[00:00:00] Welcome to the HR Huddle Podcast presented by Sapient Insights Group, the ultimate resource
[00:00:09] for all things HR. It's time to get in the huddle. Welcome to spill on the TN HR tech where
[00:00:22] we focus on the hottest HR tech news everyone needs to know to be in the know. We break down
[00:00:27] the news the week and help you make sense of what it means for our industry and how it can impact
[00:00:32] your specific organization. We're here recording today on March 6th. It's really March
[00:00:38] already March 6th, 2024 bringing you all the news you can use. And I'm your host,
[00:00:44] AC Harris Chief Research Officer, managing partner for Sapient Insights Group, research
[00:00:48] and advisory firm. And joining me today is Cliff Stevenson, my director of research and
[00:00:53] principal anus for Sapient Insights Group. Cliff, how did we get to March already? It's
[00:00:57] here. Is that like March had her tea or something like that? I don't know but it's
[00:01:01] for Sapient Insights. Almost comes out. It'll be around the
[00:01:03] hide some March. There we go. Yeah. I don't know but I am still I thought we were just
[00:01:09] trying to remember if it was 2023 or 2024 and now we're almost through the first quarter.
[00:01:12] Yeah. Took me a moment again as it does a little pause before I said the day because I'm
[00:01:16] like, oh, got to make sure it's 2024 right? Right. It's we've got a lot going on coming
[00:01:21] up here at this conversation. We're at Frank. I don't know. We got what like seven conversations
[00:01:29] going this week. It's been a really hot week for HR Tech and HR technology news, right?
[00:01:35] Yeah. It's all different kinds. I think we mentioned in the last episode that there
[00:01:40] was a lot of AI whereas there wasn't one in the episode before. But here it's all different
[00:01:45] kinds. We're going to be talking about different companies and what they're doing in terms
[00:01:49] of their personnel. It's assuming we're going to be talking about ice-salt and culture
[00:01:54] amp. And we're all going to be talking about acquisitions, another topic that we talk
[00:01:59] we bring up here quite a bit with work day with deal in their expansion. We'll talk about
[00:02:05] employment law. New York's got some new laws around social media which is topical right
[00:02:10] now because as of this moment that we're recording linked in is down. I believe I don't
[00:02:17] know. Facebook's up or down. You'll have to help me back up if I was on it. I was on it
[00:02:21] earlier but it was down yesterday so it is the battle of the social media's for keeping
[00:02:25] their applications up this week, right? And we're going to be talking because today
[00:02:31] is National Women's Day. It's time of the recording. We want to talk a little bit about
[00:02:35] some stories that have come out recently about women and leadership. Honestly every day's
[00:02:40] National Women's Day for me as it should be for all of you. And then we're going to take
[00:02:44] some time to talk about some broader topics we've seen. One from Forbes about whether the
[00:02:51] era of all in one talent solutions is coming to an end, spoiler it isn't. And then a really
[00:02:57] fun post from Friend of the Show Donald Taylor talking about GPT, Chad GPT and the whole
[00:03:03] concept of hallucinations that happen which is their term in the industry for when just information
[00:03:09] seems to be made up. That'll be pretty fun but let's get into the main the sort of the
[00:03:14] meat of it. Before we dive in, we should probably tell people where we're going to be at
[00:03:19] in the next couple weeks just in case they want to catch up with us right? Because both,
[00:03:23] well I'm going to be on the road and you're talking about going on the road a little bit.
[00:03:27] Yeah, you're going to be at one event possibly. Yep. In coming months right? Yeah exactly.
[00:03:33] At the end of April the 24th, 23rd and 24th probably traveling,
[00:03:41] we'll be at the Workforce Software event which I believe is in Las Vegas but you can look for
[00:03:50] Workforce Software they call their event vision with all caps for reasons I'll never understand.
[00:03:54] And I love that all these comments have such cool names I saw just connect and they do vision.
[00:03:59] These are all I really do like that. It makes it feel like more of an event but that's where I'll
[00:04:04] be at the end of April and you've got a much more dance card though, right? Yeah, I have few so
[00:04:09] in mid April I'll be at the Workday Innovation session out in the Bay Area and then the week after
[00:04:15] that, I will also be at the Oracle Application Summit in the Bay Area and the Redwood area. So we're
[00:04:20] I'll be out there and in between I've made the choice because I try and keep that balance between
[00:04:24] home and life going well to visit my kids who live out on the West Coast and you can call that
[00:04:29] they live another five hours west and out why get to see my granddaughter hopefully.
[00:04:34] I'm also going to be on March in San Antonio. I think I've been saying Austin but I just got the
[00:04:40] update and say it in Tonyo for the plan source customer advisory event. I'm actually really excited
[00:04:44] about that we're going to be talking about some really cool stuff going on both in the benefits
[00:04:47] space as well as where we're seeing the market go from an overall HR strategy perspective and how
[00:04:54] things are changing and how things are adapting in the market that we're in. And then I think you've
[00:04:58] got a webinar coming up right for Iroom Cliff that everyone should be aware of.
