Spilling the Tea on HR Tech - Why Europe and Asia are outpacing US AI Adoption, data integration's 17% ROI and how skills validation is changing the global HR landscape.

[00:00:00] Cornerstone showed me some in learning for watching eye contact and that sort of thing and working with bias. So anyway, that all being said, this is pretty interesting because I do think that there is some great usage but it comes down with use cases and I suppose you could say the same for AI as well. So this very interesting article about Cornerstone using extended reality training to build skills.

[00:00:28] So they're using LAMA, one of the big sort of AI platforms, right? And doing employee training. So being able to work with all of their already existing augmented reality, virtual reality and now extended reality to work in areas that can only be done by the use of these tools.

[00:00:49] You know, like I said, there's some areas of whether it's in working with very expensive machinery where you don't have the opportunity to let people mess around with it or if it's just dealing with people and working on sort of empathetic training and these type of skills that could be useful in the workplace. Welcome to the HR Huddle Podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource for all things HR.

[00:01:26] Welcome everyone to Spill in the Tea on HR Tech where we focus on the hottest HR tech news everyone needs to know to be in the know. We break down the news the week and help you make sense of what it means for our industry and how it can impact your organization. And we're recording today on April 10th, 2025. We are heading into the middle of spring at this point and we are going to bring you all the news you can use this week. And I'm your host, Stacey Harris, Chief Research Officer and Managing Partner for Sapient Insights Group. We are a research and advisory firm.

[00:01:55] And joining me today is my co-host, Cliff Stevenson, Director of Research and Principal Analyst for Sapient Insights Group. Cliff, welcome back to the show. And oh my gosh, last time we were together there was a lot of like espionage and really, really kind of scary stuff going on in the HR Tech space. This week it's a little bit quieter, but still some fun stuff, right? That's right. Yeah, a lot of, we've got some international news. We always do like to take care of our international friends.

[00:02:23] We've got some new launches, lots of AI this week. I know that we sort of joke about, you know, how much AI is, dominates the news and there really hasn't been too much. You know, there's been a few things we've got quite a bit to talk about, but a lot of skills conversation. Some they kind of got sublimated during all of these other talks. We're going to be talking a lot about skills, how they're being used, what we're seeing.

[00:02:45] And we've got some, you know, people movement as well, including some internal ones and lots of, lots of travel coming up. Yeah. And I think, you know, just being very honest with what's going on in the market, a lot of the stuff that's going on here, at least in the United States politically, has kind of put, I think, a standstill on some of the business stuff going on, right?

[00:03:06] And so I do think that, which is allowing to some extent us to bubble up some topics that I think have been sort of pushed aside for the last couple of months as we've been sort of making a lot of movements and shakes in the market.

[00:03:18] But we're all going to get a chance to have a lot of conversation about what's happening, both in the market, both from an acquisition and a buying and a technology new rollout perspective, as well as from some of the softer things that we're dealing with that are always critical, which is how we think about skills, how we think about developing, how we think about growing our workforce, even though we're not making a lot of moves right now on acquisitions and hiring.

[00:03:41] So to do that, though, we're going to a lot of events. And so a couple of upcoming events that everyone can join us at or see us at. One is you and I will be doing a joint webinar for HiBob on April 22nd. So please be sure to join us there. It's going to be the HR Tech Playbook, Smarter Investments for Long-Term Growth.

[00:03:57] That one's going to be fun because we're going to be talking about how to think about making an HR technology selection, not just on features and functionalities and price, but also on what you're trying to position in the organization, business outcomes you're trying to achieve, how it's going to impact your key stakeholders. We'll be having all those conversations.

[00:04:14] Then Cliff, you're going to be in New York City on April 24th, a few days after that, at the first HR Tech meetup that HR Executive Magazine is holding. And it was great for us to be invited. So I think you're going to be excited about joining that event with Madeline Loreno, right? That's right. Doing a panel discussion, sort of getting a jump on all of the very complex news that's going to be coming out that will be affecting everyone. I'm very excited because we all know HR Tech is a lot, right? There's a lot going on.

[00:04:42] So to sort of prep ahead of time to sort of be ready, but also to get feedback and hear what's affecting people so that it's even more relevant when we do the big HR Tech. In Las Vegas, yeah. And I think we're finding people are, they want to get together right now. So we are finding that a lot of these roundtables, we just did a roundtable in Atlanta last week on change leadership, and it had over 20 participants in it when it was, you know,

[00:05:09] we were expecting a bit of a smaller audience, but we had more people show up than we expected. And it was, the conversations were just really powerful that people were having. So I think we're seeing this across the board. I'll also be heading out to the California, the West Coast for the Workday Innovation Sessions, April 22nd through 25th. That's going to be in Napa Valley. That is an analyst-only event where we'll be getting, bringing back some updated information, lots of tea, I'm sure, on their AI strategy.

[00:05:34] And then the following week, I'll be going to Oracle's Analyst Summit, which is a similar analyst-only event, which will again be giving an opportunity for us to probably bring back some news on what's happening with their AI strategy. I think the two of them are going to be battling that out on the conversation. And then I'll be on May 6th and 7th in Charlotte at the I Solved People Connect event, and I'll be launching a big research effort that we're doing on how to level the playing field for HR. That's actually really exciting. I'm working on that paper right now, so there's going to be some really cool stuff in that.

