Events

Will Robots Take My Job?

There is this website called “Will Robots Take My Job”. You type in your job function and it uses some solid research to tell you how likely it is that your job will be automated. It’s sorta fun. My job has about a 23% chance of being automated. Largely because it currently relies on things that only humans can do. That’ll likely change.

I happened upon this website last year as a part of a quest to understand what makes humans unique. I had read one too many articles about robots taking over the world and I decided to find out, once and for all, how likely that was.

After scouring social science literature, anthropological journals, psychology texts, and even some religious writings, I came up with a list of four things that make humans unique – or four things that robots can’t do and that other species don’t do: (you can read the full report here)

1. Envision a different future: Humans can picture a future different than their present, determine steps to make it so, and then execute on those steps.
2. Tell stories. Humans use stories to communicate information in a way that motivates and inspires and entertains.
3. Collaborate. While other animals may collaborate to survive, humans collaborate longer than it is beneficial to them personally or critical for survival. Helping others is in our DNA.
4. Use tools. Humans have perfected the art of using tools. We don’t just use them to shape our physical space; we also use them to shape our mental spaces.

It occurred to me this week that two of these four things – storytelling and collaborating – are directly related to how we connect as human beings. We connect in ways that animals don’t, and robots never will. Connections make us human. And they explain at least some of why we have been so successful as a species.

Leveraging Connection (and Tech) for Learning

L&D functions have understood the importance of connection for decades. Much of the research and literature on adult learning styles focus on learning from each other and leveraging existing knowledge – the connections if you will.

Until recently, much of this work has been done largely in the classroom; connection – particularly storytelling and collaboration – has been associated with face-to-face activities, particularly when it comes to some of the softer, more human skills (e.g., management, communication).

That said, we’re seeing the definition of “face-to-face” expand beyond the classroom and include more than formal training. We’re also seeing organizations understand how to make connections with employees through communication and personalization.

Storytelling.

Stories provide context to the data of experience. Through stories, humans cast themselves as main characters, place themselves in predicaments, and learn from their own experiences as well as others’ successes and failures. Understanding the what, the why, and the how, gives employees context and motivates them in ways that increases the responsiveness of the organization.

In order for a story to be effective, a connection needs to be made. Whereas storytelling has existed as long as humans have walked the earth (and probably as long as our antecedents have as well), in recent years, those connections are increasingly being made with the use of technology. We’ve seen a couple of trends:

• Standalone tools or additions to existing tools focusing on storytelling – video, animations, drip campaigns, micro-curricula, and other content-creation tools – all help L&D professionals to craft stories that have more impact.
• Easier ways to connect more deeply. We mentioned this briefly in our last article: L&D technologies are moving past the one-way sharing of content and instead are building in true collaboration tools. Whereas employees used to have to be in the same room to take advantage of these deep connections, collaboration spaces, communication tools, structured, and unstructured paths all occur online and with teams spread across the world.
• AI and data. Our access to data is unprecedented – we know more about our employees than ever before. AI and data make it possible to build personal stories – not generic ones, and not ones built on “personas”. We can connect with our employees on their level and meet their needs in new and more effective ways.

Collaboration.

Thomas Suddendorf, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Queensland in Australia, says that we have a fundamental urge to link our minds together. “This allows us to take advantage of others’ experiences, reflections, and imaginings to prudently guide our own behavior.”

We are wired to help. Ask any two-year-old that follows you around picking up things you dropped. It’s innate, and it’s incredibly human.

Helping others manifests itself in some of the ways we utilize technology. A good example of this is Wikipedia. It exists because thoughtful people with knowledge want to share it – and because thoughtful people who value that knowledge fund it. Another example is GitHub – where programmers can share code with each other. Collaboration in this case has saved countless hours and accelerated development by allowing one programmer to build on top of – instead of recreating – code.

The L&D function – and the solution providers that support it – have also made some progress when it comes to helping individuals collaborate – to help each other learn – using technology. A few interesting things we’ve seen:

• The rise of the expertise directory. Several vendors (and some enterprising homegrown solutions) are making knowledge and skills more transparent in the organization. Some systems allow users to self-select knowledge and skills; others rely on AI and latent data to “guess” which skills an individual may have; but they all help employees collaborate by guiding them to who is likely able to help.
• Leaders as teachers – virtually. When I was at Deloitte, I was always impressed with their ability to leverage leaders as teachers in the classroom. Tech, however, allows us to leverage leaders as teachers EVERYWHERE. Organizations can take advantage of expertise no matter where in the world it sits through new technologies built particularly for the purpose.
• Project marketplaces. We’re seeing more organizations create opportunities for learning through the work itself. Project marketplaces allow employees to sign up for short projects that will help them to develop critical skills. The marketplace is a great example of collaboration: individuals willing to help and to learn while doing it, and leaders offering opportunities for that growth, along with some coaching and mentoring.

Likely these are not entirely new ideas – we have been talking about them for about a year. But the fact that these technologies are built to connect us, and that those connections appeal to our very humanness, and that organizations are more effective when they focus on the things that makes us human gives me hope for us. And for the robots. And for us being able to live harmoniously with them.

After we published The Makings of Modern Performance, we then hit the road to share our findings and learn from conversations with practitioners! After 4 interactive breakfast meetings, we came away with a few lessons. In wrapping up this project, we want to share with you the things we learned.

We're losing sight of the forest

Many organizations are hyperfocused on the tactics of performance management (PM) and have lost sight of the forest (why they do it) for the trees (how they do it). Many of the questions during our time on the road focused on identifying best practices or the “right” way to do PM and were similar to those we heard during our research (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Questions We Heard During Our Research | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

While some organizations have taken a step back to see PM as a holistic approach to developing talent and improving performance, many organizations still struggle to shift their focus. Leaders need to focus on this question:

What should my organization do to improve the performance and engagement of our employees, and the ability of us all to meet our business goals?

The following are some of the key takeaways from our road trip.

The fairness waters are a bit muddy

In our roadshow events, there was general agreement that fairness in PM is important, and some of the new practices have helped make it more so (i.e., more frequent conversations to address recency bias, involving more people in performance feedback to reduce managers’ bias). However, we discussed how other practices, such as removing ratings or implementing shadow ratings, have increased some employees’ perceptions of unfairness.

Our research found that creating fair evaluation processes – and connecting compensation to them in a transparent and fair manner – is an important part of performance management. In our (well-intended) efforts to address important concerns about ratings and evaluation methods, we might have muddied the waters. Our study gives some suggestions on how to address this issue.