[00:05:03] That's right. There's going to be one on the 20th. We're going to be reviewing the big key findings
[00:05:11] from your big keynote speech at HR Tech, the one that happened in October. So for anyone that
[00:05:18] missed that I know there was a lot of people that didn't get a chance to see it. This will be sort
[00:05:23] of the chance to catch up. It's public. It's free and I all vote so found out that I will be doing
[00:05:30] another webinar. This one will be a little more specific that'll be sort of the HR findings
[00:05:35] trends overall, but I'll be doing one on the 21st and that'll be hosted by Cornerstone
[00:05:40] but won't be specific to any of their products and that is going to be open to the public now.
[00:05:46] And that'll be on the 21st and that'll be on learning content strategy. So if that's something that
[00:05:50] is of interest to you we'll be throwing out some statistics data and there'll be more of a panel
[00:05:55] discussion talking about how learning content can help drive your whole organizational strategy.
[00:06:01] That's March 21st and March 21st. So we'll be on the opposite ends of the world,
[00:06:06] sort of having really interesting conversations. And then the week after that we're going to kick off
[00:06:11] what is our six-month immersive cohort education series with our very first event on
[00:06:17] building an adaptable HR system strategy that works. We're really excited. We've got our cohort
[00:06:23] now. We're down to the last sort of final edits and dry runs and all that stuff in the next couple
[00:06:28] of weeks. This is really exciting. It's a six-month program based off of for anybody who had attended
[00:06:33] the workshops that we delivered at the HR Tech Conference. This is now the expanded version of
[00:06:38] those with a lot more detail on how you actually get that done, a lot of leadership development
[00:06:42] and a lot of hands-on exercises that actually to get the HR system strategy built within your
[00:06:46] organization. So it's a packed couple weeks. No wonder I'm tired right now Cliff. I'm feeling
[00:06:52] a bit frosted. And top of all this, I know people have asked us to go to a couple events. We literally
[00:06:57] haven't had the time because we've had too much client work but I know Transform is a big event
[00:07:02] going on I think next week. I know Stasia Garg is going to be out there. Somebody's out there.
[00:07:05] I would say go see her sessions. We know the unleash event is going to be held in the US. That's
[00:07:11] studying May's eighth-ninth time frame as well. That would be a Vegas as well.
[00:07:17] Then the epic event being put together by the HR Executive magazine that Mark Stelzener is running
[00:07:24] this year which is really talking about what's happening and transforming the whole benefits wellness
[00:07:30] and HR space. A lot of practitioners are going to be at that. Everybody's going to be all out
[00:07:35] of place. It's definitely spring, right? Yeah absolutely. And I should mention speaking to being
[00:07:40] all over the place in Coast to Coast, I just got noticed in that actually the vision event will be
[00:07:45] in Miami. But speaking of going coast to coast, that does bring us into other people who we've seen
[00:07:53] doing a lot of movement. I saw specifically made a couple of big announcements in terms of people
[00:08:00] personnel that are joining their group including Howard Tarnoff joining the strategic customer success team
[00:08:09] and Fred of the show Opal Wanyak who will be joining as well as SVP of market and product strategy.
[00:08:16] So she opal was a analyst relations person back when it was ultimate software and both Stacey and I
[00:08:24] worked with her. She was wonderful to work with. And as it became UKG, she started to move up and
[00:08:30] get really into that whole market intelligence world of understanding the sort of global market for HCM
[00:08:37] products and now this is sort of the next step in her career. So very cool.
[00:08:42] Yeah, I'm really excited about this. I mean, I know I saw as a big company they have about 150,000
[00:08:47] clients when you take into account their PEO clients and their very small companies and then
[00:08:52] then there's mid-range companies and they've done very well from a user experience of
[00:08:56] enter satisfaction perspective in our research. A lot of people didn't know they kind of came out
[00:09:01] of nowhere a lot of people said but really what it was is that a lot of times their brand was
[00:09:05] underneath either a broker or another firm or someone else offering it but about four years
[00:09:10] to five years ago now they started to really push. It is an ISAL solution that you're using
[00:09:15] and then started to really push around a lot of services around that package. We've had a really
[00:09:20] good relationship with ISAL to Amberler who runs our analyst relations program over there. There's
[00:09:24] probably one of the has the best attitude I've seen in this market and really has I think
[00:09:30] one of the greatest understandings of how to take a brand that was really unknown to something
[00:09:36] that was absolutely well known in the market in just the last three years. So the fact that
[00:09:42] they're investing in two really critical positions, particularly Howard Tarnoff and many people may
[00:09:48] not know his name but he ran what was one of probably the best customer service programs
[00:09:52] I'd ever seen over at Seridian. Some exo exo program you might know it as but it really kept
[00:09:58] Seridian customers who were on the older platform sort of in companies probably not the right word
[00:10:04] but kept them in a place where they felt like yes they're going to stick with the organization
[00:10:08] while it's moving over to a platform which is now day force and Howard you know spearheaded a lot
[00:10:13] of that. On the other hand like you said Opal has been a long time friend of both the research
[00:10:20] that we've done she was one of the first people came out and supported it back when I took it over
[00:10:25] from Lexi in 2014 and more important I think that Opal came from the product development side.
