Brandon Hall Group Chief Strategy Officer and Principal Officer Michael Rochelle, Senior Vice President and Principal Analyst Claude Werder and I recently presented “How to Thrive in 2024 with GenAI, Talent Retention and more” to share our insights and predictions and what’s really on the mind of business leaders:

HCM leaders, buckle up! The future of work is hurtling toward us, fueled by AI, reshaping talent management and demanding a new breed of leadership. This blog dives into the key takeaways from a recent roundtable discussion with industry experts, exploring the trends that will define our HR landscape.

AI: The Revolution in Our Midst

The discussion kicked off with a clear message: AI is not just a buzzword; it’s a revolution waiting to happen. While organizations are still figuring out how to harness its power, one thing is certain — it will fundamentally change the way we do business. And there’s a crucial role for HR to play: We need to take the lead in shaping how AI is used, ensuring it empowers — not replaces — our workforce.

The Future of Work: Human-Centric and Tech-Enabled

Employee experience is taking center stage. Tools that empower frontline workers, not overwhelm them, will be key. Think intuitive interfaces, voice-powered assistants and data-driven insights that make their jobs easier. And look out for the return of apprenticeships, reimagined for the digital age and the rise of the gig economy, offering flexibility and diverse career paths.

Leadership Development: Learning is the New Normal

In this ever-evolving landscape, learning is no longer a luxury, it’s a job requirement. Leaders need to be comfortable navigating the human-digital divide, effectively communicating across cultures and languages. Immersive experiences, like VR and AR simulations, will become essential for practicing critical skills and reverse mentoring, where junior colleagues teach senior leaders, unlocking fresh perspectives.

Talent Management: From Onboarding to Lifelong Development

Career development and succession planning are moving to the top of the agenda. Onboarding is expanding its scope, going beyond paperwork to include cultural integration and mentorship. Skills intelligence, the ability to identify and nurture talent within your organization, will be a key differentiator.

Learning & Development: Upskilling with AI in Mind

Upskilling and reskilling are no longer optional. To make them truly effective, we need skills intelligence, powered by AI, to personalize learning journeys and identify emerging skill gaps. Get ready for learning developers to embrace AI engineering, building the tools that power future-proof learning experiences.

Core HR Functions: Wellbeing and the Rise of HR/IT Convergence

Investing in employee wellbeing is no longer just a nice-to-have, it’s a strategic differentiator. Companies that prioritize mental and physical health will attract and retain top talent. And keep an eye on the convergence of HR and IT, as data and technology become increasingly intertwined in core HR functions like time and attendance management.

DEI: From Compliance to Leveraging Diversity

Finally, the discussion shifted focus from compliance-driven DEI initiatives to leveraging diverse perspectives as a competitive advantage. Ally networks, where employees can connect and support each other across differences, will accelerate progress towards a truly inclusive workplace.

The message is clear: The future of HR is about being human-centric in a tech-driven world. We need to embrace AI, nurture a culture of continuous learning and prioritize the well-being and development of our people. By doing so, we can not only navigate the coming changes but thrive in the revolution to come.

To learn more about how GenAI and HCM are coming together to improve everything from learning to talent retention, register for the Brandon Hall Group Human Capital Management Excellence Conference, Feb. 13-15, at the Hilton in West Palm Beach, Fla. We’ll have plenty of panelists who will discuss how HR must be future-ready, especially when it comes to breaking technology like generative AI.

So, HCM leaders, are you ready to take the leap? Let’s shape the future of work, together.

P.S. Don’t forget to share your thoughts and predictions in the comments below!

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The most popular use cases for AI, according to Brandon Hall Group research, involve accelerating learning content development and enhancing and scaling training activities.

Amplifire, a leading adaptive learning platform, is way ahead of the curve when it comes to leveraging AI to accelerate and enhance learning content.

Amplifire integrated large language model (LLM) AI-powered functionalities — currently in beta — to support instructional design and development teams in crafting educational materials. These authoring “wizards” expedite the process of generating questions, modules and complete courses. AI acts as a collaborative assistant for content developers, streamlining the course material development process. The AI assistant optimizes authors’ time, so they spend less time on content ideation and more time on content elevation.

The authoring wizard democratizes high-quality content development for all organizations, especially those with resource constraints. Course development time has significantly decreased following the introduction of AI in the tool.

“We’ve taken content creation to new heights, elevating the content development to deliver an exceptional experience,” said Amplifire Chief Product Officer Nick Hjort.

The authoring wizard takes into account learning objectives, source material, known misinformation and uses tailored prompts built with cognitive science and Amplifire best practices to create course shells in a matter of minutes. This wizard will take just a few clicks to create a draft of didactic learning, questions with varying difficulty levels, plausible answer choices, shadow questions and feedback.

“The incorporation of AI is a game-changer, ushering in a more autonomous, intuitive and expedient course creation process, resulting in the delivery of top-tier educational resources,” Hjort said.

The story of Amplifire’s evolution is compelling. You can get the full story in this solution provider profile and product analysis by Brandon Hall Group. Here is a quick preview:

Amplifire spent a decade building a brain science-driven adaptive learning solution that addressed one specific problem — a gigantic knowledge distribution crisis in healthcare that was killing an estimated 200-300 people per day, according to medical experts.