A closely related topic that we also discussed was pay transparency, which our research found to be critical. Interestingly, session attendees had different levels of awareness on this topic, but one thing was certain: It doesn’t make anyone particularly comfortable.

The challenge is that pay transparency is not an all-or-nothing concept, but a continuum. At one end of the spectrum, employees have no insight into compensation philosophy, structure, and outcomes. At the other end, employees and individuals external to the organization have full access to this information and data.

Implementing pay transparency is full of “what ifs,” potential benefits, and some potentially serious drawbacks. However, employees are already having discussions about their salaries and these discussions aren’t just among colleagues in the hallway. People are more open to share the details of their compensation and benefits package to just about anyone (e.g., Glassdoor). As a result, organizations need to figure out how they will address pay transparency sooner than later.

Organizations have a choice – they can be a part of these discussions, helping to craft the narrative and using the information to better address rewards and benefits, or they can ignore it and miss this opportunity.

Engagement & performance: Increasingly intertwined

While we know that, in general, PM, engagement, learning, and career management are increasingly converging, our roadshow reinforced that the first 2 have grown particularly close. Performance practices, when done well, can engage employees by providing them with a culture in which they can thrive and with the clarity they need to perform well today and tomorrow (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Three Levers of Performance | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

To that end, organizations’ performance philosophies and practices need to be designed and executed to engage employees, in addition to helping them perform better. In the future, this likely means that organizations need a more nuanced and personalized understanding of what engages employees, and to then provide them with the insights, resources, systems, and metrics that are most relevant. This'll allow organizations to be more responsive to employees’ needs so they can do their best work.

PM is no longer about just measuring performance. It's about engaging employees – in a personalized and responsive way – in their work and enabling them to perform better as a result.

Where do we go from here?

While organizational leaders can certainly make significant and important changes to their PM approaches, we think there's a bigger question that can’t be answered just by changing performance practices:

How do leaders go about creating a more responsive organization?

This question is at the heart of another project: The Responsive Organization (read: the premise, the lit review, the report, webinar and slides, and the infographic).

In this study, we're looking at the changes the leaders should make to create an environment in which people – and the organization as a whole – can be more responsive to employees and customers. For example, we think that a more responsive organization will lead to changes in the following (at a minimum):

• Communication channels – Individuals at lower levels will have data and information they need to react to needs “on the ground”
• Power structures – Decision-making will be more decentralized
• Employee development – More autonomy and continuous development will ensure that employees have the skills and knowledge they need
• Metrics – Measurements of efficiency will begin to give way to other types of productivity metrics that focus more on innovation, agility, and responsiveness

Want to share your thinking on this topic? Feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] and we will find some time to talk! Also, if you want to talk more about performance management, we would love to hear from you.

Event Overview

As I wrote about in our article, "The Fight Over Employee Experience Is Finally Here," we expected the Workday team to come out swinging at their annual Workday Rising event. And, wow, did they ever.

Not only did Workday put a heavy focus on employee experience, which they're calling “People Experience” (more on that below), but they also made a wide range of other announcements, including the limited availability of Workday People Analytics, Skills Cloud, and Talent Marketplace.

Before we dive into the details below, here is my main takeaway:

Workday announced products that required them to stretch (People Analytics and Skills Cloud, in particular) at Rising 2018 and we were able to see the fruition of their efforts at Rising 2019, including some early customer stories.

Product announcements & enhancements

While we would like to see more customer testimonials – especially from end-users themselves, not just those responsible for purchasing decisions – we applaud Workday for its diligence in working toward the innovative products they promised last year.

People experience

With that said, let’s move on to some of the key announcements, starting with Workday People Experience (see Figure 1), which is a new user experience (UX). In its description, it's very similar to the new UX that SAP SuccessFactors announced recently – in that it integrates into one location conversational AI, robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning, nudges, and predictions to try to get people higher-quality information more efficiently. Workday People Experience provides information ranging from career development guidance to personalized answers to HR and payroll questions, from both within Workday and external systems.

Figure 1: Workday’s People Experience UX | Source: Workday, 2019.

The biggest differentiator I could discern between the People Experience UX and the one announced by SAP SuccessFactors in September is that Workday seems to have more significantly embraced a critical employee experience concept: journey maps.

The value in using journey maps is that they can identify critical "moments that matter" for specific types of employees and create a standard (and scalable) way of managing (and then improving) those experiences. The result is a much more employee-centric approach to designing software.

Workday identified a number of specific journeys for different employee profiles and used them to create personalized recommendations within Workday People Experience. For example, if a parent is returning to work after welcoming a new child into their family, there are likely a specific set of steps they should go through, such as informing the insurance company, filing leave claims appropriately, etc. Similarly, if someone is recently promoted, there are specific and standardized onboarding and training tasks that need to be completed, which People Experience can recommend. This information automatically populates for those employees within Workday, making it easier for employees to find critical information.

The other addition in the area of employee experience was the announcement of a partnership between Workday and Medallia to allow for the integration of customer experience data with employee data within Workday.

There is clearly value in the integration of these two data sets (see our research on the connection between employee experience and customer experience) and think that this partnership further enables organizations to manage their customer and employee experiences in closer concert and more effectively. It also gives Workday an answer to SAP’s acquisition of Qualtrics, with Qualtrics being another major player in the customer experience space.

People analytics

Let’s move on to Workday’s People Analytics (see Figure 2), initially announced at last year’s Rising event. This solution, which integrates the 2018 Stories.bi acquisition, leverages that technology’s ability to identify patterns within data, process those insights using machine learning, and then highlight the most critical “stories” in natural language. The range of topics covered includes hiring, organization composition, diversity and inclusion, talent and performance, and retention and attrition. Workday People Analytics has limited availability with the Workday 33 release; at Rising, Workday announced a number of customers using it.

Figure 2: Workday People Analytics Solution | Source: Workday, 2019.

As we have discussed in our People Analytics Technology research,

One of the areas many solutions struggle with is in telling clear and compelling stories with the data, and this is something the People Analytics solution is clearly targeting.

This should really help the HR business partners and other leaders who are less quantitatively-focused to grasp new trends quickly. That said, I didn’t get much sense from the RIsing demo of how the more quantitative folks will be able to manipulate the data. I presume the assumption is that customers will use Workday Prism to do that more sophisticated analysis – but I didn’t see an in-depth demo of how to do that at Rising, so we will have to leave that one for another post. Overall, though, this announcement represents progress for Workday on the beguiling people analytics front.

People skills

Let’s move on to Skills Cloud, which is another solution Workday announced last year and brought into production this year.

