After a quick update from the road and Pete’s recent attendance at the UKG analyst event in Las Vegas, Pete and Julie opine and share their experiences from the 42nd Annual Payroll Congress in Nashville, TN…the Super Bowl of Payroll!
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Transcript:
Pete Tiliakos 00:08
Welcome, everyone to another episode of HR and Payroll 2.0. I’m Pete Tiliakos. And as always, I’m joined by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome, Julie.
Julie Fernandez 00:15
Thanks, Pete.
Pete Tiliakos 00:16
Yeah, good to be here. We are fresh off of the conference trail.
Julie Fernandez 00:21
That’s right. What used to be the American Payroll Association, right, the APA annual Congress event, payroll
Pete Tiliakos 00:30
or Congress? That’s exactly right. The 42nd annual Congress was held in Nashville.
Julie Fernandez 00:35
And what do you call it? Pete? I call it a pet name. Everybody uses now
Pete Tiliakos 00:39
the Super Bowl of payroll there. Yes, yes. Yes. I did make a stop before coming home. I went to I did go to Nashville. The other city excuse me, Las Vegas. The other the other? I guess I would call that the well, Nashville. So there’s Vegas to the south, right. So I went to the Vegas of the West, the Vegas. Real Vegas, real Vegas. The Nashville of the West I don’t know. But yeah, spend a couple of days with UKG got in got a nice update. Man Do they have everything right? Lots of updates on HCM WFM is doing its thing and it always has great places to work for data is getting just infused everywhere and productized some new stuff and payroll for UKG coming up Global Payroll that is certainly lots of AI talk. Yeah, just a really exciting day where we were we were really diving into you know, getting a peek into all the things that you and I love right HCM WFM payroll, and all the stuff that goes in between so yeah, really, really, really good update. Yeah, UKG is humming along. 80,000 clients now in 150 countries, that’s all products and all solutions globally. Yeah, and really doing well when it comes to their, their global growth, if you will, right. Each of their solutions UK G ready. And UK G dimensions are doing quite well on each of their respective markets. I thought it was really interesting. Julie, I didn’t know this. UK G ready right being the down market solution that they have UKG dimensions being the or excuse me, excuse me the backup. I said it differently. UKG pro would be their HCM upmarket UKG ready is down market dimensions obviously is their WFM profit product. I think I said that backwards earlier. I did not know this. But UKG ready has about 50,000 users of company users. I think it’s in the millions trying to see what million number they have for employees are serving, but I did not know they weren’t marketing that formally. They were sort of passively letting that become adopted by you know, by way of, you know, the KRONOS original design, right Kronos built that it came over, they merged with Alta Pro, or ultimate. And they, you know, they brought those two forward. But I was surprised to hear that they have had that growth and not really marketed that solution. So they’re really leaning into that now and targeting globally. I don’t know if everyone knows that it’s not just a US solution. It certainly is globally capable. And it’s underpinned by all of their dimensions WFM solutions, and certainly their one view Global Payroll capability they acquired through Amita. So really strong down market play, in addition to Pro I think sometimes just gets a little bit forgotten, maybe. Yeah,
Julie Fernandez 03:14
that’s right. And I think it’s great that you have some of the claim counts to be able to back that up with write some of the proofs, bringing some of the proofs. I also think you slipped it in there really quick, but just the whole Global Payroll with a Medus. And the rebranding, I believe payroll, Congress is the first that I had seen, you know, kind of the branding under one view, right? Isn’t that one?
Pete Tiliakos 03:38
That’s a great point. Yeah. UKG. One view is essentially right, the amigas merger or acquisition, if you will, and yeah, some exciting stuff there. And I’ll tell you, I was actually talking to their, their product leader leadership, Hugo Sarazen, and he was telling me about just how excited they were for what they what they have found that emit has, it’s actually exceeded their expectations in terms of some of the things they were already building. And I think it’s really cool, they’re going to be doing some, you know, look, everything in the market now is become super flexible, right? You can get SAS, you can get point solutions, you could get partial outsourcing and get full outsourcing, right, you can really kind of digest these solutions in whatever manner you need to at the point that you need it. And so one of the things I think is really cool is, in addition to met us, obviously, offering their fully managed capability there, they’re going to offer more of a kind of bring your own partner capability, I believe they’re calling it one of you direct, in addition to the one view connect they already had, which was somewhat of a SaaS model. So now we’re really kind of creating another flexible way for folks to come. And retransfer excuse me transform their payrolls, you know, in line with HCM and certainly WFM, which is incredibly compelling when you think about what they can do in one in one shop. So that’s really interesting. I think they’re doing some cool stuff. They’re making it more accessible and then of course, just bringing in more AI Um, yeah, and lots of right even at Paycon. I think they were one of the only if we were just talking about this earlier, one of the only product announcements that we saw at Paycon. And that was the UKG. Sorry, no, the conversational analytic capability. So yeah, really cool stuff. So UKG really leaning hard into payroll, and specially Global Payroll. And I think they’re doing some cool stuff here.
