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And so it is imperative that they very carefully think about

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_03]: who's going to lead them into the future.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_03]: That being said, I want to acknowledge that Chris Todd did a masterful job

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_03]: at EPIG and organization calm and moving forward and moving smoothly

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_03]: admit some of the most difficult things an organization could face.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_03]: They faced a cybersecurity risk.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_03]: They faced a merger acquisition.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_03]: They faced new leadership in their product areas across the board.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_03]: They faced the series of layoffs.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think, you know, his calmness really helped in all of those areas.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I do think that this opportunity for UKG is to really embrace what Jennifer brings to the table,

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_03]: not only her approach to products and her approach to business,

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_03]: which I think is some of the most solid background I've ever seen in the market,

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_03]: but also her, I think, savviness and understanding who the client is.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what I've always sort of appreciated when I look at where she's been

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and her background and her experience that she brings to the table is

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_03]: she does understand the investors, she understands the partners,

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_03]: and she understands the buyers.

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's a space I think you're going to need to have strength

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_03]: in all three of those areas to pull off what UKG is trying to pull off,

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_03]: which is compete with the biggest HR technology vendors in the market, right?

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_03]: And play, as we often say, play with the big boys, right?

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And that is really what's happening here.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think she's fabulous and a great choice for doing that.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_03]: What I hope on our front we'll get to see is we're going to have a bunch of new data this year

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_03]: on Voice the Customer.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_03]: My goal is to continue to watch that voice to come through over the next year or so.

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I think if you'll be right with me on doing that and making sure that we share

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_03]: your thoughts, your comments, things that are working or not working

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_03]: so we can give them some of the feedback on how these transitions

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_03]: are impacting their customers, right?

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly when it comes down to it.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It's how is it going to affect the end users, right?

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And sort of on that note, we did see some sort of news about a group that we talk about.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Then we went all the way from the CEO down to the people that can be affected by small things.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_01]: There was one from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_01]: it's the United States group that does pretty much what it says in their title.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And they proposed a rule that basically on transparency and disclosure.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So the workers know the costs and fees of what they call paycheck advance products

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_01]: that we often call earned wage access.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what we say in the paper too,

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_01]: and that's something that we always are looking at who is offering it

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: and to whom which groups are getting it and what is the uptake on it.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And they talk about this sort of idea being that, yes, there's all these new offerings

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_01]: to what are usually some of your lowest wage earners, right?

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Because they're the ones that would need that access, right?

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I need that money today to get me gas to go to work.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, these are very real situations that a lot of workers find themselves in.

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, what they're saying is that there needs to be transparency and how is that being done?

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Are they receiving a fee to access their funds early or not?

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_01]: All they're asking for is transparency.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It makes total sense to me.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But again, it's just in the proposal stage.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_01]: But something that falls under sort of a department of labor oversight,

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_01]: and it does show that this has sort of reached a high enough level

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: that people are thinking about this.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it's important.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_03]: We don't actually have a huge percentage of organizations taking advantage of this, right?

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_03]: But we know from our research that the employees themselves,

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_03]: particularly those who are in hourly workforce,

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_03]: feel that earned wage access is a really important benefit for them.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_03]: We also found in some of our research about two years ago

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_03]: that the HR function themselves found this could be a real valuable tool

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_03]: for allowing them to be more flexible on how they handled paycheck runs

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_03]: and those kind of things, and managed, which always happens

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_03]: no matter how good your payroll function is,

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_03]: manage those times when there were errors in the paycheck run

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_03]: and they needed to make an employee whole as quickly as possible, right?

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Those are things that, you know,

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_03]: earned wage access often doesn't get attention for.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I do think that, you know, it is a space that needs oversight.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_03]: When interest rates were low

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_03]: and organizations were able to fund this through existing bank funds,

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_03]: it was really powerful that we saw a lot of the larger vendors

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_03]: like Dayforce and some of the others

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_03]: who were funding this earned wage access

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_03]: out of their sort of own sort of bank management model, right?

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_03]: We didn't know how long that was going to last.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_03]: As interest rates go up, things kind of change,

[00:27:36] [SPEAKER_03]: those kind of conversations might be having some additional conversations

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_03]: in the market, right?

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_03]: But we also saw that this is a space that is impacting

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_03]: and I think both in a positive and sometimes not positive.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Some of the challenges that frontline workers have,

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_03]: when we think about sort of their pay models,

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and you mentioned this perfectly,

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_03]: is that if you've never lived paycheck to paycheck

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_03]: or you've never had to take out a payday loan

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_03]: and pay the exorbitant 20% or 30% interest, right?

