Meet a champion of HR technology Jack Berkowitz, Chief Data Officer at ADP. He's got an uncanny ability to streamline processes and foster a culture of retention. Join us as we delve into the crux of ADP's philosophy of designing for people, shedding light on how personalization can enhance the employee experience, leading to recruiting and retaining top talent.
Whether you're part of a large enterprise or a small-to-medium-sized business, this episode is your ticket to elevating personal experiences in HR.
Special mini series recorded with Oleeo at HR Tech 2023 with hosts Ryan Leary, Brian Fink, and Shally Steckerl.
Listen & Subscribe on your favorite platform
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Visit RecruitingDaily
Twitter @RecruitingDaily
Join the Secret Sourcing Group
Learn more about #HRTX Events
Meet a champion of HR technology Jack Berkowitz, Chief Data Officer at ADP. He's got an uncanny ability to streamline processes and foster a culture of retention. Join us as we delve into the crux of ADP's philosophy of designing for people, shedding light on how personalization can enhance the employee experience, leading to recruiting and retaining top talent.
Whether you're part of a large enterprise or a small-to-medium-sized business, this episode is your ticket to elevating personal experiences in HR.
Special mini series recorded with Oleeo at HR Tech 2023 with hosts Ryan Leary, Brian Fink, and Shally Steckerl.
Listen & Subscribe on your favorite platform
Apple | Spotify | Google | Amazon
Visit RecruitingDaily
Twitter @RecruitingDaily
Join the Secret Sourcing Group
Learn more about #HRTX Events
Hey everybody, welcome back to recruiting Daly's sourcing school. We are powered by Olio. At the Talent Acquisition Content Lounge, we are joined by the one, the only Jack from ADP. We're excited to have you here. What about me? Oh, oh, okay. This is where I forget to introduce my co-host.
Speaker 2:Ryan Lear. He went to the guy without the microphone to come to me. There we go to you without me?
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, jack, would you like to introduce Ryan, me Ryan.
Speaker 2:So before we kick off. So he's Atlanta Bulldogs fan. Yes, sir, he's not a Bulldogs fan, but I'm in.
Speaker 1:Atlanta Roll, todd, but you're in Atlanta. What are you? Roswell, roswell, really. Yeah, which ADP office do you go into? Alpharetta?
Speaker 2:You write down the street from me when you're back yard. Well, there we go. Yeah, so you live in Alpharetta.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean, my wife Allie was an ADP associate and manager for about 13 years and when I said where do you want to move to, she said I don't want to commute from Buckhead to Alpharetta anymore. Right, so we are literally on Windward, we are right near the office, so I'll be over. So Lucy's Steakhouse and whatever and all, yeah, shout out to Lucy Steakhouse across the street from the Windward office. We're right there. That's my run route, so that's my lifetime.
Speaker 1:I'll bring a few hundred engineers cook out, okay. So if we're going to have a cook out, I got a shout out to our friend of the program, ronnie Bratcher, because Ronnie is the con just amazing smoker Smoker. He is the grill specialist. That would be something to happen. So, as long as we're talking about ADP and how awesome ADP is, I just learned what ADP stands for now. It's not just automatic data processing, it's always designing for people. Can you talk a little bit about that philosophy?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know, HR tech and data and everything very sterile, Right. What we really want to do is elevate that personal experience. You know, at the end of the day everybody here, everybody on the floor our whole job is to support that individual, that employee, that person, and we want to keep it that person as a center focus of everything we do. And so, whether it's, you know, our AI technology nudging people for the right things, well, it's just not having a form letter, but a very personalized response coming out of Gen AI to you and your needs and your family's needs. That's what we're trying to do. Everything's about that person.
Speaker 1:Jack, you talk about the personal experience and I think that sometimes recruiting can be a little impersonal and you talk about driving that home for the individual and putting the individual at the center of everything that you do. Is that how recruiting is going to if you will remain relevant in the age?
Speaker 3:of AI. I think it's the only way, right. It's the only way. Think about it the people we're trying to recruit, they're on Instagram. It's personal. I took an Uber over here today. It already knew what I wanted to do. It's personal. Why am I making somebody go fill out a form that's a generic form that was on a desk 25 years ago on a system, and just treating them as just a unit of production? Why am I not creating a personal experience with them before they recruit or before they come to me to be hired? Why am I not just cultivating that? We have all the technology now that we can do that. We have all the data that we can do that. Now we just have to take the decision to do it. But when you guys?
