Author: Kyle Lagunas

Kyle Lagunas is the Head of Strategy & Principal Analyst at Aptitude Research. He’s spent over a decade studying innovation cycles in HR and talent technology—with leadership roles in both the solution provider and practitioner space—and brings that breadth of experience and insight to his work advising vendors and practitioners on the ever-evolving world of talent. He’s a transformational talent leader, top industry analyst, and non-nonsense strategist with a reputation for bringing a fresh perspective to the table.

Before joining Aptitude, he served as the Head of Talent Attraction, Sourcing & Insight at General Motors where he led the go-to-market functions of the company’s global talent acquisition and played a pivotal role in transforming their recruiting strategies and processes. At Beamery, his role as Director of Strategy put him at the intersection of customer experience, sales and marketing, and product.

At Aptitude, Kyle brings together all aspects of his career to bridge the ever-growing gap between talent leaders, their stakeholders, and their solution providers to power more meaningful outcomes.

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What the Heck Happened to Recruitment During COVID-19?

Post author By Kyle Lagunas
Post date February 14, 2024

On this episode of Transformation Realness, I’m talking with Hung Lee, editor of leading industry newsletter Recruiting Brainfood. We’re taking a look at the chaotic era of COVID-19 and the ripple effect the pandemic had on recruitment practices. Hung and I compare notes on where we could have done things differently, where we had absolutely no control, and where things landed.

“The last five years have been really putting the TA function, recruitment function, through a wringer,” Hung says. So, what the heck happened to recruitment during COVID-19 — and more importantly, where has that journey taken us? I’m glad you asked!

The ups and downs in recruitment since the pandemic have reshaped the function as we knew it. Hung compares it to baking, where making a small change to the recipe completely transforms the result — for better or worse. “What’s happened over the last five years is that we’ve stretched this dough, and we’ve transformed it, and we’ve broken bits off — and different things are going to happen,” he says. “So I think that’s been the macro impact on us as a function.”

Listen to hear Hung’s perspective on the ever-evolving recruitment function and how companies and talent leaders must adapt to thrive in these changing times.

It’s Time to Bring the Band Back Together

Talent acquisition leaders and practitioners have worked hard to separate their roles from broader HR programs. “I think that’s a valid argument to make, because you do need different skills, you do need different kinds of capabilities, maybe even different personalities,” Hung says. “But at the same time, I think the worst thing we could have done is to separate to such an extent that we’re no longer collaborating.”

Completely divorcing talent acquisition from talent strategy leads to siloed decision-making and can limit TA’s role to traditional, external recruitment efforts. But recruitment can add so much more value to the business than just that. “I think the future of TA needs to roll back somewhat towards HR,” Hung says, “and will operate more cohesively because all of these things are obviously interlinked.”

A stronger focus on strategic workforce planning, backed by a unified talent acquisition and HR function, might have provided more stability during and since the pandemic.

Why No Investments in Internal Mobility Have Stuck

Internal mobility is the topic du jour in HR circles today, yet many employers still struggle to create successful internal mobility programs. And it’s not for lack of trying: companies are investing money, effort, and resources into tools and processes that are supposed to make it easier to engineer talent, but for many, nothing has stuck.

It comes down to three problems, Hung says. First, “employees are not aware as to when those opportunities actually are there,” he says, because internal systems for communicating job openings are notoriously unreliable for reaching the right people with the right roles.

The second problem, Hung says, is political. Without a culture that supports mobility, all too often employees simply don’t make a move because they’re concerned about how it might affect their current role or relationship with their boss. “When you apply for a job internally, there is an implication and a consequence, irrespective of success or failure,” Hung says.

The third problem, Hung says, relates to managers, who simply aren’t incentivized to push internal mobility opportunities to their teams. “No operational manager enjoys extra or unexpected recruiting, because that’s a hole they need to fill — particularly if you’re a good worker,” Hung says. “The only people that managers are happy to push out are ineffective workers.”

You can invest in all the tools in the world, but seeing real change comes down to providing the right processes and culture to support employee career development and mobility.

We’d Be Remiss Not to Talk About AI

COVID-19 prompted more investment in recruitment technology and tech-enabled processes. But people are still wary of artificial intelligence scoring and ranking resumes, Hung says — although this feature is built into many recruitment tools today. A more palatable use of AI is to “present the quantified data and then have the human being make that decision,” Hung says.

Decisions of any kind are challenging, but even more so now when we have to make choices without the luxury of stability. Any decisions we make, whether it’s who to hire or what AI tools to invest in, we need to make in the face of uncertainty. “We have to reject the mindset that there is a normal to go back to,” Hung says. “We’re on a roller coaster, and the roller coaster doesn’t end. What we have to do is simply develop the skill set to deal with uncertainty and to make decisive decisions.”