[00:10:33] She was one of the first analyst relations of her people that I ever met who really started talking
[00:10:38] about the product itself and how it was being utilized so she wasn't just sort of organizing
[00:10:45] and filling us face there's only one other analyst relations person who I know who sort of has been
[00:10:49] that kind of a connection to sort of the products and areas and Opal really did kind of said hey I
[00:10:55] understand this business I understand the product I'm not surprised to see her moving into this
[00:10:59] SVP market and product strategy role but I think this is big for I saw they are this to me probably we
[00:11:06] haven't had a conversation with anybody so don't take this for fact at this point but my bet is
[00:11:10] that with these two big roles as well as some others I know they're recently hired
[00:11:14] that they will probably be looking to move up market which I think is something they haven't really
[00:11:20] tackled yet but when you look at where the pay cores and the pay lostities and the pay combs and
[00:11:26] what's happening in ADP and the work days kind of moving downstream and Sridians and UKGs that market
[00:11:34] is really right for some opportunities I think for various organizations to our good at both service
[00:11:40] and solution and I wouldn't doubt that we'll probably see them sort of moving up market eventually
[00:11:46] with some days new hires that they've added I don't know about you Cliff that's my perspective on it
[00:11:50] probably one of the things that I think too that it shows just a very keen understanding of playing
[00:11:56] to their strengths right but if you look at I solved them where they show up in our research
[00:12:01] right in the voice of the customer and we're talking to to you the audience and asking what people
[00:12:06] that sort of name recognition right and understanding where they fit in the market and that's
[00:12:12] Opel's role but that customer service they always rank very highly in that voice of the customer
[00:12:17] rankings and so to say okay what can we do to not just rest on our laurels but to keep developing
[00:12:22] our strengths and figure out a way to continue that growth in an organic way by picking not just
[00:12:30] big names not like oh I know that is I'm for that executor's names but instead doing people that
[00:12:35] are extremely good at what they do and I find that very cool and and I think a good move.
[00:12:42] Yeah I do think we're starting to see some organizations either retrench and refigure it where
[00:12:46] they're standing or sort of rebranding to some extent and in that category I'd say that's where
[00:12:51] culture imp is at we got to get an announcement from them that they have which to them seemed like
[00:12:55] a really important component that they had welcomed global workplace thought leader as their
[00:13:00] peril as an advisor to the organization we hadn't seen a lot from culture and for a while many of
[00:13:05] the people that we know and culture had had left the organization they had gone through a couple
[00:13:10] rounds of funding and then sort of had gotten really quiet the application always does really well
[00:13:15] another one that does well in the user experience event or sat ready when we get enough responses
[00:13:18] when we get enough people who are sharing their insights with us but we also at the same time that
[00:13:23] we heard about this advisor role we also got some announcements from July 9th 11th and many
[00:13:28] people might know her again another long-term marketing leader in the industry who's been at a
[00:13:32] lot of organizations around the market who's now also taken on it looks like a key role within the
[00:13:38] organization so I do think we're starting to see as the market is shifting a little bit we're seeing
[00:13:43] a lot of mergers and acquisitions but we're also seeing a lot of sort of rethinking our brand and
[00:13:48] rethinking who needs to be in roles that are going to like you said play to our strengths and
[00:13:53] organizations right yeah and I think you take a little story from culture bringing on
[00:13:59] Esther Peralas and Pfizer I think that really again like you said plays the strengths
[00:14:04] if you don't know her works she's notable enough you could find her just through Wikipedia search
[00:14:09] but you know I think I've seen her as a speaker this whole idea of the soft skills really
[00:14:16] there's so much talk about how there isn't that much separation between life and work and everyone's
[00:14:22] sort of navigating a good way to sort of talk about this but she really intentionally blurs
[00:14:28] lines because she talks about relationships meaning like a marriage or some other type of
[00:14:33] relationship the humans would have and then also work and there and she does it seamlessly between
[00:14:39] the two right and it's extremely important to remember I think a lot of us learn that lesson
[00:14:44] for for worse during the pandemic years yeah but there isn't that much separation I think as you
[00:14:50] said that really lets them flex what they do best culture by bringing her on as a trusted advisor
[00:14:56] to their group yeah I mean and there's I think this is a space we're going to see more in the next
[00:15:02] couple of months is we've talked a lot about engagement and a lot about culture and a lot about
[00:15:10] sort of the relationship you have with employees does that stand strong do we see that continued
[00:15:16] conversation even as the markets continues to slow down slightly or is the tight labor market which
[00:15:23] even though the market is slowing down a little bit there's still a tight labor market because that
[00:15:26] continues to drive this as a topic and like you said really push organizations to rethink what
[00:15:33] they're doing from just a compliance perspective to a more strategic hir function that is more
[00:15:37] thoughtful about their employer roles right yeah that's exactly we'll see how reactive we spend
[00:15:43] so much time we're going to be proactive we're not just gonna adjust to whatever the happened in
[00:15:47] the last 60 days but I think this will put people to the test because it's easy to say that when
[00:15:52] everything is going very well very easy but when it push comes a shove hopefully we see that
[00:15:58] people stand by sort of the strides we made in employee rights and understanding the human side
[00:16:06] of the work equation but you did mention tight labor market but you know again that is as we've
