Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - The skinny on tech layoffs, leading with real-time data vs. the trickle-down effect of decisions made with the latest economic indicators and transforming workforce management through AI.

[00:00:00] We as business leaders, as HR, because we are, we are really important business leaders, need to always be there with the data, the facts, the information.

[00:00:08] Because I think a lot of times executives will feel the pressure of a board's perception or will feel the pressure of the stock market or will feel the pressure of impending sort of the trickling down of information or what they're hearing on the latest meeting that they went to.

[00:00:25] Our job as HR is to make sure that they have the facts in front of them to make those decisions.

[00:00:30] And where they use the facts or not is a whole other conversation.

[00:00:35] Welcome to the HR Huddle podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR.

[00:00:45] It's time to get in the huddle.

[00:00:48] Welcome everyone to Spill in the Tea on HR Tech, our first video event clip.

[00:00:59] So we're so excited about this where we focus on the hottest HR tech news everyone needs to know to be in the know.

[00:01:05] We break down the news of the week and help you make sense of what it means for our industry and how it can impact your organization.

[00:01:11] I'm feeling like I'm doing a little bit of acting here, Cliff.

[00:01:13] That's okay, we're all on video again.

[00:01:17] But honestly, we are excited because we're recording today.

[00:01:20] It's 5, 20, 22, 22, 24.

[00:01:24] So we're talking May 22nd, 2024 for our first video Spill in the Tea on HR Tech.

[00:01:31] So excited to be here and we're bringing all the news that you can use this week and for the upcoming weeks here.

[00:01:38] I'm your host, Stacey Harris, Chief Research Officer of Sapient Insights Group.

[00:01:42] And joining me today is Cliff Stevenson, who is my Director of Research here at our organization.

[00:01:49] Cliff, you want to say hi to everybody?

[00:01:51] Hello everyone.

[00:01:52] And if you're listening on a podcast and you're not seeing us, just imagine two very beautiful people, sort of a Denzel Washington and Scarlett Johansson going on.

[00:02:00] So you'll be in the right frame.

[00:02:03] All right.

[00:02:03] No, you're generational.

[00:02:07] It's exactly, exactly what age group you're coming from there.

[00:02:13] Yeah, no, we are so excited to be starting out our first video based on the Tea on HR Tech.

[00:02:19] We'd love to get some feedback from the audience to say is this helpful?

[00:02:22] Is this a good thing?

[00:02:24] Also today, we're going to have a ton of news just so you know, because Cliff and I, I was on vacation last week, so I didn't get to do our regular update that we normally get to do.

[00:02:32] Me and Cliff have been on the road talking to a lot, going to a lot of events, sharing a lot of insights at what where we've been at.

[00:02:38] And so I think this is going to be a great opportunity for us to catch up with the audience, Cliff, and for us to talk about where we've been and what we've been doing and share all this news.

[00:02:47] Might run a little bit late today.

[00:02:48] We'll see guys.

[00:02:49] We're going to work on this.

[00:02:50] So, so Cliff, we've got lots of news and tea to spill.

[00:02:53] Maybe you want to start us off as to what we're going to be talking about today?

[00:02:57] Yeah, I thought it might be nice for us to run down.

[00:02:59] You know, as you mentioned, we've been in a lot of events.

[00:03:01] Maybe just do some quick updates on those.

[00:03:03] Some will be within the flow of the news because, you know, we were at the events that also happened to feature companies and then we'll get into some personnel news.

[00:03:11] We'll talk about a whole lot of companies that are just doing a lot of exciting things come out with all sorts of new enhancements to their products.

[00:03:20] We even have some acquisitions.

[00:03:22] And if we have time, we'll talk about some other sort of broader topics that have been in the news that have caught our eye that really fit into this world.

[00:03:30] And I think helped tie everything together.

[00:03:32] So if you don't mind, I'll mention that I was at the UKG event.

[00:03:36] I was in Las Vegas at Resorts World.

[00:03:39] That was last week for me.

[00:03:42] And it was, although I was there in person, Stacey, you were also there.

[00:03:47] I came off coming in from Hawaii.

[00:03:49] So, Mahalo for that.

[00:03:51] And, you know, if long time listeners will remember that just in maybe, well, you wouldn't have to be a long time listener because it was the last episode.

[00:04:00] We mentioned Rachel Barger taking over or actually taking on a new role as the president of Go To Market for UKG.

[00:04:08] And we got a chance to meet her directly for you, Stacey, on camera and interact.

[00:04:14] So that was really exciting.

[00:04:16] It was really interesting.

[00:04:18] And as I mentioned on a LinkedIn post, it was a very lively group because they were very open and transparent about their use of AI.

[00:04:26] And that's got to be a record for how fast we've mentioned AI on this.

[00:04:31] But, you know, it really showed that the market has really understood the sort of questions asked, you know, just about how's the data being stored?

[00:04:41] Where is it being?

[00:04:42] What is it being used for?

[00:04:43] What's the privacy, security, the ethics?

[00:04:46] And they were just very open about this is what we're doing and this is what we're thinking, but also interested in receiving feedback, which you love to see.

[00:04:54] And just also it was very intriguing to see their move into Europe and into really the rest of the world.

[00:05:02] I'm mentioning Europe only because they're really making waves there, but really globally, Asia as well, Southeast Asia, particularly our areas that they're expanding into with both intent,

[00:05:14] but also with, you know, maybe not caution, but, you know, doing things in the right sort of speed and at the right order.

[00:05:21] So that was very exciting.

[00:05:23] So, you know, a couple of big things going on there and they continue also to just do very well as a company.

[00:05:30] I mean, objectively, according to their numbers, which were all very impressive.

[00:05:34] Yeah, I only got to Colin for just an hour and it was because we knew they were going to do an executive update and they were going to do at least a video conference call with Rachel in her first couple of weeks in the organization.

[00:05:45] And as I expected her background at Salesforce and some of the other places that she's been at,

[00:05:50] really shown through in her focus on the customer and what the customer needs were.

[00:05:54] And that was nice to see with the conversation that she had, I think, with the analyst.

[00:05:58] I think, you know, the other thing that I found really good on my Colin is, you know, Chris Todd, I mean, for those of you who sort of again listened to us for a while, you know, Chris Todd took on the UKG environment in a really tough time, right?

[00:06:11] There was no doubt they were going through some of the most challenging things I think they've had as an organization since the sort of merger had come about.

[00:06:19] And I think he's done a really nice job of just really taking the reins and doing it in a very human fashion.

[00:06:28] I think that sometimes when you see people sort of step up and to see a role from President Rolls, they get a little more sort of silted and very, very sort of you see a different side of them come out.

[00:06:41] Because the world, there's so much pressure on their shoulders.

[00:06:44] What I really like about Chris is he's just he is who he is and he's been that way since the first day that we've gotten a chance to meet him.

[00:06:49] And I think even now, so that's really serving him well in that he's sharing some really big numbers.

[00:06:55] You know, I think the number was somewhere around 70,000 customers that they have now when you take into account all of the great places to work customers, all the acquisitions they've made, plus the two merged organizations.

[00:07:07] And those are some massive numbers for an organization of their size and serving the level of customers that they're serving.

[00:07:13] And so that was, I think, interesting to see.

[00:07:15] I think the globalization conversation was a really big conversation.

[00:07:19] What I was also pleased to see is that although there was a lot of talk about their relationship with partners and what they're doing with partnerships, we were also seeing a lot of focus on what they are internally doing to meet the needs of the various levels of customers and industries that they're serving.

[00:07:36] Because I think a lot of other vendors that we've been talking to are really relying on those relationships with partners to help them become more industry focused in their solutions.

[00:07:47] That was not a conversation here.

[00:07:48] And so I think that was a big, nice kind of thing to hear just in that first hour that I was there.

[00:07:53] But yeah, it was good.