Julie Fernandez 05:22
Yeah. And you know, what you just said about a medicine offering the one view direct, right? Yeah, like, that’s not a small deal in the market. Historically, I think nga HR was really the only one before it was bought by light that would allow you to connect to other third parties that were in your that were already in your inventory, right. And so it’s really the only way to get you know, to get that extensibility. And now that we have some of the pay slips, and papaya, Global’ s and some of you know, that genre of Global Payroll solution offering to do that, having one view offer to do some things direct is, is something that people are looking for, and I don’t think it’s been readily available. Yeah, well,
Pete Tiliakos 06:06
you’re right. And I think we’ve seen a lot more the SAS stuff coming around, right? pay slip is doing well, that, you know, we’ve got PSR pay back, some of these other guys have popped up, that have really brought in a more agile approach to this to say, look, there doesn’t have to be any one single vendor that you’re using, you can certainly use the vendors of choice, but we can lay over that one single experience one single capability to control and orchestrate your payroll. So yeah, I love it, I think goes right along with that flexibility, your piece of this. And don’t forget, don’t forget the thing that is really differentiated, I think about ukg. One view is its ability to help with scheduling all the way through to payment. Right. So now they can also I mean, don’t forget, they’ve got a deep WFM heritage that is globally capable, used by the biggest companies, you know, they can bring that that time and attendance and payroll, one two punch of source to gross, and, and gross to net, right through to payment. Right. So yeah, very cool stuff. And I think super differentiated for them. Hey,
Julie Fernandez 07:08
I know it might, it may or may not have been a part of your UKG analysts bit, but I think you are going to call into play here, our good friend Jason Lee.
Pete Tiliakos 07:15
Yeah, another announcement. That’s exactly right. One of the things we did get an update on was UKG. Labs. That is, think of it as a I thought it was more of an investment portfolio, it’s I don’t think they actually make an investment, I think there’s an option for UKG to invest or, or acquire some pieces of the of the organization over time. But really, it’s a it’s an incubator cohort kind of concept that says, hey, let’s bring in, you know, innovative solutions that that align to our mantra of building, you know, helping companies build great places to work. And yeah, our good friends over at Salt labs, Jason Lee, the founder, former founder of DailyPay. And now the founder of salt Labs is bringing his equity solution for frontline workers over to the UKG lab. So they’re going to be working together. And I think it’s just a beautiful fit between the cultures and the, you know, the goals of those organizations. So, really cool. We actually got to meet a few. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.
Julie Fernandez 08:05
I was just going to say congratulations all around. Because yeah, it’s always great to see really intelligent people working with each other and bringing better solutions together. Yeah,
Pete Tiliakos 08:15
I was able to have dinner with the team at Salt, salt labs in Nashville. And got to know some of the some of the newer folks there and what they’re doing. So I’m a big fan of that solution. And love, love the landing spot. I think it’s just a perfect, perfect fit together. So yeah, great,
Julie Fernandez 08:29
great. So I’ve been, I’ve been doing some work, work with them on the site around benchmarks and different ways to benchmark some of the reward programs. And so we’ll see what comes out of that that might come up in one of our little micro surveys here one of these days, but getting the chance to work a little bit closer with some of Jason’s folks there.
Pete Tiliakos 08:47
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I think it’s, yeah, they’re good group. And I think they’re on a mission to solve a really tough problem. So, you know, it’s a start, right. We got to we got to start somewhere. We got to get it get it going. And I think it’s, it’s good stuff. What they’re building over there. So yeah. Hey,
Julie Fernandez 09:01
so let’s jump into to payroll Congress, huh? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Pete Tiliakos 09:05
Let’s, let’s talk payroll, Congress. Yeah. I thought it was a great week. I mean, it’s always exhausting. It’s always such a such a reunion. There’s a lot of excitement. There’s a lot of great, great education. I you know, I sat in on a few of the classes where I could, yeah, just a great week all around. I mean, no complaints. Right. It’s a Super Bowl of payroll. So exciting time for the for the industry. So
Julie Fernandez 09:26
I have to add a little bit of, of color to what was that week? I don’t know, folks. No, but we were in Nashville for payroll Congress, a whole 1000s of folks there, I think 20 more than 2200 Right. There were an awful lot of folks there. Yeah. And we were at the Gaylord, you know, the big Opryland which is somewhat insulated, if anybody’s not been there, it’s, you know, under an atrium and you know, kind of all encapsulated and there what we’re having some kind of weather I have never been in a place where, literally for two days straight from My phone was, you know, going off every three minutes with lightning, flash flood, tornado lightning. I mean, like for 48 hours straight, and there was some kind of tumult going on outside those doors was you wouldn’t know it from the excitement we had going on indoors, right?
