For HR leaders, compliance demands are expanding rapidly while governance and technology investments lag behind, according to a recent report. Three in four (75%) respondents say their compliance needs have changed, according to a survey of 500 U.S. professionals across HR and adjacent functions. And 54% report that those needs have increased over the past two years, reflecting regulatory expansion, pay transparency rules, data privacy obligations, wage‑and‑hour enforcement and scrutiny of automated decision‑making. “HR compliance in 2026 is not fundamentally broken. It is under increasing structural pressure,” says Mitratech’s State of HR Compliance 2026 report. “The central challenge is not widespread compliance failure. It is the growing gap between expanding obligations and the infrastructure required to manage them sustainably.” People strategy top challenge Also, 41% of […]
Talent Management
Webinar: Beyond Borders – HR Solutions for Paying and Managing Non-U.S. Talent | June 24th @ 12pm Eastern
Join 3Sixty Insights Principal Analyst Nicole Roberts as she participates in Flex HR’s Beyond Borders: HR Solutions for Paying and Managing Non-U.S. Talent webinar, a discussion focused on the challenges and opportunities of managing a global workforce. The session will explore key topics including international payroll, compliance, worker classification, and strategies for supporting talent across borders. Nicole will share insights from her experience in workforce management and HR technology, helping attendees better understand the evolving requirements of global talent management. Whether your organization is expanding internationally or refining its global workforce strategy, this session will provide practical perspectives for HR, payroll, and business leaders. Learn more and register here: Beyond Borders – HR Solutions for Paying and Managing Non-U.S. Talent
Infographic: Inside MacLean-Fogg’s Engagement Transformation Using Quantum Workplace
This infographic highlights how MacLean-Fogg transformed employee engagement and retention by implementing Quantum Workplace. By reducing survey completion time from 30–40 minutes to just 5–10 minutes and expanding response methods through email, text, and QR codes, the organization increased participation rates from below 50% to 81% over two years. The improved employee feedback strategy unlocked measurable business outcomes including more than $3 million in savings, 260 fewer employee exits, and stronger leadership development, accountability, and career planning initiatives. The infographic also emphasizes how AI-driven, site-specific action planning and better participation data enabled more informed operational and workforce decisions.
Case Study: How MacLean-Fogg Used Quantum Workplace to Create a Thriving culture
What You Need to Know For manufacturers, building a highly engaged and high-performing workforce is a business imperative. When both are strong, output, retention, and results follow. However, hearing from and gathering feedback from this kind of workforce can be difficult since employees are not at a desk with consistent access to email and the internet for a standard 8-hour workday. This can make it challenging to obtain honest, anonymous, high-quality feedback, which in turn makes it harder to tackle issues related to turnover, culture, and compliance. MacLean-Fogg, a family-owned precision manufacturing company with roughly 2,100 employees across multiple facilities, faced exactly this problem before partnering with Quantum Workplace. What followed was a vendor switch that triggered a wholesale transformation of the company’s approach to […]
Market Alert: Phenom Acquires Plum to Anchor a Full-Spectrum Assessment Stack
What Happened On April 28, 2026, Phenom announced the acquisition of Plum, a provider of psychometric-based talent assessment. The deal, Phenom’s second in ten weeks and third in roughly four months, brings Plum’s proprietary Role Model™ technology into Phenom’s agentic platform, adding behavioral and durable-skills measurement to an already expanding assessment stack. The move follows the February 2026 acquisition of Be Applied, which introduced adaptive cognitive assessments, and the January 2026 acquisition of Included AI, which deepened workforce analytics and planning capabilities. Taken together, the three deals reflect a deliberate architectural strategy: Phenom is assembling a more unified candidate and employee assessment and validation capability rather than a set of discrete point solutions. Why Plum — and Why Now Psychometric science is not new. Industrial-organizational […]
Workforce Management in the Age of Unknowns
Most workforce management strategies are built for predictability. Maybe that’s the problem. In 2026, that thinking may now be a liability as the defining WFM challenges instead seem to be managing what dashboards can’t show you, AI workforce transformation is reshaping headcount decisions, data trust, and risk, as the modern workplace slowly becomes a human-AI hybrid—part judgment, part automation, part AI assistant. These changes will permanently alter the workforce, as a slow, sequenced cut moves through organizations from function to function, quarter by quarter, until organizations look fundamentally different from the way they did 10 years ago. So far, US job losses tied to AI have hit approximately 100,000 in the last 6–12 months, with companies like Amazon shedding 30,000 employees since October 2025, not […]
Guest Podcast: HR Superstars – How to Create Manager Programs That Stick with Nicole Roberts
Leadership training is one of the most common investments organizations make, but it is also one of the easiest to get wrong. Many companies track attendance, but few measure whether managers actually lead differently afterward. In this episode of HR Superstars, Karina Young sits down with 3Sixty Insights’ Nicole Roberts, to discuss how to design leadership development that managers actually use in their day-to-day work. They explore how HR leaders can identify the right problems before launching training, measure leadership effectiveness in real time, and help managers apply new skills immediately. Nicole also shares practical ways to strengthen leadership development, even with limited resources. Listen to the full podcast here: How to Create Manager Programs That Stick with Nicole Roberts