[00:07:55] I mean, I got a chance to sort of, I think, get a sense of where Rachel's going to be taking things.

[00:07:59] I'm looking forward to hearing more from her.

[00:08:01] So, yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:03] And you were also speaking of very large companies that are sort of leading in their fields.

[00:08:08] You were in, was it Chicago for Cornerstone?

[00:08:11] Yeah, so Cornerstone did a, instead of doing one big event they normally do is just, you know, Cornerstone Connect.

[00:08:18] They decided to break these up into small regional events.

[00:08:20] And I think the way I would challenge a lot of other vendors to think a little bit more about how they reach out to their regional buyers, because I think travel budgets are back, but they're not back for everything.

[00:08:32] I think customers are looking for some more conversation with the people who are serving their area of their needs.

[00:08:39] Right.

[00:08:39] So I think that's an opportunity to sort of get a little bit closer with who comes to these events.

[00:08:43] And so I think Cornerstone has taken this approach this year.

[00:08:46] It takes just as much work as it takes to put on a big event where you bring everybody in.

[00:08:50] And so I got a chance to go to the Chicago event.

[00:08:52] They've asked me, they asked me in Chicago to speak to their executive customer advisory board, which was a really great opportunity to talk to some amazing leaders in the HR space.

[00:09:02] And to do an executive level session track both there as well as in there at the June event they're doing in Orlando.

[00:09:09] They're also, I think, doing some events and other areas out in Europe, and there might be, you think, some out West events as well.

[00:09:15] So we'll wait to see sort of where all their events are going to be held at.

[00:09:18] But it was an exciting opportunity.

[00:09:20] What was really nice is that this event, they also were launching their big Cornerstone Galaxy announcement.

[00:09:27] Now really what Galaxy is for many of you who sort of followed the space for a little bit is their approach to sort of integrating all the different platforms that they have acquired, but more importantly, connecting the skills work they've been heavily invested in.

[00:09:42] And Anna, who is the lead strategist in that space, is I think getting a chance to see to come to fruition her very, very heavy investments in sort of how you tie together the skills world with all the talent management stuff, with all the things and learning and development,

[00:09:56] with all the things that have to do with sort of talent intelligence and talent acquisition.

[00:10:01] And so there was definitely a focus on we're stepping into talent intelligence, which goes with the announcement that they just made today around the acquisition of Skyhive.

[00:10:10] We'll talk a little bit more about that later.

[00:10:12] But I think from the event perspective, it was nice to see that, you know, the last six months to a year, they've done a lot of focus on learning and getting themselves back up into the learning space, their acquisition of the new VR company.

[00:10:25] I got a chance to test that to allow.

[00:10:28] That was really kind of cool.

[00:10:29] I really felt like I was in an environment learning and coaching and hearing.

[00:10:34] I've done a couple of VR things in the past.

[00:10:36] This was a very good experience that the headset was very connected.

[00:10:40] It was a, it was a great opportunity to see what VR might look like in companies in the future.

[00:10:46] It's going to become a lot more accessible, I think through organizations like Cornerstone.

[00:10:49] So they've done a lot of that.

[00:10:50] They've done a lot of focus on compliance-based learning, compliance-based training, which has become sort of their bread and butter and part of the cornerstone.

[00:10:55] Of not to use a pun of who they are.

[00:10:57] But what was nice to see them is to take another leadership step into this talent and data space that I think is Cornerstone was one of the early, I think organizations who actually led in that space in some way, because they were in the first talent suites about in

[00:11:12] the market and talent suites not really thing we're seeing people buy a Holy right now, but we are seeing them very focused on how the data integrates and how I connect all the data points.

[00:11:22] And so we do think that it's good to see Cornerstone take some, some conversation here.

[00:11:27] I got a chance to meet their new head of marketing, which was really a good opportunity.

[00:11:32] And I also got a chance to talk to Toria who's their customer care person, head of the customer advisory, whole, all head of their customer organization.

[00:11:40] And I also got a chance to talk to Kumar who leads all of their strategy and product area.

[00:11:46] And it really good, I guess, energy as to where that group is going and all, and how they're all connecting and how they're working together.

[00:11:51] So it was, it was a good event.

[00:11:52] And I'm really glad that I got a chance to be there for that big announcement while talking to their customers.

[00:11:58] The customer advisory board was probably my favorite event, though.

[00:12:02] The thing there that I found most exciting is that we did, I did a chance to sort of talk about what was happening in labor market, how things were shifting as far as the where the trends were at as far as HR.

[00:12:14] Processes and practices and HR technology and how those are fitting together.

[00:12:17] And then we got into really deep conversations about skills and how those skills are making a difference inside of organizations.

[00:12:23] And we know everybody's talking about skills right now, so this isn't a new thing.

[00:12:26] But what was good was to have that conversation in the context of the experience that that employee is having and not just talk about it as a as a tool to help HR, but a tool to help the employee as well.

[00:12:38] And that was where that conversation went with that audience.

[00:12:40] And these were around that table was some of the biggest companies in the world, right?

[00:12:46] And I think that's something that people oftentimes forget about cornerstone is their customers are not only the largest companies in the world many times, but they also have leaders who really not just focus on employee needs, but also extended audiences needs.

[00:13:03] And which means they're touching more than just the employee base.

[00:13:07] And so we had a lot of conversation about where that market is heading, how they're connecting the dots for both internal and extended audience markets.

[00:13:14] The one thing I thought was interesting is that when we sort of wrapped up, we asked them, sort of what else are you dealing with as customers who are in this space?

[00:13:21] And the two things that they said, which I thought really lent to a lot of stuff that you and I have talked about with one is how much change they're experiencing in their companies, how and how organizations are handling that change.

[00:13:32] And the second thing was, which is sort of interesting that we've talked a lot about, which is how AI was definitely on the market.

[00:13:38] We were talking about AI, but this challenge of keeping up with the data needs of artificial intelligence.

[00:13:46] And there's really two schools of thoughts from that audience as from that group.

[00:13:50] One was like, we need to invest in cleaning up our environments to make sure that the AI makes sense.

[00:13:55] And the other group was, you know, maybe skills and all of the data matching, all that stuff.

[00:14:02] Maybe we just need to invest in AI so that it can handle that down the road for us.

[00:14:06] I don't know that I have the answer on that.

[00:14:08] I don't think we have the answer on that.

[00:14:09] You know, but I do think that there was definitely a difference of opinion in that group as to where we need to invest our time and our energy.

[00:14:16] So it was a good event.

[00:14:17] I was glad I got a chance to attend.

[00:14:19] So yeah, that is really fascinating.

[00:14:21] Very timely, you know, especially with everything that we're seeing here.

[00:14:25] So, you know, you're speaking of change and we've been talking about people.

[00:14:29] So, you know, in the last, it seems like the last three or four Spilling the Tea on HR tech podcasts and now video that we've done.

[00:14:38] We've been talking about some movements towards the top and this, this Fortnite so differently.

[00:14:43] I know different John Costales don't know if I'm mispronouncing your name.

[00:14:46] John, please let me know.

[00:14:47] He's taken over as the VP of market positioning and strategy at day force.

[00:14:52] Nice.

[00:14:52] Riddian.

[00:14:53] So that, that's pretty interesting because in a way it reminds me of what UKG did with Rachel, right?

[00:15:01] Is it's a different role, but it does show some thought in we need to think about sort of a broader market strategy and that will be solved with people.

[00:15:12] Right.

[00:15:12] Something that we often talk about too, you know, where's that intersection between people and you know, what can be solved with technology.

[00:15:19] Right.

[00:15:20] So yeah.

[00:15:21] And a big thing to note about John that for many, many who don't know sort of the internal machinations of the analyst industry is John comes from our ranks.

[00:15:29] Right?

[00:15:29] Like John was a big one, a longstanding industry analyst over at Gartner had been there for many, many years and all, you know, I love John at the events because he always, always had a, his laugh was infectious.