[00:06:03] Talking about not just, yes, HR is a tough job, and there's a lot of times where we feel like we're behind the eight ball trying to make a business case, but how do we change the work that we do and the things that we are doing inside of our own work environment to level that playing ground in a way that's going to allow, particularly SMB and mid-market organizations, to really rethink their relationship at the executive and the board level. So that's a big report that we're doing right now.

[00:06:32] Then I will also be on May 8th at the Unleashed conference, where I'll be doing a session with HPE on demystifying the AI world. And that one's going to be interesting. You and I will talk a little bit about this. I'll be rolling out some new data we have on the AI market. We've got a lot of information about how organizations are actually using it versus just a couple of case studies.

[00:06:57] This is going to be real powerful. And HPE is going to be talking through how they're building a governance strategy and building on top of what they already had in place. And I think that's going to be a really powerful sort of duo of conversations, and it'll be worth the effort. Cliff, you might be coming to Unleashed. We're still trying to decide if you've got time in your agenda. So I know you love Las Vegas, but... Yes, that's right. Can't get enough of it. Can't seem to get away from it. But luckily, I'll be there quite a bit. Yeah.

[00:07:23] And then you're going to be heading out the next couple of weeks to a work human, May 12th through 13th, correct? That's right. And in fact, I've just found out that Susan Richards from Zapian Insights Group, your partner, will be joining us as well. So that'll be really great. That's always an interesting one. I really want to see what's going on with the world of employee recognition and engagement and how that affects business results.

[00:07:49] But also, they have a really good, you know, as I've said before, a kind of cool vibe to these sort of things. I know you're bummed because you missed Trevor Noah, who will be there. I love Trevor. I'm very bummed that I'm going to be missing that one. Yeah. Try and get some photos. And then just a week after that, Terry. Speaking of the Zapian Insights Group, Terry Zipper, who also has our partner podcast in the HR Huddle. HR We Have a Problem. She will be at Total Rewards in Orlando, Florida, just down the road from me.

[00:08:19] Yes. May 19th and 21st. And she'll be talking about the shifting world of compensation and how some of those changes are impacting technology decisions. And that's kind of an exciting and it'll be a panel. So she's got a counterpart who's on that with her. And then you and I will both be back in Florida again at the UKG Analyst event May 22nd in Miami. So let's hope the weather stays nice for us down there and that'll be fun. And then both of us will again be going to the Cornerstone Spark event May 27th and 29th.

[00:08:49] That's back in Las Vegas, the win. That is back in Las Vegas. That's right. But I'm excited. We'll be doing a session for the executive group, the executive track for that. And that's going to be talking a lot about where we're seeing the next level of technology go and how organizations are connecting that. And then you and I, you'll be heading back to Las Vegas again in June for the iSolve Partner Connect event and their sales kickoff, correct?

[00:09:16] And there'll be more opportunities, of course, to meet with others. But there'll be another one where I'll be speaking as well. And we'll be working with a lot of the both the sales group and the executive groups and, you know, sharing some of the data that we have. It'll be interesting to see if we have any early data, but otherwise, you know, sort of seeing where those trends are going for decision making. Yeah, you're teasing the early data here. So so again. Yeah, I know. I know.

[00:09:46] I get excited. In the midst of all this traveling, our amazing Tammy Smith, who is our data scientist, is launching this year's annual HR system survey on May 1st to the public. Some of our distributors are going to be sending it out a little bit earlier because we give them about two weeks before the public one goes out. So watch for it. It's coming. The week of April 16th, it'll start. And we've got some. We've been real. I'm always excited about the survey. Everybody knows that.

[00:10:13] But I always if you've never participated in our research, you know, please take the time to sign up and make sure you're on our list to get the link because you learn as much by taking the survey as what we hear from everyone who participates as you do getting the data back, which everybody gets a full report back. We always get a full report back if you participate in the survey and fill it out completely. But this year, Cliff, you and I have spent a lot of time with Tammy really rethinking some of the questions we're asking.

[00:10:40] We are adding new questions on key business initiatives and changes that are impacting how you're making decisions across your organization, not just in HR. So we can see how that's connecting to the HR conversation. We're also doing a lot of new AI questions, including a UX and vendor satisfaction for some of your AI tools. We're going to start to track that. Cliff, we were also talking today about other AI things we're going to be asking. What are some of the other things you're excited about that are going into the survey this year? Those are some of the ones I'm really excited about.

[00:11:08] And you mentioned the AI, and I think it's more than just saying that we're going to be talking about some different products, right? Different things are out there. We're going to be asking a lot more on the why, why people are using it or why they're not using it. Not just how you might be using it, but what specific sort of business case, what problems are you trying to solve with it? Are you using it on your own, right? Is this something that you're using your own AI products? You're paying for it. We're going to track whether or not they're paying it individually, personally, right?

[00:11:37] That's right, because that's a number that is a lot lower when we see it. We look at our numbers last year, only about 24% of people are using AI. So we started really thinking, well, I bet it's more than that, because are they using their own or are they using ones that the company provides? That sort of thing. A lot more on contingent workforce. And I really love the idea you had of looking at these new sort of uses of tech for managing contingent workforces.