Analyst Insight: Building Cultures of Trust in the Age of AI
There’s a significant connection between attracting and retaining top talent and compliance. The Great Place to Work’s trust model emphasizes that employees experience a “great workplace” when they trust leadership, feel pride in their work, and experience camaraderie with colleagues. Leave, pay accuracy, and policy consistency are crucial at the crossroads of trust, fairness, and respect. When issues such as missed payments, unclear rules, or poor communication arise, employees don’t view them as simple compliance errors. Instead, they perceive them as a breach of trust, leading top talent to leave quietly. Based on these practices, it can be assumed that people choose to stay with or join companies that do things well, and employees gravitate towards companies that pay attention. At the end of the […]
Benchmark Report: State of HR Compliance 2026 – Benchmark Findings on Confidence, Complexity, and the AI Effect
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Across a survey of 500 U.S. professionals involved in HR and HR-related decision-making, organizations report strong confidence in their ability to manage HR compliance. Nearly three-quarters of respondents say they’re satisfied with how well their organization stays on top of compliance requirements, and overall sentiment regarding HR performance and organizational health remains positive. Still, this confidence masks a growing tension. Over the past two years, more than half of respondents (71%) say their HR compliance needs have increased, and nearly one in four report that keeping up with compliance has become harder. This disconnect between perceived readiness and rising complexity reflects a familiar risk management challenge. Organizations are effectively managing the compliance issues they can see, while new risks emerge in less visible […]
The Growing Gap Between Vendor Messaging and Organizational Reality
At 3Sixty Insights, we have a dedicated practice focused on HR, Benefits, and Payroll. Over the past several years, we have seen a clear shift in how organizations in this space position themselves in the market. The messaging has evolved beyond helping companies become more effective and efficient, expanding into themes centered on improving employee experience and building stronger workplace cultures. Conceptually, this evolution makes sense. There is no shortage of research supporting the idea that engaged and satisfied employees are more productive and contribute more meaningfully to organizational success. It is a logical progression in messaging, and one that resonates with buyers. However, over time, I have found myself increasingly questioning whether some of these organizations are truly operating in alignment with what they […]
Analyst Insight: Workforce Management in the Age of Unknown
For decades, workforce management (WFM) meant controlling known variables like labor costs, scheduling, and compliance thresholds. That framing is now a liability. The defining WFM challenge of 2026 isn’t managing what you know—it’s preparing for what you don’t. As AI reshapes headcount decisions, data trust erodes, and the risks most organizations haven’t yet modeled turn out to be the ones that matter most. The Next Wave of Layoffs Won’t Look Like the Last One If you’re expecting alarm bells signaling massive AI-related layoffs, they’re likely not coming. What’s more likely are slow, sequenced cuts that move quietly from function to function quarter after quarter, gradually reshaping the workforce. It’s the boiling frog dynamic applied to organizational structure: by the time the temperature feels dangerous, the […]
How Social Media and Behavioral Insights Are Helping Employers Detect Misconduct Before Day One
All business leaders have been there: a candidate looks great on paper, so you invest in hiring them, but once on board, they fail to meet expectations. 50% of today’s workers are digital natives, and with this number expected to increase to 75% over the next five years, most organizations still rely on outdated screening methods—résumés, interviews, and post-offer background checks—that are ill-equipped to capture behavioral red flags that often appear online but not on paper. From disclosing company information to violating safety protocols to harassing others, new hires with less visible issues, such as intolerance, tardiness, or substance abuse problems, can misalign with company policies or culture, jeopardizing your team’s productivity or your brand image. In-person interviews can fall short when you need to […]
Analyst Insight: From Automation to Orchestration – How Phenom Is Rebuilding the Hiring Stack as Adaptive AI Infrastructure
Phenom Looks Toward Hiring Infrastructure Phenom unveiled a sweeping architectural overhaul at IAMPHENOM 2026 in Philadelphia and showed off results that showcase the true effectiveness of AI in HR workflows. Phenom opened this year’s IAMPHENOM user conference by pitching a philosophy rather than products. The company’s core question, executives said, wasn’t “how do we automate more?” but “what should be automated, and when should we pull back?” AI perceives patterns and relationships at a level people can’t reach, providing an opportunity to meld machine-driven data and analysis with human thought and decision-making. That environment, Phenom believes, leads to better outcomes in recruiting, onboarding and talent management. Judgement is important in this. Organizations need to consider what they should automate before deciding how it should be […]
Analyst Insight: Platform Evolved Into a Partner-Led HCM Ecosystem Serving 200K+ Employers and 9M Workers