[00:15:41] Right.

[00:15:41] And I always enjoyed sort of having conversations with John.

[00:15:45] I'm interested in seeing what goes, like you said, this is somewhat a new role.

[00:15:48] We see this in the strategy role being oftentimes created for people who have broad overlooks of the market.

[00:15:55] And I think it'll be good to see where day force is going.

[00:15:57] They've had a lot of new hires recently, a lot of changes in the market and I'm excited to see if they can sort of get back out there again as they've made the name change and become a force.

[00:16:08] Because in the product itself, we've seen as a lot of longstanding customers who really have a lot of good things to say about the user experience and the day force product.

[00:16:18] We are seeing that some of the vendor satisfaction ratings went down a little bit last year and some of the sort of the, they're traditionally well-known market, which is mid market, but they had really high user experience ratings and sort of the enterprise market.

[00:16:32] And so I think theirs is maybe a case of, you know, how do they meet the needs of all their customers?

[00:16:38] And it'll be good to see if John can maybe help them with that conversation.

[00:16:41] Right.

[00:16:42] Yeah.

[00:16:43] And because since we already brought up AI, I think it's only fair to keep it going.

[00:16:49] One of the big stories that kind of transcends what would normally be a little more niche or a little more, you know, just industry stuff is that meta, speaking of companies have changed their names.

[00:17:00] That was Facebook is shutting down a workplace, which was they called their enterprise communications business.

[00:17:07] But the fact that they're asking their customers to transition to Zoom's work Vivo, I think really speaks to what their customers were looking for out of it.

[00:17:16] Their reasoning was that they're going to focus more on their AI products and their metaverse.

[00:17:22] I think that's pretty interesting because I would have thought there was more of a market for what workplace did than there is for, you know, the metaverse technologies.

[00:17:33] But then after hearing your experiences at Cornerstone and with their new product, which I believe is Cornerstone Immersed, if I'm right about that name of that VR technology you were using, I, you know, it constantly reminds me that

[00:17:48] although we don't see a lot of uptake on this, either anecdotally or through our own survey research, that doesn't mean that it's a sort of dead end.

[00:17:59] Maybe it's something that like AI just needs to be in the right place at the right time or find the right use cases, which I think we have mentioned before.

[00:18:07] Yeah, this one, you know, I remember when they first came out with workplace several years back and I remember thinking at that point in time, our data was showing that 80% of the market or at least something close to that

[00:18:19] was leveraging Facebook from an HR perspective because it was the place where most of their workers were at when they came out with this.

[00:18:28] That number has dropped considerably in the last time and we're going to get some social number updates this year.

[00:18:33] But that's dropped considerably as next generations have moved on to Instagram or they move from Twitter and X, then they move back to LinkedIn.

[00:18:41] I think one that goes to show that social platforms are hard things to sort of understand long term how many people will be on them, especially from a workforce perspective.

[00:18:55] And that goes back to at some point you may want to make sure you have technology that is tied more to what your business is doing a little bit less to what the market shifts are doing, right?

[00:19:04] And so that's one I think takeaway from that perspective.

[00:19:08] The other thing is that to understand that, you know, it's pretty big number of people who were on that meta tool and they still made the decision to

[00:19:15] to sort of cut it.

[00:19:17] And I think that's the thing that you should really be sort of paying attention to is that in any product in the cloud, you should always have some sort of a backup decision about what happens if this is no longer offered, right?

[00:19:29] Now there's a lot of customer service agreements.

[00:19:31] There's a lot of, you know, hey, we no longer are things to be shutting down overnight.

[00:19:36] They always give timeframes down all those kind of things.

[00:19:39] But I do think, you know, you should always be looking at your tech stack with the idea of if this weren't here, what would I do beyond this?

[00:19:46] What is the next step if I have to go to the next step?

[00:19:48] And that's for any application, right?

[00:19:50] Because there was quite a few large companies who were still on this tool for better and they're going to have to figure out sort of where they'd go from here.

[00:19:57] Now there is some new capabilities in Zoom that's kind of taking over this.

[00:20:01] We know Slack's doing a lot of this.

[00:20:02] We know there's a lot of other tools.

[00:20:04] And part of that was that there was more market share to be won because Slack had already taken up quite a bit of that market share.

[00:20:09] Teams had taken up quite a bit of that market share.

[00:20:11] Our data shows teams extensively outpaced Facebook then from a communications perspective pretty rapidly once it came online.

[00:20:17] So I think that's what we're going to see.

[00:20:20] You know, organizations have to make these judgment calls all the time.

[00:20:23] And you're right. I do think that is definitely buying all into the virtual environment.

[00:20:27] That is the division or the vision that their leader has.

[00:20:31] And I think, you know, we are going to probably see VR take a step forward as we're starting to see it become more economical for organizations.

[00:20:39] But I think the bigger conversation here is just know your tech stack well and know what your opportunities are and where you need to be reaching people at all the time.

[00:20:46] Right.

[00:20:47] Yeah. Especially pressing is we're now going through this cycle with AI because AI, as we've mentioned before, is very resource intensive.

[00:20:55] It's very just expensive.

[00:20:57] Right to the chase.

[00:20:58] And if organizations don't see an ROI or at least don't see a future ROI, because as you said with Meta here, you know, they had a whole lot of people on workplace and yet still didn't see that it was going to be viable in the future.

[00:21:11] So if you're using AI in a way and there isn't sort of a backup plan that if this was not here tomorrow.

[00:21:18] But I think many of us learn those sort of process lessons during the pandemic years.

[00:21:24] But it's also important to do the same with your tech as Stacey was just alluding to.

[00:21:29] So you had mentioned Cornerstone earlier and you said we were going to get to the Skyhive acquisition.

[00:21:34] That probably wouldn't be the best time to do it, but I was just I was championing at the bit to talk about some of these other ones.

[00:21:40] So this really when Stacey said it came through today, she's not kidding.

[00:21:45] It was just a few hours ago our time that this was announced.

[00:21:48] Did you have any sort of inkling and I'll mention as well that this is taking it is going to use AI as everything does, that allows a sort of is this true?

[00:22:00] That would be sort of a big skills.

[00:22:03] I don't know what you would call it insights overview of the entire market, sort of a labor market data sort of warehouse or microscope telescope macroscope.

[00:22:15] Yeah, their own copy for them, I think.

[00:22:18] Yeah, I think the sky has an interesting acquisition.

[00:22:21] One is I have was a workday ventures investment area.

[00:22:24] So we had I've been introduced to sky through through workday actually many years ago because they were running organizations that they had been investing in,

[00:22:32] which meant that they are working with some of the largest companies in the world through the workday partnership.

[00:22:36] And when I worked, they made the decision to acquire another sort of talent, intelligent solution.

[00:22:42] A few always back.

[00:22:43] What we what we realized is that this market is at a prime point where these organizations who've been doing talent intelligence really need to be really need to focus on sort of either deciding if they're going to be a full on platform or if they're going to be acquired.

[00:23:00] Right.

[00:23:00] What we're seeing with someone like an eightfold who's big into the talent intelligence space, they're trying to sort of add on to what their original services and solutions were to try become a broader platform play.

[00:23:10] Other organizations like Sci-Fi, they needed to find a home because we are finding that the talent intelligence works best when it's connected with bigger data sets internally as well as external because they're scraping a lot from the external market.

[00:23:22] But you still need that data from what's happening inside the company to make those skills matches make sense aside the company.

[00:23:28] And so what this is going to do is it's one it's going to help cornerstone leapfrog into the talent intelligence space.

[00:23:35] It's going to ensure that they have both external and internal data inside of their approach to how they're doing this talent matching.

[00:23:42] It's going to push forward the concept of internal talent mobility for cornerstone customers.

[00:23:48] Although we know in our data that people are companies are pulling back from that a little bit right now, just because of where the economy is at.