People in This Episode

Hung Lee: LinkedIn, Recruiting Brainfood

Automation & AI Blog

A Bold New Era for ADP

Post author By Kyle Lagunas
Post date September 27, 2023

Fall is officially here, and I couldn’t be more excited. Not only because I’m more into spooky witch girl autumn than hot girl summer… As an industry analyst and advisor, it’s when all the latest innovations come to market. And I’m literally a professional geek for this ish!

Kicking off the new season was ADP’s Analyst Day at their Innovation Labs in Chelsea, NYC.

They’ve held their analyst day here for years—choosing this location over their global HQ in Roseland, New Jersey to send a future-focused message to the analyst community: This isn’t the ADP of yore.

The message held especially true this year. While there were many familiar faces in the room, there were also a lot of new faces taking the stage—all part of the new leadership team Maria Black has built to execute her vision of ADP’s next chapter.

A Bold New Chapter for ADP

In her opening remarks, Maria shared her vision for growing “stronger, smarter, and with purpose,” specifically drilling in on three strategic priorities:

Lead with Best-in-Class HCM Technology
Provide Unmatched Expertise & Outsourcing
Benefit ADP Clients with Global Scale

There’s a lot to unpack here, of course, but what really piqued my interest was Maria’s stated intention to “grow by listening.”

Solution providers in the HCM space—from the smallest startup to the biggest player in global payroll—frequently call out the importance of listening to their customers. If we learned anything from the rapid dominance of players like UKG and Workday over the last decade, it’s that HCM players can’t rest on their laurels—the problems you solved yesterday aren’t the same as the problems HR leaders and business executives face today… And ADP is taking this truth to heart.

Executing on these three initiatives, Maria identified several key audiences they’re listening to: Their clients (big and small), their partners (and coopetition), their expert associates, and their unparalleled datasets.

It’s a nice message—and an idea I fully support—but when you’re as big as ADP, listening is easier said than done. Hell, it’s hard to do even when you’re small! One key challenge is that a huge portion of any product and technology organization doesn’t organically interface with clients and partners on any regular basis.

For ADP, this specific challenge came up in a few of my conversations with the team who shared they would love to connect with customers more but lack established channels—and it’s something I raised directly with Maria during the executive Q&A.

While my heart was racing after asking because I am extremely non-confrontational, Maria took the question seriously, acknowledging that it’s easier said than done. “I appreciate you calling that out, and I’m not completely surprised,” she said in response. “But it’s a priority for us and we’re working hard ot make strides here.”

John Ayala, ADP COO, joined her in sharing some of the work they’re doing together to operationalize on this commitment. That joint investment of time and effort is already bearing fruit, and I see it playing out in a few ways.

ADP Puts the CHRO Customer in the Driver’s Seat—Literally

In a dynamic session on ADP’s approach to innovation, Sreeni Kutam, elevated from CHRO to President of Product & Innovation, struck a new tone with his willingness to acknowledge the monumental task ahead of him and his team. Setting the stage, he said, “We’re here to share what we think will make a difference for our clients. You’re here to check us—and together we’ll find the right solutions for the challenges we’re facing today.” Challenge accepted, Sreeni!
As former Customer Zero for ADP’s HCM and talent solutions, he knows better than most in the ADP customer ecosystem what’s possible—and what gets in the way of what’s possible. Leveraging that experience, he’s bringing new energy to the product teams.

First up on his agenda is simplifying the ADP product portfolio with a heavy emphasis on NextGen HCM, ADP’s strategic solution for up-market customers. As someone who has always struggled to navigate all of the different offerings in the ADP catalogue, this is a breath of fresh air—but it’s the why behind Sreeni’s decision here that really gets exciting:
By simplifying the product portfolio, ADP is better able to deliver cutting-edge innovations across all of their solutions.

“We want to move every single ADP product up in the value chain,” Sreeni said. Things like ADP Mobile, ADP DataCloud, ADP Marketplace can bring value to every ADP customer, regardless of the core solution they’re on—and ADP can bring powerful, edge-innovations to customers of any size and geo. “We can do this,” Sreeni said. “We have to do this for HR.”
And there are some really edgy innovations coming!

ADP Makes the Case for AI as a Core Offering

Jack Berkowitz, Chief Data Officer and product leader for ADP’s People Analytics, Benchmarking & Insights products, gave an incredible overview of ADP Assist—which leverages Gen AI to create a richer, deeper experience for employees, managers, and HR leaders alike. I’ve seen a LOT of Gen AI offerings this year, and I have to hand it to ADP: their approach and their ideas are deeply rooted in utility and longevity, not hype (though they are super hyped!).