[00:12:04] I like the idea of how AI is being used for integration, especially this idea of agentic orchestration. I haven't figured out yet whether you came up with that term or someone else did, but it's a brilliant concept that we're already seeing companies forming to provide solutions to do this. Exactly what it sounds like, right? Of taking your agents and figuring out how they can best be deployed and used and giving you an overview of all that. I know Workday has a project like that, for instance. Exactly.

[00:12:32] And this one's actually exciting, because we've known for a long time, one of the four factors that leads to better business outcomes, without a doubt, is one question we ask in the survey. And it doesn't get answered by a ton of people. It's in our governance section. So we always tell people, make sure you get back to that governance and HRIT section. But in there, we find that if you have a strategy for data integration, you are, I think it's 17% or 16% on the average over the five years, right? It's a double-digit number. There's only four things. We know change management.

[00:13:02] We know being seen as a business partner. And we know having an HR system strategy. Those things always line up with better business outcomes. But that integration conversation, and we know only about 20% of the market has a strategy for integration of data, right? Like, that number hasn't changed a whole lot year over year, but those who do have better business outcomes.

[00:13:19] But what we're starting to see is this merging conversation between integration strategy, but then also whether or not you're using integration platforms, whether or not you're using API platforms, and now this agentic orchestration platform. So we're rolling that into kind of a single question just to see what are the tools you're using to manage integrations, whether you have a strategy or not. And we're going to start to compare that. But that's really exciting to me because it starts to get to the heart of what we know are a lot of the biggest problems in this market, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:13:49] So it's going to be a lot of big changes in the survey this year. We just recommend that you take some time. You will learn as much as we have learned in developing it this year, I think, right? Yeah. It sounds like it's just going to be longer and more complex, but that's on our side. For you taking it, we've spent just as much time making it easier for you to take every year so that actually the amount of time people have to spend goes lower as there's more sort of flow to the questions.

[00:14:15] We think about rewording them in a way that makes it more obvious and just ease of use sort of features. So don't be intimidated. You know, we want to make sure that we're getting as much information we can as easy as possible. But yes, very excited, as I said. But we do have some tea to spill. There's a lot of tea to spill. And this one, I think, is really interesting because this is across the pond, right? Yeah, it is. Cheshire, England. There's a company out of there, Talos 360, that I know.

[00:14:43] They're in the – this, again, comes from my sort of experience in the recruiting world. They do a lot in the talent acquisition space, but they do a lot in employee experience with surveying and engagement tools as well. And they've acquired appraised that's with S and D, no vowel in between because you have to do it that way. Your big issue with them dropping vowels out.

[00:15:05] But it does show their expansion beyond just talent acquisition because this is a performance management platform appraised, as you could probably guess from the name. So, you know, these are, you know, kind of complementary sort of organizations as you like to see. So, really building out this broader talent management space for Talos 360. And, again, you know, it makes sense, right?

[00:15:32] We're in this role of data gathering and then using that data to inform business decisions, right? And it works well when you were thinking of the – kind of the economy that we're going into, honestly, and that whole build versus buy, right? You need to be able to say, okay, we've got talent acquisition, but there's probably not going to be as much hiring in the coming year. How can we still support these organizations that are looking to develop the people that they already have? And this gives them that opportunity. Yeah.

[00:16:01] And this one I think is really interesting because they noted that this deal opens up both the U.S. audience, Singapore, South Africa, UAE, Australia, and Canada for them alongside what is – they've got a pretty strong presence in Europe. And that, I think, you know, we're watching carefully what's happening with the sort of government and politics and just the economic market across the different regions. We'll see what our data says. I think it's going to be quite interesting to see how this plays out.

[00:16:28] But we do think that Europe has, at least right now in our data from what we saw last year with everything, they had a little bit less volatility, a little bit stronger expectations for sort of staying with their budgets. But we definitely saw that they had invested more when we just recently broke out the data in AI at the mid-market and SMB level. Enterprise level, everybody's investing, but at the mid-market and SMB level. And similarly, we saw same sort of uptick in the Asia-Pacific market as well.

[00:16:59] Some of it we think in EMEA is because the regulations are a little easier to understand and they're pretty standard. Yes, they're more difficult to abide by, but they are also very clear on what's in and out for AI and for systems like this that are capturing data on a regular basis. In the APAC market, we think some of that is actually being driven by the fact that they just don't have as many systems in place. They don't have as much system legacy and the technology debt that they had to wade through with the AI market.

[00:17:26] So it'll be interesting to see that, you know, when we talk about HR and HR technology and where organizations are going to get the biggest bang for the buck, we are seeing that that uncertainty makes everything stop and sort of slow down. And that's not where we want to be right in the middle of this market. So it's kind of a concern for, I think, the U.S. market, right? Absolutely. And then we have some more acquisition news.

[00:17:51] ServiceNow sort of expanding their CRM offering with the acquisition of Logic.ai, Logic with a K there. So they are a CPQ solution. And I swear, I know that we talked in the last episode that I was over at Anaplan and having to immerse myself in sort of this new world. But I'll admit that I did know this one that's Configure Price Quote, works in the sales organizations. You know, I'm learning along with you, audience, or maybe you already knew this. Maybe you're ahead of me.