[00:23:56] We'll talk a little bit about that.

[00:23:57] But you are seeing a lot of at least here in the United States and in the tech space, a lot more sort of layoffs and you're hearing numbers like a thousand resumes are coming in for one job.

[00:24:08] We think that's a short term issue, but it's definitely putting sort of a bit on what they're doing with I think internal mobility.

[00:24:16] Right.

[00:24:17] And so we're seeing the numbers on internal mobility go down a little bit as to where they were at post pandemic.

[00:24:23] Yeah, but I think cornerstone's right to to not take that as a concern as to not invest in this space.

[00:24:30] I think cornerstone is very aware that from the labor data and where the market's at internal utility will be back as well as the idea of matching skills, as well as the need for a better understanding of our skills, vocabulary and ontology and taxonomy.

[00:24:46] And so this will give them a real depth in that space, I think with sky high.

[00:24:51] And I think we're going to get a chance to see a bit of the battle of the intelligence platforms, right?

[00:24:56] As all these organizations are achieving or acquiring their own versions of these and figuring out where they can use this technology inside the market.

[00:25:05] Lots of AI has been embedded in these tools too.

[00:25:07] And I think that's another thing that organizations are realizing that by acquiring these small technologies, they're also acquiring the people who've been working at the forefront of AI.

[00:25:16] And so it's an opportunity to get those people into their organization too.

[00:25:19] So I'm excited for cornerstone on this.

[00:25:22] I think it's going to make some weird partner bedfellows, right?

[00:25:25] Because of who were the customers and clients of these various organizations.

[00:25:30] But I think that will all come out eventually as it usually does.

[00:25:33] So, yeah, absolutely.

[00:25:34] But you're I mean, you're spot on in the fact that there is they've tapped into this, you know, they're thinking forward, but there is already a need for understanding the talent market and sort of matching up those skills.

[00:25:48] And I think the proof is in the other plum pudding, which that joke will make sense in a second.

[00:25:54] It's still won't be good.

[00:25:55] So Plum, the company, I went to this event virtually to look a little more into this.

[00:26:01] So there's two, two aspects of this one that ties directly.

[00:26:04] We'll both tie into what you said.

[00:26:06] There's Plum flourish, which is the user side.

[00:26:10] So as you mentioned, there's all these resumes going out, right?

[00:26:12] There's all these people.

[00:26:13] So they wanted to get something that goes to those users, right?

[00:26:17] That gives a more broad view of those candidates.

[00:26:20] So it's not just here's who I am on a resume, but also development plans where here's where I'd like to be and help get a more nuanced view.

[00:26:31] And then it brings in what Plum already did well, which is this idea of these psychometric analyses, these soft skills and now tying into actual hard labor skills as well.

[00:26:42] Yeah, this was an issue.

[00:26:43] I didn't get to go to it, but I was looking at your notes on this one.

[00:26:46] And what I saw is that we've talked to Plum quite a bit and Caitlin McGregor, who's the CEO over there has been very prolific in sort of sharing her view of sort of how this market is changing and how important skills based conversations are.

[00:27:00] But not just the hard skills, the soft skills as well, which I think in the long run, one of the things I've been telling the market is a whole one of the things I wrapped up my presentation to the executive board at the course.

[00:27:12] And the question was, you know, we're looking across the skills, the number one skill that all of us are going to have to build and that we're going to be looking for in our hires in the next five to 10 years will be judgment because we need to have people who can make good judgment on all this data and all of this information is being shared from artificial intelligence.

[00:27:27] And so those are the kind of things I think that, you know, Plum's been working on for quite some time.

[00:27:32] I was interested to see that they're coming out with solutions that are going to be meeting the needs of these candidates as well as sort of their existing like they call it Plum Thrive along with the Plum Flourish.

[00:27:45] So it feels a little bit like some desserts to me.

[00:27:48] But but really good desserts, nonetheless, but allowing users to take control of their careers in a way through these assessment tools, which is something I don't know that we've we've seen previously.

[00:27:59] Right. Like I think we've seen I think we've seen the idea of career management inside of companies.

[00:28:05] I don't know if we've seen career management across a user base like this and definitely not through the sense of sort of an assessment model.

[00:28:13] Right. Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:15] And I like that concept of, you know, the judgment of using AI because a lot of this promise of AI when we're really being realistic isn't that it's going to do the work for you will do quite a bit, but you're always going to need that human oversight.

[00:28:29] Right. And that's sort of where you that's where you step in and say, OK, this is what it's, you know, what we've gotten so far, but we we know that this is right or we know this needs to be tweaked quite a bit.

[00:28:41] I think that this might, you know, be relevant in this next one.

[00:28:45] So ServiceNow very large.

[00:28:48] I think they're they're larger in Europe, though.

[00:28:50] Right. And you'd agree.

[00:28:51] And they have announced a lot of new AI capabilities.

[00:28:55] Now they're focusing more on the generative AI side.

[00:28:58] So helping doing some strategic workforce management, they call strategic portfolio management because it is a little more developed right there in that specific area as well.

[00:29:09] But also to help agents work with you, which I think is nice because I think there's been a lot of talk of, you know, doing sort of making AI chat bots and stuff.

[00:29:20] But I think making human actual responders better might be a more valuable use of some of these technologies.

[00:29:28] And that seems to be some of what they're doing as well.

[00:29:32] I also like that they have focused on specific niches there, such as one of their new capabilities, the government community cloud, which is specifically, you know, take a wild guess.

[00:29:41] But for the public sector and helping out public needs, because, you know, you think about user bases, that's a large one.

[00:29:48] You know, there's a lot of people that can be affected there.

[00:29:51] And anything you can do to make government more efficient, I don't think anyone's going to disagree with.

[00:29:56] Yeah, and I think the ServiceNow conversation is a little interesting in a sense that neither of us got a chance to attend their event.

[00:30:03] We'll probably be looking at the follow up recordings just because we were both at other events while we were doing this.

[00:30:08] But every vendor has these things one on top of the other in the spring, so it's hard to get around everything.

[00:30:13] But I thought sort of their opening line to the conversation, which is ServiceNow says bring your own generative AI, right?

[00:30:20] You know, we are seeing this sort of, we're starting to see these camps, right?

[00:30:23] Which is we're going to embed and do all the prompting for you and kind of create everything in a safe, embedded environment.

[00:30:30] There's other ones where we're going to allow you to license it through our company, but we're still saying use Microsoft or use ChatGBT or use Oracle's, or not Oracle's, but use Claude or whatever else for our generative AI or Google's generative AI through our system.

[00:30:46] But we're going to lock down some of the parameters, right?

[00:30:49] And then you've got something like what ServiceNow is talking about, which is all about experimenting.

[00:30:53] You and I are doing this.

[00:30:54] We're buying our own versions of the various generative AI models, and then we're sort of closing them down and putting them behind firewalls.

[00:31:01] And we're just testing out how things are working.

[00:31:04] Well, companies are investing pretty heavily in that, and they're building their own sort of automated solutions is what's happening, right?

[00:31:10] And so ServiceNow is kind of saying, like, we don't care what you're using, bring it and attach it to what we're doing, right?

[00:31:16] And that's going to be, I think, sort of interesting, sort of that flexibility of customers having the ability to sort of attach the journeys in ServiceNow, which is all about creating sort of connected user experience and workflows to this broader sort of world of AI that we're talking about.

[00:31:31] Right now there's a bit more risk maybe in that than maybe some of the other ways of doing it.

[00:31:36] But I think for ServiceNow customers, you know, to be a ServiceNow customers, you already have to have a pretty extensive sort of IT environment that people are set up.

[00:31:44] It was originally an IT software and it is about tracking and doing help desk.

[00:31:48] It's also about now doing workflows and about, you know, portfolio management is a big thing, right?

[00:31:53] Like they're really trying to sort of create the sort of all in one sort of connector for your business, right?