The idea is that Skills Cloud will “mine” employees’ skills by looking at employees’ job descriptions, any internal online profiles, feedback on their performance, and any other work experiences, and then infuse these skills across the entire platform, including talent planning, talent marketplace, career hub, learning, recruiting, performance enablement, compensation, and people analytics.

This information can then be used to better understand the skills within the workforce and to make more strategic decisions (see screenshot in Figure 3) via the Skills Insight analysis tool. Workday says they have more than 200 customers live on the Skills Cloud.

Figure 3: Workday Skills Insights | Source: Workday, 2019.

As many of you know, we care deeply about skills and are planning to write several pieces of research on this topic in 2020. We love that Workday is making skills such a core part of their overall platform and see huge potential for what they are doing. That said, we have a few concerns:

• Data quality. Many of the data sources Workday is using can be inadequate reflections of someone’s overall skills. We know that employees can change / augment their skills, but we worry that they will not, and that the skills data will not be as robust as it needs to be to make critical strategic decisions.
• Data bias. We know from numerous studies that women and under-represented minorities tend to under-report their skills, while majority populations often over-report their skills. We worry that these types of algorithms will perpetuate biases about people’s skills (or lack thereof).

Neither of these items are show-stoppers, as Workday clearly has to start somewhere when it comes to documenting skills. However, for folks using the technology in its earliest stages, we think these 2 items are something of which to be mindful.

People management

Finally, let’s turn to the Talent Marketplace (see picture in Figure 4), which is a single location that includes internal opportunities that are matched to employees’ skills and interests. Importantly, the solution alerts employees to those opportunities, versus employees having to look for them. The idea is that employees can more easily find internal opportunities that will help them grow, and hence stay at an organization longer.

Figure 4: Workday’s Talent Marketplace | Source: Workday, 2019.

We tend to see internal marketplaces positioned as part of an organization’s learning and development strategy, where the “gigs” give employees a chance to augment their existing work with opportunities that align to their career aspirations. Interestingly, at Rising, Workday positioned Talent Marketplace as a way for organizations to compete against external organizations who could also be sharing new opportunities with an organization’s employees. So, it is not just an internal gig-work marketplace, but also an internal job board that automatically alerts employees to opportunities.

Wrap up

In the course of my conversations with other analysts, we had two questions with internal marketplaces we think have currently gone unanswered:

• What if an employee wants to develop skills they either do not have or are currently weak on? Does the solution allow for them to indicate this, or will the algorithm only suggest things aligned with their current capabilities? And further, will this solution allow them to connect with managers who are willing to coach them, especially since they won’t be a fully committed resource?
• Is there a way to pay people for doing this extra work? Presumably, if it is possible this work would have been given to a contractor, to whom an organization would pay to do it. If the work is going to an internal employee, is there a way to compensate them for it?

Ok, that was more than 2 questions. 🙂 We think there’s great opportunities for internal marketplaces but think there are still some details to get sorted out.

All of these announcements together create a compelling case for why Workday is the competitor to beat when it comes to creating a unified and personalized employee experience.

Many of these solutions are in limited availability, so the market has yet to tell us of the impact — hopefully we will hear that at Rising 2021. Workday is clearly pushing forward with a lot of innovations and we look forward to hearing from end-user customers on how these changes are helping them meet their people and business needs more effectively.

As the year comes to a close, we’ve taken a bit of reflection time to think about some of the trends we’ve seen this year. While there's been a lot of hype about some of the big ones (AI anyone?), we think some of the most impactful ones are simple realizations or subtle shifts in mindsets that people leaders make.

One that has particularly caught our eye – the importance of connecting for learning.

The Importance of Connecting

Connecting has a prominent place in our Learning Model (see Figure 1). It's well-understood that all learning doesn’t happen in the classroom and people learn from one another¹. What types of opportunities we give our employees to do this type of connecting can have a significant impact on how successful they are.

Figure 1: Learning Model | Source: RedThread Research, 2019.

Through our discussions with both leaders and solution providers this year, we’ve identified 3 things that lead us to believe that Connecting is gaining prominence.

Thing 1: Enabling performance, not just managing it

In the fall of this year, we wrapped an extensive study on performance management (PM). The goal of this study was to understand which of the “new” practices were having an impact on business outcomes. Not surprisingly, one of the more noticeable group of practices all had to do with people development or learning. Two practices particularly caught our eye.

First, organizations are encouraging much more frequent development conversations between managers and employees. Whereas performance discussions used to happen once per year, most of the organizations we spoke with encouraged monthly or quarterly check-ins that didn’t just discuss performance, but also career aspirations and potential development experiences.

These conversations are the epitome of connecting – allowing managers to share expertise, employees to ask questions, and them both to talk about development and course correction where necessary. As performance discussions are well-established in most organizations, increasing the cadence and changing up the expected agenda has been minimally invasive and, according to the leaders we spoke with, pretty impactful.

Secondly more organizations are enabling peer-to-peer feedback and recognition. Peers are often less intimidating and often have a better idea of what is going on in the team, which means their feedback can often be more timely, more focused, and more engaging than manager feedback.

Thing 2: The rise of coaching & mentoring

One of the most exciting trends we’ve seen this year for developing people is the rise of coaching and mentoring. In the past, coaching and mentoring has been focused mainly on leaders – senior leaders really – and has been used to correct troubling behaviors or prepare promising leaders for the next step in their careers.

That seems to be changing. Organizations are understanding the value of a coaching or mentoring relationship and are implementing programs at much broader scales. For example, organizations are:

• Including coaching and mentoring activities in larger development initiatives, including new-hire training, leadership development, and level-up programs
• Leveraging technologies to be able to scale coaching and mentoring to make it more accessible to more employees – these technologies range from simple matching software to full-on use of AI and automation, and everything in between
• Offering external mentoring as a benefit – we've seen this work particularly well for younger employees trying to navigate early career moves

We’re thrilled that coaching and mentoring are gaining traction; organizations are beginning to realize the importance of one-to-one connections for employee development and the value of leveraging internal expertise.

Thing 3: Structured collaborative learning

Yep, we said it. In a world that is touting the necessity, efficiency, and beauty of micro and self-directed learning, we’ve seen an ever so slight resurgence of more structured, collaborative types of programs. We’re not saying that the majority of training is going to (or should) return to the classroom. Rather, we recognize that organizations may have gone too far, and that we’re starting to see them self-correct a little bit to ensure that opportunities for Connecting exist.

Organizations are remembering that there's value in struggling through a learning experience together. And that some insights only come from listening to those with experience and expertise. And that when people connect, storytelling can motivate and inspire. And that there are some things that are just better taught through discussion, brainstorming, and collaboration.