[00:18:18] But it is fascinating to me because, again, it just shows how far HR tech has come that this would be part of the conversation. And it really shows the need for this cluster model, Stacey, you've been talking about a lot more, because, you know, you start really thinking about what sort of areas do we want to be able to touch and both gather information from but use information, right?

[00:18:47] And when I think about Anaplan, being able to integrate sort of workforce planning with, you know, these sort of pricing models, that's exactly what we're seeing here too, right? You're taking all of your people data and anything that could be in there and working it all the way through into helping your salespeople use this for configuring and pricing and quoting all within the same system and being able to, you know, if you think about something like what we just saw with the performance management piece,

[00:19:14] if you can integrate all that data as an HR person and see how these tools really actually affect performance and sales for your organization, those are the business outcomes that we always talk about as a sort of correlation or is connected to other things in our survey. But this gives you the ability to do it in real time with your organization if it all works well. Yeah. And this one, I know, this is one that I pulled out on the ServiceNow because I think, you know,

[00:19:40] we are seeing ServiceNow as sort of that one system that a lot of organizations are using kind of as their connector, right? And what is interesting is when we really look at what HR metrics are being shared at the executive level, if you've seen our data, you know, performance metrics are one of the lowest metrics being shared, right? Not just performance management, any kind of productivity kind of metric, right? That ends up being in the 20% in aggregate and even under 40% for the most strategic organizations of the market.

[00:20:10] And I think to your point, what you just mentioned is that the really big takeaway of this is, and which we also saw at the AnnaPlan event with your notes coming back from that, is the more HR connects what they're doing on this broader level, the more we can get our data. And I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that you have to have all-in-one systems. I don't think that actually works really well based off our data. That's the cluster model we talked about, which is, but you do need to make sure that all these vendors play well together.

[00:20:35] And that is the really big integration conversation is, can I, can I mock these processes? And I think agentic AI is what they're basing a lot of this conversation on. Logic has a little bit of that built into it, I think, that the agents will be able to bypass a lot of the areas where people, it was just messy. You couldn't get the data back and forth, but it still requires mapping. It still requires some awareness, even if it's natural language, kind of asking about it. So it'll be interesting to see how far this will take that conversation, right?

[00:21:05] And as I know, as we're sort of now delving into the AI as promised, but also keeping it for, you know, sort of non-US based, Visier expanding in Singapore. They are building out an AI lab, right? So developing more capabilities around AI. I think they're looking at doubling their workforce in this Singapore lab, or at least in the APAC region, which is their regional office.

[00:21:31] So really looking at finding new ways to use AI. I think Visier is a great test case for using AI, because unlike, let's say, in candidate matching or something like that, that's going to be under heavy regulations, when you're talking about reporting and analytics, there's a lot of good use cases for AI where it's very low risk, meaning you don't run into any problems with compliance or upcoming regulations, as you mentioned in Europe.

[00:21:58] It's more about using these tools that can process large amounts of data and give you insights quickly. And I think that sort of development is a fairly low risk strategy. And it's good to see Visier taking that sort of future focus. I know you work a lot with Visier, so you probably knew this ahead of time, but it's interesting. We had some conversation about this at their sales kickoff when we were at that event. And, you know, I think they're definitely betting big on the Asia Pacific market, right?

[00:22:27] They're doing their big users conference out in Singapore for the first time this year. What I think is interesting here is Visier has kind of a double-pronged approach here. They've got Visier V, which is their sort of front-end facing AI agent chatbot, depending on sort of how you're looking at what it's accomplishing for the organizations. And what I found very enlightening is that, and they are in our questions this year to see how many people are adopting that particular technology,

[00:22:55] but from their numbers at Visier's, it's being highly adopted inside the organization. And Andrea Dirdler, who's their head of research over there, who lives locally with me, and we oftentimes will grab lunch together, we've had some conversation about she's been able to at least show those who are using the real ROI, at least from her perspective. And I think what's more important is the value creation of, you know, just the savings in things like answering questions and speed to responses and those kind of things,

[00:23:23] which you've got early on just by automating HR tech, right? Like it is a speed and efficiency savings right now, right? The next conversation, which I think is where they're going with this APAC AI and office and lab, is to think about how do we make it more value add, more insights, more helping you actually make the decisions conversation. And that's really, I think, the next level that we're going to need to get to in the market with, again, careful human involvement and oversight, right?

[00:23:53] Yeah. Well, I think you've been reading ahead, Stacey, because that is exactly where Perceptix is looking as our next little news story. Next one to you here is that Perceptix has what they're calling the first experience aware. For those of you, we also do this on YouTube. I'm making their quotes because they have the quotes around it. Experience aware AI coaching agent. So they believed in this same idea, right? They said a lot of AI right now is just being used to analyze data and show you those results.

[00:24:22] We want to now take it and put it into action, right? We're going to take all that data that we've got and actually give you an AI agent that can give you development plans, that can give you specific personalized nudges based on what you need to do, that can use that sort of conversational aspect that we know if any of us have ever interacted with, you know, a, well, I don't want to say any of the names because instead everyone's off,

[00:24:50] but the Amazon product and the Google Connect and the ChatGPT product, that you can have those conversations like you would with a human coach to, you know, address group dynamics and tracking goals and that type of thing. So it is this idea of, okay, what's the next step for using AI, especially in the agentic model? Yeah. And Perceptix, which is basically known as an experience platform, right? It has a lot of the surveying tools and the tools around gathering information from the employee.