[00:32:00] And solutions in a way that's not we're going to create the processes for you, but to allow you to create your own business processes, right?

[00:32:07] They do a little bit out of the box, but a lot of this is that we've created giving the tools to do these connections.

[00:32:12] So it'll be interesting to see where people land on this and what they like better and what works better for their companies.

[00:32:17] Do I need it really locked down?

[00:32:19] Do I need to do more of a broad thing like ServiceNow?

[00:32:21] What is it that I have to have that flexibility around?

[00:32:25] My goal this year is to get a little bit more details on what ServiceNow is doing long-term on their roadmap, because I think this works really well for complex organizations.

[00:32:35] But they are growing also in the mid market a little bit.

[00:32:37] We're seeing some of that in our data.

[00:32:38] And so the question is, is some of the bundling of the packaging they're doing helping that?

[00:32:43] Are we going to see some of the other organizations open up their environments a little more to compete with ServiceNow in a way where that flexibility and that data flow and that content flow has more structure to it, but is still more capable.

[00:32:55] This is a space I think everybody should be watching, right?

[00:32:58] ServiceNow has been growing rapidly for the last couple of years.

[00:33:01] I think the kind of things that they do is in a different way than what we're seeing with big enterprise platforms.

[00:33:06] The two will converge eventually, I think.

[00:33:08] And it'll be interesting to see how that all happens, right?

[00:33:11] Yeah.

[00:33:12] And also, you know, this concept of sort of building your own there is directly relevant to another company we've mentioned quite a few times before.

[00:33:21] Vizier.

[00:33:21] They had a headline that they're now open for builders.

[00:33:24] I'm making air quotes for anyone that's just listening to the podcast, but that's not me being sarcastic.

[00:33:29] That's just what they're calling it.

[00:33:31] But the idea is you were building your own sort of AI and analytics solutions, you know, and the example they use is one of my favorites because they talked about one of their customers who integrated their HR data, their people data with their POS or their point of sale data.

[00:33:48] This is all to me is the sort of end all be all.

[00:33:52] And we talk about our report looking at the business outcomes and how that relates to the HR outcomes.

[00:33:58] There could be no more direct way to do it than this.

[00:34:01] Now, of course, that will change for all sorts of different companies.

[00:34:05] Many companies don't really rely on, you know, point of sale type interactions, but to think about how all the different ways that we interact with people as an HR professional and how that might affect, you know, point of sale interactions and the numbers there.

[00:34:22] And that data and seasonal and all this other external data and marrying those things, being able to create your own sort of solution to to kind of find those inflection points, I think would be very interesting to see going forward.

[00:34:36] But again, goes to that idea of these bespoke sort of solutions.

[00:34:41] Yeah, it's interesting.

[00:34:42] I think that organizations like Vizier, like I said, we're seeing this sort of weird sort of thing happening.

[00:34:48] They need to open up more, right?

[00:34:50] Because they've always been very locked down.

[00:34:51] For a good reason, HR doesn't always have the same standard language or models.

[00:34:57] So you kind of have to be locked down to get a good answer out of it.

[00:35:00] Now they're seeing that, OK, maybe we can flex a little bit with AI, with allowing us to be more sort of open with our environment.

[00:35:07] Where other organizations who have been very open are saying, look, it's too complex for buyers.

[00:35:12] I need to have something that's a little bit more out of the box.

[00:35:14] Cornerstone is talking a little bit about that.

[00:35:15] Other was talking a little bit about how do I meet the needs of mid-market that doesn't have programming staff?

[00:35:21] Doesn't have multiple people in each of these functions and roles to do this.

[00:35:24] And so I really think, you know, this it is almost the battle of the platforms that we're getting into.

[00:35:30] Right. Which is a little bit different than what we've seen in PATH, which is the battle of the applications.

[00:35:35] This is the next conversation.

[00:35:37] And we heard this a lot with Workday.

[00:35:38] I just heard this a ton with Cornerstone when I was there, because they're talking about a workforce agility platform.

[00:35:44] Right. That was what Galaxy's all about.

[00:35:46] Is this idea that you have a platform that allows you to do more than just what it came with out of the box,

[00:35:53] but still gives enough structure so that you don't feel like you're just starting from scratch again.

[00:35:58] Right.

[00:35:58] So yeah.

[00:36:00] And, you know, speaking of analytics, cross check.

[00:36:03] That's spelled with a CHQ at the end.

[00:36:06] If you're trying to follow along and look into these companies at home, you realize it's spelled, you know, it's not like the hockey term.

[00:36:12] So they mentioned that they're releasing a quality of hire engine.

[00:36:16] This is a metric if you're not in the recruiting space, it's kind of calculated different for everyone.

[00:36:21] And no one really had a good way of figuring out what we all knew what quality of hire.

[00:36:27] Right.

[00:36:27] We know that sometimes you get better people and sometimes it's based on how long did they stay?

[00:36:32] Did that make it a quality hire?

[00:36:33] So they're trying to sort of do a standardized engine, although, you know, with some customization, but pulling in data sources from beyond

[00:36:41] just your ATS, right?

[00:36:42] Did they, okay, they were hired and they stayed.

[00:36:45] So, but you know, also looking at, you know, your HRMS and, you know, anything came in through reference checks,

[00:36:51] any of your feedback, any of the other information that could be gleaned from it, really any of your other HR sources.

[00:36:58] I would imagine personally, anything in the talent management and performance management space would be very good there.

[00:37:04] And, you know, trying to get a more standardized, a true quote unquote quality of hire number, which is very interesting.

[00:37:13] And certainly not the first to attempt it, but CrossCheck has been around and knows what they're doing.

[00:37:18] So it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

[00:37:21] Yeah.

[00:37:21] Quality of hire is the holy grail when it comes to it.

[00:37:24] So right like the candidate space, we've talked about it a lot.

[00:37:27] I applaud any company that's trying to reach that.

[00:37:29] I think it's an important metric.

[00:37:32] The other thing I think is that making data more available will hopefully make this conversation about quality of hire more accessible.

[00:37:39] Being more transparent about it is going to be necessary, particularly for those new hires, right?

[00:37:45] Like I think there's a lot of conversation about we as admins and as recruiting professionals and hiring managers about understanding the value of every employee.

[00:37:52] But I think we're going to start to get to a point where employees are going to say, I want to know how well I'm doing at this metric that you're putting out there.

[00:38:00] Right.

[00:38:00] And so we have to think about that component of it.

[00:38:02] But yeah, it'll be interesting to see where this heads.

[00:38:04] Yeah.

[00:38:06] Then a couple products we thought were kind of interesting.

[00:38:10] Atlas has a global salary calculator.

[00:38:13] We'll put the links in the LinkedIn as always post that we do with these, but you can take a look at it.

[00:38:20] It is meant to be for users, you know, and user centric sort of thing, but they're big sort of differentiators.

[00:38:25] It's a full global salary calculator.

[00:38:28] So, you know, multi-language, but obviously multi-country and with the conversions and everything else in their mind and all the sort of standard things that go in with the benchmarks, often tough to do from a global perspective.

[00:38:42] Yeah, it'll be again another one where, you know, they're focusing on user centric approach to design with this and it's intuitive and user friendly to be able to use this tool.

[00:38:52] It's really hard to get, you know, when you're kind of trying to compare, you know, what we're paying in China versus what we might be paying in South Africa versus what we might pay in Europe and the US and sort of getting a good sense of that.

[00:39:04] But I do think it's a time it's come.

[00:39:06] We need to be having more of these sort of global calculators because pay transparency is now becoming a thing, not just here in the US and Europe, but in other countries as well.

[00:39:15] Yeah.

[00:39:15] In fact, some of our coworkers and friends are at World at Work.

[00:39:19] It's a conference focused a lot on compensation this current week that we're recording this.

[00:39:26] So we'll have some insights for you on the next recording.

