Joining us for this extra special episode of #HRTechChat is Mike Bollinger, vice president of strategic initiatives at Cornerstone OnDemand and a member of the 3Sixty Insights Global Executive Advisory Council. Mike and I have a shared history. It was Mike who recruited me to Thought Leadership & Advisory Services at Cornerstone OnDemand, where I learned a lot ahead of joining Nick Biron to co-found 3Sixty Insights. As always, Mike and I engaged in a wide-ranging and far-reaching conversation exploring the outer reaches of what might be possible in HCM. Here are a few of the ideas we covered:

How the concepts of concrete and abstract HCM extend to the C-suite and the science behind left-brain and right-brain thinking
How these ideas challenge traditional, conventional notions of what business and work are for
What psychedelic HCM might be -- i.e., the combination of concrete and abstract HCM that produces something greater than the sum of those parts and an expanded understanding of HCM
Why it has been a challenge to persuade employers to acknowledge the tangible value in abstract HCM -- i.e., the value in how employees feel about their jobs
A brief detour into the origins of HR and how the lingering effects of its beginnings have limited organizational leadership's scope of imagination as to what HCM is capable of achieving
How the massive disruption of 2020 catapulted us into a new reality where the employee experience, the macro expression of abstract HCM, suddenly enjoys a respect that will not go away
Why a deep appreciation for abstract HCM, more than a pretense, will be indispensable to preserving the meaning and purpose that humans find in work as artificial intelligence begins to dominate task-based labor even in the realm of exempt employment
The relationship between data, judgement, intuition and decision-making in leadership
Why Skynet won't take over as long as we recognize that all managers must become leaders
How becoming organizations and institutions adept at continually re-skilling and up-skilling the workforce will be critical to ensuring that humans and robots coexist peaceably in the workplace, as a mutual benefit to each other in the future of work

#HRTechChat​​ with Mike Bollinger, VP of Strategic Initiatives | Cornerstone OnDemand Episode 6 2021

Nicole Roberts, vice president of people and culture at MVAH Partners, joined 3Sixty Insights for this episode of #HRTechChat. A member of the 3Sixty Insights Global Executive Advisory Council, Nicole started in her leadership role at MVAH a year ago, in March 2020 -- just as the flurry of pandemic-related restrictions unfolded in the United States. The disruption profoundly affected the nature of her first several months on the job. On day one, for example, she took over internal employee communications. MVAH, a developer of affordable housing, has 7,000 units under its management across 15 states. The logistics around managing an already dispersed workforce suddenly under unprecedented, unique circumstances were significant and necessitated the expansion of her focus.

Amidst all this, Nicole and her team also put in the hard work to implement the following:

Paycom for suite-wide human capital management
Paycor as a point solution particularly well-suited for applicant tracking at a company the size of MVAH
Paycor partner Spark Hire for video interviewing, which was essential to scale to hiring needs under impeded candidate mobility

Nicole sat down with us for a wide-ranging discussion -- employer culture, the intrinsic drive most employees have to produce good work, her philosophy behind employee recognition, and more. Our conversation yielded several gems:

The HR department should not be the high school principal's office.
For them to realize their potential on the job, staff need approachable leaders -- mentors and coaches, not scolds and nags.
Leaders in the organization set and influence employer culture.
Technology isn't just about efficiency. It's also about communication.
Regular communication between HR and all its organizational stakeholders is paramount to success.
Effective technology can be the deciding factor in facilitating or impeding this communication.
In other words, most organizations need strong leadership and strong technology for HCM (and communication) to be successful in perpetuating a strong, healthy employer culture
Every customer interaction presents a microcosm of some expression of that employer culture.
Organizations with positive, healthy employer cultures have positive, healthy interactions with customers.

By the way...

At the Spring HR Technology Conference, a virtual event, Nicole is on the hunt this week for information on the latest thinking in employee recognition and innovative vendors providing related technology.

3Sixty Insights is happy to announce that our #HRTechChat Series is now available as a podcast on the following platforms:

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#HRTechChat with Nicole Roberts, Vice President of People and Culture for MVAH Partners | Episode 7

For this, the latest episode of #HRTechChat, our guest is Marc Havercroft, global chief customer officer for SAP SuccessFactors. Marc and I had a conversation a couple weeks ago and were both struck by how much we have in common in terms of our views on HCM. We at 3Sixty Insights speak of abstract and concrete HCM, and how you need both. Marc shares a very intriguing rendition on this, equating the two to operational-related HCM and experience-related HCM -- i.e., the employee experience. And we agree that whether it's abstract and concrete or operational and experience, all of it comes to bear squarely and undeniably on employee sentiment.

Our podcast together reiterates these points and continues in this vein. Ultimately, our discussion explores wide-ranging topics related to the principle premise: Organizations that treat HCM as solely operational (i.e., concrete) struggle to see their people as anything but a cost to contain. In contrast, those employers that treat their people as an asset will invest in them and win.

Going deeper, organizations should move their workforce out of the cost column and into the asset column -- literally. Old-school financial-minded executives might question the wisdom behind doing so. As Marc puts it, however, and I paraphrase, there comes a point when you can't worry about explaining that the world is round anymore. The world is round anyway. This or the other effort having to do with improving the employee experience may be an abstract idea and may not translate to a financially quantifiable line item any accountant or anyone in finance would recognize. It matters to success anyway.

We must begin to take as postulate that the general ledger is not a full view of the health of the organization -- i.e., of its ability to succeed over the short or long term. Employee sentiment matters to an organization's success -- to the bottom and top line. Finance may not see it. They're entitled to their opinions, but not to the final say.

I encourage you to click on the video above and view this entire episode. Marc brought much-needed energy, passion and ideas to this very important discussion.

#HRTechChat with Marc Havercroft, Chief Customer Officer for SAP SuccessFactors

Joining us for this episode of the 3Sixty Insights #HRTechChat is Richard Limpkin, chief product officer at Dublin, Ireland-based global payroll provider Immedis. Richard and I spoke at length a couple times prior this. The insights we unearthed in those conversations were intriguing and, fortunately, the podcast captured the gist of these idas as we reiterated previously covered ground.

When you think about it, payroll is perhaps the most concrete and most abstract aspect of human capital management. On the one hand, it's an indisputable number of outgoing money every one or two weeks (for some organizations, once monthly). Mess with that number or its delivery, and an organization can very quickly have a mutiny on its hands as job satisfaction suffers an acute, palpable blow.

Above all, what must payroll be, without fail? It absolutely has to be timely and accurate, Richard says. He's right, of course, and this applies to all payroll situations. Get payroll wrong or produce it late, and an organization immediately experiences the aforementioned potentially disastrous crisis of employee sentiment. Exacerbating matters is a strict regulatory environment reflecting the basic importance of payroll and governing how the organization must proceed to rectify the situation, whatever it is.

Here is where concrete and abstract HCM really come into play, and this gets us to the other two things payroll must do, in Richard's sage estimation: Be fully compliant with all applicable laws and fully protect the security and privacy of employees' data (for which some of that regulatory framework also applies).

Notably, as an organization's payroll becomes global, the complexities of all these factors behind payroll intensify. In a way, global payroll is the ultimate point solution, and there's essentially no way to implement that solution for global payroll until the moment you need one. We got into all that too, and I encourage readers to view this episode of the podcast. It was a pleasure to speak again with Richard, who brought deep expertise to this discussion.