[00:25:19] These personal development plans look like they're going to be focused on manager blind spots, which I thought was an interesting specific word that they pulled out on drivers of employee engagement that are trying to deliver on weekly behavioral nudges on really measuring that impact as you talked about on the tracking. I'm intrigued to see how far this goes. We've seen some of this in other tools where they've done pieces and parts that I haven't seen the whole package yet. So I think this is what I've seen, at least what we're hearing. We haven't seen this from Perceptix yet. We haven't done our briefing yet with Perceptix on this,

[00:25:49] but it sounds like they're kind of wrapping a big wrapper around this. And that is what is the next step, right? Is moving from 20 million, I think, was it Phenom maybe who said, or I saw in one of the articles, like they said they have enough agents to fill a stadium or something like that, right? Again, not a bad thing. It's just, I think we're getting out of the how many agents do I have to what are they doing for us holistically, right? Absolutely.

[00:26:16] Before we dive back into our next topic, Cliff, let's talk about staying ahead in the HR conversation and making right choices. Isn't just about following latest trends. It's about having the right conversations. And one of the reasons that we recently joined Work Defined Podcast Network is to make sure that you were, that we were part of the bigger conversation. We want to encourage our community to listen to the other podcast and be part of that community. Okay. Let's jump back into the tea this week. Cliff, what's our next conversation?

[00:26:45] So we've been talking a lot about these big company moves and one thing that kind of, kind of got passed by. We talk a lot about, you know, all this AI and new things are coming out. Before AI, I think one of the big conversation was Metaverse. I know that sort of this is behind the scenes. We're spilling the tea on ourselves. Is that I was never a really big champion of this idea to put it mildly. I didn't really believe. I didn't really believe it. I didn't really believe it. I didn't really believe it. I didn't believe it. That's right. That's right. Stacy had to put a note.

[00:27:14] She's like, we need to talk about this. But interestingly, it was Cornerstone, who we're going to be talking about, that sort of opened my eyes. I went there live. I saw some applications of it. I'd seen this prior with applications of, I should say, virtual reality, right? Yeah. Or, you know, the sort of metaverse is a sort of new term. But this idea of using virtual reality to work in what would normally be very hazardous locations, right?

[00:27:39] And nuclear power plants that may need to figure out how to use something in an emergency where you can put them in that setting where there's a lot of that stress. Cornerstone showed me some in learning for watching sort of eye contact and that sort of thing and working with bias. So anyway, that all being said, this is pretty interesting because I do think that there is some great usage, but it comes down with use cases. And I suppose you could say the same for AI as well.

[00:28:07] So there's a very interesting article about Cornerstone using extended reality training to build skills. So they're using Lama, one of the big sort of AI platforms, right? And doing employee training. So being able to work with all of their already existing augmented reality, virtual reality, and now extended reality to work in areas that can only be done by the use of these tools.

[00:28:37] You know, like I said, there's some areas of whether it's in working with very expensive machinery where you don't have the opportunity to let people mess around with it, or if it's just dealing with people and working on sort of empathetic training and these type of skills that could be useful in the workplace. Dealing with things like burnout that we know are going to be major issues and high stress, especially with a lot more people working remotely.

[00:29:01] So these sort of tools, I think, could be very useful, especially as this sort of skills conversation ramps back up for all the reasons we've already stated. Plus, we've known that skills were going to be a major part of 2025. Yeah. And Karzik Suri over there, who's their chief product officer, I mean, he's got a real vision for keeping Cornerstone at the heart of the learning conversation

[00:29:25] while expanding the sort of the ecosystem of that environment through their galaxy concept so that they're touching all areas of people and people development and people performance, but that they are not losing what I think is a really important thing because we just don't see it as much, I think, across the market, which is the heart of of the skills conversation, which is what do I do with that skill?

[00:29:49] It's not just I'm selecting someone. It's also that I'm I'm helping them grow and or develop or or that I'm understanding what they can do down the road. Right. And I think that's a really big win in this kind of virtual environment because it's so easy, I think, to assume what someone can do based off of a written word. Right. And we know when we talk about the skills conversation, one of the biggest challenges is the assessment of those skills. It's the validation. It's the number one thing we hear people struggle with.

[00:30:18] Is it just a test? Is it an assessment? Is it is it a checklist? Is it a checklist? What are we using for our validation that our culture will buy into? And I think the virtual opportunity, augmented or expanded capabilities gives us another level of validation that not only feels more comfortable for particularly for organizations with very,

[00:30:38] you know, with skills that that lead to, you know, life and death decisions, but also is very powerful for organizations who are trying to upskill maybe frontline workers or are trying to help different groups within their organization maybe transition to a whole new business model. It allows them to do that kind of shifting with it with a cost effective approach. Right. A lot of it's still expensive, but it is the creation of the content and the mixture of the AI here that I think is the big announcement.

[00:31:07] Those are the big powerful things. And then I think the platform is just the ongoing bonus on all of that. Right. Exactly. And yeah. And speaking of skills, this is kind of a sort of broader thing, but, you know, fits right into this. Right. This idea of, you know, we need some tech around that, but we also need a sort of framework. Right. Shared language, sort of common experiences. And this was pretty interesting because this came through Angela Beatty.