[00:39:28] Yep.

[00:39:29] Another event that I'm sort of blanking on because we've been going to so many, another virtual one was they had quite a large and well attended virtual event.

[00:39:40] Not surprisingly, a lot of AI news, AI basically throughout their product rather than it sort of being a sort of separate module.

[00:39:48] So they call it the business SAP business AI and HR and it's sort of touching in everywhere.

[00:39:55] They're telling intelligence hub, which is Stacy's mentioned is growing in interest from a lot of people really understanding and getting those skills insights.

[00:40:05] I think, Stacy, if there were a way to bet on this monetarily, you would be a trillionaire because you were saying look at skills.

[00:40:12] That's going to be the big thing next year, but it's written down so you don't just make it up.

[00:40:16] And here we are.

[00:40:17] It's like, you know, not surprising AI is there, but she was the only one saying skills.

[00:40:21] So, you know, the one there was a lot there and I know we've been here a while, but there was a lot of really cool things in there.

[00:40:28] But I also like to quote that they had that, you know, they're making large investments in AI, but just as major investments in UI talking about what is there.

[00:40:37] And then, you know, as they said, it's more than just pixels, right?

[00:40:40] This is they're really looking to have the like the top user experience.

[00:40:44] I mean, who isn't, but it shows that their investments are even both an AI, but also in that UI space.

[00:40:51] Yeah, I like seeing this idea of the conversation about investments going beyond AI because I think that's what I'm waiting for.

[00:40:57] Let's get past this AI everything period that we're in and get back to seeing investments in sort of how AI is going to be used to actually achieve things inside organizations.

[00:41:07] Not just that it is being used, I think, particularly for SAP and success factors that it's good to hear them talk about user experience.

[00:41:16] I think we've seen in our data that's been an opportunity for them.

[00:41:19] It's been an opportunity to be honest for all the big players in this space, right?

[00:41:23] Workday was heavily focused on user experience this year.

[00:41:25] We saw Oracle had just gotten through most of their sort of, at least on their user side, all everyone's now on the Redwood platform user experience.

[00:41:34] They're still working through a few admin pages, it sounds like, but for the most part, everything else has been moved over.

[00:41:38] And that's a pretty big, whether their customers have all taken it because it makes some changes to how some of their set setups is important to note.

[00:41:48] But I do think we're seeing, and we said this actually this year that UX was back in the story.

[00:41:53] Like buyers were saying, OK, I'm done working with sort of older platforms.

[00:41:57] You got this done in 2015.

[00:42:00] It's time to refresh now.

[00:42:01] Right.

[00:42:02] And that's a hard thing for anybody who's a designer in these technologies, right?

[00:42:06] Is the minute you roll UX or UI out to the entire platform is the minutes it's out of date.

[00:42:12] It's like the old conversation about competency management, right?

[00:42:14] The minute I got skills mapped.

[00:42:16] So I think what I'm waiting to see is when will AI be used to auto update these user interfaces?

[00:42:24] Because really it is more than just pixels.

[00:42:27] It is about voice capturing.

[00:42:29] It's about eye movement matching.

[00:42:31] It's about the really interesting stuff I saw with VR and Cornerstone was that idea of, does it follow where your eyes are?

[00:42:36] Can you see things in a different light that way?

[00:42:39] Right.

[00:42:40] You know, we're seeing a lot of really interesting things come out of the work around.

[00:42:44] Does it need to ask everything?

[00:42:45] Can I be picking that data up from a lot of other places?

[00:42:48] So it's only filling out and asking things that you don't have access to in any way.

[00:42:52] Right.

[00:42:52] That seems sort of common sense, but it's not what's happening in much of our UX these days.

[00:42:57] So I think those are the areas I'd like to see a lot of them really lean into and do more with.

[00:43:02] And it's good to see them back here again, because I think we lost a little bit of that in this race to functionality that we were having.

[00:43:08] And it doesn't matter how many functions I've got if people aren't willing to use the tool.

[00:43:11] Right.

[00:43:12] We see it in our data.

[00:43:13] However, more AI, not a total surprise.

[00:43:16] Phenom did a whole bunch of sort of new products, a talent experience engine.

[00:43:22] Then they put AI throughout and just a whole lot in the TA and the talent acquisition and talent management space, you know, automating communications, building those personalized journeys, which I do think, you know, as you touched on, that's, I think the real, you know, if we're talking about the holy grails of AI.

[00:43:40] Building these systems that can apply machine learning and can teach you, you know, give you an experience, maybe not just in the user experience, but throughout any of your things that adapts to what works best for you.

[00:43:53] And, you know, hopefully these are sort of these early touches upon that was this idea of the mass personalization we've talked about before.

[00:44:01] But in general, this is just Phenom making sure that their products are still kind of leveraging what they do really well.

[00:44:09] Keeping all of that data that they have and personalization to brand that they've always been very strong at.

[00:44:16] Yeah.

[00:44:16] And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Cliff, because you know Phenom a little bit better than I do, but they were kind of on the, one of the early concepts of what was talent intelligence, right?

[00:44:24] Before people even were calling it talent intelligence.

[00:44:28] Right.

[00:44:28] And, you know, and I think now they have a lot of other things they're offering in that platform.

[00:44:34] They are, I think they're one of those where we're going to see this concept of platform for candidates, platform for talent intelligence, right?

[00:44:40] Becoming coming out a little bit more strongly.

[00:44:42] But, you know, the experience of the candidate and the experience of the recruiter and the experience of the manager at all three of those are so important in the hiring process.

[00:44:54] And we see other organizations do very well at any one of those things.

[00:44:57] I think Phenom has really tried hard to figure out all three of those profiles and sort of speak to all three of them.

[00:45:05] But I do think that we're going to probably see more expectations around things like understanding the job architecture, understanding the role within the organization.

[00:45:16] So now it's great that I've got my candidate.

[00:45:18] Now it's great that I understand a little bit about bringing that candidate skill in.

[00:45:21] But now is my job architecture detected well?

[00:45:24] That's going to come out of some of these conversations, right?

[00:45:26] This personalization conversation.

[00:45:28] Exactly.

[00:45:29] And I mean, highly interesting to a lot of Phenom's users and what they're looking for.

[00:45:33] You know, they're really getting the candidate marketing, you know, and the talent marketing as they refer to it as.

[00:45:38] But, you know, that sometimes I think an underserved group, right?

[00:45:41] But they need to be able to do that personalization due true marketing always super important, but never more so when you're dealing with an increasingly global work from home or remote workforce that expects that sort of customization.

[00:45:56] So a couple of the articles that we'll finish off with here are a little broader in scope.

[00:46:03] But I thought that they're interesting.

[00:46:05] You brought them to my attention, Stacey.

[00:46:07] And I just think they do a good job of in a way they'll seem a little off topic, but I think that they tie everything together.

[00:46:13] One, who was it that brought this to our attention?

[00:46:16] Is it John?

[00:46:17] Well, I think this is UKG.

[00:46:19] This was the UKG blog.

[00:46:20] They actually wrote about it.

[00:46:22] But I think there were a couple of people who had weighed in on this with the ROE of ESG, right?

[00:46:27] Yeah.

[00:46:28] Yeah, exactly.

[00:46:29] And the title is ROE of ESG.

[00:46:32] We're at the backlash.

[00:46:33] If for whatever reason you're not totally down with all the acronyms, I understand.

[00:46:36] So return on investment.

[00:46:38] Oh, now I'm just realizing ESG.

[00:46:40] I've always just thought of it as ESG.

[00:46:42] Environmental, social.

[00:46:44] And governance.

[00:46:45] I was like, is it governance?

[00:46:47] You know, everyone out there feel better, Cliff, because they're all...

[00:46:51] Everybody knows the same thing.

[00:46:52] I'm like, which one is environmental?

[00:46:54] Like that's an acronym not everybody understands all the letters too.

