Insights on Work, Talent, Learning, Leadership, and HR Technology
This week we met with Workday at the company’s annual Innovation Summit and I walked away very impressed. Not only is Workday clear-eyed and definitive about its AI product strategy, the company is entering one of its strongest product cycles in years. I have never seen so many Workday features reach maturity and it’s clear ... Read more»
Microsoft is betting the farm on OpenAI and ChatGPT with the biggest upgrade to Microsoft 365 in decades. The new release, entitled Microsoft 365 Copilot, delivers Generative AI tools and chat embedded in every module in the suite: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams and Viva. They call it “Your Copilot for Work.”
And ... Read more»
On March 14, 2023 the United States will celebrate Equal Pay Day, the symbolic day dedicated to raising awareness of the gender pay gap, which is the difference between the average earnings of men and women for the same work. And according to most studies, this “pay gap” has a way to go.
In ... Read more»
Human Resources is one of the most complex, imperfect areas of business. Virtually every decision we make about people (who to hire, who to promote, how much to pay someone, how to develop someone) is based on judgment, experience, personal bias, and some amount of data. And since well over 50% of all corporate spending ... Read more»
Two Economics PhD candidates at MIT just published a fascinating study of the impact of ChatGPT on white collar productivity. And the results are pretty spectacular. (Note this is not peer reviewed yet.)
The team asked 444 white collar workers to do writing and editing tasks along the lines of marketing, grant writing, data analysis, ... Read more»
While journalists worry about generative AI (chatbots and Large Language Models), Microsoft is powering ahead. This week the company took a big step and introduced OpenAI embedded into Microsoft Dynamics and also introduced development tools to let you build intelligent chatbots on your own data.
This opens the door on the a massive ... Read more»
If there’s one topic I’ve learned to respect in business, it’s the critical role of culture. And this word, which many people define in different ways, almost always defines business performance, success, and even failure.
Over the last two years we have convened eleven in-depth, multi-week design meetings with more than 3,000 HR professionals. (We ... Read more»
In this podcast I detail the Workday AI and ML strategy, with a strong focus on the new, more integrated HCM products and how they fit together. I also discuss the Skills Cloud, where it came from, and where it’s going. And I also explain why Workday Prism, Extend, and Orchestrate have become so strategic ... Read more»
This week I’m focusing on three things: First a quick discussion of the SVB banking crisis and what’s going on; Second a further discussion about why Generative AI is so disruptive to HR; and Third, and most important, a deep discussion about Pay Equity.
This coming week is Equal Pay Day where we symbolically celebrate ... Read more»
This week I want to talk about the IBM/Chief study of women in leadership that concludes “the leadership pipeline is broken” and that “given the state of the pipeline, we may NEVER reach gender parity.” The data is striking so I want to show it to you and try to interpret what’s going on.
Second, ... Read more»
It’s time for a new operating model for Human Resources, one we name “Systemic HR.” Bear with me as I explain this important change.
Business Challenge #1: Slower Growth, Labor Shortage
2023 represents a pivotal year. As we exit the pandemic and 15 years of low interest rates, companies are looking for new pathways to ... Read more»
In this podcast I talk more about the high cost of AI and chatbots like Bing and ChatGPT, and how to think about the “risks” of AI as it takes over the computing landscape. (Yes, it will!)
I also discuss the enormous opportunity for HR teams to lead productivity projects, and finally give you my ... Read more»
This week we saw hundreds of stories, articles, and complaints about Bing. Well I’ve tried it and talked with some Microsoft execs and I believe this is one of the most important (and disruptive) technologies we will see in HR. So listen and you’ll hear why.
On an even more important point, I spent some ... Read more»
LinkedIn Learning has been one of the most fascinating success stories in HR Technology. It all started in 2015 when LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com, a pioneering provider of high-quality video learning designed for creative professionals.
I knew Lynda.com well before the acquisition, and when they became part of LinkedIn I had to ask myself “what ... Read more»
While I’m not formally trained as an economist, I spend so much time with companies HR departments I feel like we are “micro-economics” experts. So in a confusing time of paradoxical data (low unemployment during growing layoffs), let me explain what’s happening.
The US Labor Market Is A Churning Engine
While it’s tempting to think ... Read more»
This podcast is a review of last week’s massive set of announcements from Microsoft and Google about Chatbots. Rather than try to summarize what you’ve already read, I spend time talking about the implications of all this. Here are a few highlights:
Is Microsoft’s statement that “search will be reinvented” really correct and could this ... Read more»
This week we saw the US unemployment rate drop to 3.4%, a 53 year low. Yet many large companies are announcing layoffs. Is this “the big shift” from Tech to Retail, Hospitality, Healthcare, And Travel? Or is this just the new normal: too many jobs and not enough people? In this podcast I’ll explain what’s ... Read more»
Why do we have a labor shortage as we enter an economic slowdown? It’s an interesting paradox.
For the first time I can remember we’re entering a global economic slowdown yet the unemployment rate has dropped to the lowest it’s been in 53 years (3.4%) There is a shortage of people to take the jobs ... Read more»
As most of you know, the technology industry has laid off more than 200,000 people in the last six weeks and each week we see more (this week it was Intel, Paypal, Splunk, and Pinterest). So let me ask an important question: were all these layoffs inevitable?
Well in order to answer this question we ... Read more»
In this week’s podcast I cover a bunch of topics. Here they are:
Every year for 25 years I’ve tried to write Predictions for the year ahead. And this year, like none before, I think it’s time for something big. As you will read about in this newest report, we are entering a year which may redefine almost everything. Not to be dramatic, but when was ... Read more»