Now, after a recapitalization, a unique alliance of healthcare systems to assist with learning content development, and the ability to leverage AI to accelerate production, Amplifire — a two-time Gold Award winner in the Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Awards® in 2022 — is ready to expand into several different industries.

Many industries have a problem called CHM, which stands for confidently held misinformation. This involves professionals believing they know how to do something or know how to solve a problem, but they have been taught the wrong way or about the wrong approach. Therefore, problems don’t get solved or get solved incorrectly. In healthcare, CHM is deadly.

Amplifire’s advanced brain science delivery platform has trained or retrained thousands of doctors and nurses. This system reduces training time by 50-86% along with a reduction in adverse events of 60-79%. Amplifire’s other great innovation, led by CEO and co-founder Bob Burgin, was to build the Amplifire Healthcare Alliance, a collaboration of hospital systems dedicated to improving patient care and reducing incidents of avoidable harm by reducing CHM.

Burgin and his team are working to replicate this model for other industries. This model of pairing AI-driven content production with an industry alliance to provide expertise and share revenue is disruptive and has the potential to revolutionize critical training in all major industries.

Amplifire is a unicorn in the learning space whose story has flown under the radar. But we at Brandon Hall Group believe they are ready to take off in a big way. Organizations that want to develop future-ready employees should pay close attention. Read more about Amplifire here.

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It’s difficult to get near-unanimous agreement about anything these days. The importance of employee experience (EX) in driving talent retention and business results is a notable exception.

96% of organizations said EX is important in realizing business objectives and success, according to the Brandon Hall Group study, How HR Can Collaborate on Employee Experience. And 76% of respondents overall said EX is critical.

But there is a catch. HR organizations sometimes look at EX through a different lens than employees, particularly frontline employees and deskless workers who often don’t have the same access to information and digital tools available to them as traditional office workers.

While 56% of organizations surveyed by Brandon Hall Group said they invested in employee training to improve EX and more than 40% cited improved leadership development, wellness, recognition and onboarding programs, only 26% said they improved digital workplace tools to address work efficiency.

That is a sizable gap that deserves attention. Digital workplace technologies are not always top of mind for HR leaders as a driver of employee experience, and only 47% of HR organizations surveyed said there is a strong level of collaboration between HR and IT on digital tools aimed at improving employee experience.

That’s why Brandon Hall Group and Kyndryl, a leading provider of digital workplace services, collaborated on the webinar, Better Together: HR and IT Collaborating to Improve Employee Experience, which is now available for on-demand viewing.

Dennis Perpetua, Kyndryl Vice President and Global Chief Technology Officer for Digital Workplace Services, joined me on that webinar.

“In my experience, the best collaboration generates the best outcomes,” Perpetua told me. “When you are trying to optimize something — like digital tools to help employees — bringing more points of view to the table is critical. When you look at Brandon Hall Group surveys that say 41% of employees don’t feel like they have the optimal tools to do their job, that’s a situation where IT should be at the table collaborating with HR on that.”

It’s important that HR and IT align on the overall goals for employee experience and how technology can support those goals. HR understands employee needs and the human aspects of work. IT understands available technologies and implementation considerations. Collaborating allows each group to lend their expertise.

“You can’t expect IT to understand everything employees go through and you can’t expect HR to be experts on 5G networks, generative AI, Microsoft Copilot and all these different tools that are available. But if you bring the two of us together regularly, that cross-domain collaboration ensures that we can actually optimize the employee experience,” Perpetua said.

It’s not that HR and IT do not work together now. They do. The most common types of collaboration, according to our research is:

• Establishing consistent touchpoints between HR and IT to align on EX goals and strategy.
• Partnering with IT to streamline and modernize HR systems and processes to remove administrative headaches for employees.

What is less common — but would make a big difference in improving outcomes, Perpetua believes — are:

• Cross-functional HR-IT teams working together to manage major EX initiatives from design through change management.
• Working together to pilot changes in technology before full implementation.

Brandon Hall Group’s research also showed that most CHROs — or the executives within HR who are responsible for HR technology — are not often deeply involved in technology decisions impacting employee experience. This means HR is in the position of being largely reactive to technology situations rather than advocating for what workers really need.

The data shows that only 15% of HR executives are deeply involved in EX technology decisions, while 24% of organizations have little or no involvement.

Perpetua said digital tools are critical across the employee lifecycle. “The entire technology experience lays the foundation for how employees generally look at how they are part of corporate culture and how they’re valued, how they’re being enabled to do their jobs,” he said.

Deanna Jones, CHRO of the energy technology company Baker Hughes, concurs. “The employee experience around technology is important and it’s important that everyone who works for us knows it is important to us. Tech needs to be easy, speedy, and useful with a great human interface.”

While HR and IT sometimes appear to be talking different languages — for example, connection and belonging for HR compared to data and security for IT — their missions are actually very similar.

HR, for example, knows that the onboarding experience can make or break the employer-employee relationship. The technology that enables employees to complete their employment paperwork, register for benefits, communicate technology preferences, obtain their employee ID,  and connect with mentors or onboarding buddies, can define the quality of the experience.