[00:16:11] talked about before sort of industry by industry there's still obviously a lot of interest in hiring
[00:16:18] and hiring the right people as seen by one of the probably the biggest story that happened
[00:16:23] in this news period is that workday announcer intent to acquire hired score this was like the alarm bells
[00:16:30] this may for you listening you probably have heard about this but if not I think this is a major
[00:16:36] new story Stacy and I spent quite a bit of time sort of in the green room before the podcast
[00:16:41] talking about what does this mean with the capital M it goes beyond and I think you are actually
[00:16:47] the one to point in the South States this probably goes beyond just simply getting this company so that
[00:16:51] they could have this technology to expand their hiring platform I think that they see some of what
[00:16:58] hired scores done in the past and the technology they have as being enough of a differentiator
[00:17:05] they could be used in other areas who knows but again this is speculation by partner yeah I was
[00:17:11] really intrigued when this came out I think there was a lot of buzz on linked it was funny I get a
[00:17:15] text right after it came out from after I sort of said hey big news work days doing an accident
[00:17:19] one thing to know probably sport data and do a lot of acquisitions they're very intentional about
[00:17:23] their acquisitions they usually do small companies with limited amount of years and limited culture
[00:17:28] so that it can so that what they're hiring oftentimes at firing is the technology and the people
[00:17:34] and the skill sets then we was I not the last one but with the last big HR one that they had acquired
[00:17:39] which is their contingent workforce management solution and it really again that whole idea of
[00:17:44] sort of complementing things for them is really important in the work day environment but right after
[00:17:49] this announcement came out and I put a little posting out one of our colleagues emailing so why is
[00:17:54] us getting so much attention it's just what a many and on my take on it again this is purely my
[00:17:59] take is that hired scored is a talent acquisition sort of front end solution it really focuses on
[00:18:05] sort of gathering data within the organization to understand your talent skills and fits
[00:18:12] and what you need and helping you identify the right roles you need to fill within the organization
[00:18:18] is truly one of those solutions that I think was on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence
[00:18:24] in a way that it is pre sort of chat GPT pre like when I first talked to a Athena Harper
[00:18:31] Harp who is there CEO and by the way probably one of the most interesting female leaders
[00:18:36] I've ever had the chance to meet speaking of women in HR technology right now she walked me through
[00:18:43] in a way that I've never had a founder walk me through and this was in 2019 2020 walk me through how
[00:18:50] critical it was to have the right data set to be pulling your analysis from around open
[00:18:56] positions within the organization she walked me through about how they were very succinctly focusing
[00:19:01] on internal data sets they were getting from inside companies highly curated versus for
[00:19:06] scraping the internet which we see in a lot of the other organizations who are what they would
[00:19:09] consider talent intelligence platforms the other thing that they were very focused on is that matching
[00:19:14] component making sure they were really thinking tightly about what fit within an organization and
[00:19:19] what capabilities various job seekers had or different roles they had and she explained it in a
[00:19:26] way that I thought was not just really not just sort of the standard oh we match but we match
[00:19:33] and we address biases by having a human component in that mixture I know that's kind of seems
[00:19:40] sort of antithesis to what we're hearing on the market right now which is bias and artificial
[00:19:46] intelligence and the world is sort of rushing so fast ahead that having humans in the mix
[00:19:51] are is bit of a challenge but she had worked out with her team the very places at which you needed
[00:19:58] to add sort of the human conversation the human sort of component to that conversation and
[00:20:03] that was as much I think of the secret sauce of what they had as all the other algorithms and tools
[00:20:09] that did all the matching and everything it was here's where I need to inject in here some thinking
[00:20:13] that goes beyond what we can just scrape from the data and now I thought was fascinating because
[00:20:19] that is a art in and of itself to understand at what point does the technology get to its limit
[00:20:25] and you have to add sort of the creativity of where we're at in the sort of human space
[00:20:31] the other thing I think it's interesting about this is that one of the big mentions that came out
[00:20:36] of this in acquisition is that both Harol Eskaban who is the new CEO over at work day as well as
[00:20:42] Athena mentioned in their sort of quotes on this how much they were focused on ethical use of
[00:20:48] artificial intelligence and solving challenges for the organization and I can't emphasize enough
[00:20:55] that sort of opening shot at being ethical in this space is critical I mean Cliff you and I
[00:21:01] covered how many stories now about the risk and the government compliance around this right yeah
[00:21:06] that's exactly it my take on this too is that my experience to higher score a takeaway was that
[00:21:13] they're very they've always used certain adjectives around their AI even in their early days
[00:21:19] of openness transparency safety right now I think they're using word explainable AI to describe it
[00:21:28] which I think is a great way to put it and I think that goes into the ethical use it goes beyond just
[00:21:34] sort of what is legally required right and where the laws are so yeah and I'd love to see it I
[00:21:42] when speaking of hiring another one an employee record provider deal that's with two E's right
[00:21:48] not D-A-L if you didn't know them they were as I said known for being an employee record near war
[00:21:56] they are going into payroll so we had mentioned I think it was just the last episode that
[00:22:01] high bob had been on the other side and we're going into payroll so this is something that seems to
[00:22:08] be of interest this kind of continues the theme we've seen for quite some time now of companies that