Pete Tiliakos 10:19
No, yes. The Gaylords resorts are always very inclusive, as you point out, like, you can literally just stay there the entire time. They have everything. So, yeah, it was as if we were on our own little bubble, but there was some pretty gnarly weather happening. While we were there some flooding. I heard the tornado warnings, it startled a few of our foreign attendees, they they’re not used to that sort of broadcasted, you know, alarm going off on everyone’s cell phone at once. So I think that was a little bit startling. But yeah, but hey, Nashville is a good time. It’s one of those cities where you can you can blow your liver out pretty, pretty quickly if you don’t, if you don’t pace yourself. But yeah, good time. I mean, you know, and again, I’ve met so many folks that I just finally put a face to a name. Laura smart, for example, the brilliant Brazilian consultant,
Julie Fernandez 11:07
maybe person as well, Bart was there with the
Pete Tiliakos 11:10
book we had so many great Jerome Gerber now from HR data scale was there are data scale HR, I believe I said that wrong. And we had some great conversations, I was able to invite a bunch of folks over to the DailyPay booth. And we did some micro podcasts. Little quick, short episodes there. So look, for those to come out soon. I’ll probably swap cast them here. But what do you think? Yeah, go ahead. Good.
Julie Fernandez 11:31
Well, I’m just going to say, I don’t know how early you arrive. But I arrived on Monday early. And the main reason that I did, because I don’t really think the event was in full swing until Tuesday sometime, is because there’s an editorial board that meets usually coinciding here with payroll Congress, because you get some of the international folks and just, you know, the your best attendance there. And for folks who read some of the payroll, org magazines like the Global Payroll, the old GE PMI magazine, it’s been rebranded. And there are other bits, I don’t know if you know, but there’s a, there’s a panel and a group that focuses on the content in those magazines and what sort of content they’ll be pushing out over the course of the next 12 months. And I’ve sat on that board for quite some time. I admit, I don’t write specifically for it. As often as I probably should, I think I have write a dozen things or more a year that never quite make it to the finish tub. But we do have a number of folks there that you would recognize if you watch and follow along with the magazines, who are really speaking about what do people want to hear? You know, what topics should we be putting on the list for the year to come and kind of plan out and figure out where’s all this content going to come from that we’re pushing out? Through the through the magazines that yeah, the go out to quite a number of folks, right? of payroll practitioners? Yeah, I
Pete Tiliakos 12:53
think it’s a really, I mean, I think it’s a really nice, a nice app to nice channel for practitioner leaders to be able to sort of show their thought leadership voice. And so yeah, I would even encourage you if you’re not participating in that, and you’d like to go as far as say, to reach out to one of us, and we’d be happy to put you in touch. But yeah, it’s a great, it’s a great group. And I know, I’ve been in there a few times and helped with some articles as well. So yeah,
Julie Fernandez 13:14
exactly. Good stuff. Yeah. So that was early. I think that was a pre conference event. Right? I know. Yeah. Congress itself. But yeah, that happened early.
Pete Tiliakos 13:23
Yeah, it did. I was there all week myself. I got there Monday, because sort of day zero, if you will. It’s a long week. I will admit it’s a it’s an immersive, it’s a good immersive four days, three and a half days of education and networking, and certainly some partying and I don’t know, Julie, did you get to take in the costume contest this year? That was fun.