#HRTechChat with Richard Limpkin, Chief Product Officer at Immedis

For this episode of 3Sixty Insights' #HRTechChat, we decided to approach our favorite subject matter, technology for human capital management, from a slightly different angle. Joining us was Brenda Laughlin, SPHR. Brenda is not only co-founder and managing partner of Enavrio, a consultancy that helps "create tomorrow’s world of work for today’s workforce," but also CEO and principal consultant of PeakSource Consulting.

A central area of Brenda's expertise is in helping to ensure organizations' "data collection and retention process aligns with industry rules, regulations and best practice." This is where our discussion focused: around the extensive considerations that wise organizations take when handling their people's data. The very idea that data privacy is important is just beginning to hit its stride, in my opinion. Highly varied across regions, countries and continents, the related regulatory landscape is still developing, and the act of complying can be complex. In the European Union, there's GDPR. In the United States, there are state-specific and even city-specific rules to follow. And those are just two of myriad examples.

Beyond all this compliance, however, is the principle of protecting the security and privacy of employees' data. What's compelling from a philosophical standpoint is the notion that a person's data is akin to private property. It's not technically or exactly so, but it may as well be. Just look at the opinion many have about their own identifying information. Mess with it, and you lose their trust and exact possibly irreparable damage to your employer brand. Not that we always see companies treat customers' data with the respect patrons assume it enjoys, but it's interesting to hear organizations begin equating the potential downsides of mishandling customer and employee data.

I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Brenda and encourage viewers to watch this episode in its entirety. She was a great guest and brought a wealth of knowledge to this very important industry dialogue.

#HRTechChat with Brenda Laughlin, SPHR, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Enavrio

This was an especially illuminating episode of #HRTechChat. Chief Strategy Officer Josep Elias joined our video podcast to discuss the company's new offering for earned wage access (EWA), CloudPay NOW. EWA is another term for on-demand pay, and CloudPay NOW is "the only earned wage access solution that can be deployed in 130+ countries," the company's website notes.

Interestingly, CloudPay is bucking the trend in on-demand pay by targeting the entire world (or most of it, anyway). Much of the growth in EWA of late has been in the United States, but EY estimates that "a total of approximately $1 trillion is accrued in employer payroll accounts on any given day," as noted in a report published in September 2020.

That report by EY is a good read all-around regarding the potential for on-demand pay and the impacts of its unavailability. Additional research elsewhere adds grist to the mill. Nearly half of employees will tolerate no more than one mistake or problem with their paycheck, according to The Workforce Institute at UKG. And, according to a 2020 survey by the American Payroll Association, more than two-thirds of employees would experience financial difficulty if their paychecks were delayed by just one week. Just as worrisome, data from CareerBuilder shows that nearly fourth-fifths of people (in the United States, at least) live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Notably on this last point especially, as Josep pointed out, it's a dynamic just as apt to dog the six-figure set, not just entry-level or low-wage staff. It would be a major mistake to attribute a gathering momentum in the growth of solutions for on-demand pay, or EWA, solely to a growing appreciation for employee sentiment and wellbeing vis-à-vis their pay. This is one factor undeniably driving adoption, sure, and socially conscious vendors want to meet the need. Swoop up and out another 20,000 feet, however, and you'll notice something....

Cultural expectations among the newer generations have changed. Generation Z (a.k.a. Zoomers) genuinely wonders why it takes one or two weeks, sometimes a month, to get paid and in just a few ways (e.g., direct deposit to a bank account or, perhaps, via pay card). These limitations fail to align with their expectations of flexibility, instancy and immediacy. To the younger generations, their expectations are compelling.

But expectations such as theirs alone still would not constitute enough of a groundswell to bring EWA to all. No, it's the technology that has caught up, as well, to eviscerate heretofore entrenched limitations  -- because, let's be honest: No matter our age or station in life, we've all at some point wished we could get paid right away without incurring some penalty or taking a risky loan out against income that we'd already earned and needed or just plain wanted right then and now, but couldn't have till the next payday. Together, the technological and regulatory landscape have only recently made the wish possible. The old impediments that made our agreed-to conventions tolerable in the realm of getting pay are falling away rapidly, and so will the traditional pay period, eventually.

Josep's insights into the relationship between people and their pay are deep and intriguing. I highly encourage you all to watch. To learn more about CloudPay NOW, you can visit CloudPay's website site.

#HRTechChat with Josep Elias, Chief Strategy Officer at CloudPay

Leaders from a major multinational luxury fashion brand joined us for this episode of the 3Sixty Insights #HRTechChat video podcast: Chief People Officer Abigail Wilmore and Vice President of Global People Operations Jay Barrett, both members of our Global Executive Advisory Council.

This introduction is shorter than the usual. Our guests did a great job of describing their challenges and success in detail, and I encourage readers to view the episode. The fashion retailer has found immense value in Workday’s solutions as an indispensable tool to support and protect its employee experience over the course of the now nearly two-year-old pandemic. Abigail and Jay explained why this is so — and how it all came to be. Had they and their team kept the disparate, cobbled-together, unintegrated HR systems in place that predated Workday’s implementation, they honestly wonder whether they would have even been able to manage lockdowns’ impact on the employee experience. Such was the magnitude of the new software’s impact on their success.

#HRTechChat: Multinational Luxury Fashion Brand Shares Details of its Success with Workday

"The annual performance review process is pretty broken," says Doug Dennerline, CEO of Betterworks and our latest guest on the 3Sixty Insights #HRTechChat video podcast. "It was created seventy years ago for hierarchical organizations," which means it's mismatched to manager-employee dynamics at most organizations today, according to Doug. His credentials and past experience leading well-known vendors in our space are formidable and lent gravitas to our discussion. And I happen to agree with him wholeheartedly.

Years ago, in a previous professional life, I wrote about "a coming mass extinction in human capital management." A result of advances in technology spurring an evolution in attitudes around how best to get the most out of employees, chief among the coming casualties would be the conventional, traditional annual performance review, in my opinion.

It was nothing particularly revelatory on my part. For a long time, plenty others had been saying similar things. The idea to say it was a "coming mass extinction" gave the idea some bite and sounded cool, I rationalized. Fast forward to today. The bite of the past two years accelerated the aforementioned evolution in those attitudes to the point where, here we are, fixated on how to create the conditions for an optimal employee experience at all times. Clunky, yearly performance reviews don't fit into this equation. We may still need them for compliance, sure. Factor machine learning and social media-grade functionality into continuous performance enablement, however, and a clear, auditable trail of information further supporting any action with an employee is possible and defensible from a regulatory standpoint.

Enablement is the new word, by the way. Doug doesn't like the word "management" in performance management, and neither do I -- not one bit. It's just as bad as the "management" in human capital management or talent management. The idea that we're enabling performance is a better, more accurate reflection of the purpose of evaluating employees, and we end up doing much more than merely evaluating them. This is a good thing.

Think of all the advantages modern technology for the employee experience affords us when compared to the old approaches. All you have to do is read Betterworks' tagline: "Betterworks closes the loop between people, strategy and results, enabling organizations to align even the most sprawling teams." There's no practical way to form a virtuous loop of people, strategy and results with only a conventional performance management system. Add work from home to the mix, and a renaissance, an expansion in our thinking in our approach to figuring out how employees are performing, is in order.

The frustrating and stilted thing about the way old-style performance management has developed, is that it occurs in a vacuum. It doesn't really drive strategy. It purports to help drive results, but barely does so. Mostly, staff loathe the tedious annual review process and anything to do with performance management. So do their managers. Underperforming or struggling employees fear the process. There's little room for positive engagement wherein they might feel good about the opportunity to get better at their jobs. It's all top-down evaluation, all the time, and, often, the process isn't even very efficient or effective in producing accurate, usable evaluations.