[00:31:35] I was the CHRO at Accenture and it's this new website, skillsfirst.org. Now there's a dash in between skills and first. All right. So we'll have it always. We have all these links in the notes. We'll have it on LinkedIn. We'll have it on YouTube everywhere we appear. But don't make the same mistake I did in going to skills first because apparently it's just weird scam domain.

[00:31:57] But this idea of an employee led framework. Right. Rather than, you know, some provider saying, look, here's how you should be thinking about skills. Here's how it goes. You go there and you get in there and you say these are the skills I have.

[00:32:12] And it is through a number of different institutions. I think Walmart being the probably the largest employer that brought it all together, but really putting together a shared language, promoting mobility in that, you know, here's all the skills that are needed for this job. You know, which is difficult if you've ever been on the job market trying to figure out, you know, is this is, you know, you might use the same word in a couple of different settings. You know, kind of silly, but real example is that a friend of mine whose father drove trains. He was an engineer.

[00:32:42] Well, guess what? You type that in. You're going to find jobs that don't relate to you. But in a, you know, especially in a sort of specialized skills, it's important to have the right language and the right understanding of where those skills might be able to be used. And I do like this idea of taking it sort of from the bottom up and not just a top down taxonomy that sometimes gets maybe forced on people.

[00:33:05] Yeah, this one, it's interesting, right? Because it mirrors a little bit of the conversation we had last, not last week or the week before, I think when I went to the Cornerstone event where they're trying to create a skills passport conversation, right? Which is the idea, but they're trying, they're working with government entities at government levels on that idea.

[00:33:22] But it's the same concept of this sort of, if we, if we start to have a standard conversation about skills across big companies, across governments, across entities, we try to do that here in the States with our labor statistic and the ODL. I'm not going to get them right, but you know the, the, the, the, the names that were started out by the military to define sort of skills in the, and competencies that then kind of broadened out to other industries and other markets. But keeping them up to date was really hard.

[00:33:52] And I think the difference between what we saw historically with all this and what's happening now is this, that the technology can, can, if we're leveraging it appropriately, maintain this concept of skills in a way that we could never do previously because it was just too big and too massive. I was excited to see this. And now this is sort of being supported by the Burning Glass Institute, which I think, and I have to go back and look, because I went to look at the About Us.

[00:34:16] And Burning Glass, I believe, is the, is Lightcast, the company that's their, their sort of, I think, standalone, but I could be wrong on that. So we'll, we'll get that details before we sort of put that out. But I think the idea here is this is a joint effort across multiple companies with, and it doesn't seem like they're selling anything here. It seems like they're trying to do this like open AI conversation. What I was most interested in is I talked to Accenture and to CHRO about their skills management model.

[00:34:43] They've really gone hard into skills management in Accenture in a way that they're one of the few organizations I always reference about how they've built their skills management approach out. And I've had a lot of conversations with them about it. I think they've, they've done a very valid approach to creating kind of a model that works for them on the, on the business consulting side and with their validation models and those types of things.

[00:35:07] What is interesting here is now you partner that up with someone like a Walmart or a Verizon or a, and that just really, it changes the dynamic about the conversation. So I'm excited to see where this goes. I just thought it was a really interesting thing that was brought forward. I, you know, we've seen versions of this come about in the past by industry, by source. So I'm hoping this, this skills profile framework makes some headway because I think that is going to be the next step for everybody to be able to make, make this work. Right. Absolutely.

[00:35:38] And then we've got a few here that are kind of interesting stories that came across. They may not be necessarily linked to a specific company, but there's some ones that, you know, I found pretty cool or that you found pretty cool, Stacy, that we want to share. One was an article that came across on how much revenue AI companies are making per employee, which is, I found pretty interesting.

[00:36:00] I do find, and, you know, as I sort of alluded to, sometimes I get a little, you know, I push back on some of these things and I feel like they're being pushed too much. And I, and you do find some AI, we'll call them evangelists, right? They're really, they're really hype on AI. And this one was pretty interesting, but I did want to talk about that because it made its rounds in LinkedIn. You may have even seen it, that something like mid journey, the image generation AI makes 4.1 million per employee revenue.

[00:36:30] Very specific open AI 1.5 million per worker. I think what got left out is this reminder to people that revenue is just the amount of money you're bringing in, right? If I buy gold for $10 a pound and sell it for $1 a pound, I have $1 in revenue, but I've lost $9 in profit. Whereas the company, OpenAI specifically, sure, they brought in 3.7 billion in revenue. They lost 5 billion. So that is a non-profitable organization.

[00:37:00] You don't need to be a math whiz. It's not just because I went to Anna Plan. Now I know everything about financial planning. That's a loss of money. And their planning, Sam Altman has said, they expect to lose money for years to come. So this is not something that, again, not to downplay it. You think of it in terms of investment, right? If they literally thought there wasn't anything to do, you wouldn't see it.

[00:37:23] But it is a reminder that sometimes there's a lot of just marketing around these sort of things to make you as a buyer believe that you're being left behind if you're not using all these tools. But that's one of the reasons why we have this survey, our wonderful survey, is to find out what is the truth. What are people really using it for? And are they paying for it? Do they expect to use it more? Where are they finding value? Yeah. And when I caught sight of this article, we do a lot of analysis of public companies on financials in our data.