It only makes sense that HR and IT work closely together to ensure that the technology is closely matched to the onboarding objectives. “The employee onboarding process is a ripe issue for everybody,” Perpetua said. “There’s not a single customer I have ever spoken to that has said, ‘I’m not interested in that.’”

Another critical area is access to technology applications and resources. At its core, access to technology is an inclusion issue. Perpetua said HR and IT must be aligned on the criteria for access.

“How is access actually structured? Is it by persona? How does access flow into job roles? What level of security is required for different types of employees and technology tools? We have to ensure that we have the right controls around data and that everyone has the right access to tools they need to do their jobs,” he said.

“This is not just procedural. We need to make sure that employees feel as though they have contribution equity into the work products and the outcomes that the company wants. This ranges from the very basic things to having screen readers for how people with certain disabilities are enabled to collaborate and how they can find resources within the company. We need to make sure that the technology access provides equity that is instilled across the organization.”

In the webinar, Perpetua shared customer success stories and I shared data from the EX study, including information on how involved HR is in forging a generative AI strategy and the barriers to maximizing the use of data and analytics to improve employee experience. View it — and get the slides from the webinar as well — here. If you’d like to talk to a Kyndryl Digital Workplace Expert you can schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation today.

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Fresh off a recent call, I will share insights from my discussion with Kevin Haehnlein, head of product marketing, from Haiilo, a leading provider of employee experience platforms. We explored how Haiilo brings together internal communications and communities, and impacts measurement capabilities.

Kevin demonstrated the Haiilo platform and shared strategies for growth, particularly expanding in the US market. My takeaways highlight opportunities for Haiilo to strengthen its value proposition as the centralized hub for all employee needs.

Haiilo was formed through mergers of companies focused on intranets, advocacy and surveys. Kevin showcased the platform’s capabilities, including top-down communications, community building and analytics. With a client roster including Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Telekom and Coca-Cola, Haiilo has a strong reputation serving large enterprises. Its goal is to achieve a 50/50 revenue split between Europe and North America.

How Haiilo Works

Haiilo is a cloud-based platform that is easy to use and can be accessed from any device. Employees can use Haiilo to:

• Share news and updates from the company,
• Connect with colleagues in other departments,
• Get involved in company events and activities, and
• Access company resources.

Benefits of Haiilo for Big Companies

Haiilo can provide a number of benefits to big companies, including:

• Increased employee engagement,
• Improved communication and collaboration,
• Stronger company culture, and
• Increased productivity.

Here are some specific examples of how Haiilo can be used to improve employee engagement:

• Haiilo can be used to send targeted messages to employees based on their interests and location.
• Haiilo can be used to create employee-generated content, such as videos and photos.
• Haiilo can be used to gamify employee engagement, such as by awarding points for completing tasks.

Haiilo can also be used to improve communication and collaboration. It can be used to:

• Create private groups for teams or departments,
• Share files and documents, and
• Schedule meetings and events.

We discussed how Haiilo differentiates from knowledge management and collaboration point solutions. While integrating with these tools, Haiilo’s goal is to become the single destination where employees learn, connect and have their voices heard. This centralized approach streamlines the employee experience compared to using disjointed best-of-breed products for each function.

Opportunity for Expanded Value Proposition

Haiilo could strengthen its message by embracing a broader vision as the centralized hub for the entire employee lifecycle. This means integrating capabilities like learning, surveys, feedback and more. Analytics is another area of interest but underutilized — Haiilo can prove its platform drives business impact by measuring outcomes like productivity, engagement and retention over competitors.

Platform Demonstration and Client Successes

Kevin provided a live demo of Haiilo’s customizable and mobile-friendly interface. Key capabilities showcased included targeted communications, community features, and cross-channel publishing. He also highlighted success stories such as improving trainee retention rates at L’Oreal and generating 50% of web traffic organically for Salesforce through advocacy. These real-world impacts demonstrate Haiilo’s value.

Haiilo has built a strong foundation but can expand its vision to fully own the employee experience category. With enhanced messaging around integrated capabilities and proven business impact, it is well-positioned to become the go-to platform in a market increasingly demanding a centralized solution. Events, advisory services and demand generation can further support its growth goals.

By strengthening its value proposition as a single source of truth, Haiilo can better compete against potential moves by large vendors into this space.

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Boca Raton, Florida — Dec. 8, 2023

Brandon Hall Group, a pioneer in recognizing excellence in the Learning, Talent and Business industries, proudly announced the winners of the Excellence in Technology Awards during a live broadcast.

The esteemed event, often referred to as the “Academy Awards” by Learning, Talent, and Business Executives, took place on Dec. 7, 2023, celebrating three decades of honoring organizations at the forefront of technology innovation.

The complete list of winners can be found on the official awards website: excellenceawards.brandonhall.com/winners/.

Since its inception in 1993, the Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards® have established themselves as the most prestigious awards program in the industry. The program recognizes organizations worldwide, spanning small, medium, large and global enterprises, government entities, not-for-profits and associations. Entries focus on programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems and tools that have demonstrated measurable results.