#HRTechChat with Doug Dennerline, CEO of Betterworks

Technology has advanced to the point where we don't really have to subject ourselves to the inflexibility of a number of traditional, conventional practices anymore, in human capital management. One of these is our approach to measuring employee engagement and collecting employee feedback. Technology has evolved. We can dive much deeper now and achieve several objectives at once. We have much more at our disposal now than just one-to-many surveys set to quarterly, twice-annual or yearly cadences.

"We're finding that a lot of the old ways, the conventional or traditional ways of doing things, just don't cut it," says Maurik Dippel, our guest for this episode of the #HRTechChat video podcast. Annual employee engagement surveys and the like just aren't "up to the to the task. The employee survey is an inflexible instrument."

Innovations in driving employee engagement and gathering employee feedback outside the confines and limitations of the conventional employee engagement survey -- these are areas of expertise squarely in the wheelhouse of Netherlands-based CircleLytics, where Maurik is CEO and co-founder. The CircleLytics solution comprises artificial intelligence; natural language processing; well-thought-out, tailored, guided open questioning; facilitated follow-up interaction between parties, who see and react to each other's responses; and additional activity to make the gathering of employee feedback highly interactive, dynamic, meaningful and... engaging. It's an approach that in fact promotes employee engagement as a part of the process. This is far more insightful and helpful than the administering of a survey to measure employee engagement, in my opinion.

Maurik agrees, of course, and notes that the model has a way of optimizing management-employee relations and helping these and related stakeholders reach consensus and accord internally on challenging issues. With its AI and NLP, CircleLytics' solution analyzes their answers and interactions to capture as broad of a spectrum of organizational sentiment as possible, to help employers reach consensus more readily and in ever better ways, over time. As a microcosm, it's not unlike the idea in the macro that we must inform algorithms right now with as broad of a spectrum of human sentiment as possible, to help ensure that AI evolves as humanly as we want over time -- the focus of another episode of #HRTechChat, from November 2021 with leaders from Cornerstone and AbilityMap.

But before you view that episode from last year, be sure to watch this one. Maurik does an excellent job of explaining how CircleLytics works. Plus, he and I covered lots of intriguing ground. Candidly, Maurik really made me think, and we think our chat will make you think deeply too on new possibilities in employee feedback and engagement.

#HRTechChat with Maurik Dippel, Co-Founder and CEO of CircleLytics

Early this month, at an event for analysts, news media, customers and others, the artificial intelligence-powered global talent platform formerly known as Hiretual announced that it had renamed itself hireEZ. I enjoyed attending virtually and learning the rationale for the name change. We also heard details around the $26 million in venture capital that hireEZ noted it had just raised to help drive the objective of the rebrand: becoming the first vendor to define outbound recruiting as a market segment. Following the event, it seemed natural to invite hireEZ CEO Steven Jiang and Head of Marketing Shannon Pritchett to the #HRTechChat video podcast.
“We chose to rebrand to align with our company’s mission to create a new category,” Jiang said, during the podcast. “Our mission is to make outbound recruiting easy. We want to make it easy for recruiters to bring jobs to people. Our vision, three words, is ‘jobs find people.'”
Outbound recruiting itself is a collection of practices that have surfaced over the past several years. This market alert we published on the development delves into things. Suffice it to say, outbound recruiting is the yin to inbound recruiting’s yang….
Once a novel idea made possible by the then-novelty of the Internet, inbound recruiting is the idea that you can use the web as a fast way to attract large numbers of candidates to apply to your open jobs. This has its benefits. In contrast, think of outbound recruiting as a return to classic headhunting, but now aided by marked evolution in technologies such as AI and the cloud — and the Internet, of course. Within the external online environment, recruiters are better able to find and choose their targets. It is now possible for organizations to identify and approach right-fit candidates online for open requisitions and, thus, spare themselves the tedious task of sifting through a slew of information on candidates that found their way into the applicant tracking system. A thorough search may be impossible in the ATS. And it’s hit-or-miss on who, among these candidates in the database, may or may not be good matches anyway.
Outbound recruiting is far more efficient, and recruiters with the means to do so have increasingly been deploying it, in bits and pieces, as essential arrows for their quiver. “We’ve evolved into a more candidate-centric, candidate experience model,” Shannon said.
This is where the pinpointed, 1:1 nature of outbound recruiting comes into play, and that means to do so is where hireEZ enters the equation. The vendor’s technology already supports all five pillars of outbound recruiting: AI sourcing; robust, searchable data; email automation; diversity, equity and inclusion; and system integration. During the podcast, Steven, Shannon and I dove deeply into the details of these five pillars, which the aforementioned market alert also describes.
Against the backdrop of The Great Resignation and a job market that looks like it’s going to be topsy-turvy for the long term, what hireEZ is doing in the recruiting space is remarkable, really. What struck me most, possibly, is around something Steven said. He noted that, for recruiters to embrace outbound recruiting, they must internalize a fundamental shift in mentality. Inbound recruiting remains a piece of the puzzle, yes. But the passivity associated with waiting for candidates to pour in is incompatible with outbound recruiting, whose ethos is proactive, can-do, recruiting with intentionality. The talent acquisition departments that deploy outbound recruiting the most successfully will commence all their recruiting activities with an outbound mindset first, with inbound activities playing a supporting role in their pursuit of the objective.

#HRTechChat with hireEZ's CEO Steven Jiang and Head of Marketing Shannon Pritchett

Consider: It's not necessarily that an employer has a performance management problem or, say, a learning management system problem. We must strive to marshal the discrete domains of human capital management, the silos, as one multidisciplinary instrument to solve employers' people-related needs and challenges. This is the high-level strategic value in industry-specific and industry-tailored suites for HCM, in my opinion. They help us think about HCM more holistically. They help vendors and users alike of technology for HCM break free from silo-think.

There's plenty additional value, as well, for the industries these tailored HCM suites address. Software-as-a-service provider isolved recently launched People Cloud for Healthcare Services, a version of its HCM software suite exclusively for employers in health and medical services. To discuss the new product (and accompanying professional services) James Norwood, chief marketing and strategy officer at isolved, joined us for this episode of the #HRTechChat video podcast.

"Once you're in a battle for talent, and it becomes a seller's market, then you do have to invest in these things," James says. He's speaking of the perennial need for registered nurses in healthcare and the need to combat and address this with people-focused solutions.

RNs are always in short supply, it seems. It's a top-of-mind challenge in the health and medical services space. The pandemic has only exacerbated this shortage to become even more acute (if that was even possible). The vendor's own research shows 100 percent of HR leaders in assisted living facilities saying its hard to retain RNs.

You read that right, by the way. In a large isolved-initiated survey of many subsets of the healthcare space, yes, all the HR leaders working in assisted living reported difficulty in retaining talent. It's indicative of the urgent and deep challenges related to employing people in the healthcare space.

"What is isolved doing? We're helping on some of those things," James says. For healthcare-related employers, through the new healthcare-focused version of the suite, "we're helping with people getting onboarded. We're helping them get compliant. Our learning management system has very industry-specific certification training courses, which will automatically notify people in advance when a particular certification might be coming up to expire. So there's lots of things that can be done to work with employees, to make them feel like they have more control in their own destiny."

The new version of the suite does a number of things to address the idiosyncrasies of healthcare employers' people-related needs, and we recently published our analysis of the People Cloud for Healthcare Services launch. I encourage you all to watch this episode. James and I delved deeply into the rationale behind isolved's decision to launch this new version of its product, how it helps, where the vendor looks to tackle industry specialization next, and much more.