Interestingly, while technology has largely been associated with the self-directed and micro types of learning until now, we’re seeing it being used more broadly in helping with the structured, collaborative learning as well. We finally seem to be figuring out how to replicate or improve upon the best parts of in-person collaboration and learning.

So, while these may seem like small things – more conversations with managers, more mentoring and coaching, and a realization that there's value in structured collaborative learning – we think they constitute a trend: one that will make our workplaces more human-focused, and frankly, probably more pleasant. Thoughts?

Excerpt from: Diversity & Inclusion Technology: The Rise of a Transformative Market

On the surface, technology seems like the magic bullet for helping conscientious companies combat D&I challenges. After all, we recognize that no people are truly free of bias, so why not rely on bias-free technology? That all seems perfect until we reflect on how software is created and chosen by those same biased people. So how should we think about AI in the context of D&I?

In our recent study with Mercer, we examined the emerging market for D&I tech, and we also tackled the question of AI and raised some questions about its inherent benefits and risks.

Here is an excerpt from that report which looks more closely at the role of AI in D&I:

The potential dangers of AI in D&I technologies—and some ways to address them

To debunk some of the myths associated with the use of these technologies, we’ve outlined the potential dangers and limitations of using AI when it comes to decision making. We’ve also suggested some considerations leaders can take into account, below to become better informed consumers of AI products.

Potential Dangers of Artificial Intelligence in D&I Applications:

• Decisions based on AI algorithms have grown in complexity (often lacking a clear logical flow that humans can understand), opaqueness (as of result of limited transparency, regulation, and accountability), ubiquity (AI has become mainstream), and exclusiveness (especially if developed by small and/or homogenous teams).
• There are increased concerns around algorithmic design stemming from inadvertent human biases that can embed unintended discriminatory features into the algorithm. Introducing diversity and inclusion principles into algorithmic outcomes can be difficult if said principles are not practiced before designing the algorithms because machine learning is based on existing data.
• In instances where there is limited human oversight and involvement in the development and/or implementation of AI technology, there may be limited transparency and accountability on how predictive tools reach their decisions. AI systems are like black boxes, making it hard to identify potential bias and analyze decisions reached by predictive tools.
• AI can amplify stereotypes, adversely impacting underrepresented and marginalized populations.
• Widespread use of AI has moved fast, with little scrutiny and oversight from regulatory bodies. The responsibility of upholding ethics is often in the hands of AI developers, which brings the need to establish and sustain a code of AI ethics to the forefront.

Five Key Considerations for Using D&I AI in Organizations:

1. Recognize that AI and algorithms are not neutral because they are created and trained by humans with innate biases. Therefore, make every effort to understand their full benefits and limitations. Ask D&I technology vendors if they conduct algorithmic audits and risk assessments to determine how their predictive tools reach decisions and their potential impact on underrepresented populations.
2. Become well-versed in understanding your D&I technology data by becoming aware of how D&I data is used, stored, and processed within algorithms. Use your internal HR and workforce analytics to monitor and better understand the impact of using D&I technologies on your specific organization.
3. Establish a governance process that maintains a holistic view across sources of data and algorithms.
4. Formalize and communicate a standard organizational framework that establishes a shared understanding of how and when your organization makes decisions stemming from AI technologies to ensure transparency and accountability among stakeholders.
5. Use artificial intelligence information directionally, as one piece of the larger puzzle, rather than as an absolute. Consider the macro-level picture of AI data by incorporating other sources of information to better substantiate your decisions.

This year’s HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas was optimistic and enthusiastic, brimming with talk of humanizing work, improving the employee experience, and ever-increasing vendor growth rates. If you want to see what folks thought in general, check out #hrtechconf on Twitter.

As we left the show, we captured a few of the things that struck us from the show (admittedly, we saw relatively little) and our 30+ vendor meetings:

• D&I Tech: Given that we started the D&I tech conversation a year ago at this show, we are perhaps a bit biased on this one in thinking that it is important. However, the fact that a session on this topic in the Women in Technology part of the show had hundreds of people in it (see picture above) shows the incredible interest in the topic. That said, we were extremely disappointed that the conversation did not focus on the broader D&I tech landscape of solutions, and instead was largely focused on two types of technology that serve traditional D&I needs: pay equity and harassment reporting. We wish the conversation had focused more on the opportunity of D&I tech, which is to scale awareness of D&I-related issues and provide insight during critical decision-making moments (e.g., hiring, performance feedback, promotion).
• Ecosystems and integrations: We’ve never heard as much talk about how vendors fit within the broader HR technology ecosystem as we did at this show. (Granted, Dani spent part of her session talking about learning technology ecosystems, so it was top of mind.) However, almost every vendor we spoke with talked to us about how they fit within the ecosystem of others in their space, the partnerships they are building, and the need for better and more scalable integrations. We also heard more about how vendors are being asked by customers to “figure it out” with vendors they may not have worked with in the past, putting a new pressure on partnerships and (quite frankly) flexibility among the vendors.
• Skills: The subject of skilling (or re-skilling or up-skilling) the workforce is a huge one, and we heard about it from many different vendors. There are a range of perspectives on how to measure skills and what can be done with that information (e.g., workforce planning, learning approaches, career mapping resources, internal project or job marketplaces). We are still not confident that any vendors have cracked the question of how to skill the workforce for the future, but at least folks are thinking about it.

We were asked by many vendors for advice on what they should do moving forward. Here are a few of the themes we touched on:

• Stop asking employees for information you can get somewhere else: Nearly every vendor in the expo hall is asking employees for data, many via surveys (and as we said, no matter how pretty it is, no one wants to take another survey). Yet, vendors are able to access more latent (existing) data from internal systems and external (public) sources than ever before and our technologies for analyzing that information have never been more powerful. Vendors need to break out of the habit of asking employees to give them information and instead ask: “How else can we get the information or insight we are seeking?” And then build that capability, whatever it is.
• Push more insights down to employees: Building on the previous point, we are pulling together more data and insights on employees than ever before, but it seems that the primary purpose is to give it to management to manage the business better. While that is all well and good, it is not enough, as it limits insights, decision-making, and action to management, who often serve as a bottleneck to change. Instead, organizations need to provide more information to employees so that they can better understand what is happening and adjust their work and behavior accordingly.
• Build for the future, not tomorrow: It may sound overly grandiose, but we believe we are at an inflection point in many ways with HR technology, where we are building truly revolutionary tools that will influence generations to come. To that end, we are encouraging vendors to think beyond the short-term when it comes to their product vision. For example, don’t focus just on skilling the workforce with a certain set of skills we think will be useful, but instead focus on helping organizations create environments where people are constantly encouraged to learn whatever skills are necessary. Or, as another example, identify ethical standards for people analytics – even if it may limit what can be done in the short term – so that we can set a solid foundation of trust so we can do more interesting and profound analyses in the future.