[00:22:13] carve out a niche for themselves usually kind of starting with payroll and expanding out this is sort
[00:22:18] of opposite right there you are in going into payroll and H-C-M so a pretty interesting thing they
[00:22:27] did this a lot of it through acquisition through paygroup and pay space because there's never enough
[00:22:32] companies to pay it to you name they are now going in and offering payroll for all their
[00:22:39] you are providers are kind of just making this across any of their clients that they provide
[00:22:45] you are for being able to do payroll for them so just kind of interesting that seems to be a sort of
[00:22:51] new trend that's going on I do think it used to be more payroll and then go somewhere else but I can
[00:22:57] see where especially in the EOR space or sort of areas similar to that where you are handling a lot
[00:23:05] of the organizational compliance and everything sort of but payroll then to get in and do payroll
[00:23:11] well and I think this actually lends to some of the conversation we were having on LinkedIn around both
[00:23:15] the workday acquisition in this and then there was another big one sterling and indeed and there
[00:23:20] were some other acquisitions that were happening at the same time is that I think what we're seeing in
[00:23:24] our data is there had been a lot of noise made that the that the workday acquisition and as well as
[00:23:29] some of these other ones were as big as what we had seen back when Oracle had bought to Leo and
[00:23:34] an SAP had bought success factors and I really pushed back on that because I think what we saw back
[00:23:39] then was the older platforms were slow to to move to the cloud and they were literally losing market
[00:23:45] share pretty rapid spaces and they had to acquire those solutions to basically just keep up with
[00:23:51] the market share and that was a challenge for them because they had newer organizations coming
[00:23:54] into the market at the enterprise level like workday that were challenging them in their space
[00:23:59] in this particular case we are not seeing the HRMS solutions that are currently at the top of the
[00:24:07] pipeline in many cases from an enterprise perspective companies over 5,000 employees 10,000 employees
[00:24:13] that would be your SAP year workday or your Oracle as well as sort of the enforters and some of
[00:24:18] those organizations and then downmarked your St. Cyridian and UKG right we're not seeing organizations
[00:24:23] leave their enterprise HR platforms what is interesting is we are seeing them in a data flip
[00:24:30] payroll systems performance management systems recruiting solutions not that they're all going
[00:24:37] to the big enterprise platforms but they are willing to replace those at a little bit more rapid
[00:24:42] point and payroll did not used to be a system that I think was on that space right but what people
[00:24:47] are starting I think to see in our at least in our data is that core enterprise HR location for
[00:24:54] your employee data is the harder thing to replace these days and so we're definitely seeing more
[00:25:00] organizations trying to figure out how do I connect what I'm doing through those applications in a way
[00:25:04] that we didn't see in 2012 when organizations were going through this conversation because the
[00:25:10] artificial intelligence conversations keep tying back to where is my data how clean is it
[00:25:16] how connected is it and then most organizations have done a lot of that connection work through
[00:25:20] the HRMS or the platform that's got your profile your employee correct and so I think that we're
[00:25:27] going to see a huge amount of continued sort of movement in the space but it's going to be a little
[00:25:32] bit more around those platforms the other thing I think that's going to happen is that we're going
[00:25:37] to see a lot more acquisitions over just the next 12 months to 24 months because what we definitely
[00:25:42] saw was a slowdown in investments and a slowdown in funding and so many of these point solutions
[00:25:48] that had gotten several rounds of investments particularly in that talent intelligence space
[00:25:52] and some of the early learning spaces in some of the sort of culture and performance management spaces
[00:25:58] those organizations are at risk and looking for some homes now so those were kind of my two takes
[00:26:02] on what we're seeing in this M&I space but Cliff that's a lot it's a lot for a buyer to kind of keep
[00:26:09] in their head you've gone through some of this you've been an analyst like I have for my years
[00:26:13] you know what's your recommendations for buyers on how they should be taking in this kind of news
[00:26:20] yeah you know for potential people buying potential software like if they're going to go out and
[00:26:25] think about the old like I think the important thing to understand is has anything changed in terms
[00:26:31] of your own needs right I think sometimes these make a big splash to get your name out there
[00:26:39] but as a software with solution provider and if you are actually one of the people thinking
[00:26:44] of purchasing that you go oh they seem to be big that seems to be big news there but there's no
[00:26:51] correlation between this sort of activity and long-term success there's not a negative correlation either
[00:26:58] I'm not saying it should be looked at negatively but I would say just maybe don't think don't fall
[00:27:04] into the sort of the hype bubble right you want to be thinking all right has this changed anything
[00:27:09] in terms of what I'm looking for and even if they have now picked up a sort of technology or
[00:27:16] function you were looking for like oh that's good that's something we were looking for and maybe
[00:27:20] some time before it's implemented in this case they were able to sort of turn that around very quickly
[00:27:26] but sometimes like when we talked about with workday there may be some time before that technology
[00:27:31] is used in different applications so it may be worth remembering that can take some time especially
[00:27:37] if they're trying to do things in a thoughtful and ethical manner or if they just needed to integrate
[00:27:42] with existing technology or with existing customer needs which should be the primary focus so yeah
[00:27:48] I think these are big stories it's very interesting but if you're out there as a buyer I think it's
[00:27:53] kind of just worth noting I wouldn't change any deals in progress or even any RFPs even if you're
