• Workday
    Workday签署最终协议收购Evisort,这是一家AI原生文档智能平台 Workday宣布收购Evisort,这是一家AI原生文档智能平台,此举旨在提升Workday在财务和HR数据管理领域的能力。Evisort利用先进的AI技术,从复杂的法律和商业文件中提取清晰、可操作的见解,帮助企业优化支出、增加收入、降低风险并管理义务。通过此次收购,Workday的客户将能够更高效地挖掘数据价值,加速业务决策和行动。 Evisort的平台使用户能够快速从合同、发票和政策文件等非结构化数据中提取信息,自动化流程,发现错误或缺失信息,并做出更明智的业务决策。例如,客户可以利用Evisort的AI技术更快地理解合同条款,优化文件创建过程,并确保利益相关者了解审查情况和必要的行动。 此次交易预计将在Workday 2025财年第三季度结束前完成,需满足惯常的交割条件。Workday表示,这次收购将帮助公司实现其愿景,即帮助客户从最重要的数据中释放更大的价值。 Evisort的AI驱动文档智能平台将使Workday客户能够更快、更高效地从大量的财务和HR数据中获取关键洞察并采取行动 拉斯维加斯,2024年9月17日 -- Workday公司(纳斯达克股票代码:WDAY),一家致力于帮助组织管理人力和财务的领先解决方案提供商,今天宣布已签署最终协议,将收购Evisort,一家领先的AI原生文档智能平台。通过此次收购,Workday将在其财务和HR套件中引入AI驱动的文档智能解决方案。 超过80%的业务数据是非结构化的,组织方式不利于搜索、分析或行动,包括合同、发票和政策文件中的数据。通过Evisort强大的AI功能,Workday将帮助客户从这些未开发的数据中获取关键洞察,以便更快地做出关键业务决策和行动。 Evisort是一家在文档智能领域受信任的AI领导者和先锋。该公司的平台利用AI技术,从存储在文档管理系统中的复杂法律和商业文件中提取清晰且可操作的洞察。大型组织使用Evisort分析整个企业的文件,挖掘重要信息,帮助他们减少支出、增加收入、降低风险和管理义务。 “组织坐拥海量数据,但由于搜索和分析过于复杂和耗时,往往无法发挥其全部潜力。”Workday首席财务官办公室集团总经理Terrance Wampler表示。“Evisort将帮助我们实现帮助客户解锁最关键数据价值的愿景。借助AI驱动的文档智能功能,客户将能够更快、更高效地获取并行动在这些洞察上,保持在当今快速变化的商业环境中的领先地位。” “AI是一股强大的力量,正在转变组织将文件中的非结构化数据转化为战略性业务决策的方式,”Evisort创始人兼首席执行官Jerry Ting表示。“我们很高兴将Evisort的文档智能技术与Workday的统一财务和HR平台相结合,这将使客户能够更有效地利用关键业务数据,在一个单一的真实系统内工作。” 通过Workday和Evisort的文档智能解决方案,客户将能够将非结构化数据从文档管理系统引入Workday,帮助客户更高效、智能地管理人力和财务流程,包括: 获取更准确的数据。 客户将能够在几秒钟内从业务文件中提取并转移数据,且更加准确和自信。这包括直接从文件中提取财务和运营细节以自动化下游流程,揭示错误或缺失信息,以及搜索支付条款等详细信息。 通过自动化驱动对齐和行动。 客户将能够使用强大的AI帮助员工更好地理解合同,简化文件创建过程,并让利益相关者了解审查和必要的行动。 做出更明智的业务决策。 客户将能够最大限度地利用业务文件,通过通知有利条款和条件以及建议的行动来提升决策效果。 Workday与Evisort:AI驱动的文档智能,打造变革工作场所 Workday将在各种应用场景中提供Evisort的AI驱动文档智能解决方案,帮助团队更好地实现目标并重塑角色,包括: 会计。 会计人员将能够利用AI功能快速导航业务文件,如收入合同、供应商发票和资产协议,更有效地阅读、转换、匹配和记账。例如,对于收入合同,会计人员将收到合同错误的警报,获得收入确认时间表的建议,并在合同续约时得到通知。 采购。 组织将利用这些AI驱动的解决方案提升供应商合同谈判和合同风险管理活动。这将推动降低支出机会,支持合规,并帮助减少风险。例如,采购专业人员将能够识别现有供应商协议中的未声明利益,并根据历史基准评估合同语言以指导谈判。这将有助于保护利润并防止不必要的风险。 员工知识库。 员工将能够更快速地访问有关HR和财务政策(如福利和费用)的信息,从而减少获取关键员工信息的时间。例如,员工将能够使用AI聊天机器人简单提问,并获得即时答案和参考支持文档。 关于Evisort收购的详情 该交易预计将在Workday的2025财年第三季度结束(2024年10月31日)前完成,需满足惯常的交割条件。Orrick律师事务所担任Workday的法律顾问,Goodwin律师事务所担任Evisort及其股东的法律顾问。 关于Workday Workday是一家领先的企业平台,帮助组织管理其最重要的资产——人力和财务。Workday平台以AI为核心,帮助客户提升人力、提升工作效率,并推动业务持续发展。全球超过10,500家组织在使用Workday,包括中型企业和超过60%的《财富》500强公司。有关Workday的更多信息,请访问workday.com。 © 2024 Workday, Inc. 保留所有权利。Workday及其标志是Workday公司的注册商标。所有其他品牌和产品名称是各自所有者的商标或注册商标。 关于Evisort Evisort的AI原生合同智能平台帮助包括微软、Workday、McKesson、BNY Mellon、西联汇款和NetApp在内的知名组织全面了解其合同。Evisort通过先进的专有AI技术——包括第一个专为合同设计的大型语言模型(LLM)——赋能团队更快速、更智能地起草、管理、分析和优化协议,帮助加快交易,减少风险和成本,并将法律和合同挑战转化为战略性业务机会。 前瞻性声明 本新闻稿包含与Workday、Evisort及Workday收购Evisort相关的前瞻性声明。这些前瞻性声明仅基于当前可用的信息以及Workday的当前信念、期望和假设。由于前瞻性声明涉及未来,因此存在固有的风险、不确定性、假设和难以预测的情况变化,其中许多因素超出了Workday的控制范围。如果风险变为现实,假设证明不正确,或者我们经历意外的情况变化,实际结果可能与这些前瞻性声明所暗示的结果有重大差异,因此,您不应依赖任何前瞻性声明。此声明中的前瞻性声明包括但不限于:有关拟议交易潜在利益和效果的声明;Workday对Evisort业务及其能力的计划、目标、期望和意图;以及拟议交易的预期完成时间。风险包括但不限于:(i)交易可能无法按时或根本无法完成的风险;(ii)未能实现交易预期利益的风险;(iii)Workday实施其对Evisort业务及其能力的计划、目标和其他期望的能力,以及我们在我们的HR和财务应用套件中交付AI驱动的文档智能解决方案的能力;(iv)交易公告或完成的负面影响;(v)与收购相关的意外费用或负债;以及(vi)我们向美国证券交易委员会(“SEC”)提交的文件中描述的其他风险和因素,包括我们最近提交的10-Q表格和我们将不时向SEC提交的其他报告,这些文件可能导致实际结果与预期有差异。Workday不承担任何义务,也不打算在本新闻稿发布后更新任何此类前瞻性声明。 本文件、Workday网站或其他新闻稿或公开声明中引用的任何尚未发布的服务、功能或功能均可能会发生变化,且可能不会按计划交付或根本不交付。购买Workday服务的客户应根据当前可用的服务、功能和功能做出购买决策。 来源:Workday公司
    Workday
    2024年09月17日
  • Workday
    Agency Law and the Workday Lawsuit 文章讨论了在Workday诉讼中,代理法的相关法律问题。原告声称,Workday的AI筛选工具因种族、年龄和残疾而对他进行了歧视。这起案件提出了HR技术供应商是否可以对歧视性结果直接负责的问题。法律的复杂性包括AI在招聘决策中的角色、代理责任以及对雇主和AI开发者的潜在影响。此案件提醒雇主在实施AI招聘工具时要谨慎,并确保避免法律风险。AI开发者也必须确保其产品无歧视行为,因为该诉讼可能会树立重要的法律先例。 Editor's Note Agency Law and the Workday Lawsuit Agency law is so old that it used to be called master and servant law. (That's different from slavery, where human beings were considered the legal property of other humans based on their race, gender, and age, which is partly why we have discrimination laws.) Today, agency laws refer to principals and agents. All employees are agents of their employer, who is the principal. And employers can have nonemployee agents too when they hire someone to do things on their behalf. Generally, agents owe principals a fiduciary duty to act in the principal's best interest, even when that isn't the agent's best interest. Agency laws gets tricky fast because you have to figure out who is in charge, what authority was granted, whether the person acting was inside or outside that authority, what duty applies, and who should be held responsible as a matter of fairness and public policy. Generally, the principal is liable for the acts of the agent, sometimes even when the agent acts outside their authority. And agents acting within their authority are rarely liable for their actions unless it also involves intentional wrongs, like punching someone in the nose. Enter discrimination, which is generally a creature of statute that may or may not be consistent with general agency law even when the words used are exactly the same.   Discrimination is generally an intentional wrong, but employees are not usually directly liable for discrimination because making employment decisions is part of the way employment works and the employer is always liable for those decisions. The big exception is harassment because harassment, particularly sexual harassment, is never part of someone's job duties. So in harassment cases, the individual harasser is liable but the employer may not be unless they knew what was going on and didn't do anything about it. It's confusing and makes your head hurt. And that's just federal discrimination law. Other employment laws, both state and federal, deal with agent liability differently. Now, let's move to the Workday lawsuit. In that case, the plaintiff is claiming that Workday was an agent of the employer, but not in the sense of someone the employer was directing. They are claiming that Workday has independent liability as an employer too because they were acting like an employer in screening and rejecting applicants for the employer. But that's kinda the whole point of HR Technology—to save the employer time and resources by doing some of the work. The software doesn't replace the employer's decision making and the employer is going to be liable for any discrimination regardless of whether and how the employer used their software. If this were a products liability case, the answer would turn on how the product was designed to be used and how the employer used it. But this is an employment law and discrimination case. So, the legal question here is whether a company that makes HR Technology can also be directly liable for discriminatory outcomes when the employer uses that technology.   We don't have an answer to that yet and won't for a while. That's because this case is just at the pleading stage and hasn't been decided based on the evidence. What's happened so far is Workday filed a motion to dismiss based on the allegations in the complaint. Basically, Workday said, "Hey, we're just a software company. We don't make employment decisions; the employer does. It's the employer who is responsible for using our software in a way that doesn't discriminate. So, please let us out of the case. Then the plaintiff and EEOC said it's too soon to decide that. If all of the allegations in the lawsuit are considered true, then the plaintiff has made viable legal claims against Workday.   Those claims are that Workday's screening function acts like the employer in evaluating applications and rejecting or accepting them for the next level of review. This is similar to what third party recruiters and other employment agencies do and those folks are generally liable for those decisions under discrimination law. In addition, Workday could even be an agent of the employer if the employer has directly delegated that screening function to the software.   We're not to the question of whether a software company is really an agent of the employer or is even acting like an employment agency. And even if it is, whether it's the kind of agency that has direct liability or whether it's just the employer who ends up liable. This will all depend on statutory definitions and actual evidence about how the software is designed, how it works, and how the employer used it.   We also aren't at the point where we look at the contracts between the employer and Workday, how liability is allocated, whether there are indemnity clauses, and whether these type of contractual defenses even apply if Workday meets the statutory definition of an employer or agent who can be liable under Title VII.   Causation will also be a big issue because how the employer sets up the software, it's level of supervision of what happens with the software, and what's really going on in the screening process will all be extremely important.   The only thing that's been decided so far is that the plaintiff filed a viable claim against Workday and the lawsuit can proceed. Here are the details of the case and some good general advice for employers using HR Technology in any employment decision making process.   - Heather Bussing AI Workplace Screener Faces Bias Lawsuit: 5 Lessons for Employers and 5 Lessons for AI Developers by Anne Yarovoy Khan, John Polson, and Erica Wilson at Fisher Phillips   A California federal court just allowed a frustrated job applicant to proceed with an employment discrimination lawsuit against an AI-based vendor after more than 100 employers that use the vendor’s screening tools rejected him. The judge’s July 12 decision allows the class action against Workday to continue based on employment decisions made by Workday’s customers on the theory that Workday served as an “agent” for all of the employers that rejected him and that its algorithmic screening tools were biased against his race, age, and disability status. The lawsuit can teach valuable lessons to employers and AI developers alike. What are five things that employers can learn from this case, and what are five things that AI developers need to know? AI Job Screening Tool Leads to 100+ Rejections Here is a quick rundown of the allegations contained in the complaint. It’s important to remember that this case is in the very earliest stages of litigation, and Workday has not yet even provided a direct response to the allegations – so take these points with a grain of salt and recognize that they may even be proven false. Derek Mobley is a Black man over the age of 40 who self-identifies as having anxiety and depression. He has a degree in finance from Morehouse College and extensive experience in various financial, IT help-desk, and customer service positions. Between 2017 and 2024, Mobley applied to more than 100 jobs with companies that use Workday’s AI-based hiring tools – and says he was rejected every single time. He would see a job posting on a third-party website (like LinkedIn), click on the job link, and be redirected to the Workday platform. Thousands of companies use Workday’s AI-based applicant screening tools, which include personality and cognitive tests. They then interpret a candidate’s qualifications through advanced algorithmic methods and can automatically reject them or advance them along the hiring process. Mobley alleges the AI systems reflect illegal biases and rely on biased training data. He notes the fact that his race could be identified because he graduated from a historically Black college, his age could be determined by his graduation year, and his mental disabilities could be revealed through the personality tests. He filed a federal lawsuit against Workday alleging race discrimination under Title VII and Section 1981, age discrimination under the ADEA, and disability discrimination under the ADA. But he didn’t file just any type of lawsuit. He filed a class action claim, seeking to represent all applicants like him who weren’t hired because of the alleged discriminatory screening process. Workday asked the court to dismiss the claim on the basis that it was not the employer making the employment decision regarding Mobley, but after over a year of procedural wrangling, the judge gave the green light for Mobley to continue his lawsuit. Judge Gives Green Light to Discrimination Claim Against AI Developer Direct Participation in Hiring Process is Key – The judge’s July 12 order says that Workday could potentially be held liable as an “agent” of the employers who rejected Mobley. The employers allegedly delegated traditional hiring functions – including automatically rejecting certain applicants at the screening stage – to Workday’s AI-based algorithmic decision-making tools. That means that Workday’s AI product directly participated in the hiring process. Middle-of-the-Night Email is Critical – One of the allegations Mobley raises to support his claim that Workday’s AI decision-making tool automatically rejected him was an application he submitted to a particular company at 12:55 a.m. He received a rejection email less than an hour later at 1:50 a.m., making it appear unlikely that human oversight was involved. “Disparate Impact” Theory Can Be Advanced – Once the judge decided that Workday could be a proper defendant as an agent, she then allowed Mobley to proceed against Workday on a “disparate impact” theory. That means the company didn’t necessarily intend to screen out Mobley based on race, age, or disability, but that it could have set up selection criteria that had the effect of screening out applicants based on those protected criteria. In fact, in one instance, Mobley was rejected for a job at a company where he was currently working on a contract basis doing very similar work. Not All Software Developers On the Hook – This decision doesn’t mean that all software vendors and AI developers could qualify as “agents” subject to a lawsuit. Take, for example, a vendor that develops a spreadsheet system that simply helps employers sort through applicants. That vendor shouldn’t be part of any later discrimination lawsuit, the court said, even if the employer later uses that system to purposefully sort the candidates by age and rejects all those over 40 years old. 5 Tips for Employers This lawsuit could have just easily been filed against any of the 100+ employers that rejected Mobley, and they still may be added as parties or sued in separate actions.  That is a stark reminder that employers need to tread carefully when implementing AI hiring solutions through third parties. A few tips: Vet Your Vendors – Ensure your AI vendors follow ethical guidelines and have measures in place to prevent bias before you deploy the tool. This includes understanding the data they use to train their models and the algorithms they employ. Regular audits and evaluations of the AI systems can help identify and mitigate potential biases – but it all starts with asking the right questions at the outset of the relationship and along the way. Work with Counsel on Indemnification Language – It’s not uncommon for contracts between business partners to include language shifting the cost of litigation and resulting damages from employer to vendor. But make sure you work with counsel when developing such language in these instances. Public policy doesn’t often allow you to transfer the cost of discriminatory behavior to someone else. You may want to place limits on any such indemnity as well, like certain dollar amounts or several months of accrued damages. And you’ll want to make sure that your agreements contain specific guidance on what type of vendor behavior falls under whatever agreement you reach. Consider Legal Options – Should you be targeted in a discrimination action, consider whether you can take action beyond indemnification when it comes to your AI vendors. Breach of contract claims, deceptive business practice lawsuits, or other formal legal actions to draw the third party into the litigation could work to shield you from shouldering the full responsibility. Implement Ongoing Monitoring – Regularly monitor the outcomes of your AI hiring tools. This includes tracking the demographic data of applicants and hires to identify any patterns that may suggest bias or have a potential disparate impact. This proactive approach can help you catch and address issues before they become legal problems. Add the Human Touch – Consider where you will insert human decision-making at critical spots along your hiring process to prevent AI bias, or the appearance of bias. While an automated process that simply screens check-the-box requirements such as necessary licenses, years of experience, educational degrees, and similar objective criteria is low risk, completely replacing human judgment when it comes to making subjective decisions stands at the peak of riskiness when it comes to the use of AI. And make sure you train your HR staff and managers on the proper use of AI when it comes to making hiring or employment-related decisions. 5 Tips for Vendors While not a complete surprise given all the talk from regulators and others in government regarding concerns with bias in automated decision making tools, this lawsuit should grab the attention of any developer of AI-based hiring tools. When taken in conjunction with the recent ACLU action against Aon Consulting for its use of AI screening platforms, it seems the time for government expressing concerns has been replaced with action. While plaintiffs’ attorneys and government enforcement officials have typically focused on employers when it comes to alleged algorithmic bias, it was only a matter of time before they turned their attention to the developers of these products. Here are some practical steps AI vendors can take now to deal with the threat. Commit to Trustworthy AI – Make sure the design and delivery of your AI solutions are both responsible and transparent. This includes reviewing marketing and product materials. Review Your Work – Engage in a risk-based review process throughout your product’s lifecycle. This will help mitigate any unintended consequences. Team With Your Lawyers – Work hand-in-hand with counsel to help ensure compliance with best practices and all relevant workplace laws – and not just law prohibiting intentional discrimination, but also those barring the unintentional “disparate impact” claims as we see in the Workday lawsuit. Develop Bias Detection Mechanisms – Implement robust testing and validation processes to detect and eliminate bias in your AI systems. This includes using diverse training data and regularly updating your algorithms to address any identified biases. Lean Into Outside Assistance – Meanwhile, collaborate with external auditors or third-party reviewers to ensure impartiality in your bias detection efforts. 原文来自:https://www.salary.com/newsletters/law-review/agency-law-and-the-workday-lawsuit/