What do you think? We’d love your reactions or questions about what we’ve written and – for those of you who attended – we’d like your own reflections on your experience in the comments.

Finally, we want to thank those of you who were able to attend Dani or Stacia's sessions. Please feel free to reach out if you'd like a copy of our presentations ([email protected]).

The term “employee experience” has become increasingly popular in the last few years — so much so that we began an investigation into what it is and why it matters. In the course of that research, we came across a wide range of perspectives on what it is, including from vendors like Medallia, Qualtrics, Service Now, and TI People.

But now, the heavy HR technology hitters are here to weigh in on the subject. Today, SAP SuccessFactors announced that their technology category, which we have long known as Human Capital Management, will now be known as Human Experience Management.

Along with this announcement comes a significant redesign of their user experience (UX) to offer a more integrated and holistic view of the information within the SAP SuccessFactors ecosystem in a more accessible format that intends to put individuals, teams, and organizations at the center of the experience. This new interface integrates into one location conversational AI, robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning, nudges, and predictions to try to get people higher quality information more efficiently. There is a lot we like in what the SuccessFactors team has done, and we applaud them for this holistic revamp of their product.

That said, the grand gesture of renaming the category begs us to take a closer look and to ask:

Is this, to borrow my friend and long-time SAPer Steve Hunt’s phrase, simply old wine in a new bottle?

Maybe.

Employee experience, as we at RedThread understand it, is about two things:

• Emotionally-laden events – These often include specific events in the employee life cycle such as the first day at work, a promotion, or returning from a job leave. During these events, employees are vulnerable because their expectations are high, which can suddenly impact their experience.
• Commonplace exchanges – These are frequent interactions between employees, colleagues, and the organization. These interactions are often relationship-based and happen on an ongoing basis, instead of specific touchpoints, milestones, or moments that matter. During these commonplace exchanges, employees are not as vulnerable as during emotionally laden moments because their expectations are not as high. Yet, these exchanges have a cumulative effect on employee experience.

The SAP SuccessFactors team certainly understands the value of emotionally laden events, also called “touchpoints” or “moments that matter”. However, we couldn't fully tell how this significant user experience redesign will enable managers to better understand – and critically, to enable and improve – how employees experience those touchpoints or commonplace exchanges. It may be that the team is on the earlier parts of the journey or that we just need to see more.

So why can’t we just call this new UX old wine in a shiny new bottle? Three reasons:

1. The Qualtrics acquisition – The SAP SuccessFactors team seems to have a strong vision and appreciation of what Qualtrics, which has a focus on both employee and customer experience, can do (I sure hope so, for $8 billion). They just don’t seem to have turned that into a reality yet, which is reasonable given that the acquisition only closed in January. There are some early indications of their efforts and direction, though. For example, with the new UX, the SuccessFactors team has integrated simple one-question surveys (from Qualtrics) on the quality of manager check-ins into their continuous performance management solution. It sounds like this is just the beginning of what they have in mind.
2. An ecosystem play – SAP SuccessFactors is making a big deal about it being an ecosystem player, meaning that they acknowledge that they don’t have a monopoly on great ideas and are trying to be better at playing well with others. As a result, the number of apps that can integrate with SuccessFactors has shot up from just 45 last year to more than 250 this year. The variety of these apps enable organizations to build a more customized employee experience that fits their unique needs.
3. SAP.io – For those of you who don’t know it, SAP.io is SAP’s start-up accelerator, with a vision toward potentially integrating them into the SAP ecosystem. There are several start-ups within SAP.io that are focused on truly transforming the employee experience. One of them, Cultivate (which I have written about several times in other formats), shows significant promise at truly leveraging the existing data and delivering new insights to managers and employees that can help strengthen their relationships (which are so much at the heart of employee experience). We think some of these solutions will increasingly become integrated with this "Human Experience Management" platform.

In some ways, this announcement simply puts an exclamation point on the fact that we are moving away from an era of seeing people as cogs and more toward seeing them as unique humans, which is something we obviously strongly applaud.

From the perspective of being an HR technology market observer, though, we see this as something different. This announcement heralds the mainstreaming of the employee experience concept, which again, is a good thing. As SuccessFactors further refines how employee experience shows up in their platform, they will heighten awareness of the need to take an employee-first perspective.

However, this announcement does also mean that the fight over what “employee experience” really means – and what it should look like from a technological perspective – has really begun in earnest.

And what is a fight without a worthy opponent?

Look out for the good folks in Pleasanton to weigh in with their perspective very soon. I imagine announcements coming from this year's Workday Rising event in October will carry at least a nugget or two on what they're thinking.

Introduction

In the spring of 2019, when summer still felt like a distant dream, we conducted an online poll and more than 20 interviews with people analytics practitioners and solution providers to understand their current challenges and what they most wanted to know about the people analytics technology market.

We did this so we could better understand what our overall research – including our online survey and literature review – on people analytics technology should focus on. We figured you’re likely curious to know about what we learned, so we’ve summarized our findings in this article, specifically focusing on

• Poll results
• Interviews: what we heard
• Overall impressions
• Our next steps

Poll results

Our poll revealed some interesting insights into what is on top of minds when folks think of people analytics technology. We asked respondents (vendors, practitioners, and others with an interest in the field) to tell us what they think we should 1) cover in our research, 2) not cover in our research, and 3) any other feedback or ideas they wanted to share. The findings reaffirmed our suspicions: the top issue is better understanding the solution categories and capabilities for people analytics technologies.

Interviews: What we heard

Capabilities and needs – mo' solutions, mo' problems?

As our poll reflects, more than 70 percent of respondents indicated they want more clarity on people analytics technologies’ capabilities and a framework for thinking about the different solution providers. This sentiment was echoed in our interviews: when we asked folks to provide a way to categorize the market, we received as many different frameworks as interviews!

Our conversations revealed that while some group people analytics solution providers into categories of data storage, analysis, and visualizations, others think of them in terms of solutions that perform transactional/reporting versus analytics functions. Still others separated solutions into pure-HR players versus ones that cater to business intelligence capabilities.

Ultimately, both technology providers and organization leaders recognize the opportunity to work together to identify and use technology in a meaningful and purpose-driven manner. To do so, buyers and users should have a realistic and accurate understanding of the technology.