Speaker 1:do it. You don't just do it for enterprise, you also do it for SMB, which really powers this economy and keeps things moving.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's right. We have over a million clients, right. Yeah, we have definitely some of the biggest companies in the world, but we also have really tiny companies. One of the best experiences I've had is I got a complaint over LinkedIn about something from the owner of a motorcycle store in Pittsburgh. I got on plane, went to go see his motorcycle store, meet the seven people working there. That's what ADPs do.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's an awesome story. No-transcript. Real quick, as we were talking about restaurants, did you go to Pamela's pancakes when you were in Pittsburgh? No, I did not. Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:So why do you know restaurants in every state?
Speaker 1:For those of you just turning into the recruiting daily podcast sourcing school. Brian is a size 42 and he likes to eat. Yeah, so that's Brian. Think I'd like it like in the eat, as we're talking about liking to eat. Now I'm gonna connect that to my next question Is a high going to eat people's jobs or is it gonna create more jobs?
Speaker 3:I think it's a ladder, what, what? What it's really gonna do is create the ability for people to get rid of mundane tasks, to create and and do what more creative things. Okay, we've seen that right technology. When the web came out, we got more productivity. When mobile came out, we got more productivity. We're gonna see new types of jobs Right, create it. But it's not that people's jobs are gonna go away. People, you know, will continue to be challenged, moving forward, and we just have to think about how that's gonna happen. People shouldn't be afraid of this stuff. It's, it's it's around them every day today, so take advantage of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's. Let's take it into a little bit deeper. So SMB's is a big focus for free will. Is the Ability for them to create experience the same as it is in enterprise? Where's that gonna differ?
Speaker 3:If we do our job right, it's the same right now. Obviously there's intricacies and divisions they don't have, but why should they be disadvantaged on the ability to attract people? And we even see it in the data. You can actually look over the past three years, the shift in workforce From the upper market down to the middle market, down to the lower market, and so we should be able to create an experience for somebody who is a five-person consulting firm that's as compelling as as the biggest companies in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. But like the example that you gave about going to the, about going to the motorcycle shop for seven people, you made them feel as just as important as that, that they are your number one client, and I think that we're, as recruiters, we've got to make sure our candidates feel like they are our number one candidate. We've got to go those extra milestones to build that out in this competitive environment.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's right. And you know some of the some of the technology we're building, right? We? We just announced an acquisition recently with a company called Sora, where it creates onboarding workflows. Well, guess what? That onboarding starts during the recruiting, right? What do you care about? What's happening? The reminders, the nudges all of that needs to be personalized, right? The? My preferences are going to be different than yours in terms of you know how to engage and Recruiters need to have those tools, need to be thinking about that as they move forward.
Speaker 1:Speaking about those tools, I think ADP does get pegged is just being a payroll provider sometimes. What are those tools that, as a recruiter, I can leverage? My tool about tool belt today To make sure that each candidate feels that they're having a personalized experience.
Speaker 3:So, first of all, we're super proud of being pegged as that payroll provider and doing that because, at the end of the day, everybody here, everybody on this floor at least two thirds- three quarters.
Speaker 3:People are getting paid by ADP and we'll be at some point. But think about just those compensation numbers. Right, we have compensation benchmarks that are updated monthly. Those things are now based on AI technology, neural network. I can tell you what a ship captain Nebraska makes.
Speaker 3:But understanding what that individual probably is making based on their job title, based on their skills because it gets down to skills and Just having a proper conversation with somebody upfront, instead of, you know, quite frankly, baiting and switching them or something or just saying, oh yeah, it doesn't matter, that creates that personal experience. So just a compensation data set, the skills capability that we have, where you can actually find people based on skills, not based on and then you can look at different markets based on skills you can. We have tools that allow you to look at market demographics and skill combinations. So, if you have a DNI target you want to hit, where can I find people not by job title but by the skills that they have, in what very specific location? Maybe they can bring them in. Maybe they didn't even go to the office, maybe it's remote, and so we have all these different tools in our systems.
Speaker 1:So, as we talk about tools, are there any tools that have razzled and dazzled you on the floor here today at HR Tech? Anything that's really gotten your attention.
