The Event
To say that the event was well attended is an understatement. There were 4,700 people in attendance in person and another 2,000 online. That shows just how appealing the value proposition of a single HCM suite is.
As CEO Chris Todd said, they could have named this event anything but Aspire embodied all that this was about. There were many amazing product announcements to help companies aspire to be the best that they can be and much more.
Truly, a visionary company that shows that they don't only talk the talk but walk the talk - if you ever get a chance to meet their CEO or Executive Chair, you will understand - these are the two most humble and engaging people I have ever met leading big software companies regardless of title. That says a lot about this company and its culture.
UKG Growth
UKG is already doing well but they have a vision of growing by another $1B (to $5B) in annual revenue by 2025. This certainly makes them one of the largest HCM providers in the industry, in fact, UKG should reach 100k clients globally in the very near future as their products cover all company sizes from SMB to large Enterprise.
How will they do this?
They say that they exist for one reason - Our Purpose is People. Their modus operandi is "Inspire every employee. Support every business. Elevate every workplace." The values that they care about the most are:
- United - through Inclusion and collaboration across the company
- Kind - by being trusting and caring about every employee
- Growing - through being agile
As UKG CEO Chris Todd said, they are hearing a persistent theme from customers and prospects which is "How do I stay/become an employer of choice?" With the acquisition of Great Place to Work, UKG possesses a deep understanding of both people and work that unlocks happier outcomes for all. UKG is building new capabilities into its products to help companies be the best that they can be. These capabilities will be available no matter what modules you purchase whether you only use workforce management or only payroll you will clearly be able to elevate your business.
So what makes this so compelling and different? UKG is committed to helping businesses become more competitive and profitable by being an employer of choice and that is far different than simply offering automation in HCM. They aim to be a strategic partner to help companies thrive.
Product Strategy
UKG Vision: To help organizations become a Great Place to Work by building people-centric, Life-work Technology that meets every employee where they are on their journey
Hugo Sarrazin, EVP, Chief Product and Technology Officer outlined for us the 2023 priorities
- People First Throughout Our Suites
- Streamlining Our Portfolio
- Turbocharging Innovation
- In the Flow of Work: FleX by UKG
- Great Place To Work Hub
Below, we will get into some detail
People First Suite
Below are three key areas that UKG is focusing on to make the product specifically for your people
- Design Contextual Experiences - Making their products more intuitive with personalized, contextual experiences resulting in long-term employee loyalty.
- Support Connected Teams - Creating meaningful connections, experiences, and journeys
- Deliver Personalized Recommendations - Helping develop more engaged people, so they and their organizations thrive
Streamlining Portfolio
The portfolio is getting a refresh and various legacy products are due to be retired
- UKG will be retiring outdated products and technologies with a focus on having 100% of its products in the cloud
- By moving to advanced technologies, UKG will be able to accelerate innovation
- UKG is building a platform to speed up its adoption of the latest technologies
Turbocharging Innovation
UKG spends over $500M on product innovation each and every year. Last year 25% of the product innovations came from their customers' suggestions portal which really demonstrates their willingness to be a true partner.
- Their budget for customer-facing features has been doubled
- Internally, they are focused on improving their technology platform
- They are focusing on delivering powerful AI driven insights to help you and your employees get better
In the flow of work: FleX by UKG
According to their press release, this exciting technology will allow the product to meet people where they work, intelligently make recommendations to help you and your employees become better, and will allow your team to integrate UKG with the latest technologies that your teams would like to work with.
FleX helps organizations evolve alongside the needs of their people, connecting the business with emerging applications to meet people where they want to work - whether within UKG solutions or other systems of communication and engagement - to foster exceptional and transformative employee experiences.
FleX features three primary components:
- FleX Fabric: people-centric and behavior-focused artificial intelligence (AI) fed by one of the largest HCM and workforce management datasets, creating exponentially more opportunities for people to benefit from real-time insights, recommendations, reminders and nudges, and better informed decisions.