A good starting point for the users could be clarity, consistency and agreement on how they define people analytics and success within the organization. Buyers could also work with the vendors more, especially at the beginning of implementations, to put in place processes to ensure insights and findings from using the technology are shared broadly in an actionable way.

Similarly, vendors need a clear understanding of the business and talent challenges as well as the objectives of the organization. One of the vendors we spoke to stated,

“ typically start by saying that they have a data problem…and are trying to wrangle the data etc. Once we talk to them though, the problems that they are trying to solve for are business problems, such as turn over issue and are trying to wrangle the data to figure out what is driving the turnover.”

This points to the need for customers to spend time clarifying the business problems they are trying to solve and for vendors to spend time ensuring they understand those problems before implementing a solution.

Data Integration – Connecting the Dots

A topic that frequently popped up in our interviews was the opportunities and challenges of data integration from different sources. Some of the key questions we heard from practitioners during our interviews included

1. Are there people analytics tools that can help practitioners integrate their data and allow for data interoperability?
2. Which technologies speak to each other and can be used as an integrated suite?
3. Do the existing tools require data be within one system or should it be siloed in different systems?

While some of these concerns tie in with the issue of capabilities that we touched upon earlier, it is clear that data integration is a major challenge  Practitioners we spoke to mentioned that a growing number of vendors claim to offer multiple services and solutions for all things people analytics, but fail to provide that. For example, one person stated,

“ really wish the technology vendors would stop promising a one-stop shop for all your analytics need…These technologies require a lot of thoughtfulness in implementation to have them be useful.”

Further, other practitioners indicated a frustration with vendors who have incremental additional charges for additional data sources. While no one likes being “nickled and dimed,” these practitioners were especially sensitive, as they felt that for the extra time, effort, and cost to integrate these additional data, they could build the analysis capabilities themselves for roughly the same cost, and with additional flexibility.

Data Security and Ethics – Collect, Measure, Share?

A recurring concern expressed by practitioners and vendors alike centered around the issue of compliance and ethics in data collection, use, and sharing — almost a third of those who responded to our poll listed issues of ethics, access, privacy, ownership, and security as a top issue they want to better understand. Vendors we spoke to also brought up issues of data democratization such as how do businesses view their position in terms of data transparency and what should they be doing with it.

One of the vendors we spoke to expressed concerns about not keeping employees in the loop with regards to the data collected on them.  As tools that monitor and collect passive data (which can often be sensitive ) become more popular, managing and sharing that data with employees is increasingly becoming an issue of concern and was frequently brought up in our conversations.

Another vendor we spoke to referred to the recent data privacy breach incidents at Facebook and Google and their impact on the conversation about data sources by bringing it to the forefront.

Some of the concerns raised by people analytics practitioners and vendors regarding this issue include these questions:

1. How transparent are the solution providers regarding the data they are collecting and providing access to among the various levels within the customer's organization?
2. What are some of the decisions made by solution providers to help customers protect their employees?
3. How much of the data do practitioners tell their employees they are collecting?
4. How involved and informed are the business leaders about the data that people analytics practitioners have?

Implementation and End-User Value – Will the Real People Analytics Solution Please Stand Up?

While there is a lot of marketing about the value of people analysis technology, practitioners want to understand – ideally from other practitioners – others' implementation experiences and how quickly and efficiently those solutions delivered value.

In particular, practitioners would like to see more real customer case studies and to have opportunities to discuss the “how-to” and “lessons learned” with other practitioners.  This will allow them to align their expectations and objectives and achieve greater value from these solutions.

In addition, practitioners would like more information about whom the technology is designed to serve. For example, they reported that they will often hear that a solution can be made accessible to HR Business Partners, only to find that it is too technical or difficult for someone who is not especially data-savvy. By having a more realistic understanding about whom the system is really designed for, people analytics practitioners will be better able to understand and highlight the value of specific technologies.

Vendors are also interested in gaining greater clarity on who the organization leaders see as the end-user of the product and the expectations and practical ways organizations intend to use their solutions. They want to understand from practitioners not only what they want, but for whom, and why they want it. As one of the interviewees we spoke to put it,

“ require a level of sophistication from HR folks to go into the tool and identify the questions they should be asking….The people analytics team, the HRBPs, or the communications… have such varied levels of maturity.”

And while upskilling and building data capabilities for the wider section of users is crucial, it should be matched by a clear identification of the primary user.

Overall Impressions

Both the conversations and poll results are reflective of our findings from the literature review: the people analytics technology landscape is a rapidly growing space with great potential. However, there remains an urgent need for greater clarity and knowledge sharing on issues of various technology capabilities, ethics and security, data integration, and transparency about real use cases on scaling insights for business value and custom solutions that fit business needs.

Our Next Steps

We recently closed our online vendor survey (and thank the more than 35 vendors who participated!). We are analyzing that data and holding vendor briefings over the course of summer. We will also be conducting a second round of interviews with practitioners during the summer which, along with the survey results, will inform our final findings. These findings will be presented in the fall at PAFOW Philadelphia conference, with the final report published later in the fall.

It has been a tad shy of a decade since organizations began redesigning their approaches to performance management (PM). While previous approaches focused mainly on top-down, annual, staid processes, organizations now have to go beyond simply managing performance: they need to enable it. More specifically, organizations need practices that motivate, engage, and develop employees through a more collaborative, dynamic, and personalized process.

Yet, with all the changes made to PM, people are still unhappy, unmotivated, and disengaged. In addition, practices hailed as innovated and forward-thinking haven’t shown themselves to be the “cure-all” they may have been touted as.

So, the question remains – Where are we in the great PM experiment?

We have partnered with Glint to answer this question and looked at 40 academic and business articles, reports, and books for this literature review.

What we saw in the literature

Not surprisingly, the literature shows a general consensus that the traditional annual PM process isn’t enough. As it turns out, most traditional processes don’t drive engagement, often don’t encourage development, and don’t focus on the employee experience. While the research recognizes that some of the more traditional aspects of PM are still very necessary, organizations have experimented with ways to better engage employees in the process.

And experiment they have. We found literature on everything from completely ditching the performance review to facilitating continuous conversations, to adaptable goals. And while the sentiment is right, we think that there is an overemphasis in the literature on the process (i.e., the nuts and bolts of how we conduct performance management and its individual components), and an under-emphasis on the changing relationship between employee and employer (manager and up) and what that means for  performance. Specifically, four general themes emerged:

Traditional approaches are no longer appropriate

The traditional model of performance management – the one introduced in the mid 1990s and discussed ad nauseum as an evil necessity – is unlikely to yield the results organizations want because it doesn’t focus on feedback as an informal, real-time way to engage and develop talent. It also disregards the importance of developing and maintaining a relationship between manager and employee, and instead, rigidly sticks to a standardized cycle that is not aligned with how and when work gets accomplished or when feedback is needed.

