Earlier this year Ceridian invited the key industry analysts to a two-day briefing, where they shared their roadmap for the coming year. In my last article
“Ceridian did the hard stuff and now get ready for the cool stuff”, we spoke about how Ceridian laid the foundation of its goal to be a leader in compliance issues and was now moving into the area of employee engagement, organizational performance, team development and more. However, CEO David Ossip stressed that Ceridian will continue to be the leader in compliant human capital management.
Last week Ceridian held its annual user conference, ‘INSIGHTS 2015’, in Las Vegas where they shared their latest updates. Everything they promised in March was completed along with some new interesting surprises. Once again Ceridian demonstrated that they were able to continue to execute on time (every time). This is a true testament to the quality of the team that Ceridian has assembled, and it bodes well for the future.
Ceridian’s message at the conference was Connect, Engage, Ignite, and their latest updates focused around this theme. The basic premise is that an organization’s success is directly related to the effectiveness of the teams it builds. Ceridian demonstrated that it has developed sophisticated tools to help organizations build effective teams, improve relatability, and deliver results.
In addition, they demonstrated their focus on building out the Talent Management component of Dayforce by making some strategic additions to the team, which included Lisa Sterling who brings nearly two decades of industry experience in employee engagement, process and software design to Ceridian. Prior to joining Ceridian, Lisa served as a partner and technology solutions leader for Mercer’s Talent Solutions business, where she was responsible for defining, driving and executing the global product strategy of Mercer’s Talent Technology offerings. In the past, Lisa delivered technology offerings for companies such as Kenexa and Ultimate Software.
Lisa’s vast experience in the talent management field will definitely have a positive impact on the ongoing development of their performance, compensation, and succession modules, and will undoubtedly compliment Ceridian’s goal of creating an extremely engaging product. As David Ossip outlined – the goal now is to make Dayforce the product of choice for employees. This is an interesting angle and truly demonstrates Ceridian’s focus.
Here are the Ceridian Dayforce priorities:
• Employee Engagement
• Customer Focus
• Product Excellence
Let’s look at each of these in a detailed manner.
Employee Engagement
Last time we wrote about the acquisition of TeamRelate and how it was destined to become integrated into Dayforce. The vision for TeamRelate is when people understand each other teams are able to work with greater trust, improved communication and better performance. A team’s success is greater than the sum of individual successes, and a company’s success will be greater than the sum of teams’ successes. Better teams create exponentially better companies. Critical, however, is the need to ensure individuals are engaged within their teams.
Where other vendors are talking about employee engagement, this is exactly how TeamRelate will differentiate Dayforce HCM talent management from the rest of the field. Employee engagement with the company starts with how employees engage with their managers and teammates. We expect to see TeamRelate fully integrated into Dayforce before the end of 2015.
Customer Focus
Ceridian has continued to work hand-in-hand with their customers to develop the software. This feedback from customers has shaped the user experience and helped with the design of the product roadmap. David Ossip shared a slide listing a slice of key features added to the product along with the companies who suggested them. This is just one piece of evidence that depicts how laser-focused Ceridian is on its customers.
Other programs include organizational readiness efforts that Ceridian used to help customers transition to Dayforce, its industry renowned customer success program - led by enterprise software veteran Howard Tarnoff – that is based on a singular belief that Ceridian’s success is the whole sum of its customer successes, and the infrastructure that includes regular NPS surveys, dedicated service delivery managers, and seamless transitions between sales, implementations, and support. It was evident from the sessions I attended, and my conversations with many customers that Ceridian is equally committed to making customers AND keeping customers; the latter being an unwavering mission.
Product Excellence
At this point, I can confidently say that Ceridian is a leader in compliant human capital management. The value of the single application lies in its ability to provide a friendly yet consistent user interface, real-time analytics, and superior ACA capabilities.
No vendor can claim a single application for HR, Payroll, Benefits, Time and Workforce Management, and still provide a strong services platform. Dayforce HCM comes with best-in-class technology and service offerings.
Now Ceridian offers managed Payroll and Benefits on Dayforce, and is taking the application globally. These offerings will be especially attractive to the company’s heritage HRO/managed payroll customers, some of whom have already implemented the new offering or are in the process of implementing it.
I predict Ceridian will continue on its path to transform Dayforce into the application of choice for employees. In addition to TeamRelate, Ceridian announced a partnership with WorkAngel – a UK-based rewards and social recognition vendor; the details of which remain unclear. However, as a client of the company in the UK, Ceridian sees the value this partnership will add to the employee experience within its offerings. We expect that early on, Ceridian LifeWorks customers will reap the benefits of the partnership before Dayforce customers do.
Key Takeaways
I have been fortunate enough to have watched Ceridian’s evolution from a service provider to a leader in cloud HCM. Throughout the transformation four things are clear;
1. Dayforce HCM is and will continue to be a leader in compliant cloud HCM technology.
2. Watch their mobile offerings as their goal is to create an ecosystem that will become the system of choice for any employee (with you now or entertaining joining you). The company is committed to being the solution of choice for employees.
3. Over the past 3 or 4 years, Ceridian has made ambitious promises to its customers and future customers, and most impressively, it has fulfilled each and every one of them masterfully executing on its vision and the product roadmap.
4. Keep an eye on their Talent Management suite and other surprises to come.