“In our 30th year, the Excellence in Technology Awards continue to showcase the best innovations in Learning, Talent Management, Talent Acquisition, HR, Workforce Management and Sales Enablement technologies. We are proud to receive applications from a diverse range of organizations globally, reflecting the ever-evolving landscape of technology solutions,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Operating Officer Rachel Cooke, leader of the Excellence Awards® program.

Winners of the Excellence in Technology Awards are also invited to attend the HCM Excellence Conference and be recognized on stage at the Awards Gala on Feb. 14, 2024. This unique opportunity provides a platform for winners to share insights and network with industry leaders, further enhancing the impact of their achievements.

“Our awards program is distinguished by the thorough evaluation process led by industry experts. Judges meticulously score each entry and our Executive Leadership team at Brandon Hall Group reviews and validates the judging and scoring. The level of the award is solely determined by the number of points, ensuring a fair and unbiased recognition of excellence in technology,” said Brandon Hall Group Chief Executive Officer Mike Cooke.

The Excellence in Technology Awards follows a point-based system, where Gold, Silver and Bronze distinctions are awarded based on the score range. The point total directly determines the award level, resulting in a diverse distribution of Golds, Silvers and Bronzes across various categories. Some categories may see multiple winners in each tier, while others may showcase the exceptional performance of only a select few.

This year’s top winning organizations include Accenture, Adobe, Aliaxis, Allianz, Centum Learning, Chrysalis, Docebo, EI Powered by MPS, Engagedly, HealthStream, HiBob, IMD, Intuition, LearnUpon, Litmos, LRN, MetLife, NIIT, NovoEd, NTT Data, Paycor, Realizeit, SHIFT, Skillable, The Regis Company, Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance, Tenneo and Zalvadora.

Brandon Hall Group congratulates all the winners and extends appreciation to the participants for their commitment to advancing technology in the industry.

For more information about the Excellence in Technology Awards and other Brandon Hall Group programs, please visit www.brandonhall.com/.

About Brandon Hall Group:

Brandon Hall Group is the only professional development company that offers data, research, insights and certification to Learning and Talent executives and organizations. The best minds in Human Capital Management (HCM) choose Brandon Hall Group to help them create future-proof employee development plans for the new era.

For over 30 years, we have empowered, recognized and certified excellence in organizations around the world, influencing the development of over 10 million employees and executives. Our HCM Excellence Awards® program was the first to recognize organizations for Learning and Talent and is the gold standard, known as the “Academy Awards of Human Capital Management.”

The awards recognize the best organizations that have successfully developed and deployed programs, strategies, modalities, processes, systems and tools that have achieved measurable results. We are honored to receive applications from organizations around the world ranging from small, medium, large and global enterprises, to government, not-for-profits and associations.

To learn more, please visit www.brandonhall.com.

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Virtual reality (VR) has revolutionized the way employees learn and develop new skills. By creating a totally immersive environment, VR training technology can provide employees with a more effective and interactive learning experience than traditional methods of instruction. With its ability to replicate real-world scenarios, VR training can help organizations save time and resources while providing a more comprehensive learning experience for their employees.

The Benefits of VR Training Technology

VR training can provide an immersive learning environment for employees, allowing them to practice real-life scenarios in a safe and controlled setting. It supports personalized and adaptive learning by offering choices, feedback and guidance based on their preferences, performance and progress. VR also has the capability to create a sense of presence and engagement with learners that traditional methods lack. This helps foster better retention of content as learners are completely immersed in the experience, activating multiple senses and different regions of the brain.

Brandon Hall Group’s 2023 Learning and Development Benchmarking Study reveals that only 6% of responding organizations are currently using VR tools in their training. In contrast, respondents to Brandon Hall Group’s Creating and Delivering Highly Engaging Learning for the Hybrid Workforce Study indicate that companies are exploring virtual modalities — 52% were looking at virtual role-plays while 25% were looking at virtual reality as viable options for enhancing their employee training programs.

The gap between these data points is startling and indicates there’s still much room for improvement when it comes to leveraging virtual reality in the workplace. Since VR training can be tailored to each learner’s needs, it makes the learning process more personalized, efficient and effective.

One often-overlooked benefit to leveraging VR experiences has to do with fostering collaboration and communication. This can happen as learners interact with peers, instructors and even virtual characters regardless of their physical location. As work continues to become increasingly globalized, VR environments create a sense of common space for dispersed teams.

Making the Business Case for VR Training

Secure support from key stakeholders in the business by showcasing anticipated performance improvements, realized cost savings over time and organizational productivity improvement. When learning leaders highlight these key components, the business can make informed decisions that lead to transformative and effective learning and development experiences for employees.

Performance improvements resulting from VR training happen because learners can apply new skills in a risk-free environment, which accelerates their improved performance on the job. VR training presents cost-saving opportunities from eliminating expenses for travel and external trainers as well as reducing overall administrative costs. Additional cost savings occur because employees can revisit trainings whenever they need to without the company having to make any additional investment.

What to Look for When Choosing a VR Training Solution

When choosing a virtual reality training solution, there are several important criteria to consider.