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, right?

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Let's take it just one step down from a loan shark, right?

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_03]: For professionals and workers who are in that situation,

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_03]: something like earned wage access can mean the difference

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_03]: between sort of their ability to get a new refrigerator

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_03]: when it breaks or not

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_03]: and going weeks or months without a refrigerator in their household, right?

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Those are things that happen in real life.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I'm a big proponent of leveraging the earned wage access model

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_03]: in a transparent and open way.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_03]: My kids who are much younger in this market

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_03]: and who have a really different perspective on this

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_03]: are definitely open to the idea that, hey, why should the company hold on

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_03]: to the money that I've earned for them versus me having access to it?

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Which was a different perspective from what I had.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And so there's been some of that conversation in my household.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I think there's been some that I think there will be more of that conversation

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_03]: as generations sort of shift through the workforce.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_03]: So I think you're going to hear more about this.

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope the regulations don't scare companies away from this.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I think this is much like anything else.

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_03]: It could be a really powerful benefit,

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_03]: but you've got to manage it just like anything else with ethics, right?

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And speaking of sort of underserved populations and groups that don't get talked about,

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_01]: that was actually a post that you had sent me that I found just fascinating.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Alison Byers wrote a post from a panel she went on to.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_01]: The Yale Ventures, they've been doing this for 10 years

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_01]: and is obviously sponsored by Yale University

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_01]: and they have an innovation summit.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And they looked at some data on who's receiving funding for venture capital.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And when they look at the total amount that's out there

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_01]: and sort of what's accessible, just some astounding numbers.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to read some of the highlights that were just shocking.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_01]: 98% of VC venture capital dollars inaccessible to women founders.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_01]: 99.5 of those VC dollars inaccessible to black founders.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you imagine the intersection of that, right?

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Black women founders, it's basically zero.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And for some of the same fundamental reasons

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_01]: we see with a lot of performance management bias, right?

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the point which is, you know, or something you see in recruitment

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_01]: might be another example in that you say, okay, well, this is who's been successful

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_01]: in the past and therefore who fits that profile going forward in the future.

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And because if you've only ever had, you know, seen white men be successful

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_01]: then that's it would make sort of quote unquote logical sense to push it on

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_01]: and you have to look at it a different way, right?

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's I think in a weird way and an AI issue

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm not just shooing this in because we're, you know, legally obligated

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_01]: to always talk about AI, but because it's idea of you are only taking a certain

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_01]: data set and applying it, it's going to give you skewed results

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_01]: that you may not realize until someone throws up these absolutely astounding numbers.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And especially in how much we talk about funding here

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_01]: and where we've seen interest in going and not really diving into that.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_01]: So I just found that sort of thing interesting.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, I wanted to, you know, I think we wanted to talk about it because, you know,

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_01]: we're kind of talking about the CEO level and not so much, you know,

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_01]: what's happening before that or like the people with earned wage access.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So pretty interesting.

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's a challenge in the market.

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I think, you know, I talk a lot to one of our, you know,

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_03]: it's one of the organizations that I work with a lot on investments

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_03]: and, you know, women led organizations.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of them and particularly globally, right?

[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_03]: When you think about sort of the women entrepreneurs in the market,

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_03]: it is not a lack of women who are being entrepreneurs, right?

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Like many of them start out businesses as part of how they're taking care

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_03]: of their households, right?

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_03]: What is lacking though is this funding model that is in place.

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_03]: And I've seen this over and over again when we have organizations come to us

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_03]: who are trying to decide, you know, funding decision-making processes, right?

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And what I think is for those who are buyers, right?

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_03]: In this space on the HR tech side, you know, and you're looking at solutions,

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, look at how an organization started.

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Where, you know, what are the founders values and backgrounds

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_03]: and how were they funded?

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_03]: That's a question you should be comfortable asking about any technology

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_03]: that you're looking at, right?

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_03]: What are their ethics around the AI conversation?

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_03]: What is their goal around meeting the needs of the business

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_03]: as well as meeting the needs of their employees?

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Those are all things that we ask every day of our companies.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_03]: You should be able to ask them of any partner or company that you're working with, right?

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_03]: As well just to understand, right?

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_03]: You may not change your decision, but it might at least inform

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_03]: some of the conversations you're having about what you'd like to see from organizations.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Because the more we say like, look, we'd like to see this in the world that we're in,

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_03]: the more I think we'll get some realization that these investments could be sort of done in a different way, right?