A “one-size-fits-all” approach to performance management can’t handle the highly dynamic and customized world we live and work in because it doesn’t take into account the work type nor the people in the organization.

Because of this, organizations are shifting performance away from a complex, top-down system to a mechanism that can enhance employee experience – turning something that happens to the employee into something that happens for the employee.

Ratings aren't the problem – we are

Over and over again, authors, particularly in more recent publications, urge caution about removing ratings. In fact, some authors say that organizations have reached premature conclusions about ratings: instead of fixing them, they’re buying into the myth that they serve no purpose and should be removed.

However, the literature also indicates that removing ratings does not exonerate organizations from providing feedback or evaluation; and it may make it harder. Evaluation is necessary to provide meaningful and personalized feedback so employees can improve.

A bigger problem appears to be managers’ inability or unwillingness to diagnose and confront performance problems¹. This is particularly challenging in situations where ratings have been removed. And as organizations remove ratings, they need to rely more heavily on more frequent feedback in order to guide employees. Unfortunately, many organizations aren’t sure that their managers are either willing or able to have those feedback discussions². Which brings us to our third theme.

Relationships are increasingly important

As organizations have replaced annual performance reviews with more regular feedback conversations, there has been a necessary renewed focus on the relationships in organizations – particularly those between employees and managers.

To do this effectively, organizations have to trust their managers to move past just managing projects to truly managing people. This has expanded the role of managers from beyond simply assigning work to one that also includes motivating and engaging team members and holding individuals accountable.

The literature also addresses the growing trend of peer reviews – the practice of employees providing open feedback to each other. This has prompted organizations to begin to think about how best to create a “culture of feedback” where everyone is able to provide quality feedback.

Fairness matters

Finally, fairness. As organizations adopt more frequent feedback and more open conversations, they also need to think through how they create an environment of trust and fairness. More specifically, employees need to feel that the feedback they get is credible and fair – regardless of whether it comes from a peer or a manager.

The literature points out that in most PM processes, subtle forms of bias exist, and these biases can create different outcomes for different groups. For example, similarity bias may subtly influence a manager to provide slightly higher ratings for someone more like them (i.e., same likes/dislikes, same gender and race, similar background). These biases are particularly relevant when talking about the relationship between manager and employee. Most PM systems are not yet set up to protect against them.

Interestingly, removing ratings doesn’t remove the potential for bias – it can actually increase it. When organizations remove ratings, they often replace them with fairly ambiguous criteria for evaluation which allow for much broader interpretation. This broader interpretation can lead to perceptions of unfairness and violate norms of trust.

Articles that caught our eye

Of the literature we reviewed, several pieces stood out to us. Each of the following pieces explored ideas that we found useful and interesting. We found them helpful in expanding the way we have been thinking about PM, its challenges, and its possible solutions.

Performance Management: A Marriage Between Practice and Science – Just Say “I Do”

Paul E. Levy, Steven T. Tseng, Christopher C. Rosen and Sarah B. Lueke

“Spoiler alert: the fix is not to blindly get rid of ratings.”

This chapter discusses recent criticisms of traditional PM practices and reviews them in light of academic research. In an effort to reduce the gap between practice and science in PM, the chapter highlights what organizations can do to improve their PM practices and where scholars should focus their research efforts.

Highlights:

• Argues that practitioners are driving the criticism of PM and that the gap between science and practice needs to be addressed
• Suggests that solutions to address criticisms of PM should come from both a practical and research-based point of view
• Advocates that removing ratings should be the rare exception and not the general rule

"Re-Engineering Performance Management"

Ben Wigert and Jim Harter / Gallup, Inc.

“Performance management has buckled because organizations have prioritized measurement over development.”

This report presents research on why traditional practices are not working, insights on how to improve them, and expectations that today’s employees have for their employing organizations.  The authors recommend that organizations should create a culture of performance development by establishing expectations, continually coaching, and creating accountability.

Highlights:

• Presents the research behind why traditional PM is not effective in today’s organizations
• Discusses the changing nature of what employees expect from their organizations and how organizations can think through what (if any) changes are necessary in their approach to PM

"Straight Talk About Employee Evaluation and Performance Management"

Lucia Rahilly, Bryan Hancock and Bill Schaninger / McKinsey

“…there is still no substitute for the direct feedback and coaching that happens day in and day out…”

This podcast, with transcription provided, discusses recent research by McKinsey on what drives effective PM. The discussion focuses on the role of the manager to engage in quality performance and development conversations with direct reports, the need for some sort of evaluative component, and the finding that perceptions of fairness impact the degree to which PM is seen as effective.

Highlights:

• Discusses the current trends in PM and the necessary reliance on the ability of managers to provide coaching and feedback
• Explains that people still want to know how they’re performing and that some sort of evaluative component is likely necessary
• Illustrates the importance of perceptions of fairness in the PM approach

"3 Biases that Hijack Performance Reviews and How to Address Them"

Beth Jones, Khalil Smith, and David Rock

“…not all biases make us actively malicious. The key is how we manage our biases.”

The article discusses bias from a neuroscience perspective, highlighting that bias is our brain’s constant search for efficiency. While bias is not inherently bad, it can lead to negative outcomes if left unexplored. The authors discuss three biases – expedience, distance, and similarity – and how managers and organizations can mitigate their impact on performance appraisal.

Highlights:

• States that bias negatively impacts performance appraisal and briefly discusses the impact of three prevalent biases
• Provides high-level suggestions on how to mitigate the influence of these biases in performance appraisal

"Putting the System into Performance Management Systems: A Review and Agenda for Performance Management Research"

Deidra J. Schleicher, Heidi M. Baumann, David W. Sullivan, Paul E. Levy, Darel C. Hargrove and Brenda A. Barros-Rivera

"…much work is yet to be done in developing a body of scientific knowledge about performance management systems that can better inform practice."

While this article isn’t particularly provocative or stirring (it's why we put it last), it does provide a foundational summary of current PM research, which is helpful in understanding more progressive and innovative perspectives. The authors present a model of PM and summarize research from 1980 to 2017. Based on this review, they provide recommendations for future research in PM. This article is great for leaders and practitioners that want to geek out on the history of PM.