• The solution should be compatible with existing hardware and software so that it can be seamlessly integrated into the organization’s existing technology infrastructure.
• Visuals and sound should be realistic enough to create an immersive learning environment for employees.
• Performance should be reliable with minimal technical issues for users to deal with.
• The data collected by the platform should be able to be tracked, analyzed and used to further improve the system.
• The user experience should be intuitive and easy to use for employees of all levels of expertise.
• Along with that idea, ensure there is adequate training provided to increase employee’s confidence in using the technology.

By taking these criteria into account when selecting a VR training solution, organizations can ensure they are making an informed decision about which one best suits their needs. It’s also important to bear in mind that a good VR training platform provider will keep up-to date on trends and technologies available in virtual reality training solutions to provide users with the most current tools and experiences. With this approach, organizations can maximize their investment in virtual reality training while ensuring that their employees have access to a cutting-edge learning platform.

How to Implement VR Training in Your Organization

Virtual reality training offers organizations a unique opportunity to create an immersive learning environment for employees. To ensure successful implementation of VR training, organizations should take the following steps:

1. Identify the areas of your organization that could benefit from virtual reality training. Consider which departments need to be trained on specific skills or concepts that can be taught more effectively in a VR environment. This will help you decide which type of hardware and software is necessary to achieve your goals.
2. Assess the current capabilities and resources of your organization regarding VR technology. Consider what kind of hardware and software is available, as well as any other needs such as content development or user experience design required for successful implementation of VR training.
3. Decide on the right hardware, software and user experience for your organization’s needs. Think about how users will interact with the system, including their comfort level with using headsets and other technologies, as well as how they’ll navigate through the virtual world created by the system. Also consider factors like resolution quality, latency issues and physical disconnection from reality when choosing equipment for your system.
4. Choose a suitable VR training platform provider based on your goals and budget considerations. Be sure to look at features such as data security measures, privacy options, scalability options, cost-effectiveness, customer service support levels and compatibility with existing systems when deciding — all of these factors should play into your choice of provider for optimal results from VR training programs.
5. Develop a strategy to measure the effectiveness of your virtual reality training programs once they are up and running to identify where improvements need to be made or if additional resources are needed for success in this area. Track metrics like completion rates along with feedback from trainees to determine if the program is engaging users or if changes need to be made to improve their experience and ultimately foster better retention rates among learners.

By taking these steps before implementing virtual reality into their training programs, organizations can ensure that they are leveraging this technology in an effective way that provides a high-quality learning experience for employees while also achieving their desired outcomes.

Real-World Examples of Virtual Reality in Learning

Virtual reality is becoming increasingly popular for real-world training purposes across a variety of industries.

• Learning that has high complexity: Virtual Reality (VR) is an excellent tool for training in complex scenarios that are difficult to replicate in the real world. For instance, VR can be used to train astronauts, saving costs and overcoming challenges associated with real-world training.
• Preserving institutional knowledge: VR enables the capture and transfer of institutional knowledge by preserving the expertise of retiring employees. Companies can use VR to retain valuable knowledge and even educate customers on effective product usage.
• Healthcare: VR works well in use cases of training for high risk scenarios in the healthcare industry, where learners can be exposed to potentially dangerous situations. For example, doctors can practice complex surgeries in VR without putting patients at risk.
• Manufacturing and automotive: Given the complexity of modern manufacturing environments, even minor errors in worker judgment can have severe consequences, such as brand damage and financial losses. VR can train factory workers, automotive assembly-line workers and component installers, equipping them with industry best practices.
• Aviation: VR is proving to be a valuable training aid in the aviation industry due to the high stakes involved in air travel. Pilots can practice flying in realistic flight simulations, honing their skills in lifelike situations. Service staff, both on-ground and in-flight, can also learn and practice in VR-simulated high-stress, customer-centric scenarios.
• Human skills training: VR is also effective for developing soft skills by simulating real-life scenarios with facial expressions and body language. Employees can practice and enhance skills like active listening, conflict resolution and negotiation in a safe and realistic virtual environment. VR-based soft skills training can foster enhanced empathy among employees by exposing them to immersive scenarios that would otherwise be inaccessible.
• Safety training: Workplace accidents can result in loss of life and damage to reputation. VR provides a safe training environment for professionals like utility workers to acquire the necessary skills to prevent accidents and improve safety records.

Final Thoughts

VR can revolutionize learning and training, especially in today’s AI/Machine Learning era. Integrating AI with VR enhances content customization and the delivery of personalized experiences. The increasing use of virtual reality in training, promises highly enabled workplaces, improved learning and innovative productivity strategies. A future of enhanced employee experiences awaits.

For even more insight into leveraging AI in training, visit EI Powered by MPS.

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The way companies match candidates to jobs is long overdue for a revolution. For decades, hiring has relied primarily on resumes, interviews and gut feelings to make important people decisions. But as the world of work rapidly evolves, this approach is no longer sufficient.

Brandon Hall Group Chief Strategy Officer and Principal Analyst Michael Rochelle and I had a thorough analyst briefing with Caitlin McGregor, Plum’s Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, and Michelle Meehan, VP of Marketing at Plum, the innovative Canadian start-up paving the way in next-generation psychometric assessment. Founded by experienced entrepreneurs who are passionate about helping employers make informed decisions about job candidates, Plum is leveraging recent technological advancements to create an efficient, comprehensive solution that takes candidate selection into the future.