#HRTechChat with James Norwood, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer of isolved

Joining me for the #HRTechChat video podcast is Rachel Jordan. At Unit4, provider of business software for human capital management and enterprise resource planning, as well as financial planning and analysis, Rachel is vice president of HCM product management. Just like several of her fellow relatively new additions to leadership at Unit4, Rachel has a strong a pedigree in the industry.

Unit4 is a vendor keen on finding the best ways to align and combine HCM, ERP and FP&A. The possibilities are intriguing, and you'll be hearing more about these from 3Sixty Insights as we stroll through the second half of 2022. Think of this episode of the podcast as an appetizer. HCM technology (including the ethos behind it) has evolved drastically over the past five years, from a focus on talent management to one of supporting the success of people. (Those are two different things, yes.) HR continues to mature in its role, from a largely reactionary position mired in transactional work to one aspiring to proactively support organizational growth and strategy -- and capable of doing so.

It makes sense. Organizations have had to adapt their HCM systems broadly and deeply, especially since the pandemic took hold and ushered in work from home, hybrid work and other dynamics once considered novelties or exceptions to the rule. HR's charter now is to facilitate and advocate for the employee experience, and the HCM system is no longer just a database of people, but an ecosystem to support a total employee lifecycle that has, on average, become unconventional and nonlinear -- e.g., career progressions no longer track straight, effective internal mobility hinges on accurate insight into soft skills, etc. Better-delivered information from payroll and compensation strategy and regarding employees' skills influences the employee experience by optimizing internal mobility, facilitating tenure, and rendering current and future personnel costs more predictable.

All this change changes the fundamental calculus that HR and other organizational stakeholders must follow to justify their proposals to invest in HCM systems. One way for them to make this argument is to show the value of HCM data as HCM systems become better connected to other domains of the enterprise and the related data becomes more easily combinable in real time. The idea is to shorten the time it takes to figure out how or whether this or that decision regarding people success would deliver value to the organization.

As my conversation with Rachel ultimately implies, HR leaders and other HCM-immersed internal organizational stakeholders in positions of influence should emphasize that one major benefit of all this is not only greater organizational agility, but stability, too. Data that an HCM system produces can give employers invaluable insight into which actions are best to take. The ready availability of this data, especially when it's the result of data exchange between systems supporting areas of the business that need alignment anyway, means leaders can take these actions early.

3Sixty Insights #HRTechChat with Rachel Jordan, Vice President of HCM Product Management at Unit4

Who should own the employee experience (EX)? "There's room for everyone," said isolved Senior Vice President of Marketing Lina Tonk during her guest appearance on the #HRTechChat video podcast. And she's right. The EX occurs everywhere any employee is involved in work. "I do believe the final responsibility should reside with HR. And I think HR leaders will probably agree with that." They probably would, yes. HR's job is not to micromanage the EX, however; it is to shepherd, lead and help shape it. From this, responsibility naturally flows.

Speaking of marketing, have you ever wondered whether, why or how marketing and HR could join forces to bolster and improve EX? I know that I have. And it turns out that it's an idea gaining steam....

In January of this year, isolved conducted a survey of 500 HR leaders based in the United States and from a broad cross-section of industries. The resulting whitepaper, "Transforming Employee Experience: 500 HR Leaders Talk Talent, Tech, Tactics & Threats," is an interesting read that spans several areas of interest as they relate to isolved's goal with the research: ascertaining HR's top challenges of today and top opportunities for tomorrow. And the exercise unearthed some intriguing findings vis-à-vis an emerging role for marketing in the EX and HR's sentiments regarding this.

According to isolved's survey, 65 percent of HR leaders say they want their marketing team involved with EX. Specifically, 52 percent are seeking marketing’s involvement because the department plays an important role in how the company is perceived in the market, and another 40 percent want to leverage marketing’s creative ability.

HR and marketing work together in these ways at isolved. During our chat, Lina described her on-the-job relationship with her colleague Amy Mosher, chief people officer at isolved. "I'm super transparent with Amy," with whom she speaks daily to align goals. During our conversation, Lina got granular in explaining what aligning marketing's goals with HR's looks like at isolved — where HR has its own goals for the employee experience, and marketing has some related to the employee experience, too, "and I believe that cross-functional teams can only work in that manner if goals are attached to them."

Lina delved even deeper, providing a glimpse into what this kind of collaboration, between HR and marketing, looks like from an executional standpoint — something else I've always wondered about. For example, advocacy is incredibly important to isolved, especially for HR leaders because of its impact on retention, which is "key to everything that we're doing," said Lina. Related to this, isolved has an internal advocacy tool that it provides to all its employees. "We needed not only the creativity on the content for marketing, but also the insights and the drive from HR."

Usually, several tangents will surface during the #HRTechChat video podcast, and this episode is no different. Lina and I got to talking about where EX possibly matters most. There's probably no definitive answer to this question, but we both agreed: it's hard to argue that onboarding isn't critical to EX in terms of setting the tone for the long term. Incidentally, speaking to this is a soon-to-be-published report by isolved compiling results from a survey of 1,000 employees. Among the findings is this: 49 percent of employees say they’ve been tempted to leave a new job after a poor onboarding experience that includes limited transitioning, an unprepared first day and excessive paperwork.

3Sixty Insights #HRTechChat with Lina Tonk, Senior Vice President of Marketing at isolved

For those of you who don't know, Jen Dole has joined the team at 3Sixty Insights as director and principal analyst to dive deep into talent management. Jen and I go back a little bit. The week before last, at HR Technology Conference & Expo, was the first time we saw each other face to face since the first time she and I met. When was that? It was when we were both at Cornerstone. Working in different divisions, we ran into each other at LAX on our way to the company's 20th anniversary celebration in Palm Springs, Calif., and got to chatting. Later, Jen and I began to talk shop a bit more after she joined Fuel50, which is where she was most recently.

Before pivoting to working for vendors of technology for human capital management, where she focused on client success, Jen was a practitioner in HR — at Fortune 500 firms, no less. And she was there in the bad old days, when technology for HCM was relatively new, especially for talent management. She tells the story of running succession planning on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets at Liberty Mutual Insurance. It was a slow, tedious exercise in administration, and her job changed profoundly once her team finally got ahold of technology purpose-built for this. "I went from being an administrator to being a strategic adviser, because I wasn't focused on collecting data anymore. The technology was doing that."

It's an idea taking hold. More than once earlier this month, at the event, Jen and I heard various renditions of the the idea: access to readily available, current data on the workforce is key to HR's transforming itself into a strategic advisor to organizational leadership. As the focus, data can orientate even the most administratively hampered HR departments in the direction of the future of work.

And what is the fast-developing, primary dynamic going to be in the future of work? The focus has shifted fundamentally, already, to the employee experience. All anyone had to do was look at the themes of the booths in the expo hall and speak with the vendors and HR professionals in attendance: this train has left the station. As Jen likes to say, and I'm paraphrasing, "People's definition of success has changed, and employers need to align their definition with this if they want to succeed, too."

Agreed. And this isn't just an aspirational HR-centric phenomenon anymore. We see C-suite executives, boards, line managers and just about everyone else clamoring to move in this direction, too. It's almost as if the wake-up call of a worldwide pandemic jolted everyone into acknowledging that organizations are made up of people. Who knew? I'm thinking about calling it the rise of the sentient organization. The state of the art in technology for HCM is helping us to listen.

We heard plenty of other terms and phrases uttered often at the event: artificial intelligence, intelligent enterprise, FOMO (fear of missing out), empathy, and more. And, in contrast with HR Tech events of years' past, there were some terms and phrases we didn't hear all that much. Automation is one. What are some others? Watch the podcast. It is a real pleasure to have Jen on our team. We cannot wait to speak with as many of you as humanly possible and learn as much as we can about your thoughts about and experiences in HCM.