[00:28:01] especially if you're the RFP process I'd say don't let that disrupt your entire setup and system
[00:28:08] you have going be thoughtful take your time as always it's kind of good to know and that's what we're
[00:28:13] here to do kind of let you know but let you know a little more of the inside of what's happening but
[00:28:19] I don't think it doesn't change the overall landscape just yet it's more of a sign of things to come
[00:28:25] it's not a canary in the cold wind yeah and the other good first time yeah I agree and I think
[00:28:30] the only other place maybe to think about is that it is an opportunity if you are in the middle
[00:28:33] negotiations maybe to negotiate some more sort of service and service levels we've seen organizations
[00:28:39] do that to ask to be on different advisory boards so that you can be involved in some of that
[00:28:43] integration process the only thing it gets a little bit messy and but I think this is something
[00:28:48] that that no again none of us can control the market as if you've got a major partner who now has
[00:28:53] been bought and acquired by another partner and that can sometimes cause some challenges but
[00:28:59] I think again that's when you go back to the table and you have that open and honest conversation
[00:29:03] with the vendors and make sure what your timeline is for for their investment in the continued support
[00:29:10] of the work that you're doing and so it's worth a conversation but like I think you said
[00:29:15] it's not worth oh let's remember everything apart and start brand new at this point right yeah exactly
[00:29:20] so I think that's the case always know timelines road maps something always to be working on just
[00:29:26] the current situation with the future that's exactly great point and one thing that you had
[00:29:31] mentioned earlier too which was understanding how this will affect laws and being aware of certain
[00:29:37] changes to compliance issues one that we saw this week actually was from New York and I should
[00:29:43] mention that New York and California especially if you're one of our international listeners things
[00:29:49] that happen in New York and California tend to be like harbingers they tend to sort of give you a
[00:29:55] taste of what the entire country at least with the federal is going to do although well in advance
[00:30:00] so not always I mean California still has this they call it like little Europe right as far as
[00:30:06] how they structure their HR laws but a new one from New York which is social media law
[00:30:12] it's a 386 if you're into that sort of stuff basically it's just saying that employers can't request
[00:30:19] usernames passwords or even like your handle what you go by on social media platforms this can be
[00:30:26] important especially in fraught political times the US as most you'll know is going through an election
[00:30:33] period and some employees can feel like they're being asked are you the person who wrote this political
[00:30:38] thing that maybe disagrees with your employee position and they're saying you don't have to give
[00:30:42] up that information I do want to point out this is different than if you wrote something that is
[00:30:47] damaging to the company we've seen stories in the past where someone wrote something that was
[00:30:53] maybe a slur or something like that well then absolutely then they have the ability to fire you
[00:30:59] they just they can't ask for information if it isn't part of like a larger investigation
[00:31:05] yeah I think these are funny enough we joke about it but you know Facebook's down
[00:31:10] last couple days and today it looks like LinkedIn's down a bit these sort of the social one of
[00:31:15] the questions we added this year in the survey is to relook at what social media
[00:31:20] technologies being used by organizations from the HR front and I think every organization should
[00:31:26] be very careful about any social media scraping or assessment tools where someone there's a lot of
[00:31:33] technology I think we are at like 24% 30% of organizations who are using some sort of tool like that
[00:31:38] in their background kind of check process that they're doing right and so just always be careful
[00:31:44] about that and that you're not gathering information or details that we're going to end up in hot
[00:31:49] water particularly we always don't know what the laws regulations are if we're in more than one state
[00:31:56] make sure you are getting a really good counsel on that anywhere you go right yeah and be aware also
[00:32:01] that by even by the time this comes out it may have already been decided but there's social media
[00:32:06] major law in the Supreme Court of the United States as well being looked at on whether you can request
[00:32:11] to have stuff taken down or removed or who has control over what is posted up there and what is
[00:32:17] taken down and that sort of thing that really it can matter a lot to companies as they're trying to
[00:32:25] control sensitive information or anything of that nature but in a more I guess that's not
[00:32:31] really negative or positive just something to be aware of but as mentioned it's international
[00:32:35] women's day today I know that if you look on our LinkedIn we did a post just showing some of our
[00:32:42] some of our love but we mentioned interesting stuff this one online yeah well theoretically I know
[00:32:49] we mentioned Opal we mentioned Esther Perrell all of these that would just happen to be in
[00:32:56] but at the same time we saw a very interesting article talking about it's some weird and interesting
[00:33:03] statistics about the difference between having women in senior leadership versus having women
[00:33:08] represented in leadership positions maybe lower down the ladder or throughout and in the academy
[00:33:14] of management journal right this is an academic journal they found that more male dominated firms
[00:33:19] such as law and things like that engineering senior leadership tend to pay less attention to
[00:33:23] diversity efforts out their organization when there was more women in just the executive right
[00:33:29] and that led to worse gender diversity of lower levels meaning what they saw was oh there's
[00:33:34] women here what do you mean we're fine right we've got two women here at the executive level therefore
[00:33:39] the company's fine right that's sort of oversimplifying it but the math checked out of saying if you
[00:33:45] just focus if we as a group and as a society just focus and say okay there's more women