Highlights:

• Presents a model of PM to organize components of PM and to integrate perspectives
• Suggests that there are only seven core tasks involved in PM
• Illustrates the importance and value of both formal and informal components of PM
• Builds a case that we’ve excluded the examination of important variables in PM
• Argues that more research is still needed on PM

Overall Impressions

The literature on PM is vast and varied, and there are many, many smart people with different perspectives. We’re pretty sure no one perspective is the “right” perspective. That said, we’re starting to see large-scale agreement for the notion that traditional, top-down, annual-driven PM is less likely to reign supreme in the workforce of the future. With this shift, we think we’ll also see an increased emphasis on the role of relationships in organizations, the expectations of managers, and the importance of trust and fairness in PM approaches.

Culture Amp announced today it acquired Zugata, a continuous performance management technology company. I was thrilled to hear about this acquisition – Culture Amp’s first – as it has real potential to both increase the competitiveness of the talent management technology landscape and significantly benefit both Culture Amp and Zugata’s customers. In this blog, I’m going to explain what is happening more broadly in the market and then specifically focus on this new acquisition.

As I wrote last year, talent management practices are converging; in particular, the following areas are coming together:

• Performance management (PM)
• Employee engagement
• Recognition
• Learning / career management

This is happening because organizations are trying to better “listen” to employees by more holistically collecting feedback (on employee engagement, experience, and performance) and using that insight to drive culture. This shift is a natural outcome of the massive changes we’ve seen in performance management across the last eight years or so, where more frequent performance conversations and seeing the manager / employee relationship as critical to employee engagement have become the norm. In this new world, the employee and manager are the center of these talent management practices, and they are using technology tools to regularly check in on, enable, and encourage performance, engagement, and experience.

Unfortunately for HR technology customers, though, there has been a hole in the technology market. Many of the traditional talent management systems vendors have not been able to create this employee-centered system that enables continuous, circular feedback and development opportunities. Further, the best-of-breed solutions have – as you would expect – only focused on their primary silo, and not offered enough capabilities to provide the experience either.

But that began to change about 18 months ago. We’ve recently seen a wave of acquisitions and capability build-outs to meet these multiple needs (and I’m sure this list is not comprehensive):

• Glint (an employee engagement / experience company) started to build PM capabilities and then was acquired by LinkedIn (talent acquisition and learning, via Lynda.com)
• TinyPulse (an employee engagement / experience company) built out recognition capabilities via “cheers” and “virtual suggestions”
• Limeade (an employee engagement / experience company) built out recognition capabilities, in addition to well-being and inclusion
• YouEarnedIt (a recognition / engagement company) bought HighGround (a PM company)
• Globoforce (a recognition company) built a light-weight PM module (Conversations)
• OC Tanner (a recognition company) built a light-weight PM module (Align)
• Achievers (a recognition company) built an employee engagement / listening module
• Reward Gateway (a recognition company) bought Brand Integrity and now has an employee engagement offering

So, in short, you can see that a lot of previously best-of-breed vendors are bringing together at least three of these four capabilities.

Which brings us to today’s announcement. I was thrilled to hear about this acquisition for many reasons (detailed below), but the biggest one is that it allows Culture Amp to go beyond its traditional employee engagement / experience offering and now provide performance management, recognition, and some aspects of learning, via Zugata.

Let’s talk about why this makes sense for Culture Amp first. For years I have urged Culture Amp to think more about how to serve the performance management space, given the above trends and the strong demand from their customers for a PM solution (many Culture Amp customers have been customizing their solution for years to meet performance management needs). Second, Culture Amp’s customers are deeply passionate about their product and driving meaningful, data-driven change in their organizations. If there is a technology vendor that could further help the performance management revolution, Culture Amp is it. Finally, Culture Amp is competing in the highly-competitive employee engagement / experience market, and a performance management offering helps them further differentiate their product.

So why Zugata? For the last few years, I have had a short list of innovative PM solutions, and I’ve told anyone that asked that they should check out Zugata (someone finally listened!)  There are lots of reasons I like Zugata, in addition to the fact that they offer performance management, recognition (praise only, no rewards), and learning.

First, I love how Zugata incorporates organizational network analysis (ONA) into its continuous feedback technology. By doing this, Zugata can help identify the people an individual has worked with the most in a given period, and then solicit ongoing feedback from the most relevant folks. Further, since Zugata is doing this, it can avoid over-asking for feedback from any one individual, which is a real challenge in the continuous PM era. In addition, this built-in ONA capability can help people understand who they work with the most and the composition of their own network – which can be useful for understanding where the network may need to be built more.

Second, Zugata offers natural language processing (NLP) of performance feedback and allows leaders to analyze key themes. For example, an organization can use NLP to identify the feedback given to high performers in the company to understand the behaviors / attributes that are being rewarded the most (frequent positive mentions) versus the least (infrequent or negative mentions). The company can then compare those highly rewarded behaviors / attributes to the published values / behaviors / attributes to see if the company is “walking the walk” in terms of what is valued within the culture. Further, as I’ve written about in our research on diversity and inclusion (D&I) technology, Zugata allows organizations to see if specific words or capabilities are being commented on for one gender more than the another (e.g., focusing on work output more for men and personality more for women). This can help an organization begin to root out unconscious bias that is occurring within performance management.

Third, Zugata uses the data within its system to suggest specific learning opportunities, offering an expanded development library from the likes of Lynda.com and Skillshare. While there are a lot of technologies that do this, what has impressed me most about Zugata is that it uses the information on who has what specific strengths and then can suggest mentor matches for folks who need to develop those specific strengths. Further, if a mentor is not available within a company, organizations can leverage Zugata’s relationship with The Muse, and given their employees access to career coaches. This represents a focus on extending beyond content to recommending relationships, which is an important shift.

Finally, I am excited about this acquisition because I think there is a strong culture fit between these two companies. Culture Amp remains laser-focused on culture (as you would expect), and in particular cares deeply about diversity and inclusion. As you may expect from my commentary on Zugata’s D&I capabilities, Zugata also cares about making the corporate world more diverse, inclusive, and equitable.

This acquisition is likely to force the market to advance. It will no longer be enough for these providers to loosely stitch together the different capabilities (engagement / experience assessments, performance management, recognition, and learning), given the number of players who will offer those capabilities. Instead, technology vendors will have to provide an increasingly seamless solution that has a clear vision of the value it provides to workers, managers, leaders, and HR. This will benefit everyone.

I should not conclude without mentioning, as always, there will be challenges for both companies in managing and executing the integration. And, as we all know, most acquisitions are not successful. However, I am very bullish on this one and wish Didier and Srinivas and their teams well as they continue their efforts to become one big Culture Amp team.