The ADP Assist Framework orchestrates ecosystem of AI Assists and workflows across the entire ADP product portfolio (and eventually beyond, with their new OneIntegrations platform powered by their latest acquisition, Sora).

ADP Assist uses GenAI to power NLP-based actions and task automation to deliver BI that provides personalization, insights, and guidance. It’s supported by cross-system workflow automation across HR, Finance, and IT with use cases spanning a reporting assistant, policy summarization and interpretation, an ADP Payroll Inspector, and the ADP Skills Graph.

What Was Missing: You Can’t Have HCM without Talent

If the live offering works even half as well as the demo, I see ADP Assist powering deeper utilization of some of ADP’s deeper capabilities—capabilities that aren’t as easy for the layperson to leverage. Whereas much of the innovations in AI for HR has occurred at the edge of the vendor ecosystem, ADP’s approach to Gen AI makes a strong argument for why HR leaders—and their colleagues in IT—should be looking at AI as a core element of the future-proof HR tech stack.

It’s hard to put these kinds of summits together for a company as big—and product rich—as ADP. At the end of the day, you only have so much stage time. That said, I was sad to see the ADP Talent Solutions team didn’t make the cut this year.

My greatest takeaway from last year’s event was the powerful case Amy Ihlen’s team made for what they’ve termed “the connected talent experience.” There were several places in this year’s presentation where talent solutions were referenced—StandOut included in Sreeni’s vision of cross-portfolio innovation, twice as many roadmap items for talent solutions for both NextGen HCM and Workforce Now (including a new LMS!), as well as a compelling conversation with Dr. Nela Richardson, ADP Chief Economist and ESG Officer, on declines in employee sentiment and productivity.

As a former people leader and talent transformation agent, I have felt the pain of managing today’s workforce first-hand. And while it’s certainly important to have reliable, connected solutions for HCM and payroll, it was the talent processes (and gaps in talent solutions) that created the most significant hurdles for me in my work. ADP’s story for connected talent centered around enabling the hiring manager and embedding growth and performance conversations into the flow of work—capabilities I would have killed for.

I recently had the opportunity to get an updated product deep dive with Amy and her team this summer, and maybe I’m biased (I totally am lol) but I believe ADP has immense opportunity to compete with the other major HCM players in this corner of the space—and where they can also move the needle on Maria’s strategic priorities (both for offering Best-in-Class HCM and leveraging Unmatched Expertise through their network of talent experts).

All in all, I’ve got to say ADP set the bar high for the rest of the Fall 2023 conference season. Their vision is bold, their plans are big, and they have their work cut out for them. With new leadership at the helm and experienced executers at their backs, this marked a new and exciting chapter for ADP.

Blog

Indeed Goes All-In on Matching Algorithms in Move to Pay for Results (PPR) Business Model

Post author By Kyle Lagunas
Post date April 25, 2023

Last week, Indeed announced it’s taking its next major step beyond pay-per-click and into pay-for-results by opening the model—wherein employers no longer pay for clicks, but for quality applicants—beyond SMB to include employers of all sizes and industries in US and UK markets. Though the initial announcement of a move to PPR last Fall was met with mixed feelings, Indeed is going full bore. And the timing couldn’t be better.

Following several years of employers hiring on all cylinders, our research finds that the number one priority for HR leaders this year—across companies of all sizes and industries—is improving Quality of Hire. It’s a return to one of HR’s most fundamental KPIs and reflects a renewed focus on making every hire count through another year of economic uncertainty. For businesses big and small, in healthcare, retail, or business services, the viability of a company’s workforce is a critical component of business resiliency—and that starts with getting the right candidates into the right roles.

Against this backdrop, Indeed’s continued push into PPR is huge news for employers, the recruitment marketing industry, and the broader HR technology ecosystem for two reasons:

Indeed’s PPR model based on quality of hire moves recruitment marketing toward clearer ROI outcomes and actionable insight for all.

Indeed’s PPR model is powered by its own proprietary matching algorithms and shifting this edge innovation to core capability for employers.

Before I dig in, a disclaimer: Although I’ve managed recruitment marketing functions in the past, I have never considered myself a digital marketing expert—nor have I even posted a single job to Indeed’s platform (or elsewhere for that matter). To help shape my perspective on this shift in the market, I’ve conducted a few informational interviews with experts and solution providers in job advertising, recruitment marketing, and matching AI.

Special thanks to Joe Shaker, Jr. of Shaker Recruitment Marketing, Tom Chevalier of Appcast, and Erin Hartman of AdMechanics.

The Big News: Moving Recruitment Marketing Closer to Direct Hiring ROI with PPR

Let’s start with PPR itself: It’s as ambitious as it is disruptive.