    Workday
    2024年08月10日
  • Workday
    法官允许针对 Workday 的人工智能偏见诉讼继续进行 Workday因其AI筛选软件涉嫌偏见而面临集体诉讼。美国加州北区地方法院法官Rita Lin裁定,Workday可能被视为受联邦反歧视法律保护的雇主,因为它执行的筛选功能是其客户通常自己执行的。这一裁决可能会对使用AI进行招聘的法律责任产生重大影响。该诉讼由Derek Mobley提起,他表示自己因为是黑人、年龄超过40岁且患有焦虑和抑郁症而被Workday的客户公司拒绝了超过100次工作机会。EEOC警告雇主,如果他们未能防止筛选软件产生歧视性影响,他们可能会承担法律责任。 7月15日(路透社)——加利福尼亚的一位联邦法官驳回了Workday公司试图驳回一项拟议中的集体诉讼的请求。该诉讼称,Workday公司用于筛选其他企业求职者的人工智能软件中包含了现有的偏见。 在这一首例裁决中,美国地方法官Rita Lin于周五表示,Workday可以被视为受联邦工作场所歧视法律覆盖的雇主,因为它执行了其客户通常自己进行的筛选功能。 Lin拒绝驳回Derek Mobley在2023年提出的几项诉讼。Mobley声称由于他是黑人、年龄超过40岁并患有焦虑和抑郁症,他在与Workday签约的公司中申请了超过100个职位但都被拒绝。 此案是首个挑战使用AI筛选软件的拟议集体诉讼,可能会在使用AI自动化招聘和其他就业功能的法律影响上树立重要的先例。现在,大多数大型公司都在使用这种技术。 Lin驳回了Workday基于种族和年龄的故意歧视指控。她还裁定该公司不能被视为反偏见法下的“就业机构”,因为与人力资源公司不同,它不为工人提供就业机会。 Workday发言人在一份声明中表示,公司对Lin驳回部分指控感到满意。“我们有信心在进入下一阶段时能轻松驳斥剩余指控,因为我们将有机会直接挑战其准确性,”发言人说。 Mobley的律师没有立即回应置评请求。诉讼称,Workday使用公司现有员工的数据来训练其AI软件,以筛选最佳申请者,但没有考虑到现有歧视可能反映的问题。 Mobley指控Workday违反了1964年《民权法案》第七章(Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964)和其他联邦反歧视法律,进行了种族、年龄和残疾歧视。拟议中的集体诉讼可能包括数十万人。 Workday表示,由于它不是Mobley的潜在雇主,也不是可以因歧视而被追责的就业机构,因为它不为客户做出招聘决定,因此不受工作场所偏见法律的约束。 但Lin在周五表示,反偏见法律旨在广泛保护工人,防止雇主将筛选申请者等任务外包以逃避责任,并且Workday可以作为其客户的代理人承担责任。 “(诉讼)合理地声称Workday的客户将包括拒绝申请者在内的传统招聘功能委托给Workday提供的算法决策工具,”民主党总统Joe Biden任命的Lin写道。 美国平等就业机会委员会(U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)负责执行联邦禁止工作场所歧视的法律,该机构在4月份的一份简报中曾敦促Lin让案件继续进行。该机构警告雇主,如果他们未能防止筛选软件产生歧视性影响,他们可能会被追究法律责任。  
    Workday
    2024年07月17日
  • Workday
    Josh Bersin:AI最终会连通整个企业界吗?问问ServiceNow,他们的回答是肯定的。 本周,ServiceNow在其年度用户大会上迎来了超过22,000名IT和技术专业人士,同时公布了几项对其战略的重大增强。ServiceNow的目标是通过一个全新的工作流软件层整合企业资源,使之能够实现全面连接,进而让员工、顾客以及企业领导通过一个统一的界面访问信息和系统。 历史上,ServiceNow主要通过一系列案例管理和服务交付工具来实现这一目标,这些工具主要服务于IT部门。这个平台极大地帮助IT服务团队自动化和优化了他们日常面临的各种IT请求和问题处理。但随着公司的发展及其野心的扩大,尤其是在Bill McDermott这位我所见过的最杰出领导者的带领下,ServiceNow的发展已经远远超出了原有范畴。 在员工服务领域,ServiceNow即将推出一系列雄心勃勃的产品。首先,原名为HR的员工工作流服务现已扩展到包括工作场所管理、员工入职、调查问卷以及技能分析工具等,还包括从Hitch收购的人才智能平台、内部职位调动与招聘等功能。公司正在开发专门的招聘工作流程,以帮助企业简化面试安排、候选人管理以及内外部候选人关系协调等复杂问题。这个看似小众的领域实际上正变得越来越重要,因为越来越多的公司开始重视内部职位流动和动态。 但在我本周参加这次会议时,我注意到ServiceNow的战略叙述发生了显著变化。Bill McDermott花了近一个小时重申他之前的讲话,但这次他将重点从工作流转移到了人工智能。他基本上将原本的工作流引擎战略替换为了“商业转型的AI平台”,显然,他们不再仅仅关注“数字化转型”。 ServiceNow的商业转型AI平台 他们强调的一个非常重要的信息是,AI将成为企业变革的技术,这与数字化变革的影响相似。 几个月前我们还在讨论数字化转型,现在,这已成为过去式:未来的变革将借助AI实现。没错,从某种意义上来说,每种技术都能成为业务变革的工具,但AI带来的变革程度将远超过互联网本身。这一点我稍后将进一步解释。 ServiceNow将其视为一个集成了异构系统的集合,中心是一个AI引擎。会议上的一个关键案例是一家面包店,因应不同地点的天气变化而调整各种烘焙产品的生产。中心的AI系统能够感知这些变化,预测接下来的行动,并指导工厂调整生产策略,从而满足市场需求,提升销售额。这是一个非常吸引人的案例。 ServiceNow的AI架构 有趣的是,像SAP在20世纪80年代推广集成供应链管理,Qualtrics推广客户体验管理时讲的故事,似乎都在用不同的方法解决相似的问题。Bill McDermott凭借丰富的经验,将这一叙事应用于ServiceNow,展现了他作为CEO的卓越远见和沟通能力。 那么,AI真的能成为未来的企业协调系统吗,将各种遗留平台联系起来,提供解决方案吗? 我确信这将成为现实。虽然这不会一夜之间实现,但最终会发生。这种变革同样适用于我们的消费者生活。 我们日常工作中的效率之所以低下,往往是因为在寻找信息、处理文档、查询库存等活动中分心。如果能直接通过AI查询并获取答案,无疑会极大提升工作效率。(正如我尝试让Siri帮忙却发现它做不到的那样。) 正如我在本周的播客中讨论的,通过语音或文本提出问题比在Workday、Oracle、SAP等系统中四处查找要简单得多。我们曾努力使这些系统更加用户友好,现在,生成式AI的出现将为这些努力带来新的变革。 ServiceNow之所以能够很好地定位自己,有两个主要原因。 首先,他们长期以来一直在开发工作流工具,很多系统都设计得非常用户友好,即便是普通用户也能轻松使用。这就是为什么有这么多IT开发者选择使用ServiceNow的原因。(我在这周的大会上亲眼见证了这一点。) 其次,他们对这些后端系统的工作原理非常熟悉。ServiceNow的工程和产品团队对SAP、Oracle、Workday等系统进行的工作流程和交易处理有深入了解。 我与HR产品团队有过深入的交流,他们向我展示了如何将员工交易集成到ServiceNow平台中,以便构建生成式AI解决方案,与公司内部的系统进行交互。这一过程需要时间,也不会十全十美,但他们已经在正确的道路上迈出了坚实的步伐。这也引出了一个问题:我们是否应该将所有企业系统整合到这种新的界面下。 ServiceNow的HR产品 然而,这种架构也有潜在的缺点。 首先,成本较高。你现在不仅要购买ServiceNow这一复杂的企业平台,还要维护你现有的复杂企业平台。Oracle、SAP、Workday、Salesforce和Hubspot等都在尝试提供类似服务。你已经为他们的建设付出了巨大的成本,现在又要为ServiceNow付费。ServiceNow的产品不便宜,这从他们的收入就可以看出。 其次,这可能会造成系统的脆弱性。ServiceNow的工作流本身可能会因为业务规则的嵌入而变得过时,你必须管理许多小型应用程序,这些应用程序位于你的其他应用程序之上。当这些应用程序更新或被替换时(很多软件公司被收购后,其产品线会发生变化),作为客户的你需要重新配置在ServiceNow中所做的设置。 这让我回想起我在IBM的日子,当时我在主机世界工作,我们的应用程序都是定制开发的,我们有大量的COBOL程序员在构建这些系统。我曾与数据处理部门合作,探讨他们是如何在公司内部整合所有这些系统的。现在,你可能需要在ServiceNow基础设施中构建类似的工具。 如果我现在能与Bill McDermott面对面交谈,我相信他会说:“这是一种更有效的运营方式,我们ServiceNow将为你自动化这一切。”我相信这将随着时间的推移逐渐成为现实。但这也引出了一个问题:你希望将多少组织功能和经验整合进ServiceNow,而不是选择其他核心系统? 每当我们需要构建新功能时,我们都必须决定将其部署在何处。我们是应该将职业管理平台部署在Workday、Eightfold、Degreed还是Cornerstone?你的决定将决定你依赖于哪个供应商及其发展路线图。 考虑到ServiceNow已经取得了巨大的成功,许多公司都在说:“既然我们已经为此付出了代价,那就让我们继续吧。” 生成式AI能否实现这一承诺?例如,在天气变暖时,它能否提前告诉你需要烘焙更多的面包圈? 根据我们通过Galileo®获得的AI经验,我认为答案是肯定的。 这项技术的重要性堪比电力的发明。虽然这听起来有些夸张,但我是认真的。我从未见过如此自我发展、强大并且发展迅速的技术。我们正处于生成式AI进入市场的初期阶段。 在未来几年内,生成式AI很可能会改善这些连接,开发代码,并优化这些端到端的“单一视窗系统”。Google正在消费者领域推进此类工作,Microsoft则在办公生产力领域努力。如果ServiceNow能成为企业级应用中的佼佼者,那将不足为奇。
    Workday
    2024年05月10日
  • Workday
    Josh Bersin 谈Workday的创新论坛:Why I’m Bullish On Workday Again: The Innovation Summit 本周Workday创新峰会揭示了公司由产品主导向市场主导的战略转型。Workday一直以云技术为核心,自主开发了面向对象的数据系统和全球安全架构。然而,随着市场的演进和竞争的加剧,公司在新任CEO Carl Eschenbach的领导下,开始转向市场导向的商业模式。 在这次转型中,Workday开始拓宽其业务模型,更加开放地与合作伙伴合作。公司不再限制API的使用和合作伙伴的接入,而是致力于构建一个像苹果iPhone那样的开放平台,允许更多的行业应用集成到其系统中。这一策略旨在提供更加灵活和综合的企业解决方案,以适应不同行业的需求。 同时,Workday也大力投入到人工智能技术的开发中,推出了基于企业自有数据的微型机器学习模型(micro-LLMs),并在全球范围内调整这些模型以满足本地客户的需求。此外,Workday正在将其人才智能市场向外扩展,通过与多个行业解决方案提供商的合作,强化其在健康护理和金融等领域的业务。 AI技术的应用不仅仅限于技术层面的改进,Workday还通过这些技术优化了用户体验,使得各种任务的完成变得更加便捷。例如,在Workday平台上,用户可以看到AI图标,通过点击即可获得智能辅助完成工作。 在人才管理方面,Workday引入了许多新功能,如智能工作架构中心(Intelligent Job Architecture Hub)以及加强的Workday人才市场,这些都是为了帮助企业简化和改进职位描述和技能需求。 此外,Workday的领导层也展现出了更开放和实用的态度,这对公司未来的发展是一个积极的信号。总的来说,Workday的这一系列战略调整,旨在更好地适应快速变化的市场需求,提高公司的竞争力和市场份额。 Josh Bersin 写了这篇文章,强烈推荐给大家了解下:以下是中英文的供参考   This week I attended the Workday Innovation Summit and there’s a lot to discuss. Having just celebrated its 19th birthday, the company is embarking on a major transformation . And it’s not just product innovation that’s happening, the company is greatly expanding its business model. Workday Has Been A Product Led Company Much of Workday’s success goes back to its focus on being “born for the cloud.” Rather than build business apps in a typical database-centric architecture, Workday developed its own object-oriented data system, integrated workflow system, and global security architecture from scratch. Nobody knew the cloud would be so big nor that we’d have “superscalers” like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon as platforms. Nor could we predict the advent of global data governance, AI, or data and apps distributed across thousands of servers. Well Workday, led by Aneel Bhusri, pulled this off. And not only did they sell architecture, they sold “the Power of One.” In Workday, unlike other ERP business systems, all the applications were designed to work together. No acquisitions, no integrations, no open systems: just a beautifully designed, easy-to-use, scalable enterprise application. (I noted that it reminded me of the i-Phone at the time: beautiful, easy to use, and closed.) This “beautiful walled garden” served Workday well. While Oracle, SAP, and other vendors struggled to redesign their client-server apps and acquire missing pieces, Workday grew like wildfire and is now a global ERP vendor with more than $7.3 Billion in recurring revenue, 10,000+ enterprise and mid-market customers, and a brand known for trust, customer focus, and quality. And all this happened with a founding team that was largely still in place. Last year Workday’s co-founder and CEO Aneel Bhusri decided it was time to step back and the company brought in Carl Eschenbach to be CEO. And now things are starting to change. The company is becoming a “markets-led” business. The “product-led” focus for Workday was both good and bad. Workday was not easy to integrate, there were few APIs for developers, and the company limited its partners. As part of its mission to be pure, Workday prevented many vendors from “partnering” and forced integrators to pay large fees and certify dedicated teams. This “scarcity” strategy created high demand and high prices, and customers actually appreciated it. All was good, until things started to change. Today, with many competing vendors at all levels of the ERP stack, Workday is becoming more pragmatic. And as I’ll explain below, they’re changing their message from “The Power of One” to “Workday is a Platform.” Workday Is Becoming A Markets-Led Company The HCM and Financials market is complex. There are dozens of sub-markets, application areas, and industry solutions to address. An HR system designed for a large hospital system is unlikely to need the same features as a system for a global insurance company. So Workday started to realize its system, while integrated and highly functional, couldn’t keep up. And within HR itself there are hundreds of vendors who sell recruiting tools, career systems, learning platforms, engagement tools, mobile apps, benefits, and data analytics systems. And each of these sub-markets are being transformed by AI. (Our upcoming research on Talent Intelligence, for example, will show you how fragmented this is.) Workday was having a hard time keeping up. The company embarked on a series of acquisitions (Platfora, Mediacore, Adaptive Insights, VNDLY, Peakon, HiredScore, and others). This