“I created Plum to democratize access to psychometric data so that no one would have to rely on luck for someone to realize their superpower,” McGregor states on the company’s website. “Everyone deserves the same opportunity to do great things, and that’s exactly what Plum gives them.”

Through modern machine learning algorithms, Plum helps employers provide detailed data-driven insights into each potential hire, with key indicators including cognitive abilities, personality attributes and technical skills — allowing companies to find their ideal match faster than ever before.

Plum then uses this data to power its matching algorithms. Through an automated 8-minute job analysis, the platform understands the behavioral indicators required for success in any given role. It can then evaluate millions of profiles to identify top matches between people and opportunities.

Plum measures personality, problem-solving skills and social intelligence in every applicant with one 25-minute online assessment, allowing organizations to quantify job fit by comparing individual profiles against the needs of the job.

Early adopters like Manulife, Citibank and Whirlpool are already seeing significant benefits. Plum consistently delivers a 90% quality-of-hire rating from managers and increases retention by up to 77%. HR shouldn’t be a cost center — and Plum can prove it.

Plum also improves diversity hiring by screening overlooked candidates. Plum Talents encapsulate the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that drive candidates. These Talents help uncover what drives — and drains — them and where they’ll find the most success in their careers. Plum realizes that talents live on a spectrum and being high or low in a talent is not a measure of good versus bad. Instead, Plum Talents surface what innate behaviors energize you and which ones deplete you. Understanding the difference means you can advocate for your needs at work and focus on growth over survival.

Perhaps most impressively, Plum has managed to achieve this at scale. Where traditional assessments can take over 100 hours per role, Plum streamlines the process while maintaining a predictive accuracy that is 4x better than resume screening alone. That’s why it’s used in 144 countries and across 20 languages.

As the future of work brings more change and uncertainty, having the right talent in place will be critical for business success. Plum is paving the way for a new paradigm — one where companies can truly understand and optimize their human capital. It’s a revolution that can’t come soon enough.

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The recent events at OpenAI, culminating in the firing and subsequent reinstatement of CEO Sam Altman, have sent shockwaves through the AI community and beyond. While the specific reasons for Altman’s initial dismissal remain unclear, the episode has served as a stark reminder of the challenges and complexities of leadership, particularly in the dynamic and rapidly evolving world of AI.

The Power of Transparency and Communication

At the heart of the OpenAI saga lies a critical lesson in transparency and communication. The board’s abrupt decision to fire Altman without consulting with employees or the broader AI community created a climate of fear, uncertainty, and distrust. This lack of transparency eroded confidence in the company’s leadership and decision-making processes.

Effective leadership hinges on the ability to communicate openly, honestly, and proactively. When decisions are made without proper consultation or explanation, it breeds suspicion and undermines the ability to foster a cohesive and motivated workforce.

The lack of agreement on key behaviors valued in a great leader is a prescription for disaster for employers who need leaders to drive business outcomes. However, most organizations report that they lack widespread agreement on the critical attributes and competencies of great leaders and how to develop them, according to the Brandon Hall Group study, Great Leaders: How Do We Develop More?

The Importance of Cultural Alignment

The OpenAI saga also highlights the significance of cultural alignment between leaders and their organizations. A strong company culture is built on shared values, mutual respect, and a sense of shared purpose. When leaders’ actions and decisions deviate from these core principles, it creates dissonance and disrupts the delicate balance of a company’s culture.

In the case of OpenAI, the board’s actions appeared to contradict the company’s stated values of transparency, collaboration, and responsible AI development. This disconnect between leadership and culture contributed to the turmoil that ensued.

Culture is often hard to define, but it is one thing that makes a company an employer of choice. It also has a huge impact on how things get done. No one-size-fits-all culture works because each industry, company and location have unique values. Using broad definitions, organizations are spread across four basic culture types — Collaborative, Creating, Controlling or Competing.

Percentages for each culture type are based on averages of all Brandon Hall Group studies conducted over the past five years, according to our paper, Employee Engagement: A Framework for Success. About 8% of organizations indicated their cultures did not fit any of the definitions. Culture is a key ingredient in your approach to employee engagement and should be reflected in each key process.

The Path Forward: Embracing Transparency, Fostering Trust

Moving forward, OpenAI must prioritize transparency and trust-building measures to restore confidence and unity within the organization. This includes:

• Open and transparent communication: Leaders should proactively communicate decisions, providing clear explanations and rationale for their actions.
• Employee engagement and feedback: Actively seek employee input and feedback to ensure that decisions align with the company’s values and the aspirations of its workforce.
• Reinforcement of shared values: Regularly emphasize and reinforce the company’s core values, ensuring that they are reflected in decision-making and everyday actions.

OpenAI must be intentional about building and maintaining a collaborative and supportive culture. This single element consistently ranks highest among attributes that contribute to a positive employee experience, according to the Brandon Hall Group study, Culture Eats Strategy: Is Your Employee Experience What You Intended?