[00:46:58] So thank you.

[00:46:58] You just made everybody feel good.

[00:47:00] Good.

[00:47:01] I was like, do I say governance all the time?

[00:47:04] But yeah, it's really interesting.

[00:47:07] Just really thinking about, you know, there is a conversation going on about DEI

[00:47:13] that is probably beyond the scope of this particular podcast, but you know,

[00:47:19] really trying to understand the true value in the workplace of these sort of programs.

[00:47:26] And, but understanding that society may have a different idea or, you know,

[00:47:30] the larger news media may give people a different idea of what this is,

[00:47:36] of what these concepts are and how they fit into the workplace.

[00:47:41] And, you know, and it did, as you said, sparked a conversation.

[00:47:44] We saw a few different people sort of weigh in on it.

[00:47:47] And I'm curious to know what you're thinking.

[00:47:50] The article itself, I think is very sort of more straightforward.

[00:47:53] Making it sound more philosophical in nature, but they're really just saying,

[00:47:57] hey, look, figure out the cost and the value you're getting back for it.

[00:48:00] Look at the impact and be prepared for pushback or prepared to answer any questions.

[00:48:06] At least know what that, you know, letters and acronyms stand for.

[00:48:09] Yeah. And I would also do a call out for a friend of ours, Brian Summers,

[00:48:14] who just wrote an ESG book.

[00:48:16] And I think, you know, what I love about Brian is that he,

[00:48:20] he doesn't always take the easy answer to conversation.

[00:48:23] So when we started hearing in the endless events that people were sort of pushing

[00:48:26] away from ESG again, that was the perfect thing for Brian is to want to dive in and

[00:48:31] understand this. And so he's been talking to lots of companies about what he's seeing.

[00:48:36] And I got a chance to listen to him and John Reed interview on this.

[00:48:39] Just this morning, I was listening to that podcast.

[00:48:41] If you don't listen to John Reed's podcast, I always recommend listening to

[00:48:44] Dijonica and the work that they're doing there.

[00:48:47] But what was really good about, I think that ESG conversation

[00:48:52] was that, you know, Brian had mentioned that, you know, politics aside,

[00:48:56] you know, yes, there's the dashboards and yes, there's the tracking, but most of the

[00:49:01] data right now is historical data. And a lot of times average data.

[00:49:04] It's not great. And so, but at least in Europe, they're still asking for this data.

[00:49:08] And so we are going to see more requests for this.

[00:49:10] And eventually as you're a global company, you're going to have to do this for your

[00:49:13] entire organization. But what he really mentioned, which I thought is important is how

[00:49:18] organizations sort of off the record were talking about the innovations they were putting

[00:49:23] into their ESG conversations around how they make products, how they get supply

[00:49:29] chains working, how they get, you know, it isn't just about, I think, you know,

[00:49:34] the overshadowing conversation here is that this becomes a political issue.

[00:49:39] But what Brian found is that these companies were doing really amazing things

[00:49:43] in ESG, both on the environmental front, on the social front, as well as on the

[00:49:48] governance front. And they were doing it in ways that we would not have expected.

[00:49:52] And I just want to put one more statement out there about the DEI conversation.

[00:49:57] We don't cover that as a research overall. There's some great places like Red Thread

[00:50:01] Research, you can get some amazing stuff on what's happening, diversity, equity,

[00:50:04] inclusion and space. But what I will say is that we do cover is demographics and data.

[00:50:10] And when I can tell you, and no matter who you are and what company you have

[00:50:13] in the organization, the diversity of your workforce, of your Gen Z workforce

[00:50:18] is completely different from the diversity of what your big room or workforce is.

[00:50:23] We did a survey, we asked participants to sort of give us a sense of where they fell

[00:50:27] in the demographic space. And what we found is 8% of your baby boomer workforce said

[00:50:32] they were a person of color. 40% of the Gen Zs who responded to our survey,

[00:50:37] and it was a survey across the market, well balanced, we've looked at all

[00:50:40] the different things, 40% of them said they were a person of color.

[00:50:44] You are just going to have a more diverse workforce. So you need to figure out how to

[00:50:49] adjust your world for that perspective because it is going to have an impact,

[00:50:53] different backgrounds, different cultures, different opportunities, different experiences.

[00:50:58] And we should welcome that and bring that into the conversation.

[00:51:01] And I think that's the piece, you know, facts are facts about sort of what we're going

[00:51:05] to see in our world. And I just want people to sort of maybe think a little bit more about

[00:51:09] that in the sense of ESG is that it isn't, yes, it's become a little bit of a pull of

[00:51:14] a hot button, but there are some realities to the world that we're living in that we

[00:51:20] need to sort of bring into the conversation. So that's my two cents on it. I'll leave it at that.

[00:51:23] I love it. And I think that kind of gets to the point. Like let's just look at the facts,

[00:51:29] but be prepared because the facts don't always jive with how people feel about it,

[00:51:34] which is a perfect, see I told you it was all going to be tied up.

[00:51:39] Story using the market watch version of it, the headline is there's more good news

[00:51:43] on inflation Americans may have a hard time believing it. The idea being here is that

[00:51:48] the economy is doing better basically than you think, you know, although the inflation rate isn't

[00:51:55] as low as this. And I'm talking about the US government. I should mention here for

[00:51:59] international listeners, the US government had targeted, I think 2% inflation rate.

[00:52:05] It's higher than that, you know, 2.4 to 3%, you know, cost of prices,

[00:52:11] but household spending seems to be going up. The sort of cash that's in your pocket

[00:52:16] seems to be increasing. So it really ties this idea of perception versus reality when it comes

[00:52:21] to the economy. And that has sort of trickle on effects, right? Because it goes into this

[00:52:26] whole idea of who's hiring and who's laying off. And you know, it can have these big effects

[00:52:31] to sort of, you know, not see the numbers or not understand the underlying causes. And

[00:52:38] it's one of these things, this is a little past what they mentioned here. But it's something I

[00:52:44] always think about when people talk about, oh, this is what things cost or, you know,

[00:52:48] what do they say? Oh, if you had $10,000 now adjusted for inflation, that would be like

[00:52:53] $100,000 from back in the day. But that doesn't really get into what things cost,

[00:52:58] you know, that's just saying more or less there's some things, but it's like certain

[00:53:02] things were very cheap. Certain things are more expensive and gas prices is all over the map

[00:53:07] sometimes. You know, I think a more of a percentage of your income, the major goods that you buy,

[00:53:12] things like food and housing have changed in the percentage of their income they take up.

[00:53:18] But I did like it because it really gets into this idea too of,

[00:53:22] and the way I thought of it was, you know, with AI, right? Which is the how we see it,

[00:53:28] how it's marketed is somewhat different that's on the ground. I think both of us have written

[00:53:33] articles recently about the actual amount of people that are using AI or even aware that it's

[00:53:40] existed in their current HCM platforms is remarkably low. Especially in comparison to

[00:53:46] the amount of real estate it takes in the news and here we are talking about it, but still

[00:53:50] we're at least saying, you know, don't maybe have this sort of fear of missing out.

[00:53:55] Don't jump into something so fast just because it seems like that's what's happening.

[00:54:00] Yeah. And probably the reason this one caught my eye is because I have been doing so much

[00:54:04] traveling and I have been talking to a lot of customer advisory boards. And when you get a

[00:54:07] chance, instead of just presenting, right? Like presenting is great. You get a chance to see

[00:54:11] the whole market, but when you get a chance to sit in a room of 12 or 15 or 20 heads of CHROs

[00:54:19] and chief learning officers and chief operating officers, you get a different conversation going.