forced the product teams to focus on user interface and architectural integration, somewhat slowing the feature expansion. And many partners who wanted to integrate with Workday (which customers demand) were ignored. Well under Carl’s leadership, all this is changing. Workday is now fully open to partners, ISV’s, resellers, and industry solutions. Almost 25% of the entire Innovation Summit was focused on Workday’s open partner strategy. And the big message was this: Workday is not a “system,” it’s a “platform.” What does this mean? It means that if you buy Workday you’re buying a platform like the i-Phone. It works amazingly well, it’s safe, and will sport a family of industry apps to help you build a total solution. This worked for Apple and Salesforce and it’s likely to work well for Workday. SAP has a similar offering, but its level of integration is far more complex. This lets Workday move deeply into new domains and sub markets. (Workday highlighted its new integrations with Shiftwizard in healthcare, Auditoria and Kyriba in finance, and many others. These are not just ISV relationships: Workday is reselling these products. But there’s much more. Workday Unveils Its AI Strategy At last year’s event Workday really waffled about AI. They gave us a lot of arm waving discussions of “Workday AI” but it didn’t make a lot of sense. Well they’ve figured it out, so let me briefly explain. Enterprises don’t want AI for its own sake and they definitely don’t want crowdsourced data which creates legal risk. They want AI solutions that work on their own data. Well Workday has now embarked on a wide variety of AI features, each delivered through its own “micro-LLMs” trained on a company’s own data. (Very similar to how we implement Galileo, our AI HR expert assistant.) And for larger AI capabilities they use a global LLM with local weights and biases for each client. (This is similar to how the Microsoft Copilot works.) So your enterprise data trains your “version” of Workday without sharing any data with others. In some cases (the Skills Cloud, for example), customers can opt to share data anonymously. This lets Workday build a “global skills database” which everyone can share. Vendors like Eightfold, Lightcast, and Draup do this at a massive scale (far beyond what Workday does today), so Workday is now moving into this “talent intelligence” market. (Lightcast is now a Workday Skills Cloud partner.) Many of these features are simple (rewriting a job description or matching invoices to purchase orders) but powerful. All over Workday you now see a little AI icon to help you complete a task. In fact Workday has already re-engineered about 280 different tasks and is working on around 2,000 in total. Customers constantly tell me Workday is difficult to use, and it’s largely just because the system is quite complex. These AI-enhanced experiences are slowly going to make the system more and more “I-Phone like.” Many New Talent Features Now that the product teams have a strong underlying architecture, they’re going crazy with features. Workday is introducing a new “Intelligent Job Architecture Hub,” for example, to help companies simplify and improve job names, levels, descriptions, and skills. (It also shows trending skills in the external market.) Everyone is going to use this. The Workday Talent Marketplace, which is not widely used yet, is being enhanced through HiredScore: employees will get Teams or Slack messages recommending jobs. This is an example of “orchestration,” a new buzz-word among AI systems. (Imagine AI booking your trip including hotels, air, car, etc.) The Workday Manager Hub now shows managers detailed employee engagement data (Peakon has more than 18 billion responses now) and will gives managers “Conversation Starters” to help them start performance coaching, all based on feedback from other employees. There is a major focus on contingent, gig, and contract workers. For the first time I believe Workday can handle most professional services businesses (including pricing projects based on staff pricing), healthcare and retail (AI-powered scheduling and shift management), and many deskless worker needs. It turns out that healthcare and retail are two of Workday’s biggest industries, so these talent-constrained industries are now a good market. Let me talk briefly about HiredScore. This company built an in-line “talent orchestration system” that uses AI to show recruiters who is most suited for a job, explain why it made its decisions, and use this data to find and source internal candidates automatically. While this type of technology is widely used in systems like Eightfold, Beamery, Phenom, and others, the HiredScore system is workflow-oriented. Recruiters love it and it greatly improves hiring speed, quality, and internal mobility. And by the way, despite lots of complaints from users, Workday Recruiting is starting to dominate the ATS market. With more than 4,000 customers it’s becoming a more “safe buy” as companies rationalize their old ATS systems. As David Somers (head of product) put it, HiredScore is the acquisition that “keeps on giving.” In other words the AI team at HiredScore is now going to work with Workday’s Skills Cloud team to evolve and improve that system. The Skills Cloud, while beautifully visioned and named, has had limited success. With HiredScore’s help (and the leadership of Athena Karp, founder and CEO), this system will get more attention. (That includes more content partnerships and a broader set of tools.) This means Workday’s recruiting system (which is one of the most critical business systems in today’s talent shortages) is now highly coupled with the internal mobility and job architecture system, something customers desperately want. I still believe systems like Eightfold and Gloat are far more advanced, but Workday is catching up. Management Culture And Trust And then there’s the biggest issue of all: Workday’s leadership. I spent some time chatting with Carl Eschenbach and he has a very different persona than Aneel Bhusri. Carl clearly wants Workday to go after new markets: new geographies (EMEA, Asia, Japan), new industries (healthcare, pharma, retail), the mid-market segment, and channel partners. Workday is now actively searching for resellers, mid-market integrators, and ISVs to round out the solution. As always, the leadership team at Workday is highly aligned and much more pragmatic. Many times I would attend a Workday event and feel a slight sense of arrogance at the top. As with all successful software companies, it’s easy to think you’re always right when things are going well. I believe this has changed. I actually found Workday to be humble, attentive to new issues, and open-minded to new ideas, new partners, and self-inspection. This, to me, is a bullish sign. And from top to bottom the company is focused on trust, AI safety, and customer service. One more thing I want to point out: the “Workday as a Platform” idea. The company now realizes that this highly proprietary, business-optimized system can no longer be sold as a beautifully walled garden. The company is building a massive set of easy to use development tools, expanded APIs, and programs to attract software developers, partners, and integrators. Now, when customers ass for functionality Workday can look for a partner to resell or embed. The company is losing its “if we didn’t build it we don’t trust it” mentality. I also believe this leadership team really likes each other. As many of you know, team culture is massively important in the tech space. Things change so fast and there are so many competitors the company has to stay aligned. I sense everyone really understands what’s going on. Growth Potential Will Workday accelerate its growth above its respectable 17% per year? Well the company has challenges. Many of its legacy clients have found a plethora of advanced tools around Workday and I know large companies that are switching back to SAP. And despite all the new features, Workday is an older, complicated, rigid system. That all said, I think the company is managing its transformation well. Let’s watch to see how all this plays out.   本周我参加了Workday创新峰会,有很多内容值得讨论。在刚刚庆祝了其成立19周年之际,该公司正在进行重大转型。而且,不仅仅是产品创新在进行,公司的业务模式也在大幅扩展。 Workday一直是一家以产品为导向的公司 Workday的成功很大程度上归功于其专注于“为云而生”。Workday没有采用典型的以数据库为中心的架构来构建商业应用程序,而是从零开始开发了自己的面向对象的数据系统、集成的工作流系统和全球安全架构。没有人知道云计算会如此重要,也没有人预料到我们会有像Google、Microsoft和Amazon这样的“超级计算”平台。我们也无法预测全球数据治理、AI或者跨数千服务器分布的数据和应用程序的出现。 在Aneel Bhusri的领导下,Workday做到了这一点。他们不仅销售架构,还销售了“一体化的力量”。在Workday中,不同于其他ERP商业系统,所有应用程序都被设计为可以协同工作。没有收购,没有集成,没有开放系统:只有一个设计精美、易于使用、可扩展的企业应用程序。(我注意到这让我想起了当时的iPhone:美观、易用且封闭。) 这个“美丽的围墙花园”为Workday服务良好。而Oracle、SAP和其他供应商在重新设计其客户端-服务器应用程序和获取缺失部分时挣扎,Workday却如野火般成长,现在已成为一家全球ERP供应商,拥有超过73亿美元的经常性收入、超过10,000个企业和中端市场客户,以及以信任、客户关注和质量而闻名的品牌。而且,这一切都是在创始团队基本上仍在位的情况下发生的。 去年,Workday的联合创始人兼CEO Aneel Bhusri认为是时候退居幕后了,公司聘请了Carl Eschenbach担任CEO。现在,事情开始改变。该公司正在成为一家“以市场为导向”的企业。 Workday的“以产品为导向”的重点既有好处也有坏处。Workday不容易集成,开发者可用的API很少,公司也限制了其合作伙伴。作为其保持纯净使命的一部分,Workday阻止了许多供应商的“合作”,并迫使集成商支付高额费用并认证专门团队。这种“稀缺”策略创造了高需求和高价格,而客户实际上对此感到满意。 一切都很好,直到情况开始改变。如今,随着ERP堆栈各层面的竞争供应商越来越多,Workday正在变得更加务实。正如我将在下文中解释的那样,他们正在将信息从“一体化的力量”变为“Workday是一个平台”。 