Speaker 3:Well, obviously, all the Gen AI stuff is pretty amazing, right. I've been in this business for a while and to just see the creativity of all the vendors is amazing. The big thing for me is these things are just coming out. We shipped our first customer-facing stuff in July, right, it'll be really interesting to see what recruiters, what HR people do with it. And I think that's actually I'm more excited about next year to see what happens than just seeing the demos today. I want to see what people do with it over the next year.
Speaker 2:What transpired out of this year. So now you recently launched ADP Assist.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Talk about that.
Speaker 3:So ADP Assist is our take on all of this AI capability. As it comes out, it feels a little bit like a chatbot, but it also interfaces with all the systems inside, so you can ask it questions about you know who's not just telling me about the law changes, but who's affected by those law changes. It automatically does the reports and analytics for you on the fly. It also will advise you know about things that you need to be concerned about. So it's not just a pool you don't just sit down, but it has a nudge engine associated with it.
Speaker 1:A nudge engine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so if we see something in the data you should know about, we'll nudge you. So imagine this right Now. This is. It's an internal situation, but imagine somebody inside the company has applied for a job three times and never got it. Never got one of these jobs. We'll nudge a manager to say why don't you have a talk with them? The manager may not know that person's obviously looking for a new opportunity and just that simple discussion.
Speaker 2:That's a great internal mobility tool, just the acknowledgement.
Speaker 3:Just the acknowledgement keeps that person engaged and then, hey, maybe wait, this person's applying for jobs. Why don't we help them, right? And so this part about ADP Assist is, yeah, it's technology, but it's really bringing that people aspect to it. Right, that always designing for people, that's a key portion of ADP Assist.
Speaker 1:So I wrote the other day about retention being the new recruiting. Oh yeah, yeah so will you say. Oh yeah, I was going to say tell me how ADP is helping great organizations retain talent and make sure that talent grows.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so so, throughout the systems, we have these capabilities that allow people to career path. Or, you know, we have job pool tools that you can have in the job tool, when a recruiter is looking for somebody, they can see the internal people that might be qualified as well, so you can give people new opportunities. I think the biggest thing that we offer, though, is that continuous experience to make it very personal for somebody. So, if you use A&P and mobile, you get an experience and interaction with your customer or with your company, and that retention like hey, people like you are saving just a little bit more in retirement. Or have you thought about taking we just launched a nudge? You know you're not taking enough vacation. People will burn out. So these types of things about creating that environment of the company, that culture of the company, is actually helping people retain and then find new career paths inside the company, as opposed to leaving and having to go outside.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I love that you found multiple problems and you found a way to solve it. What do you think is a big problem that's keeping? That's keeping the industry up tonight, and how is ADP go about decoupling or kind of coming up with a salute? Wait a minute, I don't know if I should ask that question, like that's me trying to get you to spill the secret sauce.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not going to spill too much secret sauce, but I think you know, if you look at the industry, you still have, you know, this notion that our end user, our end client, you, me, the people that are going to be hired, get deluged by all these possibilities when they go to find a job. And we think, as the recruiting industry, it's oh, it's so easy, we can find you, we'll find you. Yeah, and the press you read about somebody who's just not there. Or you go and LinkedIn you see these stories about. I've been looking for a job, I've applied to 500 places. So I think I think there's something still to be done in a feedback loop to candidates to let them understand where they are and then help them find alternate things to go do.
Speaker 1:Alternate things in that organization or outside the door, or even outside, right, even outside.
Speaker 3:You know, we have an amazing situation just with our own people right now, our own associates boomerang-ing back. So we're taking advantage of the experiences they got on those two, three, five years away and they're coming back because of the experience inside the company. So imagine if we were to help that idea of not career-path-ing but just experiencing or letting people know there's something else they could do. I just saw something 60,000 realtors dropped out of the real estate market. What are they going to go do?
Speaker 1:Wouldn't it be great if the industry had the ability.
Speaker 3:Well, because housing aren't selling. But imagine if the industry or if your company had an ability to share. You were a realtor.