#HRTechChat: 3Sixty Insights Shares its Takeaways from the HR Technology Conference & Expo

“Nobody wakes up in the middle of the night going, ‘Oh, great, tomorrow is my performance review,” said Jamie Aitken in a moment of light-hearted sarcasm during this episode of #HRTechChat. My latest guest on our video podcast, Jamie is vice president of HR Transformation at Betterworks.
In 2017, Adobe published a report titled "Performance Reviews Get a Failing Grade." The results to the associated survey painted a bleak picture. Startlingly, 22 percent of respondents admitted to having cried after their performance review. From the same survey, 58 percent of respondents said performance reviews are stressful, and 37 percent began searching for employment elsewhere following a performance review. One-fifth of respondents were so impacted by their performance review that they acted on a decision to quit immediately afterward.
“Why are we doing this?" Jamie asked. "It's stressful not just for employees, but for people managers. Traditional performance management doesn’t even move the needle when it comes to performance or productivity.”
It really doesn't. And it really doesn't matter that the results to Adobe's survey are from nearly six years ago. In the time that's passed traditional performance management has surely become even more anachronistic. The old way of doing performance management is, in fact, antithetical to the implicit goal of any company attempting to track and measure their employees' performance: to improve it.
Providing evidence of a viable alternative is Betterworks' own report: "2022 Global HR Research Report: The State of Performance Enablement." Surveying 2,500 employees and managers at a wide range of employers, the vendor found that respondents who were indeed users of Betterworks saw a 25 percent improvement in employee engagement and 44 percent increase in employees' willingness to exert discretionary effort on the job.
Betterworks’ term for this alternative is modern performance enablement. Jamie and I spoke at length on the idea: to dispense with standalone annual employee performance reviews in favor of promoting continuous year-round conversations between managers and their team members. This building of rapport may culminate in a much more meaningful and empathetic annual retrospective on employees' performance informed by the substance of these conversations.
As you can imagine, modern performance enablement is also a huge factor in HR transformation. First, the efficiencies found in modern performance enablement free HR from the often overwhelming administrative tedium of babysitting annual reviews. This helps significantly in delivering HR from its cost-center shackles. Second, modern performance enablement is highly engaging and, therefore, highly inviting. It's a boon to companywide participation rates, which, in turn, produce rich longitudinal data on the performance of the organization's people. With the newfound time and mental space to devote to understanding and interpreting this data, an HR department can become a strategic partner to leadership by being the source of deep insight into the company's people.
Jamie put it best, and I encourage you to watch this episode: “As HR professionals, we now have ways to articulate why what we do matters for the business, and I would say HR should be really excited. Don't wait for the seat at the table to be given to you. Just take it.”

#HRTechChat: Jamie Aitken, Vice President of HR Transformation at Betterworks

Anita Lettink was the guest for this episode of #HRTechChat. Many viewers of this video podcast may know Anita from her nearly 20 years in positions of increasing seniority at NGA Human Resources (acquired in 2019 by Alight). Following nearly three years as a senior vice president there, she finally left NGAHR in mid-2020 to found HR Tech Radar and write and publish her book, "How to Select Your Next Payroll: The Ultimate Guide."

Anita is a payroll expert by any calculus, and it was a real pleasure to reconnect and discuss the subject matter of her book in detail. Having fallen out of touch in recent years, Anita and I actually go way back, originally meeting when she was about midway through her tour of duty at NGAHR. This was back when NGAHR was known as NorthgateArinso, and the chief executive was Mike Ettling (who's now CEO of Unit4). As for little ol' me, I was technology editor for HRO Today. My, how time flies....

Much as nobody has ever complimented or thanked the power company for the electricity working, no employee (or company executive, for that matter) has ever spoken up to give the payroll department a thumbs up for getting payroll right again. When the power goes out or payroll goes wrong, however, watch the emails, text messages and phone calls roll in.

"It is the expectation of employees that payroll will be correct," Anita said during the episode. "You cannot overperform payroll. But the moment it is wrong, even for a small group of people, I'd say all hell breaks loose. And all the trust you've built, the reputation that you had, is gone overnight."

Payroll is one of those things employees are entitled to, no questions asked. They know this to the point that they don't even think about it, when payroll is right. There's an unspoken understanding. Get payroll wrong, however, and the employer brand suffers. This is why payroll absolutely must be correct. When it is, employee sentiment remains unaffected; when it isn't, employee sentiment tanks.

Having been a close observer and actor in the payroll selection process for so long, Anita has — interestingly — identified what she believes to be a specific stage in the process that, left unaddressed, can botch or derail the implementation and subsequent deployment of a payroll solution. What is this stage in the process? Consider viewing this episode of the podcast, where we discuss the answer. Payroll is among my very favorite topics, and Anita brought deep insight to the conversation.

#HRTechChat: Anita Lettink, Founder of HR Tech Radar, Payroll Expert, Author

This edition of #HRTechChat features Alex Furman, founder and CEO of Performica and 3Sixty Insight's Jennifer Dole. In this episode we share why founder’s story matter. Prospective customers want to understand the story behind a company’s founding- why it exists, what inspired its leaders, and how it will make their lives better. Founders’ stories can offer inspiration, give them insight into the values at play in the organization they're thinking of using, and even persuade them that they have made the right decision when considering an investment with a particular company. In this blog post we explore why Alex's stories should matter when you're investing in technology. There was so much to unpack in a short time during the recording, take a listen!

1/18/2023

#HRTechChat with Alex Furman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Performica

#HRTechChat with James Brogan CEO and Co-Founder of PepTalk

Brandon Dorr, director of people technologies at WPS Health Solutions, guested on this episode of the #HRTechChat video podcast. He and host Brent Skinner discussed how Brandon's training in IT led him into HR. There seems to be a robust career path in HR (and other lines of business) for IT professionals needed for their expertise in sorting the data that SaaS for HCM produces (and in developing custom, tailored functionality). During their conversation, they also touched on the high caliber of attention that UKG pays to customer success.

#HRTechChat: Brandon Dorr, Director of People Technologies at WPS Health Solutions

Last week, just before the morning's program commenced at the Boston stop along the 2023 #isolvedRoadShow, this episode's #HRTechChat video podcast guest Geoff Webb and I met for some impromptu "green room" time and joked that it was too bad the camera wasn't rolling. Never fear, however: I plan to build on that very interesting discussion soon with a dedicated blog entry....

Following the conclusion of last Thursday's itinerary at the Courtyard by Marriot, Geoff and I sat down for this episode of the podcast -- recorded "in concert, so to speak," from the Road Show floor. And this may be the right time to explain just what the 2023 isolved Road Show is, because it relates directly to the conversation captured here. A multiple-city trek that executives and others at isolved are making to reach as many of the vendor's customers as possible, the Road Show is isolved's vehicle to deliver an important, timely message to HR leaders and their teams: it's possible to stop spinning your wheels under a mountain of administrative work and become strategic, laser-focused on the all-important employee experience. And you can get there one step at a time.

Geoff shared a metaphor for all this, the Red Queen Effect. In Lewis Carroll's 19th century classic Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen teaches main character Alice the underlying subtext and metaphor of running faster and faster and, yet, staying in one place.

"When you think about what that means to an HR organization," Geoff said, "I think it's very, very appropriate. We see HR teams being asked to do more and more and more, to react and respond to changes in employee expectations and to change to the needs of the business. And, of course, there's just a relentless drumbeat of new legislation, new laws, new compliance requirements, new mandates, and so on. So, of course, what they're doing is have to run faster and faster, just to stay in the same place."