I’m not surprised to see reports of some friction as Indeed rolls out their new model—this turns post-and-pray on its head. Sure, job boards like Indeed have made it easier over the years for recruiters and hiring managers to take this approach to job advertising… but all the more reason for one of the leaders in the space to take drastic measures that curb this behavior.

With Indeed’s new capabilities for both PPA and PPSA, hiring teams can be more intentional when looking for their next great hire. Similarly, a lack of intention (and attention) can result in poor outcomes—like being billed for applicants that may not be the best fit for your roles. In the new model, Indeed customers have 72 hours to engage or reject interested candidates before being charged for each applicant. This is already ruffling some feathers—especially with so much pressure on teams to be as cost-conscious as possible—but with req levels lower now for most companies, it’s a good time to start forcing through overdue changes in recruiter behavior.

And that’s because efforts focused on optimizing spend and improving best practices in recruiting all have one thing in common: ROI. For job advertising in particular, moving ROI reporting beyond clicks and impressions is a great thing.

I’ve never been one to over-index on source of hire for my ROI analysis—I’ve always been more focused on quality of applicant. When managing talent sourcing and attraction in the past, I set interview-quality talent as our KPI. It was our job to bring in candidates that hiring managers were willing to interview—and the rest of the recruiting and hiring process was a joint effort between the recruiters and the hiring managers. I would rely on my team’s analysis of directional data like clicks and impressions to find opportunities to optimize our recruitment marketing efforts—but my stakeholders and I wanted to see more straightforward performance metrics. So this is a win.

That said… Indeed will likely run into some challenges in larger companies where recruiters aren’t always directly managing their job postings. Closer partnership with their colleagues in sourcing and recruitment marketing—and between recruitment marketing and their agency partners—will be essential to put the PPR model to work for enterprise organizations.

For my friends in talent attraction, I would begin putting together some new SOPs with your stakeholders in recruiting delivery (and SLAs with your agency) that forces regular review of all active postings to ensure you’re not blowing your budget in the first week of every month.

The Bigger News: Matching Algorithms Go Mainstream in Talent Acquisition

It’s crazy to me that almost no one reporting on Indeed’s big news is talking about one of the biggest components of their new model… PPR isn’t something new—I believe the first time I saw it was on Talroo back in 2016—but it’s certainly difficult to offer at scale. Partly because while many job board vendors were making it easier for companies to share their open jobs, they were also making it easier for candidates to apply to said jobs. The result was lots and lots of bad-fit applicants—and lots of resume blackholes.

While job seekers can still search for open roles the old-fashioned way, Indeed began using matching technology as early as 2017 to recommend jobs to candidates based on their background and experience. But I hadn’t heard much about Indeed’s matching capabilities… until I was briefed on their move to PPR. You see, Indeed’s matching capabilities are supporting PPR in a couple of ways:

Job seekers can utilize Indeed’s skills and experience matching algorithim to look beyond a job title to find the most relevant opportunities for them. Of course, anyone can still apply for any job they want—but by presenting targeted information to candidates about what potential gaps in their profile, Indeed provides prospective applicants with actionable insight they need to determine if they’re likely to be considered for a role. It’s my hope that Indeed will invest further in both recommendation features and candidate insights that will result in more highly relevant roles as well as more relevant applicants.
Indeed provides employers with a list of relevant candidates for their jobs today, and recruiters can invite candidates with certain skills, experience, and backgrounds to apply to their jobs on Indeed today. But whereas some recruiters and sourcers have used this feature to spam potential candidates in hopes of getting as much exposure for their jobs as possible, employers will now be charged for every invited candidate that applies—and this ups the ante for both Indeed and its customers.

In order to get buy-in for the PPR model, Indeed needs to deliver quality applicants—and that means suggesting outreach for only highly relevant candidates to employers. For recruiters and sourcers, gone are the days of creating catch-all campaigns. Intentionality and discernment are both critical components of a working PPR model. For both, I have to wonder if Indeed will begin introducing additional features similar to those offered by other vendors—be it match scores, rankings based on degree of match, or call-outs of strengths and gaps in candidates’ profiles.

Now, I have to admit that Indeed hasn’t made any official commitments to increasing investments in their matching capabilities as part of their push to PPR. I expect they’ll have their hands full with change management as they move forward with the full launch of PPR as the default model for all customers. Though it may not be welcomed with open arms by Indeed’s customers this year, my conversations with leaders in the recruitment marketing industry were all cautiously optimistic that Indeed’s move to a PPR model is a better model for all.

Which is why I’m looking ahead—to see how this will work in the long run. The success of Indeed’s new model hinges on its ability to present the most relevant jobs to applicants, and the most relevant applicants to employers. The name of the game here is an increase in the quality of applicants. Otherwise, what are Indeed’s customers paying for?