Workday正在成为一家以市场为导向的公司 人力资源管理(HCM)和财务市场非常复杂。有数十个子市场、应用领域和行业解决方案需要解决。一个为大型医院系统设计的HR系统不太可能需要与为全球保险公司设计的系统相同的功能。因此,Workday开始意识到,尽管其系统集成且功能强大,但它无法跟上。 而且,在HR本身,有数百家供应商销售招聘工具、职业系统、学习平台、参与工具、移动应用程序、福利和数据分析系统。每一个子市场都在被AI转型。(例如,我们即将发布的关于人才智能的研究将向您展示这是多么的碎片化。) Workday很难跟上。该公司开始了一系列收购(Platfora、Mediacore、Adaptive Insights、VNDLY、Peakon、HiredScore等)。这迫使产品团队专注于用户界面和架构集成,从而在某种程度上减缓了功能扩展。许多希望与Workday集成的合作伙伴(客户需求)被忽视了。 在Carl的领导下,所有这些都在改变。Workday现在对合作伙伴、独立软件供应商、经销商和行业解决方案完全开放。整个创新峰会将近25%的时间专注于Workday的开放合作伙伴策略。而且重要的信息是:Workday不是一个“系统”,它是一个“平台”。 这是什么意思?这意味着如果您购买Workday,您就是在购买一个像iPhone那样的平台。它运行非常好,安全,并将配备一系列行业应用程序以帮助您构建完整解决方案。这对Apple和Salesforce有效,对Workday来说可能也会很有效。SAP也有类似的产品,但其集成程度要复杂得多。这让Workday能够深入新的领域和子市场。(Workday突出显示了其在医疗保健领域与Shiftwizard、在财务领域与Auditoria和Kyriba的新集成等。这些不仅仅是独立软件供应商关系:Workday正在转售这些产品。 但还有更多。 Workday公开其AI战略 在去年的活动中,Workday对AI真的犹豫不决。他们给了我们很多关于“Workday AI”的手势讨论,但这并没有太多意义。好吧,他们已经想通了,让我简单解释一下。 企业并不是因为AI本身而想要AI,他们绝对不想要可能产生法律风险的众包数据。他们想要的是可以在自己的数据上运行的AI解决方案。 现在,Workday已经开始了各种AI功能,每个功能都通过其自己的“微型大语言模型”交付,这些模型是在公司自己的数据上训练的。(这与我们实现的Galileo,我们的AI HR专家助手非常相似。)对于更大的AI功能,他们使用一个全球大语言模型,为每个客户本地调整权重和偏差。(这与Microsoft Copilot的工作方式类似。)因此,您的企业数据训练您的“版本”的Workday,而不与其他人共享任何数据。 在某些情况下(例如技能云),客户可以选择匿名分享数据。这让Workday能够构建一个“全球技能数据库”,每个人都可以分享。像Eightfold、Lightcast和Draup这样的供应商在大规模(远超Workday目前的做法)上做到了这一点,所以Workday现在正在进入这个“人才智能”市场。(Lightcast现在是Workday技能云的合作伙伴。) 这些功能中的许多都很简单(重写工作描述或将发票与采购订单匹配),但功能强大。在Workday的各个地方,您现在都可以看到一个小AI图标,帮助您完成任务。事实上,Workday已经重新设计了大约280个不同的任务,并且正在处理大约2,000个总任务。 客户不断告诉我Workday很难使用,这主要是因为系统相当复杂。这些通过AI增强的体验将逐渐使系统越来越像“iPhone”。 许多新的人才功能 现在产品团队拥有了强大的底层架构,他们正疯狂地推出功能。例如,Workday正在推出一个新的“智能工作架构中心”,以帮助公司简化并改进工作名称、级别、描述和技能。(它还显示外部市场中的趋势技能。)每个人都将使用这个。 Workday人才市场尚未广泛使用,现在正在通过HiredScore进行增强:员工将通过Teams或Slack消息获得推荐工作。这是“编排”的一个例子,这是AI系统中的一个新的流行词。(想象一下AI预订您的旅行,包括酒店、飞机、汽车等。) Workday经理中心现在向经理们显示详细的员工参与数据(Peakon现在有超过180亿的反馈)并将给经理提供“对话开始器”,以帮助他们开始绩效辅导,所有这些都基于其他员工的反馈。 还有一个主要关注点是临时工、零工和合同工。我相信Workday首次可以处理大多数专业服务业务(包括基于员工定价的定价项目)、医疗保健和零售(AI驱动的排班和班次管理),以及许多无固定工作场所的工人的需求。事实证明,医疗保健和零售是Workday的两个最大行业,所以这些人才匮乏的行业现在是一个好市场。 让我简要谈谈HiredScore。这家公司建立了一个内嵌的“人才编排系统”,使用AI向招聘人员展示最适合某个职位的人员,解释为什么会做出这样的决定,并使用这些数据来找到并自动获取内部候选人。虽然这种技术在Eightfold、Beamery、Phenom等系统中广泛使用,但HiredScore系统是以工作流为导向的。招聘人员非常喜欢它,它极大地提高了招聘的速度、质量和内部流动性。 顺便说一句,尽管用户有很多抱怨,Workday招聘正在开始主导ATS市场。现在已有超过4,000个客户,随着公司对旧ATS系统进行合理化,它正在成为一个更“安全的购买”。 正如产品负责人David Somers所说,HiredScore是一笔“源源不断的收益”。换句话说,HiredScore的AI团队现在将与Workday的技能云团队合作,以发展和改进该系统。技能云虽然构想得很美,名字很漂亮,但成功有限。在HiredScore的帮助下(以及创始人兼CEO Athena Karp的领导下),这个系统将得到更多关注。(这包括更多的内容合作伙伴和一套更广泛的工具。) 这意味着Workday的招聘系统(这是当今人才短缺中最关键的商业系统之一)现在与内部流动性和工作架构系统高度耦合,这正是客户迫切需要的。我仍然认为像Eightfold和Gloat这样的系统更先进,但Workday正在迎头赶上。 管理文化和信任 然后是最大的问题之一:Workday的领导层。我花了一些时间与Carl Eschenbach聊天,他与Aneel Bhusri的个性非常不同。Carl明确希望Workday进军新市场:新地理区域(EMEA、亚洲、日本)、新行业(医疗保健、制药、零售)、中端市场细分市场和渠道合作伙伴。Workday现在正在积极寻找经销商、中端市场集成商和独立软件供应商来完善解决方案。 一如既往,Workday的领导团队高度一致,更加务实。很多时候,我参加Workday的活动,都能感受到顶层有些自负。就像所有成功的软件公司一样,当事情进展顺利时,很容易认为自己总是对的。 我认为这已经改变了。我实际上发现Workday很谦虚,对新问题很关注,对新想法、新合作伙伴和自我检查持开放态度。对我来说,这是一个看涨的信号。而且从上到下,公司都专注于信任、AI安全和客户服务。 我还想指出一件事:关于“Workday作为一个平台”的想法。该公司现在意识到,这种高度专有的、业务优化的系统不再能作为一个美丽的围墙花园来销售。公司正在构建一套大型的易于使用的开发工具、扩展的API和吸引软件开发者、合作伙伴和集成商的计划。现在,当客户询问功能时,Workday可以寻找一个合作伙伴来转售或嵌入。公司正在失去“如果我们没有构建它,我们就不信任它”的心态。 我还相信这个领导团队真的很喜欢彼此。正如你们许多人所知,团队文化在科技领域非常重要。事情变化如此之快,竞争对手如此之多,公司必须保持一致。我感觉每个人都真正理解发生了什么。 增长潜力 Workday能否将其每年17%的尊重增长率加速?好吧,公司面临挑战。它的许多老客户发现在Workday周围有大量的先进工具,我知道一些大公司正在回归SAP。尽管所有这些新功能,Workday仍然是一个较老、复杂、僵化的系统。 话虽如此,我认为公司正在很好地管理其转型。让我们拭目以待,看看这一切将如何发展。
    Workday
    2024年04月19日
  • Workday
    BetterUp Manage: Pioneering AI-Powered Platform For Leaders BetterUp公司最近在其Uplift大会上推出了一个名为BetterUp Manage的领导力发展平台,这一平台采用人工智能驱动的评估和个性化学习方案,彻底改变了专业发展的途径。该平台具有高度的可扩展性和可定制性,能够与Workday、Oracle和SAP等主要系统无缝连接。BetterUp Manage不仅为领导者提供服务,也支持任何寻求发展专业能力的个人。通过整合最新的人工智能技术,BetterUp Manage为传统的领导力培训行业带来了革命性的变革。 这次大会中,BetterUp还邀请了英国的哈里王子Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex 和亚当·格兰特,哈里王子是BetterUp的首席影响官。。。 This week I attended the BetterUp Uplift conference and I really was impressed. This is a company that exploded into the market with an innovative coaching and employee wellbeing network built around an assessment called the “whole person model.” Through a set of shrewd marketing and sales strategies BetterUp established a leadership position in this market, growing to a billion dollar+ valuation. This success encouraged many competitors to form and now the market for AI-enabled, targeted coaching is large and crowded (vendors include Torch, CoachHub, Growthspace, Sounding Board, Bravely, and a new breed of AI systems). Essentially what BetterUp did was democratize business and professional coaching. Before this trend coaching was a rarified, expensive offering reserved for under-performing leaders or high-potential executives. Today, with BetterUp, anyone can go through a meaningful assessment, get assigned a relevant coach, and start a coaching session in minutes. The system is well designed and easy to use and BetterUp’s coaches are all trained (most of the coaching vendors use a lot of the same certified coaches – they are not BetterUp employees). As a corporate solution, BetterUp goes much further. The data collected through assessments is available for analysis (anonymized) so companies can find pockets of stress in the organization. You can look at assessments by team (minimum of 10 people), tenure, level, and other factors. This lets companies like Chevron or Cisco understand the issues new employees or new managers have, for example. In the last few years the company moved into wellbeing by offering a solution called BetterUp Care, which targets benefits buyers. But the more strategic and interesting offering is the new platform I saw this week, now named BetterUp Manage (it was originally called Connect). BetterUp Manage is the first highly personalized, scalable management development platform I’ve seen. It brings together AI-enabled assessment, personalized learning, coaching, and AI-driven narrative support. It’s quite an impressive product, much of it was developed by the team at Motive, who was acquired by BetterUp in 2021. BetterUp Manage is an out of the box personalized leadership development solution. And you don’t need to be a “leader” to use it. The system steps you through the Whole Person assessment, then asks you questions about the types of soft-skills issues you face (many specific scenarios), and then gives you a customized learning path, week by week, along with a professional coach. Since it’s built on an AI platform there is very little manual work behind the scenes so it’s enormously scalable. Large companies will want to customize it and BetterUp is prepared for some of these requests. And the system connects to Workday, Oracle, SAP to automatically understand your role and level. The reason I’m so excited is this: the management training industry is a confusing, messy, red ocean. There are thousands of consultants, coaches, books, courses, and executive education programs. L&D executives have to constantly build custom solutions, evaluate vendors, and hope that an offering will stick. This pure complexity, coupled with the fact that every company is unique, has led to many specialized leadership development firms (and some big ones like Franklin Covey). So what most companies do is mix, match, and custom-build leadership solutions. And they’re not simple: we developed a model we call the 4-E’s to understand this: Education (courses), Experience (developmental assignments), Exposure (mentoring and coaching from leaders), and Environment (a company-wide focus on leadership values and behaviors). All these elements play a role in developing leadership skills. Companies like IBM, Cisco, and Marriot can afford to custom build these solutions, but many companies don’t have the focus. BetterUp Manage is a way to personalize, scale, and democratize this solution and leverage the increasingly important role of AI. I met Alexi Robichaux almost a decade ago and his passion and energy still drives the company. While BetterUp is a bigger company going through the growing pains of any $billion valued growth business, the culture and passion for clients is clear. Remember that buying L&D solutions is not as simple as buying a product and turning it on. Every training solution, platform, or program you buy must be carefully aligned with your company’s culture and rolled out with care. Otherwise people simply say “another training program from corporate I can ignore.” BetterUp, for all its startup-like innovations, has overcome this problem. Customers value the system, they get strong adoption from employees, and the company works hard to advise and consult. It has always been interesting to me that very few content companies ever become very big (Skillsoft is the only one that never seems to stop). And the reason for this is simply the nichey, highly diversified needs of many industries and companies. BetterUp, as a platform-centered company delivering a high-touch solution, has the potential to break this paradigm. It has enormous potential, given the rapid acceleration of AI behind the scenes. I consider BetterUp one of the “Trailblazers” I talk about with clients, and BetterUp Manage is definitely something to watch.