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I like what you said there too about, you know, really thinking about the impact on the work.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_01]: This is something that I've noticed as a sort of theme.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_01]: This happens a lot when we're doing this.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_01]: He started to notice unintentionally some somatic stuff in here.

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think maybe because there was something in the air about our report

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_01]: and how much we talk about the business impact.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But really great research was done passed on to us by Stacia Gar.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Stacia, we'll have her links in the show notes and in the comments.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But this was from Red Thread via Stacia Gar, right?

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And they launched some reports on manager effectiveness.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And the sort of ones that took out to me, it's a large report.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You can get your copy.

[00:33:45] [SPEAKER_01]: The link will be in there.

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, it goes beyond sort of just this idea of productivity

[00:33:51] [SPEAKER_01]: and so much of our talk about AI and even about some of the tools earlier.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_01]: We talk about individual productivity, but not the relationships

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_01]: and how that affects the business outcomes, right?

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things they looked at is when employees believe

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_01]: that their manager is highly effective, you know, not they themselves,

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_01]: not their manager making them more effective,

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_01]: but their manager is highly effective in doing all the things the manager does.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Those organizations were three times as likely to have a positive NPS score.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We're nearly two times as likely those individuals report themselves as productive, right?

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_01]: To really see what's happening and almost twice as likely to be highly engaged,

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01]: which you know, for those of us that work in that space in HR know

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_01]: that that is in itself a very powerful metric.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's really a big call to action for improved manager effectiveness.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_03]: This one, this one shattered out to me and I've known Stacia for years.

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_03]: We have been good friends.

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_03]: We work together very closely at person associates back in the day

[00:34:49] [SPEAKER_03]: when we were sort of employee 13 and I don't know what Stacia's number was,

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_03]: but she was shortly after I was hired.

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_03]: And what we, I think early on realized is that you can do a lot of research

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_03]: about practices and processes and technology and HR does,

[00:35:03] [SPEAKER_03]: but a lot of it comes down to, you know, how much you're sort of layering

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_03]: into the workload of the employees themselves, right?

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_03]: You could have the best HR processes, but if the workforce is overwhelmed

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_03]: or not given the time to do the work,

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_03]: it really isn't going to get you some of the outcomes that you need to get.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I love where Stacia's going with this with the team management conversation.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I think we were going at it a different way from what we're finding.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_03]: So then these things are sort of converging as you said,

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_03]: where you've been looking a lot at change, how much change is an organization

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_03]: able to handle what is the impact of change within an organization

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_03]: and how do you lead through change?

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And so what I really liked is how these two conversations I think go hand in hand

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_03]: is that manager effectiveness is extensively pretty down.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_03]: At least the managers feel they're less effective since 2020

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_03]: at a pretty shocking rate from what Stacia had found.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_03]: We're finding similarly that there has been less investment in change management since 2020, right?

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, so you know, we could be, you know, I say,

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I might have to maybe go out and do a little bit of a duo conversation on this

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_03]: because we've got to realize that as exciting as change is

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_03]: and it's how much we've got to learn to just be agile

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_03]: as the conversation everybody has,

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_03]: there's just only so much change that a human being can handle at some point, right?

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And so we're really talking a lot about this idea of change leadership,

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_03]: which is how do you effectively manage the amount of change your organization is handling

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_03]: versus letting change manage you, which is the other side of that conversation.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And you can have a say and you do have a say as both HR and business leader and manager.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you want business outcomes, that is a lever you have to take into consideration

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_03]: along with how much you're training, along with how much you're investing in new technologies,

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_03]: along with how much you're investing in AI.

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_03]: You've got to sort of build all of that into your model.

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I really was, you know, this research spoke to me from what Stacia had done.

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I think her team, she had quite a few of her team members work with her on this

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_03]: and I know this is a big part of, you know, Stacia's long term sort of goal

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_03]: to sort of really help organizations understand the effectiveness of the workforce.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm excited to see this go out.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll put a link for everybody out there in it and maybe Stacia and I can work on a tap dancing routine

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_03]: that's talking about manager effectiveness and change leadership.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_03]: So we'll let you know if that comes out.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_03]: She's just probably laughing right now on the trolley if she listens to this

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_03]: and I'll give her a call, but we'll figure out the dates for it.

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Sounds good.

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and something, you know, sort of tying a lot of these ideas together

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_01]: was a really thoughtful post.

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It really harkens back to something we talked about in the last episode.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Right? If we remember that we were seeing that Sherm had, you know,

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_01]: was talking about removing, you know, the equity from the DEI conversation.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, so there's this idea, you know, sort of floating around this RIP to DIB, right?