Ensuring a culture remains collaborative and supportive requires intention on the part of all involved. It begins with clearly defining organizational expectations around a collaborative work environment — what it looks like in the specific context of your company and how it plays out in daily work. Once you set those expectations, holding leaders accountable to behave in alignment to those expectations becomes critical.

The future of OpenAI hinges on its ability to learn from these recent events and emerge stronger, wiser, and more united. By embracing transparency, fostering trust, and aligning leadership with its core values, OpenAI can navigate the challenges ahead and continue to make meaningful contributions to the field of AI.

The Sam Altman saga serves as a valuable case study in leadership, communication, and culture. OpenAI has an opportunity to transform this crisis into a catalyst for positive change, demonstrating how effective leadership can navigate turbulent times and emerge stronger, more resilient, and better equipped to fulfill its mission.

The post Navigating Leadership Turbulence: Lessons from</ br>the Sam Altman Saga at OpenAI appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.

Topping off a year of high-powered moves that significantly strengthened its position among the top HCM technology brands, UKG announced several partnerships and product enhancements at its annual customer conference, UKG Aspire, Nov. 6-9 in Las Vegas.

UKG, since its formation in 2020 through the merger of Ultimate Software and Kronos, has stood out as a unique tech company that infuses its values of belonging, equity and impact into its technology offerings.

CEO Chris Todd and his team are hyper-focused on delivering HCM and workforce management technologies that empower culture transformation in organizations. As the company’s 2024 fiscal year gets underway, UKG made it clear that the bold innovations of 2023 — which included the launch of UKG One View, a unique multi-country payroll solution — would continue.

UKG announced:

• A collaboration with PayPal that will empower millions of people to directly deposit all or some of their pay each pay period into a PayPal Balance account and use the funds within the popular digital wallet. Not only can employees deposit all or a portion of their paycheck into their PayPal Balance account, but PayPal will, in some circumstances, make anticipated payroll funds available up to two days ahead of time, creating another avenue for people to have faster access to their earned wages.
• A strategic partnership with Eightfold AI, a leader in AI-powered talent intelligence, to help companies transform high-volume hiring by more effectively attracting and engaging high-performing, diverse talent. Eightfold AI’s market-leading Talent Intelligence Platform delivers patented, deep-learning AI to help organizations use a skills-based approach to recruitment. Utilizing the open and extensible framework provided by the UKG FleX platform, Eightfold AI will tightly integrate with the UKG Pro Suite to allow customers to be more intentional and purposeful when hiring, especially at scale.
• UKG Bryte, an AI-powered assistant that uses generative AI (GenAI) to help guide employees, people managers and HR leaders by shining a light on important insights that support great workplace experiences. UKG customers received an exclusive first look at the intuitive experience provided by UKG Bryte at Aspire.
• The launch of the UKG Pro Benefits Hub, which makes it easier for employees to understand the full scope of their benefits options. The hub uses a side-by-side plan comparison tool that helps employees select the best plan possible, whether based on need, budget, or both.
• The expansion of its longstanding strategic collaboration with Microsoft that will utilize the UKG FleX and Microsoft Power Platform to make it easier for mutual customers to create unique employee experiences specific to their business.

Beyond the partnership and product announcements, UKG leaders shared plans and strategies for product and service improvements with industry analysts at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. Here are selected highlights:

Great Place to Work® Everywhere

Todd was not using hyperbole when he called UKG Great Place to Work® (GPTW) a singular asset that no one can reproduce. Since acquiring it in 2021, UKG has expanded its use. With the launch now of the GPTW Hub, UKG offers customers decades’ worth of data on employee engagement and sentiment to help organizations identify leadership and employee experience strengths and areas for improvement through the lens of their workers. At a time when organizations are struggling to retain top talent and hire and keep frontline workers, the data and insights that the hub can provide can be pivotal.

While the hub is a separate product, data and insights from GPTW are integrated across all of UKG’s many solutions, from large enterprise organizations to smaller organizations with 500 or fewer employees.

The focus on frontline workers is particularly important as they comprise close to 80% of the workforce and have traditionally been underserved. While talent attrition in some areas of the workforce has leveled off, companies large and small struggle to find — and keep — frontline and deskless workers. When companies can benchmark their employee experience practices against data with more than 100 million data points, that creates insights that can be transformational.

AI Innovation

UKG doubled its innovation budget in 2023, and it shows. After having seven patents issued between 2007 and 2023, the company filed 24 AI-related patents in 2023 with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office. Today, the company has more than 2,500 AI models in production.

UKG Bryte, the GenAI guidance system, is built into UKG Pro, the HCM suite for mid-market, enterprise and large enterprise organizations. Its capabilities include high-impact solutions, such as leadership development nudges, frontline worker insights, career opportunities, employee-driven skill development and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) action planning.

Leveraging Bryte and UKG FleX People Fabric, a behavior-focused AI platform, UKG will unveil many new GenAI capabilities in the first half of 2024. UKG executives acknowledge that many companies are still evaluating the pros and cons of GenAI, and a new Brandon Hall Group study shows only 23% of HR professionals in large organizations believe AI will have a positive impact while 33% are uncertain and still evaluating.