Introduction Since 3Sixty Insights’ founding in 2017, we’ve seen a number of vendors come and go. One vendor in particular has consistently stood out to us as one to watch: isolved. 3Sixty Insights has referenced or partnered with isolved on more pieces than we can count. Their work with us has been a signal of their improvement in third-party perspectives, customer listening, and building a better product one day at a time. This perspective has provided us with visibility into their evolution and strategic long game, marked by thoughtful expansion and an unwavering focus on customer success and frontline workers. A Compliance Origin Story isolved’s origins trace back to the compliance shockwaves of COBRA-era benefits administration. The 1986 federal COBRA law (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation […]
Research Agenda: Bridging Leadership and Labor – 3Sixty Insights’ 2026 Combined Workforce Agenda
The future of work is no longer a theoretical concept touching artificial intelligence, remote work or skills transformation. Instead, it has become an operational reality at a time when managers are stretched beyond capacity, employee engagement is declining, compliance complexity is growing, labor markets are leaning toward employers even as companies struggle to find talent, and technology systems are expanding faster than organizations can implement governance. Across industries, leaders recognize that their primary challenge is not adopting new tools, but learning how to operate differently. The next phase of workforce transformation is defined less by innovation itself than by execution—how organizations translate technology, strategy and people practices into measurable outcomes. Research emerging from 3Sixty Insights, informed by the work of analysts Nicole Roberts and Dylan […]
Research Agenda: Workforce Strategy, HR Enablement & HR Technology in an AI-Augmented World
Analyst Overview Nicole brings more than 20 years of senior HR leadership experience, including serving as Chief People Officer and the first HR executive at several high-growth, private-equity–backed, and multi-site organizations. She has built HR functions from the ground up, led organizations through Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and rapid scaling, and evaluated, selected, and implemented a wide range of HR technologies as a buyer. She specializes in helping HR leaders translate workforce data into clear, executive-ready narratives that resonate with CEOs, CFOs, and private-equity stakeholders. In addition to her executive experience, Nicole serves as faculty with the Human Capital Institute, where she teaches courses in strategic workforce planning, talent acquisition, HR business partnering, change management, and leadership development. This work provides deep insight into the […]
Analyst Insight: From Skill to Practice – Why Manager Enablement Is Becoming HR’s Most Critical System Design Challenge
In a recent HRTechChat podcast conversation with Jeff Smith, PhD, COO of AI-powered performance management platform 15Five, a consistent theme emerged: the future of performance management and manager enablement will not be driven by more training, frameworks, or one-time interventions. It will be driven by system design that reinforces behavior continuously, in the flow of work. As HR teams face unprecedented pressure, from AI disruption and capacity constraints to escalating expectations placed on managers, traditional approaches to performance and leadership development are no longer sufficient. What organizations need now are mechanisms that turn expectations into daily practice, supported by technology that helps provide real-time feedback and augments human judgment rather than replacing it. Key Insights from the Conversation 1. HR Is at the Center of […]
Analyst Insight: What Makes a Certified Great Place To Work Company
Many careers pages today seem to carry a badge: “Great Place To Work Certified.” But to the job market, what does it typically signal, and where does it fall short? As an analyst engaging with HR leaders, employees, and HR tech vendors, it seems like Great Place To Work certification is seen less as the sole indicator of a “good company” and more as part of a body of evidence that includes retention statistics, internal mobility metrics, cultural trends, and employee feedback initiatives. Taking a Closer Look Great Place To Work (GPTW) is a workplace culture consultancy that has spent over 30 years researching employee experience and positioning itself as a global authority on workplace culture. GPTW says more than 10,000 companies across 60 countries […]
Video: Executive Turnover Is Disrupting Business – Here’s How to Keep Momentum
In this video Nicholas Biron explores the rising challenge of short executive tenures, now averaging around 18 months, and how this trend disrupts organizational strategy, marketing plans, and product execution. Drawing on research and firsthand observations, Nicholas emphasizes the importance of leadership retention and institutional knowledge for business success. He cautions that frequent executive changes can stall momentum, create strategic uncertainty, and ultimately hinder organizational growth.
Analyst Insight: California Labor Laws and Compliance – Burden, Benchmark, or Competitive Advantage?
In more than one phone call with customers, vendors, or other analysts in the HR technology industry, I’ve heard the claim that it’s hard to do business in the state of California. According to these conversations, the state is riddled with unnecessary compliance, too many hoops to jump through, a mountain of litigation risk, and constant changes to the rules. Business groups frequently cite labor, wage, and climate regulations as part of a broader, burdensome business environment. So, I decided to take a look. Is the situation in California really as out of control as people claim? Fact vs Fiction To start, there is a significant kernel of truth behind these claims, especially when compared to the rest of the United States. California’s 2025 statewide […]