The gist of the Red Queen's lesson is to work smarter, not faster. Species evolve to evade falling prey to predators. These same predators then evolve to catch these same prey anew. Each draws on the same innate imperative, and HR can evolve, too. HR can stop running faster and faster just to stay in one place. With this deliberate, intentional shift in thinking, HR will see many desirable benefits over time. Their evolution will lead them to more gratifying work that organizational leadership will recognize as strategic. The best part is, just like biological evolution occurs in tiny steps, so does HR evolution. HR presses forward and upward in gradual increments -- easily mastered, effective steps.

Geoff is a repeat guest on #HRTechChat, by the way, and you can view a previous episode featuring him. In the midst of doing well over 60 for 2023, isolved is serious about its Road Shows. Those into math will recognize right away that this means at least one city every week this year. Yes, the isolved team is busy, and we at 3Sixty Insights enjoyed the opportunity to join them and host this episode of the podcast.

The Boston #isolvedRoadShow Episode of #HRTechChat with Guest Geoff Webb

I wish we could just push a button and have payroll process without a hitch, like everyone thinks we do," joked Robyn Torgius, guest on this episode of #HRTechChat. Instead of just falling into the work, as most have in the past, people are increasingly choosing payroll as a career path. This is a good thing. As global head of payroll at IFS and member of 3Sixty Insights' Global Executive Advisory Council, Robyn shared her considerable insight into how payroll can be elevated into a profession -- and why it should be.

#HRTechChat: Robyn Torgius, Global Head of Payroll at IFS

Are you someone who dreams of a fulfilling career, but feels bogged down by challenges and setbacks? Do you feel like you're constantly pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, without seeing the results you want? If so, you're not alone. But the good news is that there are ways to build resilience and overcome the obstacles that stand in your way.

As someone who is passionate about career development, I've seen firsthand how a resilient mindset can help people achieve their goals. It's not just about bouncing back from failures or setbacks, although that's certainly important. It's also about having the right mindset, one that is open to growth, learning, and taking ownership of your career.

This is especially important in today's fast-paced and constantly evolving work environment. As technology and automation continue to disrupt industries and change the nature of work, it's more important than ever to be adaptable, flexible, and resilient. This means not only being able to handle challenges and setbacks, but also being proactive about your own career development.

So what can you do to build resilience and take ownership of your career? It starts with developing a growth mindset, one that is open to learning, feedback, and continuous improvement. This means being willing to take risks, try new things, and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.

It also means being mindful of your own needs and goals, and being willing to speak up and advocate for yourself. This could mean setting boundaries, asking for support or resources, or taking on stretch assignments that challenge you in new ways.

But perhaps most importantly, building resilience and taking ownership of your career means cultivating empathy and understanding for yourself and others. This means recognizing that we all have limitations, and that it's okay to ask for help or support when we need it. It also means being mindful of the impact that our actions and decisions have on those around us, and striving to create a supportive and collaborative work environment.

In the end, building resilience and taking ownership of your career is about recognizing that we all have the power to shape our own futures. By cultivating the right mindset, being proactive, and staying true to our values and goals, we can overcome challenges and achieve success in all areas of our lives. So why not start today?

#HRTechChat w/ Andy Storch & Larry McAlister on Career Fulfillment via Built Resilience & Ownership

In today's rapidly evolving world, the intersection of technology and inclusive leadership is shaping the future of organizations. The qualities of inclusive leaders play a crucial role in fostering a culture of belonging, collaboration, and innovation. In this podcast, we will explore some key attributes of inclusive leaders and discuss how technology can be leveraged to enhance inclusive leadership.

Courage: At the heart of inclusive leadership lies courage. Inclusive leaders must have the courage to challenge the status quo, address biases, and create an environment where every individual feels valued and respected. They understand that being a great leader means embracing diversity and making intentional efforts to be inclusive, even if it involves taking risks or stepping out of their comfort zones.

Desire to Help People: Inclusive leaders have a genuine desire to help people thrive. They recognize that by fostering a sense of belonging and inclusivity, they can unlock the full potential of their teams. They actively seek opportunities to create conditions that allow everyone to contribute their unique perspectives, skills, and knowledge. By nurturing an environment that encourages collaboration and cooperation, inclusive leaders drive greater team performance and overall success.

Embracing Human Qualities: Inclusive leadership involves recognizing and embracing the human qualities that set us apart from machines. While technology can enhance efficiency, it is the human touch that enables true empathy, compassion, and self-awareness. Inclusive leaders listen with empathy, act with compassion, and demonstrate genuine care for their team members. These human qualities foster trust, build stronger relationships, and promote a sense of psychological safety within the organization.

Leveraging Technology for Inclusive Leadership: Technology can be a powerful tool for inclusive leadership. It provides leaders with actionable data and insights, enabling them to understand the voice of their employees better. Tools like coaching platforms offer valuable support for managers, helping them navigate conversations around well-being, mental fitness, and career growth. Additionally, technologies that promote diversity and inclusion in the hiring process, such as AI-powered interview analysis, can reduce bias and create fairer opportunities for all candidates.

Business Outcomes of Inclusive Leadership: Contrary to the notion that inclusive leadership is just "soft stuff," it has tangible business outcomes. Studies have consistently shown that diverse and inclusive teams outperform homogeneous ones. Inclusive leadership leads to higher employee engagement, increased productivity, and improved retention rates. By quantifying and presenting these outcomes, inclusive leaders can demonstrate the value of their approach to stakeholders, including the CFO.

The intersection of technology and inclusive leadership presents an exciting opportunity for organizations to create an inclusive and thriving workplace culture. Inclusive leaders, driven by courage and a desire to help people, are leveraging technology to enhance their leadership practices. By embracing human qualities, using technology as an enabler, and focusing on quantifiable business outcomes, inclusive leaders are shaping the future of work. In this age of technology, it is essential to recognize the power of inclusive leadership in unlocking the full potential of individuals and driving organizational success.

#HRTechChat: Inclusive Leadership in a Tech Age with Jen Dole, Larry McAlister, and Al Dea

In today's fast-paced world of technology and automation, it's easy to assume that human interaction is becoming less relevant. However, when it comes to building meaningful relationships and effective hiring, technology will never fully replace the role of a recruiter.

Kim Slowik, a seasoned talent acquisition professional, emphasizes the importance of genuine connections in her conversation with Jennifer Dole on the HR Tech Chat podcast. While technology offers valuable tools for filtering and finding candidates, it's the human interaction that truly makes a difference.

When recruiters take the time to engage with candidates on a personal level, asking meaningful questions and actively listening, they gain insights that go beyond a resume. By understanding a candidate's aspirations, values, and career goals, recruiters can identify the perfect fit for both the candidate and the company.

Building relationships also extends to the hiring managers. Recruiters who invest in understanding the unique requirements and dynamics of a team can find candidates who not only possess the necessary skills but also align with the team's culture and goals. It's about creating a cohesive unit, just like building a sports team.

While technology provides tools like applicant tracking systems and LinkedIn Recruiter, which aid in the recruitment process, it cannot replace the nuanced understanding that comes from personal conversations. Technology may filter candidates on paper, but it often fails to capture the intangible qualities that make a candidate an ideal fit.

Technology has undoubtedly sped up the recruitment process, but it is the personal touch that fosters lasting relationships. Recruiters who go the extra mile, provide feedback, and genuinely care about candidates build a reputation that garners trust and loyalty. It's not just about filling a position; it's about nurturing long-term careers.