- FleX Flow: a highly adaptable API framework that anchors UKG solutions in the flow of work where people need and want them most
- FleX Dev: a robust collection of tools and services, including low-code and no-code designers, that enable IT teams and third-party service providers to configure UKG solutions and quickly build applications to automate processes that elevate employee life-work journeys
UKG is already utilizing FleX to advance its Life-work Technology™ approach:
- Career Designer, which empowers leaders to build holistic talent views in UKG Pro to connect life-work aspirations with talent development, utilizes Flex Fabric to provide prescriptive and individualized suggestions for relevant learning opportunities to drive growth and development
- Enhancements to UKG payroll analytics also capitalize on Flex Fabric, using intelligent predictors to proactively identify payroll issues and errors, delivering actionable suggestions for resolution
- UKG leveraged FleX Flow with Microsoft to develop a single, seamless interface for UKG Dimensions and Shifts, the schedule management application within Teams
- Uber for Business and UKG are reimagining meaningful incentives with FleX Flow by providing managers with the option to share Uber vouchers through UKG Dimensions
- FleX Dev transforms how UKG customers and partners build their own tools to elevate employee life-work journeys
"With more than half a billion dollars invested in our products annually, FleX illustrates how UKG is always looking to the future to ensure we're able to help our customers anticipate the constantly evolving needs of their people and their business," said Chris Todd, CEO at UKG. "Being able to serve customers today while preparing them for tomorrow is the cornerstone of our Partners for Life approach."
UKG Great Place To Work Hub
11 months ago, I reported the impact that I felt UKG's acquisition of Great Place To Work will have on employee experience. Here we are less than one year on and UKG have announced Great Place To Work Hub. UKG says their solution "combines decades of Great Place To Work benchmarks and Trust IndexTM survey results with UKG Pro human capital management (HCM) data to help leaders unlock the true drivers of engagement and performance at their organization and make more informed decisions about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B) across their teams."
- Proprietary Great Place To Work data and insights will be displayed in UKG Pro through easy-to-read graphs, charts, and visualizations to provide leaders with an at-a-glance view of where their team stands against specific DEI&B goals and benchmarks, as well as identify leadership and employee experience strengths and areas of improvement; all through the eyes of their people.
- Leaders can compare the unique employee experiences of their team against a combination of internal and external benchmarks, and lean on data-science calculations that summarize complex insights in a simple way so they can identify outliers as well as drill into specific areas of opportunity.
- UKG Great Place To Work Hub will then provide leaders with suggested actions and nudges to push for change in areas that matter most to their people and their business. This includes surfacing areas for equitable opportunities for all people between the intersectionality of age, gender, ethnicity, and location to achieve DEI&B company goals and enhance hiring, development, promotion, payroll, and scheduling practices.
- In the future, UKG Great Place To Work Hub will allow managers to build an action plan by understanding areas of opportunity to make their teams' work experiences better and more equitable, guided by proven practices from Great Place To Work and UKG. Drawing upon natural language processing, UKG Great Place To Work Hub will also detect opportunities for language and voice improvements in job descriptions, performance reviews, and more, while leveraging DEI&B metrics as they relate to HCM lifecycle activities - including hiring diversity, promotion equity, and pay equity - and connecting to organization-specific goals to drive accountability.
Early-stage companies benefit from collaboration and co-creation with UKG
UKG Labs™ is their new, in-house ecosystem of early-stage companies building Life-work Technology™. While virtual and global in nature, Labs was co-located for the first time at Aspire for its formal lunch.
Labs exists to accelerate the growth of start-ups led by founders building people-centric products with Life-work Technology because when these products win, people win. To help these products win, they deploy their most valuable resource at UKG, their people, to extend and advance the trajectory of each start-up in their ecosystem.
Over the last few months, more than 90 U Krewers (UKG employees) across Compliance, Customer Experience, HR, Implementation, Marketing, Product, Sales, and Customer Success served as advisers, facilitators, and co-creators to their inaugural cohort. Reciprocally, by working alongside Labs companies, their people are empowered to exercise existing skills in new domains, build entirely new skills, experiment and bring entrepreneur-like energy to their roles and teams, and gain new perspectives on relevant market challenges. Alongside their U Krewers, their customers are an equally crucial part of their ecosystem collaboration model. Dozens of their customers have stepped inside the lab to explore new technologies, give their perspective on real-world challenges and provide invaluable feedback to their Labs entrepreneurs that guide their roadmaps.
Together with their U Krewers, their customers and their founders at UKG Labs, they are co-creating the next generation of people-centric HCM offerings for their market. By collaborating with select early-stage companies, UKG is advancing Life-work Technology in the workplace, providing a new dimension for their U Krewers to develop professionally, bringing their customers into the iteration cycles of emerging solutions, and supporting entrepreneurs with their shared mission and values.
My Take
I left the event very impressed with the innovation that is going on at UKG within their complete product line. Great Place to Work Hub is a real first in that it will truly help companies become the best in their industry and that is far more than what a regular HCM company usually strives for. Their growth has been significant and with the opportunity for existing clients of either HCM of WFM to move into a fully integrated suite, their growth should only improve over the next couple of years.