    Workday
    2024年04月12日
  • Workday
    Will Chatbots Take Over HR Tech? Paradox Sets The Pace. 在快速发展的人力资源技术领域,Paradox.ai 已成为领跑者,其先进的对话式人工智能平台彻底改变了招聘流程。通过利用自然语言处理和人工智能,Paradox.ai 提供了一个全面的解决方案,涵盖了从最初的职位申请到入职的整个招聘过程。该平台不仅简化了筛选和面试安排等繁琐流程,还提升了应聘者的整体体验,显著改善了招聘时间和招聘质量指标。 Paradox.ai 由亚伦-马托斯(Aaron Matos)于 2016 年创立,目前为联合利华、CVS Health 和通用汽车等大客户提供服务,实现了 90% 以上的招聘流程自动化。 Paradox.ai 凭借其强大的集成能力和大幅缩短招聘时间、降低招聘成本的能力,在人力资源技术领域充分体现了对话式人工智能的变革力量。 Chatbots used to be tinker-toys. You type, try to get help, but usually result in “please call support.” Well all this has changed. Thanks to advanced NLP (natural language processing) and AI (retrieval-augmented generation) chatbots are entire applications. They can answer complex questions, search databases, and invoke transactions on your behalf. Pretty soon we’ll be able to ask our phones “please find me a flight to Los Angeles next Tuesday morning” and the system will check your location and calendar, look at flights, and book you a seat. Where is this going in HR? Well the leader in this space is Paradox.ai, a company that pioneered the application of conversational AI in recruiting. And their system “defines the category.” Let me explain. Recruiting Is The Perfect Market For Conversational AI Recruiting is a goldmine for automation. When you post a job, applicants want to ask many predictable things: “How much does it pay?” “What are the hours?” or “What uniform do I need” or “What are the benefits?” The recruiter, a person devoted to filling positions, has to answer all these questions and more. They have to screen candidates, schedule interviews, check for qualifications, and look at credentials, experience, and more. It’s time-consuming, error-prone, and filled with wasted time. (That’s why talent acquisition teams have many “scheduler” and admins.) The average “time to hire” is over 45 days and often the process goes on for months. And throughout the experience the job seeker is left wondering “when will they call back” or “what else do I need to know?” (CEOs cite hiring as the third most time-wasting process in companies, following emails and meetings, estimated at “40% wasted time.”) Paradox uses Conversational AI to solve this problem. And because this is a “narrow but deep” space, the system does many things we can learn from in all our AI efforts. Paradox was founded by Aaron Matos in 2016. Aaron’s vision was to transform the candidate experience, revolutionizing the way candidates apply to jobs. Today Paradox has become a complete Conversational AI Recruitment Platform (chat to apply, scheduling, candidate support, ATS, assessments, onboarding, career site, and more), serving clients like Unilever, CVS Health, Pfizer, L’Oreal, Nestle, McDonald’s FedEx, Compass Group, Disney, and General Motors. The platform automates tasks such as screening for requirements, interview scheduling, reminders, offers, and new hire onboarding. And because it’s so easy to use, it helps companies radically improves time-to-hire and quality of hire. Based on my conversations with clients, Paradox can automate more than 90% of the end-to-end hiring process, saving hiring managers hours every week and increasing candidate conversion by more than 10 times. But this innovation did not happen overnight. As you know, going to a candidate website and looking for a job is a frustrating process. There are often hundreds of jobs listed, a complex scrolling website and very hard to even determine what job to apply for. You might argue that the website paradigm for job applications was never really a good idea in the first place. People don’t want to browse for jobs: they want to apply for a job that’s best for them. So the first thing Paradox did was create an easy to use assistant (Olivia) so candidates could ask questions and schedule interviews. And this meant that Paradox had to build integrations with every ATS and personal email and calendar tools out there. Then, as companies started to use Paradox for scheduling, the company added more. Today Olivia, the chatbot, can integrate with background check vendors, schedule interviews, deliver assessments (Paradox acquired a conversational assessment Traitify designed for this), and function as an ATS … all from a mobile phone. In many ways Paradox can be “the integration platform” for candidates and recruiters, stitching together the messy systems behind the scenes. This turned into a massive opportunity. Just as the Google Assistant or Siri hopes to be our single contact with the internet, Paradox partners with systems of record like Workday, SAP, and Oracle to bring conversational AI to any company. The company’s revenues have grown 11 times in the last four years, and are now nearly doubling each year. For customers Paradox has been amazing. As the candidate pipeline speeds up (by an order of magnitude), clients get higher quality candidates with dramatically reduced staff. (Staffing administrators can almost go away.) Consider high-volume hiring companies. These businesses (McDonald’s, Compass Group, Neighborly, FedEx, Disney) hire service-related workers on a regular basis. Their revenue is dependent on having enough people. With Paradox they can set up a “continuous recruitment process,” one that even hires people the same day they apply. Paradox has become essential to these companies growth, often paying for itself in less than a year (through reduced hiring staff, reduced spend on job ads, and reduced turnover.) Today, as Paradox built out its ATS, customers can rely on the platform to integrate front end tool (job portals and candidate support) to back end tools scheduling, ATS, onboarding) most of which are legacy. One of our clients has 27 recruiting tools and they anticipate replacing more than half of them with a platform like Paradox. What about higher level white collar roles? Paradox works here too. General Motors uses Paradox along with Workday (ATS), (branded Evie) to redesign the process. Interview Scheduling: Evie automates scheduling of phone screens and interviews between recruiters, candidates, and internal teams. This has reduced the time taken for interview scheduling from an average of five days to 29 minutes. Candidate Experience: Evie interacts with candidates from the moment they land on GM’s career site until the completion of their interview. Candidates appreciate the immediate communication from Evie after they apply or complete an interview, and enjoy the autonomy to select and change interview times. Efficiency and Cost Savings: The automation of interview scheduling has led to a major reduction in the cost of external contractors for coordination. Career Site Interaction: Evie sits on GM’s career site, answering questions from potential candidates about jobs, benefits, and company culture. This interaction enhances the candidate’s experience and provides them with immediate responses to their queries. Where Is Paradox Going The company is perfectly positioned to continue its growth as companies look for AI solutions to improve the productivity and effectiveness of recruiting. And demand is high: the 2024 PwC CEO survey found that recruiting was considered the #3 “most bureaucratic process” by CEOs (following email and meetings). The impact on recruiters? All positive. Clients tell us they can redeploy hiring staff to help recruiters focus on the most important part of their job: talking with candidates. But there’s a much bigger story. When a job candidate is handled efficiently and effectively the process becomes a brand-builder for the candidate, improving quality of hire. Ambitious job seekers will not put up with (or wait for) a messy, confusing hiring process. So not only is the process faster and more efficient, the quality of hire goes up. Companies are desperately looking for AI solutions that work. As Paradox has proven, when you focus deeply on the problem, conversational AI can be transformational. Listen to my conversation with Adam Godson (CEO) and you’ll hear the details. This is where the HR Tech market is going.