Technology may enhance efficiency and widen reach, but it will never replace the essence of human connection. Recruiters like Kim Slowik understand that building meaningful relationships with candidates and hiring managers is the key to successful recruitment. By combining technological tools with genuine empathy and insightful conversations, recruiters can truly find the perfect fit for both candidates and companies.

#HRTechChat with Kim Slowik on Building Meaningful Relationships: Why Recruiters Are Irreplaceable

“How do I make a 120,000-person organization data-aware?” asks Amaresh Tripathy, my guest on this episode of the #HRTechChat video podcast.

Amaresh is senior vice president and global business leader at Genpact. A General Electric spin-off, Genpact is several billion dollars in size. A publicly traded professional services firm, Genpact mainly focuses on two things. One is all about running various digital operations on behalf of Genpact's clients, which are Fortune 1000 companies around the globe. The other involves data, technology and artificial intelligence, wherein Genpact concerns itself with helping these clients transform some of these same digital operations for the better. Amaresh's role is with this second focus, working to make "our clients more data-intelligent and data-aware," he says.

You probably already see the tie-in with Genpact's workforce. Amaresh believes that, at Genpact, he and his team have built the world’s largest data awareness program. Solutions such as EdCast, found in the Cornerstone suite, factor largely into the effort. We discussed this. An illustrative example of organizational and digital transformation, the initiative relies, critically, on well-sorted learning technology and modern tools for curating and delivering content just right for the task at hand.

Phenomenally, Amaresh is more than halfway to achieving an ambitious goal: so far, somewhere between 65,000 of and 70,000 of the company's own employees have completed the associated certification program, which leaves them highly versed in understanding the tools to extract and blend enterprise data. Graduates then go on to use their newfound knowledge and skills in order to help a client—in the process earning from Genpact what is akin to a black belt in data awareness.

During our chat, Amaresh shared the philosophy behind his vision and delved into the thinking that has helped make it a reality at Genpact. This vision is empowering staff with the high-impact upskilling that is an essential ingredient not only for their success individually, but also for Genpact’s overall. Indeed, like so many initiatives notable for their positive effects on business, Amaresh’s is redolent of the idea that an organization’s people are an asset to cultivate and engage. This is the model for success. All at once, Genpact’s data awareness program is good for the company, its clients, and its people. If you're looking for an example of how the future of work is happening right now, look no further than this episode of the podcast. It was an absolute pleasure speaking with Amaresh.

#HRTechChat with Amaresh Tripathy: Upskilling 120,000 People for Data Awareness at Genpact

In a recent episode of HR Tech Chat, host Jennifer Dole and guest Pamela Stroko delved into the crucial topic of supporting women in the workplace and ensuring equitable promotions and opportunities. Pamela, an HCM practitioner and HR tech expert, provided valuable insights on the impact of HR technology in enabling women to access greater opportunities. Listen in as we will explore the key points discussed in the podcast episode and shed light on the importance of HR technology in empowering women in their careers.

#HRTechChat with Pamela Stroko: Empowering Women in the Workplace

Megan Coen, vice president of HR services at isolved, was a guest on the #HRTechChat video podcast. isolved calls HR outsourcing by a different name, HR augmentation, and this episode provides a glimpse into why. Megan shared war stories from her previous lives in helping to drive change management in HR and did a great job in laying out how isolved combines "the right blend" of technology and services.

#HRTechChat: Megan Coen, Vice President of HR Services at isolved

Ready to unlock the secrets of HR success? Tune in to the HR Tech Chat podcast, where we dive deep into the world of human resources and explore the latest trends and innovations in HR technology.  In our latest episode, we had the incredible Maria Scarangella sharing her expertise on HR economics and its impact on organizations. From optimizing staffing to leveraging HR technology, Maria's insights will transform the way you approach HR strategy. Don't miss out on this valuable conversation! #HRtechchat #Podcast #HRsuccess

#HRTechChat: Maximizing HR Economics with Maria Scarangella: Unleashing the Power of HR Technology

#HRTechChat: Connecting Technology and Employee Experience with Kamal Pradhan

With consistent churn in leadership roles at all organization levels, we have to step back and ask the question:

- What are we missing in our selection process?
- How do we continually make poor selection decisions?
- And why aren’t we doing better?

Let us start with how we can get caught in the “likeability trap.” Barry Conchie and Sarah Dalton, in The Five Talents that Really Matter, found that likeability factors have a significant impact on how a candidate is perceived. The problem is that likeability will not correlate with whether the candidate can perform in a specific role. Throughout my career I have seen organizations select highly likeable candidates that go on to fail in the job, often within the first 6-12 months. In the selection discussions, likeability is often defended as the criteria and can often win out over the discussion on potential performance.

In this podcast, join the conversation to learn more about:

1. How we can mislead candidates.
Do you think it is possible to mislead candidates in face-to-face interviews? I have seen this multiple times—candidates feel they had great interviews, and then are shocked when they do not get the role. Misleading candidates can not only create negative experiences for them, it can also damage a company’s brand.
2. How 360 Assessments are subjective at best and biased at worst.
3. How misaligned incentives with search firms can advocate for candidates that may not be the best choice.

In this session, Barry and Sarah offer a path forward for how to audit and evaluate your selection process.

“Their strategy is to introduce tools and processes that guide the hiring, selection, succession, and promotion decisions toward a defined structure that has measurable outcomes.”

With each leadership selection decision, company performance is on the line—we can improve selection and have an enormous positive impact.

#HRTechChat: What Companies Get Wrong About Selection with Barry Conchie and Sarah Dalton

As companies navigate hybrid work models and return-to-office (RTO) strategies, HR leaders are pivotal in shaping workplace culture and ensuring a seamless transition.

3Sixty Insight's Dylan Teggart sits down with Kathy Claytor, Chief Human Resources Officer at Delta Dental and board director at HRCI, to explore why HR should take the lead in facilities management. With over 25 years of experience in HR leadership across financial services, government, and technology, Kathy shares how workplace design, employee well-being, and strategic planning impact productivity and engagement.

She discusses Delta Dental’s approach to hybrid work, the importance of space planning, wellness initiatives, and how organizations can balance business needs with employee expectations.

Are companies rushing RTO too quickly? How can leaders create an office environment to which employees want to return?

Tune in as Kathy shares her expert insights on the future of work, hybrid work trends, and how HR can drive workplace success.

#HRTechChat: Workplace Transformation & HR Leadership with Kathy Claytor

As the role of brokers continues to evolve, they are no longer just insurance providers but strategic advisors helping businesses navigate workforce complexities.

3Sixty Insights' Geoff Webb sits down with Andrea Dumont, Vice President Channel Marketing at isolved, to discuss how brokers are adapting to meet the changing needs of HR and HCM. With over 20 years of experience in the industry, Andrea shares insights into how brokers are expanding their service offerings, leveraging technology, and strengthening client relationships to provide greater value.

She explores the increasing reliance on brokers for strategic business advice, the impact of compliance challenges, and how HR technology plays a central role in delivering long-term success.

How are brokers differentiating themselves in a crowded market? What role does trust and technology play in building lasting client partnerships?

Tune in as Andrea breaks down the latest trends shaping the broker landscape and how HCM platforms like isolved are helping them stay ahead.