But UKG has been focused on AI for years and stressed its commitment to responsible and ethical AI, framed by a three-layer data security and transparency model built on a foundation powered by strategic partner Google’s Large Language Models. It enables UKG to serve customers of any size, in any industry at scale.

Powerful HCM Suites

UKG’s two HCM Suites — UKG Pro and UKG Ready — are the only end-to-end cloud-based platform to serve the entire global market. Both incorporate Great Place to Work in all markets.

UKG Pro

Serving larger and more complex organizations, UKG Pro features strong workforce management vertical solutions for healthcare, manufacturing, retail/hospitality, services and distribution, and the public sector.

In 2023, additions included the launch of the UKG One View global payroll system (see below), a new mobile app, a benefits hub, a strategic workforce planning solution, automated position posting, and SMS messaging and candidate scheduling in the Recruiting hub, and its Pay + WFM bundle for large enterprises, among other enhancements.

Moving forward, the strategic partnership with Eightfold AI talent intelligence improves how organizations can attract and source candidates in UKG Pro Recruiting. Other additions for 2024 include:

• Greater control for employees over how they receive their pay, along with financial wellness tools and education.
• AI-powered skill suggestions to deliver better career possibilities for all workers.
• Personalized pathways to help employees move vertically or horizontally within an organization.
• Actionable recommendations for employees to grow their skills toward the opportunities they want to pursue.
• Enhanced performance reviews through the assistance of UKG Bryte within the Performance and Coaching module.

UKG Ready

UKG is investing heavily in Ready, the suite for smaller organizations in all industries. Previously focused on serving only companies with 200 or fewer employees, Ready now will serve organizations for the under-500-employee market in North America while expanding its footprint abroad.

Improvements in 2023 focused on employee experience and ease of use, simplified benefits and onboarding and, of course, leveraging GPTW. The company added more sales reps, expanded marketing efforts and added more activation and customer success people to better serve the busy SMB market.

A host of enhancements are targeted for 2024, including eight additional languages and Ask Bryte AI, a natural language search engine that will help users get answers and additional resources to do their jobs better.

UKG Labs

Part of UKG’s multi-faceted innovation strategy, UKG Labs is a startup ecosystem and virtual laboratory of early-stage companies from around the world, onboarded in small cohorts.

With the idea of “improving the velocity of market discovery,” as one UKG leader put it, the company works with the start-ups for a minimum of three months to explore niche ideas that could improve HCM offerings. For example, Bountiful is a referral-as-a-service platform for recruiting that automates the often-manual management of existing candidate referral programs. It also enables anyone, anywhere to refer great talent into jobs and get paid for it. Companies use the platform to improve employee participation, hire faster, diversify the talent funnel and maximize the efficiency of the talent team.

Besides supporting the startups, UKG looks everywhere for innovation:

• They listen to customer suggestions and will deliver 60% of top customer ideas to the market in 2024.
• They turn to their employees — U Krewers — to develop ideas in quarterly two-day development sprints.

UKG One View

The multi-country payroll solution, launched earlier in the year after the acquisition of Immedis, a leading global payroll provider, UKG One View firmly establishes UKG as a leading player in global payroll.

UKG’s vision is to transform the global payroll paradigm into a more efficient, technology-enabled multi-country payroll experience. While traditional multi-country payroll systems are complex to manage, lack transparency, have compliance challenges, contain schedule-to-fund gaps and offer a generally poor employee experience, One View provides the payroll flexibility organizations have been searching for and a truly global experience at the same time.

Eventually available to all UKG markets, One View also offers AI-driven payroll reporting and analytics that can shine a light on employee transaction costs and compensation planning, which is incredibly difficult across multiple countries without a single source of truth. The potential impact of UKG One View on employee experience as it evolves and expands is enormous.

Key Takeaways

2023 has been a banner year for UKG and it is in an enviable market position among HCM technology competitors entering 2024, even though the market for growth may be tougher due to economic and geopolitical strife at home and abroad.

With its investment in AI, the acquisition of Immedis and subsequent launch of the UKG One View global payroll platform, UKG’s strategic partnerships (Google Cloud, Eightfold AI, PayPal, Microsoft and others), and infusing the power of Great Place to Work data across all its solutions, CEO Chris Todd and his team have done an exemplary job of forging a unique place for UKG in the crowded and chaotic HCM technology market.

With its UKG Ready, UKG Pro, UKG Pro Pay + WFM, and UKG One View products, UKG serves the entire HCM market, from SMBs to large enterprises, which provides them with an advantage in a potentially tough market against top competitors like Workday, Oracle and SAP that concentrate on the enterprise and large enterprise spaces.

UKG wisely doubled its innovation investment in 2023 and is doing an excellent job addressing all personas of an organization, especially the frontline workers, frontline managers and the emerging non-employee segment of gig workers, temp workers and contractors whom Brandon Hall Group believes will continue to expand as the post-COVID work environment continues to evolve.

UKG has placed its bet on building human-centered HR technology focused on making work better for everyone at a time when there is so much division in the world. They back it up with an employer brand that strongly aligns with its marketing messages. That is a winning combination.

The post UKG Primed for More Innovation,</ br> Market Expansion in 2024 appeared first on BrandonHallGroup.