[00:33:51] when the fortune 500 is CEO's than ever like that does not mean that the problem is anywhere in your
[00:33:55] soul if you need to think about women in leadership throughout your organization and although that
[00:34:01] kind of makes sense it's good to see it being tackled and handled in objective manner by an academic
[00:34:08] journal yeah this one I thought it hit me as something that we've got a lot on the books right now
[00:34:15] Europe is just getting to put in place its big pay equity laws and at least they're going on
[00:34:21] the sort of requirements about sort of recording them is starting to come around for organizations
[00:34:25] either I think they've pushed back a couple times on that but we're also seeing a lot of focus on
[00:34:31] sort of just the overall conversation about women and do I have to sort of fit into the mold
[00:34:40] to make it in the leadership role or do I bring what is unique about me as a woman in my space
[00:34:47] and make that part of the leadership environment part of the culture right and I think there's
[00:34:52] also a lot of times you hear this commentary which is one of the one things that was tackled by
[00:34:57] this research which I really liked that women in executive levels are often don't try and help
[00:35:03] the next level up and I think they really found that is not the case but what happens is there's
[00:35:09] not enough support in those organizations oftentimes at the lower levels to allow the next round of
[00:35:18] leadership to sort of move through the ranks in a way that would have happened previously and so
[00:35:23] expecting that because I've got two or three women on my executive board they should be pulling
[00:35:28] everyone up they should be fighting for things no that's not how that works right kind of the
[00:35:33] the Facebook what pictures and the wall thing no that just means you've done it's good job here you
[00:35:38] need to keep doing good job elsewhere as a whole company and everybody in the company needs to have
[00:35:41] that conversation it's not on the shoulders of the one or two female executives you've got in the room
[00:35:46] right that's exactly so that's my two cents on that all I think I'll leave it there because obviously
[00:35:51] an area that is very passionate about but it is frustrating to see it happen right yeah and like
[00:35:58] said it shouldn't discount what we've done it's just like said that's just a starting place we can't
[00:36:03] and it makes sense when you think about it that why that would happen right we talked about the
[00:36:07] soft skills human nature human psychology and you okay look at this we've done it but it's like no
[00:36:12] that's like said that's just starting and especially as you said if there's women atop
[00:36:17] pulling people up if they're just replacing the women like it's almost like that token diversity
[00:36:22] issue right we're just replacing these same women we always have two or whatever the case might be
[00:36:27] and that's you know that's not solving anything at all and then finally I love all these topics
[00:36:33] has all been great and I know we're wrapping up towards the end but this is one and we've mentioned
[00:36:38] Donald Taylor before shared some very interesting things that he said this is one I stay so you
[00:36:43] sent me I got a good laugh out of it and he was basically relaying a story that happened to him
[00:36:51] personally using Chad GPT and he was looking at a global sentiment survey on L&D and he was using
[00:36:58] GPT for specifically to categorize some answered questions and he was like wow it's really weird it
[00:37:05] said it wasn't possible and then it finally it gave him texts from a fictitious conference and then
[00:37:10] it started talking about stories that he said it felt like I was watching a friend gaze out the
[00:37:16] window in the night trying to express something painful like I was thinking it just sounded like
[00:37:20] going back to my college days like a kid on the couch that it may be a smoked some of the illegal
[00:37:25] substances and was like just rambling about nothing now it turns out there really was a bug that
[00:37:31] was happening in Chad GPT but it does sort of remind us when we're talking about AI that it really
[00:37:37] does it's in a weird place right now because it seems like people fall into two camps
[00:37:42] speaking of the politics we're talking about earlier where people are like oh this is like
[00:37:46] changing this is like the future of work nothing will ever be the same and those people are like
[00:37:51] this is the worst thing that's ever happened and it's completely useless and really what it is
[00:37:56] it's a tool right it's it's a new and exciting sort of realm of software and we are it has some
[00:38:05] flaws and those flaws can find they just come out in funnier ways it's not like excel getting a
[00:38:10] multiplication table wrong right it's just sitting there and making up some story but I asked about
[00:38:16] categorization of a survey which is why we do ours by hand by the way I think it's the old fashioned
[00:38:22] way lying on the couch smoking fire yeah this so when I read this and I'm not kind of a don Taylor
[00:38:28] and nearly I need to get a call with him because this we've seen all the stories about my I asked
[00:38:34] Chad GPT to do a picture of me like I did I asked to do do picture of me because I'm a widow
[00:38:38] and I've got a grand kid I end up being like an 80 year old woman right through with three hands
[00:38:42] and one head hand out of my head writing or something like there it's always something you be
[00:38:47] this one was so like done from the conversations and things I've read he's really invested in artificial
[00:38:54] intelligence he's been leveraging it using it in a lot of different ways and it was one of those
[00:38:58] moments where I think you kind of heard the the oh this is the reality of what I'm experiencing
[00:39:06] and I think that's really part of I think the opportunity for us as a community of HR technologists
[00:39:12] and as a community of researchers is to go in leverage this technology get an understanding of it
[00:39:18] obviously be very careful but what you're sharing with it we are we're in the process of developing
[00:39:23] our own AI ethical use strategy here on just because we know that we have it we have been doing most
[00:39:29] of our data analysis by hand we know to keep up with where the market that we're going to have to
[00:39:34] some analysis in different ways we want to make sure we're doing that very carefully and I think
