Returning to Ceridian’s annual customer and prospect conference, Insights, after an eight-year absence, brings me an odd sense of “partial Déjà Vu.” (would that be Deja Vi?) All the changes in senior leadership in that timespan certainly have vastly transformed the company. And, as you’d guess, I wasn’t expecting to see many familiar faces. However, it has been a surprisingly wonderful reunion with some of the folks I respect the most in our industry.
It has always struck me that our HR Tech world lacks a true ability for the behind-the-scenes superstars to fully shine outside of their own company’s ecosystem. Every vendor has them – they’re the lifeblood of the vendor’s ability to deliver, implement or sell. Often they’re the ones leading sessions at these conferences or escorting their clients through the events, but unless they’re in the executive ranks, they’re often invisible to the employers who are considering what vendors with which to partner. It’s one of the things I love most about our vendor-neutral, outside consultant role: we get to collect and celebrate the invisible superstar talent that employers need to connect with to fully have confidence in their partnership decisions.
These annual conferences are such a great networking investment for employers who are current customers or those looking to decide. Whether its ADP’s Meeting of the Minds, Benefitfocus’ One Place, Ceridian’s Insights, CSOD’s Convergence, Ultimate’s Connections, etc., these events all offer clients an opportunity to connect to 1) those executives that prioritize and direct resources to areas of development (or defects!) and 2) the product and service experts who can cut to the heart of many issues. (By the way – did you notice the alphabetical order on the vendors? You wouldn’t believe how many hoops we jump through to always showcase our objectivity!) I always encourage my employer clients at these events to embark on an uber-aggressive collection of business cards and contacts. Those connections from one week of effort can provide so much relief during the other 51 weeks of the year when systems and services don’t always perform as they appeared on the brochure.
Quick highlight reel from the sessions:
– An Executive panel before lunch was pleasantly not all softball questions as they sometimes are.
- About Ceridian’s ability to deliver on roadmap:
- CEO David Ossip said “Dayforce brought to Ceridian the ability to deliver technology. Recruiting was promised last year and has been launched. Performance and Compensation are next.” (I’m not 100% clear if those are two modules or parts of the same module.)
- I thought his statement was bold for what it acknowledged about recent disappointing history (InView), while promising a different future outcome. He also spoke respectfully about some of Ceridian’s past glory days (2003-ish) when Ceridian led the industry with one of the first integrated HR, Payroll and Benefits databases and web applications and promised a return to notoriety.
- About Ceridian’s ability to support “explosive growth”:
- SVP, Implementation Adrian Grbavac said they had already hired over 100 folks in the first half of this year and were “expanding our partner ecosystem,” which only generated follow-up questions about the difference between internal and external implementation supports.
- We’ve seen this with many vendors over the years. It’s so much more scalable to cultivate and certify third-party partners than to hire a bunch of folks ahead of “expected” demand. Of course, that is often a little harder to explain to buyers when there’s no perceivable difference in price.
– Whoever put the ageless Jim O’Connell on stage to cover the Affordable Care Act and only gave him 10 minutes of talking time nearly created a rip in the space-time continuum. What could be more impossible?
– I have a new favorite Payroll Auditing quip: “..rob Federal to pay FICA” said Bill Baumann.
– There was a spontaneous round of applause during Aeropostale’s case study presentation when he told of his company’s move to Dayforce: “Best of all, there’s no mainframe processing!” So long Signature, you served that company well, but your fame has fled.
– HCM Analytics & Dashboards
- How amazing will it be for managers to be reacting real-time to labor and payroll issues through smartphone-pushed dashboards?
- I love the built-in PowerPoint export rendering for all Analytics output. The ability for employers to upload their branded presentation templates just likely saved major hours for HR and Payroll departments as they prepare data for senior leadership.
- After all, storing data isn’t really newsworthy, but turning that around to help organizations make better decisions easier is the Oscar-worthy achievement.
– Lifeworks, the sometimes overshadowed division of the Ceridian pantheon, delivered one of the most compelling business cases for change. The case was based around their ability to bring Health Risk Solutions to employers through packaged managed services focused on reducing overall healthcare spend.
- Pharmacy data/auditing, Medical Claims data/auditing with Network Provider Ratings and Decision Support provide the foundation of their offering – which is very similar to some broker offerings out there. Perhaps this could be a disruptor to current broker/consultant model?
- Somehow I think the “no incremental cost to an employer” might have caught some folks’ attention.
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