    Workday
    2024年04月04日
  • Workday
    Workday收购HiredScore的意义,这可能颠覆人力资源科技领域 Workday计划收购HiredScore,这是人力资源技术领域的一次重大变革。HiredScore是一家领先的基于AI的招聘匹配工具提供商,此举将大大增强Workday在人才智能和招聘方面的能力。这次收购预计将整合HiredScore的专长到Workday的系统中,显著改善其应聘者追踪系统(ATS)、技能云和整体人才智能产品。此战略性收购可能会重塑人力资源软件市场,迫使其他供应商加速他们的AI计划,可能激发一轮新的收购热潮。 以下是原文: This week Workday announced intent to acquire HiredScore, a leading provider of AI-based matching tools for recruiting (called “talent orchestration”). While it wasn’t discussed much in the earnings call, this deal is a big positive for Workday and could have many implications for the HR Tech market. Let me explain. (I have not been briefed by Workday yet, so more information will come as I learn more.) Right now there is a massive marketplace war for high-powered AI-based recruiting tools (estimated at $30.1 billion). Historically dominated by applicant tracking systems (ATS), this market provides essential technology to help every company grow. The ATS market, which is more than 25 years old, has been rapidly transformed with high-powered AI tools that help with candidate matching, search, skills inference, and sourcing. And now that AI tools are readily available, these systems are becoming big data platforms loaded with billions of employee profiles, running complex AI models to help match people to jobs, projects, and gigs. Most ATS vendors (including Workday) have slowly extended into this space through matching. The original idea of a resume parser (software that reads a resume and scores it against a job description) has evolved into complex text analysis and AI-powered inference technology, forcing ATS vendors to invest. As the ATS vendors enhance their AI capabilities, a parallel universe of AI-first Talent Intelligence vendors emerged. These vendors, like Eightfold, Gloat, Beamery, Phenom, Seekout, Skyhive, Retrain, and Techwolf are building skills-centric big data platforms to match people to jobs, gigs, and mentors. These systems do much more than rate matches: they identify skills, find adjacent skills, match people to careers, find mentors, and more. They are essentially open big-data AI platforms built on vector databases that can be used for many enterprise apps (job architecture design, skills planning, internal mobility, pay equity analysis, etc.). In many ways they represent the future of HR Tech. (Read our Talent Intelligence Primer for more.) As the Talent Intelligence vendors grow, they start to deliver “HCM-threatening” platforms that impinge on the HCM “System of Record” idea. If you have all your employees, candidates, alumni, and prospects in Eightfold, Phenom, Seekout, or Gloat, for example, Workday or SAP look like a tactical payroll and workflow management system. (ServiceNow also understands this, and is building talent intelligence into its workflow platform.) Up until now the big HCM vendors like Workday, Oracle, and SAP have struggled to build these new systems, largely because their original architectures were not AI-based. So they’ve attracted customers with offerings like the Workday Skills Cloud or SAP Opportunity Marketplace that aren’t fully completed yet. We have talked with dozens of Workday Skills Cloud customers, for example, and they see it as an important “skills system of record,” but its real AI matching and inference capabilities have been limited. Along comes HiredScore, a well respected AI-based matching system with 150 employees and 40+ seasoned AI engineers in Israel. These folks are experts at candidate matching (quite a complex problem), and they’ve built a very innovative “orchestration” system to help line managers coordinate activities with HR business partners and recruiters (more on this later). While I’m sure they’ll continue to build out HiredScore, they can also contribute to Workday’s overall talent intelligence offering, improving the entire system – including the Skills Cloud, Workday Learning, Workday’s Talent Marketplace. As large as the recruiting software market is, the market for internal career tools, talent mobility, skills inference, and corporate learning is five times bigger. This acquisition gives Workday a shot in the arm to accelerate its entire AI platform strategy. (As the Identified acquisition did back in 2014.  Identified was the roots of the Workday Skills Cloud.) Market Implications Of This Move This move could change the market for HR software in a few significant ways. First, Workday Recruiting customers will be thrilled. Workday’s ATS now benefits from a first class matching and candidate scoring solution. This helps Workday compete with the bigger ATS players and gives Workday a new revenue source as they sell HiredScore to the existing 4,000+ Workday ATS customers. (Similar to the Peakon acquisition in Employee Experience.) And the talent orchestration features (kind of like a “staffing copilot”) gives Workday a very unique feature set. Second, this forces Workday’s talent intelligence partners to step up their game. Remember when Apple acquired Dark Sky, the most compelling micro-weather app on the market? Once they integrated it into Apple’s other apps, the market for third party weather apps went away. Workday could limit its partner network to avoid letting HiredScore competitors into the ecosystem. Third, this forces HCM vendors to accelerate their AI. Since HiredScore is such a well-respected product (every client we talk with adores it), it will become part of Workday demos and sales proposals quickly. Workday’s HCM competitors will start scratching around to find a similarly mature AI vendor to acquire. And that could kick off another round of acquisitions, similar to the frenzy that took place in the mid 2010s. Finally, there’s one more scenario, and I give this good odds. Not to be outdone by Workday, the Talent Intelligence vendors may just expand their ATS capability and decide to go “full stack.” I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen. Why Is AI-Based Candidate Matching So Important Why is this technology so important? Well if you’ve ever tried to recruit on Indeed or LinkedIn, you know why. The quality and reliability of “candidate matching technology” is a lynchpin of a talent platform. Just as Google Search crushed Yahoo, Excite, and Inktomi, a powerful next-gen matching tool adds an enormous amount of value. Not only does it speed talent acquisition, it fuels all the internal mobility, career portals, skills, and eventually learning and pay systems. Why do I say this?  A “match” is a sophisticated problem. Unlike a Google search which looks at text and traffic, when you search for a person to fill a role you have to think about dozens of complex relationships. What are this person’s skills and capabilities? What are their credentials or certifications? Who else are they connected with? How likely will they fit into the job, role, and company? What is the impact of their industry experience? What tools and technologies do they understand? And it gets much more complex. The Heidrick Navigator platform (built on Eightfold), uses AI to assess functional skills for management and leadership, identifies a person’s “ability to drive results,” and more. This important application of AI powers many of the most important decisions we make in business. That’s why the Talent Intelligence space is growing so fast. As of this week there are more than 1,800 Director or VPs of “Talent Intelligence” in LinkedIn, and that number is up almost six-fold from one year ago. Can Workday take the lead in this emerging space?  It’s impossible to tell at this point, but the horses have left the gate and the race is on. This deal sets the players in the right lanes and feels like the earthquake to shake things up.  
    Workday
    2024年03月01日
  • Workday
    Is DEI Going to Die in 2024? Josh Bersin 的文章讨论了 2024 年多元化、公平与包容(DEI)项目所面临的重大挑战和批评,特别强调了 "反觉醒 "评论家的攻击和克劳迪娜-盖伊(Claudine Gay)从哈佛辞职的事件。报告探讨了多元包容计划在当前的文化战争中扮演的角色、人们对它的看法以及法律挑战对多元包容计划招聘和投资的影响。尽管存在这些挑战,贝尔辛还是强调了发展型企业的实际商业利益,展示了成功的战略以及将发展型企业融入业务而不仅仅是人力资源的重要性。他认为,应将重点转向在所有业务部门嵌入包容、公平薪酬和开放讨论的原则,并指出,未来的企业发展指数至关重要,但需要适应和领导层的承诺才能茁壮成长。 Is DEI Going to Die in 2024? By Josh Bersin For anyone working in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), it is safe to say that it has been a tough start to 2024. For a while now, there has been a concerted attack on DEI programs, with ‘anti-woke’ commentators and public figures querying their value, worth, and even existence. Those attacks increased enormously in 2024 with the resignation of Claudine Gay from Harvard. While the call to resign was supposedly related to plagiarism, one can’t help but feel that her position as a leading DEI advocate also fuelled the demand. It means that DEI has come under increased and sustained fire, and despite the many benefits provided by a good DEO program – to both employer and employee – there is a feeling that 2024 could be the year that DEI fades away. How likely is this to happen, and what would the impact be if it did? DEI and the culture wars Anyone living and working in the US (or most other countries worldwide) over the past few years will have likely heard of the culture wars. Brought on by declining trust in institutions, growing inequalities, and the proliferation of technology, the culture wars involve opposing social groups seeking to impose their ideologies. All manner of things has been caught up in this, from what’s on the curriculum at schools to taking a knee at sporting events and from definitions of what constitutes a woman to allegations of tokenism in the workplace. DEI has played an unwitting but central part in the culture wars. There’s a perception that DEI programs are ‘woke’ and prioritize ethnicity and gender over achievement and ability. In August of 2023, an attorney filed (and won) a lawsuit against a VC firm that gives grants to black entrepreneurs. Similar suits have been filed against firms with diversity hiring programs, scholarships, and internships. The resignation of Claudine Gay has reinvigorated the commentary around DEI programs. Josh Hammer, a conservative talk show host and writer, wrote on the social media platform X that taking down Dr. Gay was a “huge scalp” in the “fight for civilizational sanity. ” It was described as “a crushing loss to DEI, wokeism, antisemitism & university elitism,” by conservative commentator Liz Wheeler, and the “beginning of the end for DEI in America’s institutions,” by the conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who had helped publicize the plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay. When something is as consistently criticized and devalued as DEI programs have been, a toll is inevitably taken. That is certainly indicated by the latest hiring data for DEI professionals. According to data from labor market analytics company Lightcast, hiring for DEI positions in the US is down by 48% year over year, in the middle of an economic boom. Clearly, DEI investments are under attack. And when you look at companies doing layoffs, DEI jobs are frequently high on the list of jobs to cut. I even heard a recent podcast with four well-known venture capitalists – three agreed that “doing away with DEI programs” was top on their list. The value of DEI Given this criticism of DEI programs, one could be forgiven for thinking such programs carry no value to HR and the wider business. Yet many companies invest in DEI programs, and the value is high in almost every case I come across. Our Elevating Equity research in 2022 and 2023 found companies focus