[00:37:53] We did more in the past. We do a little bit more now. And because I have done that, we've always looked at different metrics. And there is the revenue per employee, and there's also profit per employee, and there's also other metrics, financial metrics that the companies are based off of and that the stock market makes decisions off of, sometimes wise or not wise. But what's interesting is we always just have to take financial organizations out of our data set because financial organizations made money off of money, right? So you could not get a per employee revenue per employee model that made any sense at all.

[00:38:22] And it's kind of where we're at here with this, right? And I think even more so, the conversation I have been having around this piece is there's a perspective, especially when you look at how the internet grew. And we look at cloud-based technologies because there were many cloud-based technologies that made very little profit and took years and years to become profitable, or they were just acquired before they became profitable, right?

[00:38:49] Like that was the bubble burst in the dot-com era, but also all the cloud technologies that they rolled out of that. And all of that in the internet and all of that in the dot-com era was very focused on, we just need to get to the end with the most amount of toys because that will make us the most valuable. And I always tell people, we were playing checkers back then, right?

[00:39:10] Checkers was to get as many of your chips down to the end of the board and king as many as you can with as much data and as much people doing recurring revenue and then figure out how to make it profitable. That was the conversation, right? And you see that even now with some of our big cloud providers in the market, right, who are really focusing on margins and profitability now where they would have focused on revenue numbers because that idea was to get as many as you could. Because the more people got in the system, the harder it was to leave, the more recurring revenue you had.

[00:39:37] I think the challenge with AI is that it is not checkers anymore. It's chess that we're playing. And here, let me explain this because I think it's a really critical differentiator, is that in the market of AI, you can get, and I think we've got really good examples with our quote-unquote friends you just talked about, Alexa, Google, those guys, right?

[00:39:59] If you start out with an AI model that is incomplete at best and you're training it and developing it and growing it, you could get to a point where you've got the biggest data set, the most trained system. But because it wasn't foundation or fundamentally set up correctly, it is not valuable to what you're trying to achieve as an organization.

[00:40:19] And so what we're seeing a lot of organizations really think about is not how fast and how much can I get into one model, but how strategic can I be about the type of data I need where and when? And so I'm ready when the next level of innovation comes out that I can use that can be really powerful towards the decisions and the outcomes I'm trying to achieve.

[00:40:39] Because I'm not saying don't start dabbling and figuring it out and using the tools, but what I'm saying is be very cautious and careful because what's going to end up happening in this chess model is you're going to be building up these massive amounts of AI models and AI environments.

[00:40:52] You're going to be investing a lot of money in them and you may end up having to basically sacrifice your queen, which is the tool you've invested the most amount of money and time in because it does not achieve your outcomes because it either had a flawed model in the beginning or a flawed approach or it's just not logically doing what you need it to do and you've got to rearrange this.

[00:41:13] And so that's my take on this whole conversation is we need to stop playing checkers and start playing chess and to really look at this is not the world where we just get to the end with the biggest amount of numbers because the most data could be the wrong data. And or you could build your whole model on the idea that you can scrape the internet and then there's no more data to scrape, right?

[00:41:34] This is the conversations we have to be having is where are we putting our various assets, which ones are being trained and developed in the best ways and which ones are getting the best outcomes that we want to achieve. So my soapbox on that clip, sorry, but I've been really thinking hard about this conversation. No, and I know you and I had talked about this prior and I love this and I'm really glad that we're able to share that because it's kind of one of those things where we'll just be chatting about it and you'll talk about it.

[00:42:01] So we've got to make sure that this is mentioned because I just think it's really wonderful. So lastly, I want to bring up a conversation that was actually sent to us by our employee. I don't want to think of her as an ex-employee. She's not an ex-friend, she's a friend.

[00:42:20] Cindy Maurer, who has, as of yesterday, left the warm embrace of Sapien Insights Group to go out into the cold, unfeeling world of actually doing HR. So much respect to her. But she sent this really interesting article that women hold just one third of top level management roles. But here's how skills close the gap.

[00:42:44] And we'll put this link that's in there, but it really talks about, again, you know, we've been talking about all this stuff about skills, right? And about AI and all these cool tools and all these new ideas. But what are we doing with it, right? You know, what is the end play? What is the end game here of our chess match? And one of those things can be to use all of this to help make up that gap, right? To think of it as skills-based hiring.

[00:43:11] To start really looking at what are the skills people have rather than seeing it as just a woman hire or a man hire. But, you know, you're hiring for the skills, right? And, you know, really start looking at, you know, addressing those needs in a more analytical way. And I know that that's something Cindy will be doing at her job for the best because she is just an awesome person and a great co-worker in person. Yeah, we are sad to lose her.

[00:43:37] But she will be going on to head up her own complete HR function. She is the new head of HR for an organization. And she'll be putting to practice a lot of the stuff that we talk about here at the organization. But I think it was a great call out for her, to your point, to be making many of these decisions, putting in place brand new systems that the company she's going to be working for is planning to ramp up quite rapidly.