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And just brilliant post that we saw from Michael Bush over at Great Place to Work.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Great title too.

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_01]: He said RIP to DIB.

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_01]: It was never really alive, you know, in saying that despite all this great data on how you can create

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_01]: innovation and engagement and all these things that work.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just true numbers.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Even in things like stock price and EBITDA and free cash flow, you know, having these more diverse

[00:38:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and equitable, you know, workplaces is all correlated to that.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But yet, but yet here we are instead of embracing that, we're finding people in certain areas

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_01]: are saying, no, we want less.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this isn't important, you know, and he makes a great point.

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's well worth the whole read.

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to quote directly.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it better to have a blowout quarter or 1000 great quarters?

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Because the earth must be healthy and whole for 1000 great core quarters.

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't sound like being woke to me.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like a plan to make a lot more money for 500 years.

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I like that, right?

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Because he's making a point that it's too often put in opposition to making money.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is something could stand our way.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, no, no, this makes you money.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So why are we talking about getting rid of something that would make us money?

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And it just needs to be framed differently, I think.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So a really good sort of beyond a counterpoint to what we hear, but just, you know, like

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe just like in the last thing we're talking about, maybe you need to frame

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_01]: it differently in your head and how you're thinking about these things.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this really harkened back to the roundtable that we just had last week in Raleigh here.

[00:39:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Very similar conversations.

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_03]: That was one of the reasons I called this out.

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I put a text out to Michael and I said, look, this is so on point with what we're hearing

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_03]: from the HR professionals on the front line in this conversation.

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_03]: We had the head of Lenovo's.

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I'm not going to remember it, but he sort of managed the, not the investment group,

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_03]: but the portfolio group that's been sorry for Lenovo came and he said, you know,

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_03]: the session we held, he left that feeling more encouraged than he had in any other

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_03]: session over the last year and a half talking about diversity, equity and inclusion

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_03]: and engagement inside organizations.

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was powerful to me because I think that's been this sort of,

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_03]: it's been this conflict conversation, right?

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Some of us do with politics.

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_03]: We know where we're all at with that.

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we don't have to rehash that, but it also has to do with the

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_03]: misunderstanding of just the reality of the facts, right?

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_03]: We've said this in our data that, you know, when we did our last employee survey

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_03]: data like of employees, right?

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the percentage of those who are in the workforce who identify as baby

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_03]: boomers who are people of color was 8%, right?

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_03]: That kind of fits what we know of the labor statistics, the data.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_03]: The percentage of those who responded to our survey who were in what would

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_03]: be considered the Gen Z generation, right?

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Those age groups at least.

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_03]: 47% of them identified themselves as a person of color.

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Now that kind of fits with what we're seeing in the labor data that we're

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_03]: just, we're seeing it just, surely more diverse people in the workforce over

[00:41:33] [SPEAKER_03]: the next, you know, 10 years.

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_03]: It's just going to happen, right?

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And with that comes more ideas and more cultures and more backgrounds

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_03]: and more opportunities to think a little differently.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_03]: The buyers are going to be, you know, coming from different backgrounds

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_03]: and cultures, and it's diversity on a lot of levels on thinking, on

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_03]: neurodiversity, on race, on gender, on, you know, sexual orientation.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_03]: All of those things kind of play into the bigger picture, right?

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And so what we found in our conversation with the round table here,

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I think Michael Buster really eloquently put it was in the play,

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, we're in Raleigh, North Carolina here.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_03]: The conversations in some places were, yes, our company is embracing

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_03]: everything about this.

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And we know that in many cases we disagree as individuals sometimes,

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_03]: but as a company here's kind of, we agree to disagree in some areas

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_03]: and as our stance of the company is sort of once we agree this is

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_03]: our stance of the company, we go forward with it and everybody has

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_03]: to move in the same direction from that perspective.

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_03]: But the other conversation was, hey, if my senior leaders are not

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_03]: embracing just the conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_03]: in one fashion, I have to figure out what, how do I explain it

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_03]: to them in words that they do sort of understand, that meet them

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_03]: at the place where their heads are at, which is how do I keep a

[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_03]: business open?

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Or how do I make sure that my organization is surviving this wave

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_03]: of AI, right?

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Culture seems like a taboo conversation when you're just

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_03]: trying to figure out how to make payroll over the next month,

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_03]: right?

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And so what a lot of organizations are doing is really talking

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_03]: about this as retention programs, really thinking about

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_03]: this as innovation efforts.