#HRTechChat: The Evolving Role of Brokers in HCM with Andrea Dumont of isolved

As quick-service restaurants (QSRs) continue to adapt in a post-pandemic world, the challenges of managing a dynamic, high-turnover workforce have never been more complex.
In this episode of HRTechChat, 3Sixty Insights' Geoff Webb sits down with Yutaka Takagi, Principal Product Evangelist at isolved, to explore the fast-paced world of QSRs and how human capital management technology is playing a pivotal role in workforce transformation.
With deep insight into the daily realities of QSR operators and managers, Yutaka shares how evolving employee expectations—especially among Gen Z—are reshaping hiring, scheduling, and engagement strategies. He explains how the speed and fluidity of the QSR environment demand not only flexible tools but also a shift in how organizations think about HR: from back-office admin to real-time frontline support.
From earned wage access and self-service scheduling to AI-driven hiring and always-on HR chatbots, isolved is helping QSR leaders streamline operations and improve the employee experience—without compromising on cost or efficiency.
What does it take to attract and retain Gen Z talent in a high-churn environment? How can technology reduce friction for managers and enhance engagement for hourly workers? And how are QSRs rethinking their tech stacks to support sustainable growth?
Tune in as Yutaka dives into the unique pressures of the QSR space, the power of automation in small physical workspaces, and how isolved is empowering employers to act fast—and smart—at every stage of the employee journey.


HRTechChat: How Yutaka Takagi and isolved Are Solving Hiring & Retention Challenges in QSRs

In this episode of GTM Innovators, Kyle James sits down with Mike Lemire of Harmonic Leadership—musician turned customer success executive—for a wide-ranging conversation on the evolving role of CS in go-to-market strategy. From his early days at Blue Note Records and Yahoo to leadership roles at HubSpot, Toast, and Overjet, Mike shares his unique journey and what it taught him about empathy, value delivery, and scalable success. Tune in as we explore how AI, automation, and persona-driven engagement are shaping modern CS teams—and why human connection still reigns supreme in a digital-first world.

GTM Innovators: Empathy at Scale - Mike Lemire on Customer Success in a Digital World

As workforce expectations evolve and hiring challenges mount, the need for seamless, scalable recruitment strategies has never been more critical—especially in industries where speed and simplicity make or break business outcomes.

In this episode of #HRTechChat, 3Sixty Insights’ Dylan Teggart sits down with Heidi Barnett, former CEO of ApplicantPro and now President of isolved Talent Acquisition to discuss the recent merger between the two companies—and what it means for the future of talent acquisition.

Heidi brings her marketing-first mindset to HR, unpacking how ApplicantPro’s streamlined, high-conversion applicant tracking capabilities are now being scaled through isolved’s expansive HCM platform. Together, they explore the rising pressures on HR teams in SMB and mid-market companies, the realities of modern recruitment in high-turnover sectors like restaurants and healthcare, and the critical role AI and automation play in supporting overworked managers.

From applicant matching and video screening to managed recruitment services and mobile-first candidate engagement, Heidi explains how isolved and ApplicantPro are combining forces to help businesses move faster, hire smarter, and reduce operational friction—without sacrificing human connection.

What makes recruiting harder than ever in today’s labor market? How can AI actually restore humanity in the hiring process? And how can HR tech providers meet the needs of growing businesses across a fragmented talent landscape?

Tune in as Heidi shares practical insights on speed-to-hire, employee retention, and why the future of recruiting is both tech-driven and deeply human.

#HRTechChat: Heidi Barnett on ApplicantPro’s Evolution and Integration with isolved

As organizations face growing complexity and rapid change, the need for simple, integrated HR solutions is more urgent than ever—especially in industries where high attrition and operational efficiency collide.

In this episode of #HRTechChat, 3Sixty Insights’ Dylan Teggart sits down with Ahmad Noordin, VP of HR Technology at a leading U.S. property management company, to explore how HR and IT can partner to drive better employee experiences without overcomplicating processes.

Ahmad shares how his background in both technology and HR uniquely positions him to bridge the gap between functional needs and technical capabilities. Together, they discuss the growing shift toward simplification in HR tech, the role of no-code and low-code platforms, and why ease of use has become a competitive advantage in workforce technology.

From selecting practical solutions and balancing vendor partnerships to embracing AI as a wrapper for fragmented systems, Ahmad unpacks how organizations can reduce friction, improve usability, and deliver faster outcomes for managers and employees alike.

How can HR and IT avoid working in silos? Why is simplification the new sophistication? And where does AI fit into the evolving digital employee experience?

Tune in as Ahmad offers clear, actionable insights on uniting people and technology in pursuit of seamless, human-centered HR.

#HRTechChat: Ahmad Noordin on HR-IT Collaboration and Simplifying Employee Tech

In this episode of GTM Innovators, host Kyle James sits down with John Baldino, President of Humareso and co-host of the But First Coffee Podcast, for a candid conversation on the future of AI in the workplace. This discussion explores how organizations must balance innovation with responsibility when adopting AI technologies. John shares his insights on building trust, maintaining ethical standards, and preserving the human element as AI continues to reshape the way we work. From recruitment to performance management, this episode offers practical advice for leaders navigating the rapidly evolving landscape of technology and talent.

GTM Innovators: Vetting the Future with John Baldino - Trust, AI, and the Human Touch

Small businesses face growing complexity in HR, payroll, and benefits—but too often, leaders carry the burden alone. In this episode of #HRTechChat, Dylan Teggart talks with Meredith Reilly, Chief Sales Officer at isolved, about why it’s time to stop going solo.

Meredith shares how modern HR demands strategic partnerships—not just tools—and how activating an “advisory village” can help leaders scale smarter. From tech fluency to cultural alignment, they break down what today’s HR advisors must bring to the table.

If you’re still treating vendors as service providers, you’re missing the point.

Tune in to learn how synergy, not solo effort, drives results.

Meredith Reilly on Building Your Advisory Village and Scaling HR Strategically

AI is changing the game—but not in the way you think. In this episode of #HRTechChat, we’re sharing a special swapcast from the PeopleTech podcast hosted by Mark Feffer, featuring Samrat Krishna of Darwinbox.
Samrat unpacks how AI agents are killing the “toggle tax” and rethinking enterprise software altogether. Instead of juggling dozens of systems and interfaces, agents now act on your behalf—fetching info, taking action, and streamlining workflows across platforms.
They dig into the mechanics of MCP (Modular Component Protocol), how Darwinbox is building for agent-first environments, and what HR leaders should automate today to unlock strategic headspace tomorrow.
If you think AI is about replacing people, you’re asking the wrong question.
Tune in to learn how to shift from assistance to agency—and why that shift changes everything.


#HRTechChat: Darwinbox’s Samrat Krishna on Killing the Toggle Tax and Unleashing AI Agents at Work

In this episode of #HRTechChat, Dylan Teggart sits down with Heike Wiesner, Global Sales Growth Director HCM, and Alastair Pride, Managing Principal Consultant, of Unit4 to explore the evolving role of payroll as a strategic business driver.
They discuss how cloud migration, integrated ERP systems, and innovations like Unit4’s Payroll Navigator are transforming payroll from a back-office function into a core asset for workforce planning, compliance, and employee trust. From real-time visibility to faster, smarter deployments, Heike and Alastair share how Unit4 is helping organizations simplify complexity, boost efficiency, and adapt to shifting workforce demands.
If you think payroll is just about getting people paid, it’s time to think bigger.


#HRTechChat: Heike Wiesner and Alastair Pride on Payroll Trends and Innovation at Unit4

The buying cycle for enterprise software and technology shouldn't be a power struggle between departments. 3Sixty Insights is a research, advisory, and consulting firm providing deep understanding of how to bridge the gap in perception and priorities between stakeholders. Through our research, we unearth strategic approaches for streamlining the decision-making process, successfully managing solutions, and maximizing value from business software and technology investments.

3Sixty Insights Inc.

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