[00:39:38] Donald's been very open about what's worked and what hasn't in this place right yeah and I think
[00:39:45] that's on all of us we all have to be we can't be on on sort of this this isn't a political conversation
[00:39:52] about on this side or that side this is we will only make this better and we will only make it more
[00:39:57] human by interacting in ways that we give feedback we give constructive changes where things where we
[00:40:03] notify the world when things aren't working the way they should because that's how the feedback
[00:40:07] loop works so just my two cents on it but I just laughed so hard when Donald put this out I mean the whole
[00:40:12] image of chat GPT I don't know if any of you watch any of the tic-tucks put on by this one lady
[00:40:19] Elaine who pretends to be the various social media and intelligence in Kermit she knew I'm talking
[00:40:25] about clip yes she ought to do the one with all the fonts yes she did the bot she did the
[00:40:29] dare go I put a link to her when you look at where this poster on we've been doing this lately
[00:40:36] look in the replies I'll be one of the first replies and I'll have links all this because it's too
[00:40:41] hard to get it into the description it is but it is this whole like that these things are going
[00:40:49] to have nuances that we've got to be comfortable with and understand and the biggest role any of us
[00:40:54] should be really thinking about and how we're developing ourselves our skills is judgment of the
[00:40:58] data judgment of the information put that's put in front of us understanding where the data is
[00:41:03] coming from understanding the facts and being willing to go and dig them out that's the piece I think
[00:41:07] we should all be sort of looking at so I'm sorry Cliff I went off on a little bit of tangent there
[00:41:11] no that's a good way to wrap it up yeah it's been a busy week like I said I mean there's a lot going
[00:41:17] on I think we're gonna see a lot more coming down the pike but as you said this is sort of the
[00:41:22] we've wrapped up sort of all the juicy tidbits from this week but there will be more coming next week
[00:41:28] I promise you because we've got a lot of stuff going on just kind of as we wrap today a big couple
[00:41:34] of big pushes a reminder that we are getting ready to launch this year's annual HR system survey
[00:41:40] might start to see some announcements coming out but it will definitely go live in May first so if
[00:41:46] you are a distributor of association and media outlet and organization who's got a lot of
[00:41:52] organizations and you would like to get a sense of sort of what your customers or prospects or
[00:41:57] people are sort of saying at an aggregate level contact us we have a big open campaign right now
[00:42:02] for our survey distributors so please let us know if you're interested in distributing the survey
[00:42:07] and getting a broader view of what your audience is thinking or doing the HR tech space for the
[00:42:12] practitioners guys I'm gonna put a post out about this week if you have something to say if you
[00:42:18] have something you want us to ask about if there's a question that's been burning on your mind
[00:42:23] about what's happening in the HR tech space let us know we are in the last two weeks of making
[00:42:30] changes to the survey for this year we've already added I think we're getting we've added some
[00:42:34] social media stuff cliff we've added some questions about artificial intelligence and how
[00:42:38] organizations are using it right we just added I think some really good conversations this today
[00:42:44] about learning and development and what applications and what delivery mechanisms people are using
[00:42:49] in the learning and development space and we have some really new stuff in sort of the space around
[00:42:55] what's happening with the talent acquisition area as well so lots of places where we've got new
[00:43:01] questions this year right yeah we're just digging deeper we're taking everything you have
[00:43:06] responded you as the survey takers have responded and going okay now why like okay that's
[00:43:11] we're using it for but wherever you found success with it or okay you're using it what are you
[00:43:15] using for whatever the case may be just trying to find out that next logical step and take a
[00:43:19] little deeper and keep going and especially like as Stacy said any new technologies or new things
[00:43:25] and as always I know I bring it out each time but if there's anything you're curious about if you
[00:43:30] didn't see it in the white paper or you're not sure if it was in there it's kind of long and you
[00:43:35] like no just write to us you can just use the generic research at sapiensites.com or either of our
[00:43:40] names it's sapiensites.com.com and we'll have a dialogue and we'll figure it out it's not just
[00:43:45] we want to hear from anyone and everyone and find out what's most important to you yeah because we're
[00:43:51] excited so if you do need to let's take a look at last year's paper is available in our research marketplace
[00:43:56] with over 200 HR vendors covered actually I went in and did a little counting up it's more than 200
[00:44:01] but I think that's the number that we got last year over 5,000 HR practitioners participate last
[00:44:05] year's picket all your insights in there also go to our website to sign up for our newsletter
[00:44:10] to get ongoing updates on research launches and where we'll be speaking and visiting
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[00:44:46] up and running Cliff thanks again for all your support and helping us bring all the conversations
[00:44:51] and the stories to the show this week as well as thanks to our production team brand method media
[00:44:56] group who helps us produce our podcast run by amazing thunder kelly she just started her own podcast as
[00:45:02] well so go take a look at what she's doing it's a really great say commentary on marketing our
[00:45:07] marketing team Lisa Renko and summer Elena who really make sure that this gets out to you
[00:45:11] and that we get it done in a timely manner and most importantly thanks to our listeners in our
[00:45:15] community we couldn't do this without you that's it for this episode is filmed at the HR tech we
[00:45:20] hope it's been just the brew you needed to start your engines running this week we'll be back in
[00:45:24] just two weeks with another pot of boiling hot HR tech updates and insights thanks everyone
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