[00:54:25] And I've been in a lot of those over the last couple of months. And the couple things

[00:54:29] I'm hearing is that, yes, we are dealing with layoffs. There's no doubt, but I think once you

[00:54:34] start getting below the covers, they've made some decisions to make some layoffs or to see,

[00:54:39] and our data is going to show that. You're going to see that already. I just looked at

[00:54:42] our data that we are going to see higher percentage of organizations who have done

[00:54:45] layoffs and higher percent who are just making decisions to sort of lose employees

[00:54:49] through attrition, right? But they're also all saying is that they're having a hard time

[00:54:55] hiring the right skill sets, the things they need inside the company. And so if you really look at

[00:55:02] sort of what happened here in the United States, even globally is that after the pandemic,

[00:55:06] we went through this sort of great resignation prices went up and almost every company,

[00:55:12] particularly tech companies over hired. They were afraid of missing out on the people

[00:55:17] with skills as they should be. And so they were seeing a huge amount of hiring.

[00:55:21] So some of these layoffs is a little bit of a reaction to over hiring. Some of them are

[00:55:26] a reaction to AI is taking some of the roles in the jobs, opportunities and workflows. And then

[00:55:31] some of them are economic, right? Like there's a little mix of both that are in there. And I

[00:55:35] think unfortunately we just see it all in one lump and saying the economy is bad. Our data

[00:55:39] is not showing that budgets at least yet will see where the final number of, but yet

[00:55:44] I'm not seeing the numbers like huge cuts in budgets for HR and technology. I am seeing

[00:55:50] more caution in the market, which I think everybody's been feeling a little bit.

[00:55:54] And I think that's part of us not really digging into the data, understanding what's happening.

[00:55:59] We need this both in our labor stats. We need this in our financial metrics. We need this in

[00:56:05] our way we're making decisions about the companies. We had this huge conversation about

[00:56:09] hybrid workforces and executives making mandates that people have to be in the locations for these

[00:56:15] people have to come back to the job and they're doing sort of the worst one I'm hearing right now.

[00:56:21] And almost everybody I've talked to is seeing this happen is if you're within five miles or

[00:56:26] 10 miles of your corporate headquarter, you have to come into the office, right?

[00:56:30] If you're not, then you don't have to not based off of the job and whether you could do

[00:56:35] it in a remote location, but just this, this sort of sort of standard mandate, right?

[00:56:40] The other one is everyone has to live within a mouth of a location. Even if when you go into

[00:56:45] that location, nobody you work with is in that location. Right? A lot of decisions are just being

[00:56:51] made. Yes, there's real value in getting together. And yes, we know there are some data out there

[00:56:56] showing that performance can be slightly down if you're working from home all the time,

[00:57:00] but there's also data showing that performance is slightly up depending on what metric you're

[00:57:05] tracking like we talked about. So I really think in this particular case,

[00:57:09] like everything else in our business, you know, we as business leaders, as HR, because

[00:57:14] we are, we are really important business leaders need to always be there with the data,

[00:57:19] the facts, the information, because I think a lot of times executives will feel the pressure

[00:57:25] of a board's perception or will feel the pressure of the stock market or will feel

[00:57:30] the pressure of impending sort of the trickling down of information or what they're hearing on

[00:57:35] the latest, you know, meeting that they went to our job as HR is to make sure that they

[00:57:41] have the facts in front of them to make those decisions. And where they use the facts or not

[00:57:44] is a whole other conversation, but that is I think our job in HR is that we don't,

[00:57:49] as much as we're positioned and pigeonholed off and that the feelings function, we have

[00:57:54] the data, we have the facts, we can tell you what the employees will do when you make these

[00:57:57] decisions. We should be able to say that. Right? So that's my two cents on this topic,

[00:58:02] Cliff. And I know we've gone over by at least 15 minutes today. So

[00:58:05] I, you know, it was really wonderful. Thank you guys for sticking with this. And if you're

[00:58:13] listening to podcasts, you want to check out the video, you can go to safety and insights

[00:58:16] group on YouTube. You can just search that into YouTube and find it there. But I think

[00:58:20] we'll also be embedding it as well on the LinkedIn page and find it that way. And thank

[00:58:27] you. I also want to say if you are, if you've only ever listened to us, haven't seen it,

[00:58:32] I think there was a very impressive display about 20 minutes ago when you see that Stacey's just

[00:58:37] remembering these stats. So you can tell what I've got in stats because you can see me looking

[00:58:41] over to find the numbers. She just remembering off top her head. I'm like, see, that's

[00:58:45] impressive. And you would never know that unless you were seeing us video. Well,

[00:58:52] as we're wrapping up today, thank you as always. Cliff does all the work in pulling

[00:58:55] all this together for us. So and he puts all the links out on LinkedIn environment. So please

[00:58:59] take advantage of all that work that he, that hard work that he does because it is our goal is

[00:59:05] to make sure that you are well informed and try and get you well informed as much as possible

[00:59:08] within the month. We know that there's a lot of news that comes down in what's happening in

[00:59:12] the market. As we're wrapping today, just a reminder that when this comes out, the annual

[00:59:16] HR system survey, which Cliff has done an amazing job launching this year with Tammy is

[00:59:21] out and the link is available. So we'll also put that in our links below today because,

[00:59:27] all this data that I can remember is because I am embedded in it daily, looking at the information,

[00:59:32] your input is what helps us know what to talk about and what's important to you. So please

[00:59:38] make sure you take the time to complete the survey. It's also the only way that you're going

[00:59:41] to be able to get the annual HR system survey 200 plus pages, 175 figures last year will

[00:59:46] probably just as many if not more this year without having to pay for it. So just remember

[00:59:51] that. And so that's a really important thing we are once again, we just got our update of

[00:59:55] our time and everything will be major keynote session at the HR technology conference. So make

[01:00:01] sure you sign up to attend there. We are on the first day of the actual sessions just after

[01:00:07] the women in HR technology event on Wednesday is our session. And so definitely want to mark that

[01:00:12] in your book. And once you get a chance to go through the survey, if you have any questions,

[01:00:16] you'd like to talk a little bit more about any of the topics, please be sure to let me and

[01:00:19] Cliff know it's really important to us to know that we're hitting all the topics you guys

[01:00:23] need or want. Also go to our website, sign up for our newsletter. That is the best way to get

[01:00:28] information about what's happening in our world as to where we'll be at, what research is being

[01:00:32] launched and we'll be speaking and visiting. And most importantly, be sure to listen to our

[01:00:36] sister HR huddle podcast, HR. We have a problem hosted by our CEO, Terry zipper.

[01:00:41] Those episodes every other week, there's an episode one is us. And then the next week is

[01:00:45] Terry's event. And if you'd like to support us, be sure to like and follow our podcast

[01:00:51] and to stay up to date with immediate breaking HR tech news and get all the behind the scenes

[01:00:55] content. You can follow us at Sapient insights on LinkedIn, on Instagram. I think we're still on

[01:01:01] X as well. Those are probably the best ways to find us and thanks again for all your help in

[01:01:06] pulling all of this together. So no, especially you weren't feeling well today. So appreciate

[01:01:10] you for the video people notice that working through. Yeah. I'd like to thank also our

[01:01:14] production team, brand method media group who helps us produce the podcast run by amazing

[01:01:18] founder, Kelly Kelly, our marketing team, Lisa Renko and some are a role. I know who

[01:01:22] basically make this available to everybody. Thanks to our listeners in the community. We

[01:01:26] couldn't do this without you. It is absolutely important that we hear from you, including all

[01:01:31] of our vendors and all of the people who follow us and all the financial investors and as well

[01:01:36] as all the practitioners. We know that everybody's in this community and that's it for this

[01:01:40] episode of spilling the TNHR tech. We hope it's been just the brew you need to start the

[01:01:43] engines running this week. I did not have that memorized. You can see my eyes going to

[01:01:47] recite. This is going to be hard for me. I'm going to have to be able to memorize

[01:01:50] now my script. We'll be back in just two weeks with another pot of boiling hot

[01:01:54] HR tech updates and insights just for you. So thanks everyone. Bye.