on diversity and inclusion for very pragmatic reasons, including: An inclusive hiring strategy broadens and deepens the recruiting pool. An inclusive leadership strategy drives a deeper leadership pipeline. An inclusive management approach helps attract diverse customers and markets. An inclusive board drives growth and market leadership. (proven statistically) An inclusive supply chain program improves sustainability of the supply chain. An inclusive culture creates growth, retention, and engagement in the employee base. Organizations are not prioritizing DEI programs because they are woken or as a box-ticking exercise. They do so because DEI provides real and tangible business benefits. Workday, one of the most admired HR technology companies in the market, has pioneered DEI internally and through its products, and the company has outgrown and outperformed its competitors for years. Their product VIBE, an analytics system designed for this purpose, shows intersectionality, and helps companies set targets and find inequities in leadership, hiring, pay, and career development. But some law firms have posited that these types of programs are illegal – is there a case to answer? DEI legality In response, it’s important to consider the massive and complex pay equity problem. Until the last few years, most companies had no problem paying people in very idiosyncratic ways. The Josh Bersin Company looked at leadership, succession, and pay programs worldwide last year and found that there are massive variations in pay with no clear statistical correlation in most larger companies. This problem is called “pay equity,” and when you look at pay vs. gender, age, race, nationality, and other non-performance factors, most companies find problems. Is this a “DEI” program? When we looked at pay equity in detail last year, we found that only 5% of companies have embarked on a strategic equity analysis. While most companies do their best to keep pay consistent with performance, these studies always find problems. Would it be considered illegal to analyze pay by race or nationality and then fix the disparities? The future of DEI DEI is undoubtedly a complex issue, and many organizations will be uncertain about the best course of action. Despite the current wave of criticism, there has been vast investment in DEI strategy over recent years, and business leaders are highly unlikely to let that fade away. Despite the anti-woke movement, political debates, and the inability of Harvard, Penn, and other universities to speak clearly on these topics, businesses will not stop. Affirmative Action was not created to discriminate; it was designed to reduce discrimination. At the University of California, where Affirmative Action was halted in 1995, studies found that earnings among African American STEM graduates decreased significantly. So, one could argue that they were making a real difference. DEI will not die – it is far too important for that to happen. However, it’s time to do away with the “DEI police” in HR and focus on embedding the principles of inclusion, fair pay, and open-minded discussions across all business units. Senior leaders must take ownership of this issue. In the early 2000s, companies hired Chief Digital Officers to drive digital technology implementation, ideas, and strategies. As digital tools became commonplace, the role went away. We may be entering a period where the Chief Diversity Officer has a new role: putting the company on a track to embrace inclusion and diversity in every business area and spending less time pushing the agenda from a central group. In every interview we conduct on this topic, we see overwhelming positive stories from various DEI strategies. Each successful company frames DEI as a business rather than an HR strategy. While HR-centric DEI investments are shrinking, it’s more like them migrating into the business where they belong. 中文翻译如下,仅供参考: 2024年,多样性、公平与包容(DEI)将走向消亡吗?作者:Josh Bersin 对于那些致力于多样性、公平与包容(DEI)领域的人士来说,2024年的开端无疑充满挑战。近期,DEI项目遭到了前所未有的集中攻击,包括一些“反觉醒”评论员和公众人物对其价值、意义乃至存在的质疑。 特别是随着Claudine Gay从哈佛大学的辞职,这种攻击愈发激烈。尽管她的辞职表面上与剽窃事件有关,但不难察觉,她作为DEI领域的领军人物,这一身份似乎也是辞职呼声高涨的一个重要因素。 这意味着,DEI正面临着前所未有的挑战。尽管高效的DEI项目能够为雇主和雇员带来众多益处,但人们仍担忧2024年可能成为DEI逐渐淡出视野的一年。这种情况发生的可能性有多大?如果真的发生,又会产生何种影响? DEI与文化战争 近年来,无论是在美国还是全球其他大多数国家,你可能都会听说过“文化战争”。这场战争源于对机构的信任下降、不平等现象的加剧以及技术的广泛传播,涉及到试图强加自己意识形态的社会对立群体。 从学校课程内容、体育赛事中的下跪行为,到对“女性”定义的争议、以及工作场所中的代表性指控等,无一不被卷入这场文化战争。而DEI,在这场战争中虽不愿意却占据了核心位置。 人们普遍认为DEI项目倾向于“觉醒”,过分强调种族和性别因素,而忽视了成就和能力。2023年8月,一位律师成功对一家支持黑人创业者的风险投资公司提起诉讼。类似的诉讼也针对那些实施多样性招聘、奖学金和实习计划的公司提起。 Claudine Gay的辞职再次引发了对DEI项目的广泛讨论。保守派脱口秀主持人和作家Josh Hammer在社交媒体平台X上表示,击败Gay博士是“为文明理智而战的一大胜利”。保守派评论员Liz Wheeler称之为“对DEI、觉醒主义、反犹太主义及大学精英主义的沉重打击”,而保守派活动家Christopher Rufo则称这是“DEI在美国机构中走向终结的开始”。 如此一致的批评和贬低无疑对DEI项目造成了重创。根据劳动力市场分析公司Lightcast的数据显示,尽管经济蓬勃发展,但美国DEI相关职位的招聘量同比下降了48%。显然,DEI正面临严峻挑战。 当提到公司裁员时,DEI相关职位往往是裁减名单上的重点。我最近听到一个播客,四位知名风险投资家中有三位认为“取消DEI项目”是他们的首要任务。 DEI的价值 面对如此批评,人们或许会误以为DEI项目对人力资源和更广泛的商业活动没有任何价值。然而,实际上,许多公司对DEI项目的投资极具价值,几乎每个案例都能证明这一点。 我们在2022年和2023年的《提升公平研究》中发现,公司出于实际原因关注多样性和包容性,这包括: 包容性招聘策略扩大了招聘范围。 包容性领导力策略深化了领导力储备。 包容性管理方式吸引了多元化的客户和市场。 包容性董事会推动了市场增长和领导地位(这一点已通过统计数据得到证明)。 包容性供应链项目提升了供应链的可持续性。 包容性文化促进了员工的增长、留存和参与。 组织之所以优先考虑DEI项目,并非仅仅因为“觉醒”,或者作为勾选式行动。他们这样做是因为DEI确实带来了实际和有形的商业利益。例如,Workday这样的HR技术公司在市场上备受尊敬,它不仅在内部推广DEI,在其产品中也体现了这一点,多年来一直超越竞争对手的增长和表现。它们的产品VIBE,一个专门设计的分析系统,展示了交叉性,帮助公司设定目标,找出领导力、招聘、薪酬和职业发展中的不平等。 然而,一些律所提出这类计划可能违法——这是否成立呢? DEI的合法性 面对这一问题,我们不得不考虑到复杂且广泛的薪酬公平问题。直到最近几年,大多数公司在个性化支付薪酬方面并未遇到太大问题。Josh Bersin Company去年对全球的领导力、继承计划和薪酬计划进行了研究,发现在许多大公司中,薪酬存在巨大差异,且大多没有明显的统计相关性。 这个问题被称作“薪酬公平”。当涉及到性别、年龄、种族、国籍等非绩效因素时,大多数公司都存在问题。那么,分析基于种族或国籍的薪酬差异并加以解决,这会被认为是非法的吗? DEI的未来 DEI无疑是一个复杂的议题,许多组织对于采取何种措施感到不确定。尽管面临当前的批评浪潮,但近年来对DEI策略的巨大投资表明,商业领袖们不太可能让这一切付诸东流。 尽管存在反觉醒运动、政治辩论,以及哈佛、宾夕法尼亚大学等教育机构在这些议题上的模糊立场,但商界不会因此而停滞不前。平权行动的初衷不是为了歧视,而是为了减少歧视。例如,在加州大学,自从1995年停止实施平权行动以来,研究发现非洲裔美国人STEM专业毕业生的收入显著下降。因此,可以说这些措施确实产生了积极的影响。 DEI不会消亡——它对此太重要了。然而,现在是时候取消人力资源部门中的“DEI警察”,转而专注于在所有业务单元中嵌入包容性、公平薪酬和开放性讨论的原则。高级领导层必须对这一议题负起责任来。 回顾21世纪初,许多公司聘请首席数字官来推动数字技术的实施、创意和战略。随着数字工具成为常态,这一角色逐渐消失。我们可能正处于一个新的时期,首席多样性官的角色也在发生变化:不再是从中心团队推动议程,而是引导公司在每一个业务领域都拥抱包容性和多样性。 通过我们在这个话题上的每次采访,我们都能看到各种DEI策略的积极故事。每个成功的公司都将DEI视为一项业务策略,而非仅仅是人力资源策略。虽然以HR为中心的DEI投资正在减少,但这更像是它们向业务领域的转移,这正是它们应有的归属。  
    Workday
    2024年02月23日
  • Workday
    Workday: It’s Time to Close the AI Trust Gap Workday, a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, has pressed a global study recently recognizing the  importance of addressing the AI trust gap. They believe that trust is a critical factor when it comes to implementing artificial intelligence (AI) systems, especially in areas such as workforce management and human resources. Research results are as follows: At the leadership level, only 62% welcome AI, and only 62% are confident their organization will ensure AI is implemented in a responsible and trustworthy way. At the employee level, these figures drop even lower to 52% and 55%, respectively. 70% of leaders say AI should be developed in a way that easily allows for human review and intervention. Yet 42% of employees believe their company does not have a clear understanding of which systems should be fully automated and which require human intervention. 1 in 4 employees (23%) are not confident that their organization will put employee interests above its own when implementing AI. (compared to 21% of leaders) 1 in 4 employees (23%) are not confident that their organization will prioritize innovating with care for people over innovating with speed. (compared to 17% of leaders) 1 in 4 employees (23%) are not confident that their organization will ensure AI is implemented in a responsible and trustworthy way. (compared to 17% of leaders) “We know how these technologies can benefit economic opportunities for people—that’s our business. But people won’t use technologies they don’t trust. Skills are the way forward, and not only skills, but skills backed by a thoughtful, ethical, responsible implementation of AI that has regulatory safeguards that help facilitate trust.” said Chandler C. Morse, VP, Public Policy, Workday. Workday’s study focuses on various key areas: Section 1: Perspectives align on AI’s potential and responsible use. “At the outset of our research, we hypothesized that there would be a general alignment between business leaders and employees regarding their overall enthusiasm for AI. Encouragingly, this has proven true: leaders and employees are aligned in several areas, including AI’s potential for business transformation, as well as efforts to reduce risk and ensure trustworthy AI.” Both leaders and employees believe in and hope for a transformation scenario* with AI. Both groups agree AI implementation should prioritize human control. Both groups cite regulation and frameworks as most important for trustworthy AI. Section 2: When it comes to the development of AI, the trust gap between leaders and employees diverges even more. “While most leaders and employees agree on the value of AI and the need for its careful implementation, the existing trust gap becomes even more pronounced when it comes to developing AI in a way that facilitates human review and intervention.” Employees aren’t confident their company takes a people-first approach. At all levels, there’s the worry that human welfare isn’t a leadership priority. Section 3: Data on AI governance and use is not readily visible to employees. “While employees are calling for regulation and ethical frameworks to ensure that AI is trustworthy, there is a lack of awareness across all levels of the workforce when it comes to collaborating on AI regulation and sharing responsible AI guidelines.” Closing remarks: How Workday is closing the AI trust gap. Transparency: Workday can prioritize transparency in their AI systems. Providing clear explanations of how AI algorithms make decisions can help build trust among users. By revealing the factors, data, and processes that contribute to AI-driven outcomes, Workday can ensure transparency in their AI applications. Explainability: Workday can work towards making their AI systems more explainable. This means enabling users to understand the reasoning behind AI-generated recommendations or decisions. Employing techniques like interpretable machine learning can help users comprehend the logic and factors influencing the AI-driven outcomes. Ethical considerations: Working on ethical frameworks and guidelines for AI use can play a crucial role in closing the trust gap. Workday can ensure that their AI systems align with ethical principles, such as fairness, accountability, and avoiding bias. This might involve rigorous testing, auditing, and ongoing monitoring of AI models to detect and mitigate any potential biases or unintended consequences. User feedback and collaboration: Engaging with users and seeking their feedback can be key to building trust. Workday can involve their customers and end-users in the AI development process, gathering insights and acting on user concerns. Collaboration and open communication will help Workday enhance their AI systems based on real-world feedback and user needs. Data privacy and security: Ensuring robust data privacy and security measures is vital for instilling trust in AI systems. Workday can prioritize data protection and encryption, complying with industry standards and regulations. By demonstrating strong data privacy practices, they can alleviate concerns associated with AI-driven data processing. SOURCE Workday
    Workday
    2024年01月11日
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