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And that shifting again, reframing of the conversation is

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_03]: allowing the discussions to go on in a way that I think, sure

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm kind of missed the boat on in what they did, right?

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_03]: I think, I think I understood where Sher was trying to get

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_03]: to with the conversations.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think they made it more political in some sense instead

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_03]: of less instead of sort of really honing in on what

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_03]: we're trying to accomplish as a group of people and how

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_03]: we're trying to work together.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_03]: They created some tension in the market.

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I shouldn't say some.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_03]: They created a lot of tension in the market.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_03]: It was an underlying current to a lot of the conversation we had

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_03]: last week, but I think Michael really says it best here.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_03]: He is a CEO of a business operating in 170 countries

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_03]: partnering with executives from 25,000 of the greatest

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_03]: brands and companies in the world.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And when my business takes me around the world, those

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_03]: meeting rooms show progress at the table in all spaces,

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_03]: right?

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_03]: We have to acknowledge that progress and we have to

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_03]: acknowledge the power of what we're doing, right?

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_03]: So I was, I liked what he said, you know, I think everybody's

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_03]: got to sort of take this with an understanding of how it's

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_03]: going to impact their business and their world.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_03]: But I think the most important thing is, is to think about

[00:44:16] [SPEAKER_03]: what we can do as a group of people working together,

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_03]: right?

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sad like I want to leave it on that.

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_01]: That seems like a good place to finish.

[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I will mention that great place to work actually.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_01]: They had a blog come out.

[00:44:28] [SPEAKER_01]: This one wasn't from Michael, but talking about the

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_01]: impact of AI and employee trust, I'll leave a link to that

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_01]: so people can look into that because I think it's an

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_01]: important conversation when we're talking about AI

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_01]: that different generations look at it differently.

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And it could be seen as retention or attraction tool

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_01]: as well.

[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But that positive note that you ended on, I think is

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_01]: a perfect summary of everything that we've talked

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_01]: about today.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you.

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I know it went a little long today guys.

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I apologize.

[00:44:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Cliff says this is beginning to get to be my brand.

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I know it's good conversation.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_03]: So hopefully you can join us in the conversations as we wrap

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_03]: today, just a reminder if you're looking to catch up with

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_03]: one of us, please be sure to connect with us on LinkedIn,

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_03]: connect with us on Twitter.

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_03]: I think we're sorry on X and on link and Instagram

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_03]: and Facebook.

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I think we're in all those places.

[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[00:45:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And YouTube of course you can always leave comments.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_01]: That's right.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Are YouTube that's actually a growing location for people

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_03]: to access us.

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_03]: We're looking for questions.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_03]: If you want something you want us to cover or if

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_03]: there's an event you think we'd like us to attend or a

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_03]: place where you'd like us to have a conversation,

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_03]: reach out to either of us.

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_03]: We'd love to have those conversations.

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Also be sure to go to our website if you want to find

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_03]: out where we're going to be at, what's happening when the

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_03]: newest research is going to come out.

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Sign up for our newsletter to get ongoing updates on the

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[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_03]: year.

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Be sure to listen to our sister HR Huddle podcast.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_03]: We have a problem hosted by our CEO Terry Zipper.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And please put likes and comments here if you're listening

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_03]: to this because that always helps us, you know,

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_03]: obviously raise up the number of listeners and the amount

[00:46:02] [SPEAKER_03]: of people who are listening.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Big thanks to everyone who helps put this together.

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Cliff thank you for pulling all the articles together,

[00:46:09] [SPEAKER_03]: putting out the notes afterwards because they know

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_03]: that's very helpful for a lot of people.

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you to brand method media group who is run

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_03]: by Kelly Kelly for helping produce all this including

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_03]: the new video version of this which requires us to

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_03]: do a little bit of additional work.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And our marketing team also as well we really want to

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_03]: appreciate all the work they do in making sure this gets

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_03]: out into the market.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And thanks to our listeners and community we couldn't do

[00:46:30] [SPEAKER_03]: this without you.

[00:46:31] [SPEAKER_03]: You guys are really make this possible.

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's it for this episode of Spillin' the TNHR

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Tech.

[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_03]: We hope it's been just the brood you needed to start

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_03]: the engines running this week.

[00:46:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Cliff this makes me think we need to start drinking

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_03]: tea on the show.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just, we haven't really done that now that we're

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_03]: on video.

[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay sorry guys.

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_03]: I'll have to do it in two weeks with another pot

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_03]: of boiling hot HR Tech updates and insights for

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_03]: everyone.

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Bye guys.