[00:44:00] And what's so exciting, I think, about the idea of skills-based hiring, again, and it goes back to this conversation about can we standardize the skills model, right? Can we get the same definition for each skill? Can we get the same validation point for each skill? And, you know, this is why I always tell people that actually your compensation platforms have been doing some of the most innovative work in here.

[00:44:21] This is, you know, our pay scales and our salary.com and our compas, those kind of organizations, because they are very much tying the skills component to a price point. So that also leads not just to hiring for skills, but paying for skills and pay equity, right? And I think all of that goes hand in hand, right? Well, I know that that was quite a bit. As always, there's a few stories that we didn't quite get to. I'll just kind of briefly mention it.

[00:44:50] Mackie launched a voice agent called Mochi. That was pretty interesting. We'll put all that in. Stefan Ader sends one on standardizing intelligence, a paper that was written, and we'll have the link to that about whether AI can pass a sort of standards test that I found pretty interesting. I know you found it interesting. A really interesting analogy on what skills have in common with Brussels sprouts, which I thought was really clever.

[00:45:17] You know, it was this idea of, you know, look, there was a time when nobody wanted Brussels sprouts, but then, you know, it changed and it became cooked better. And all of a sudden it's become, you know. You put the balsamic vinegar and a little bit of bacon and all of a sudden it was on everybody's menu, right? Exactly. So, you know, some really good stuff. And as is that, all those links will be in there if you want to read those stories. And I think the last one that we're going to throw in here, but because it's a, it's one of my favorites is a video. Yes.

[00:45:45] How do we neglect this? It's my favorite. Yeah, it was, it was, it was just really, it was a video done by one of the HR futurists with his son. So he does a podcast on a regular basis on AI and how it's changing and, and how his 12 year old nephew, sorry, not his son, his nephew, his nephew, 12 year old nephew is perceiving AI and how he's using it and how it's making him feel.

[00:46:07] And what really got me as I was listening to this video was that it reminded me a lot of my, my husband who's passed many years ago and how he used to talk about how AI made him feel as a young child of a divorced home. And he could use that programming to just kind of, it, it, it created an environment where he could have kind of his own space. And that was a lot of the conversation from this AI experts nephew.

[00:46:35] And I thought it was really, he actually had personified different emotions and how he felt about different AI agents, how he much, much preferred Claude over ChatGPT, felt it was more peaceful and more engaging environment. Those kinds of things we, we shouldn't take lightly because I do think that next generation is going to be the ones that is telling us how we should think about this technology. Right. And that it is part of the world, just like it was part of my husband's world.

[00:47:03] Programming was just what he did every day, no matter what his job was, he was always thinking about it. I think, you know, we're going to see that from this next generation too. Right. Yeah. And because it, you know, it is spilling the tea. This is the connection to everything. The gentleman that put that up, Nicholas Thompson, as the CEO of the Atlantic. The Atlantic, of course, was famously in the news because they were privy to some information about some military strikes in Yemen. So, you know, it all connects. I told you. I'm shaking my head if you're listening on the radio.

[00:47:33] I'm just shaking my head on that. But yes, I didn't even, I didn't even make that connection. I knew it was somebody who had been talking about AI. He had a podcast. I just thought it was a really good video. All right, Cliff, you wrapped it all up. So as we, it was a bit of a long conversation today, but hopefully you guys got some, some of the newer thinking that we're having in this space and definitely getting to hear a little bit about what we're going to be having in the survey. As we wrap today, a couple of big things. Again, if you didn't get to see last year's output, it's out there. It's available on the website. You can download and or access it depending on which sections you want right now.

[00:48:03] Also, just a reminder that when you go to our website and you sign up, you can sign up to just participate in the research. You can also sign up to be part of our newsletter, which will give you ongoing details about where we're at, the launches of all the material, all the information. And you will also be some of the first people to sign up for our new research center, which we are working on right now and giving access to everybody who needs that. And we want to also just make sure that you are listening to our sister HR Huddle podcast, HR We Have a Problem, hosted by our CEO, Terry Zipper, on every other week from us.

[00:48:30] And if you like these podcasts and they add value to your day, please be sure to subscribe, leave a rating and review them. It really makes a difference. And come up and tell us. Cliff and I love it when we hear about what you've listened to, what you've said. Stay up to date with immediate breaking into your tech news. And to get all the behind-the-scenes content, you can follow us at Sapien Insights on LinkedIn and on Instagram. Cliff and I will, at all of our events, we'll be doing post-event commentary on LinkedIn. So definitely be sure to follow and connect with Cliff and I to get those commentaries.

[00:48:58] Once again, Cliff, thank you for all of your help in pulling all this together. Thanks to our production team, Brand Method Media Group, who helps us produce our podcast run by their amazing founder, Kelly Kelly. Thanks to our marketing team, Summer Erlano, Cole Harris, and Cindy Maurer. And I know this is Cindy's last week, so just a special goodbye to her. We will really miss her. And thanks to our listeners and our community. We couldn't do this without you. Please be sure to let us know what is working for you, what things you'd like to hear about. And that's it, Cliff, for this episode of Spilling the Tea on HR Tech.

[00:49:26] We hope it's been just the brew you needed to start the engines running this week. We'll be back in two weeks with another pot of boiling hot HR tech updates and insights. So thanks, everyone.