Speaker 1:Here's other things you could do, though, for us. Oh, I wish that more of that existed, right? Because when I talk, so every Friday afternoon, I have office hours for recruiters where I am an ear to lend on or a shoulder to cry on. What have you? We talk about searches, and what have you is that? I'm asking recruiters why are you only doing recruiting? Why couldn't you look at a marketing role? Why can't you look at a sales role?
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly because recruiters are great relationship people right, right, transferable skill, transferable skill. I never thought in my life I'd be sitting here with you two at HR Tech, because it wasn't weird the most attractive men at HR Tech.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm thinking.
Speaker 3:This is true, this is true.
Speaker 1:Jason brings it up he's not agreeing with you Real quick, Jason, I want to shout. Jason out. Jason is wearing a really nice jacket. He must have gone to your tailor, must have gone to Ryan, okay, anyhow. So fantastic, great jacket.
Speaker 2:But is it Jets fan Giants, fan Giants fan, yeah, giants fan.
Speaker 3:Well, sorry about that. This year, yeah, and every year and every year, and every year.
Speaker 1:No, we were talking about transferable skills.
Speaker 2:He's commander's fans, commander's fan.
Speaker 3:I am Okay good, good Bit for Steelers fan That'll be, that's even worse, all right, but no, getting back to recruiters and their skills, right, you see it. You see recruiters because companies aren't hiring as much, but they have great personalities, they have great skills and really that's our job to let people understand all the variations that they can go through. And, like I was saying, when I was 17, 18 years old, I thought I was going to go be a pilot, you know this is far from being a pilot.
Speaker 2:That changes right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I think that's amazing. I mean, I'm thinking back to my days at IBM. We had Blue Pages is what they called it which aspired to be what you're talking about, but everything was meant. Now, given it's a long time ago.
Speaker 1:It was meant to be Galaxy, far, far away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it feels like. Do you remember the test you took in high school where it told you that you might be qualified to dig a ditch? Yeah, right, yeah, basically yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just. I just remember the days of feeling lost there. I didn't know. I mean, I had a serial number, number one, but I just felt lost. I didn't know where to go. What do I want to do? I don't want to do what I was doing. This would have been extremely helpful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think that's a big thing. I mean, I'm not sure I'm about to launch it anytime soon, but I think that that's an aspect of recruiting that if we could just get into the industry, it'd be great.
Speaker 1:Jack, about the industry. There is a conference that ADP hosts every year called Meeting of the Minds. Yep, I'm just going to ask who's your keynote speaker going to be this year? Have you guys announced that yet? Because this is the end of the year?
Speaker 2:We have not announced that Is this putting your hand up. What are you doing?
Speaker 3:I am not a Marcus Buckingham but like we have not announced it yet, Okay, I was. That being said, every year, not only is there a great keynote speaker, but the performers, and we had O's the mentalist a couple of years ago with. Alicia Keys and Alicia was good, but I'm still thinking about O's, the mentalist right. So it's a great conference right, and there's an executive summit as part of that as well. That's super. We've also just launched some conferences for the mid-market, so for the companies from 100 to 1,000, we call pro summits.
Speaker 3:I got to speak at both of them. We have an East Coast one and a West Coast one and again really targeted for that, that client. But those conferences are fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really an interesting space. For somebody who is a partner to 80, or I should say ADP is a partner to them, that it's really a great session of learning. There's a lot of intensity to it. There's hands-on approaches, not just to what you can do with a product, but what other people are doing to grow interviews, events, hiring, payroll, the whole financial planning.
Speaker 3:Exactly the thing about ADP, and I say this you know, adp is the center of the HR ecosystem, right? Whether it's because we're doing taxes or we hire, something like 15 to 18% of people in the country actually come through our platforms with the demand side of that equation. And I think what those conferences are is really about the ecosystem, not just about our products, but the ecosystem and the sharing of everybody that works in the HR industry and I think that's a great experience for everybody who comes Well about a great experience.
Speaker 1:I am sorry that, Jack, that somebody and I'm pointing my fingers, that's Jason that Jason was, you know, timid to come on the microphone with us today. But, Jack, I've really enjoyed having you speaking for Ryan. Wait, Ryan, I'm not going to talk for you, I got in trouble last time I did that.
Speaker 2:No, you can talk. I've enjoyed it. It's always a good conversation to have with Jack.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's great for being here, Even if he is Washington. Yeah, I understand Great being here though Go Burns. Perovich West.