Julie Fernandez 13:43
I did not I wish I did. But I had work to do. And I would tell day night and so I just ran out of steam before that the costume party. So I hope they post pictures. They almost always well, I
Pete Tiliakos 13:55
did I posted a few I was so proud. They had a golden age section. So people were dressed in gold. Lots of evening gowns and wigs and just all kinds of craziness. Some really good costume themes and some different just some characters, right? I mean, that’s what people are going to think is about is letting people be their true selves and, and have a little camaraderie and a little fun. And that that contest is really,
Julie Fernandez 14:18
it’s really good. And people really want to dress up. People want to know people keep
Pete Tiliakos 14:21
asking me that I’m going to next year I’m going to next year I have to it’s early some point, right? I mean, I should have done the golden age thing. I feel like I coined that phrase as well. So I’m proud of that. But I wish I was a judge. But it’s okay, I got to take a picture with all the contestants. So it was fun. Excellent time. And the party of course, always a very much a an event, if you will. It’s very much an event. Very much an event. It almost feels like a almost feels like an indoor tailgate or something right just a nice hang of music and food and just people playing cornhole and other games and just dancing and you know, all kinds of stuff going on. So, if you can’t find fun a payroll or payroll, Congressman, you can’t, you can’t find it,
Julie Fernandez 15:04
you know, there’s this and then some of the bigger ADP meeting of the minds right type. They’re the two places where payroll practitioners can be celebrated wholly and fully, and, you know, really have an event that’s made for them. Yeah. So, you know, it’s great to see, I’ll
Pete Tiliakos 15:20
tell you Juliet’s one, one interesting thing, I will tell you, I took a photo of it, and I didn’t really, I didn’t post it, but I was going to say, it’s one of the few events where you can between classes, so to speak, go down the halls, and you can see people diligently processing payroll and working payroll never sleeps. And you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s kudos to those that can pull themselves away and juggle that, and their education and camaraderie and all of that at the same time. Because it’s, you know, not everybody can do that. So good thing we have, also those local chapters that are super, super important events, for those that can’t make it out. So yeah, I admire them. I admire them. But so that we, we hosted a very, very special event that I heard got great, great feedback, I was proud of how it went. I thought we could have had a longer day, maybe even another day. But what did you think of the executive Summit and the executive sessions that we ran? Well,
Julie Fernandez 16:11
I really enjoyed it. I think it was a little bit surprised to, to learn that that’s the first ever event of its type by payroll. Org, right. Because it just seems like a natural, something that would have been there all along. But it was the first and I think the first annual and probably not the last right event of bringing forward senior executive leaders to talk about payroll and the future. Future needs, feature, abilities, capabilities, ways to really reach your successful business outcomes as leaders by leaning in to payroll. And so that was exciting enough, and even more exciting is that you and I had a great opportunity to kick that off.
Pete Tiliakos 16:55
Yeah, yeah, that was a privilege. I mean, that I thought it’s uh, yeah, surprising. It was the first one but you know, better late than never. We’re on our way. And I think it’s it started a great dialogue. And for future events, I think we’re, you know, this will certainly continue. But yeah, what a privilege to kick that off and share our I felt like we did a little episode I wish we would have, we would have recorded it now. It felt like a little, if everything we do feels like a podcast episode, honestly. To be honest, but I thought it was good. We had great feedback, great engagement, right. We had some executive level leadership in the room. I think the goal was C suite. We got some of that. But I think it was mostly executive level sort of payroll folks, very senior level folks, maybe even some HR folks in there. And thank you to light for sponsoring that I think that was great that they stepped in and did that. And yeah, just some great dialogue, some great conversations about what payroll should be, what it can be and what it can produce. And, yeah, I really enjoyed it, I thought there was a lot of really good dialogue. Even outside of that I thought the conversation, at least for me, continued in different places with folks that were in that room that wanted to continue talking about it. So that’s exciting.
Julie Fernandez 18:01
That’s right. And in fact, for folks who are just, you know, kind of dying to know what we talked about, or how we got folks talking here at the beginning of the day, we really did focus on some excerpts from your survey that was launched later that week, and, and generated some conversation around what the trends are with technology and process and people and change. Right change was a huge topic. In fact, it was our last section. And I think, right in the early kickoff, we had maybe the most excitement and conversation from leaders that really wanted to talk about different components and elements of change, and the challenge and the upside, and the and the, you know, the real possibilities that they saw in bringing change in culture change, and people change in, you know, the relationships and payroll and, and just making it something really very robust as we go forward in the future.
Pete Tiliakos 18:57
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I think it’s important that we start to have a different conversation about payroll, right. And in the past, it’s been so oriented around cost savings, cost takeout, you know, process improvement, you know, and all those traditional things that you would that you would orient around a cost center. Right. And I understand, I totally understand I’ve been on the other end of managing some of those, you know, some of the biggest deals that you know, that there are and helping companies achieve that. But I think we have to, and that’s what I’m hoping my research is going to do. And I hope and I think that this this session was a great step in that direction, is that we’re going to have a different conversation that says, Yes, payroll has to be has to focus on those things, right. But at the same time, there is a value to be extracted from payroll that is just to be completely overlooked. And it starts with an engagement of executives, understanding what payroll is actually does, and what it materially produces and prevents and then how it can be an asset and a conduit maybe or a facilitator of change or facilitator have outcomes. And that’s where we’ve got to start a dialogue. And we’ve got to get people talking to executive leaders. And I know there’s a number of ways we would recommend you go about that. But I think that’s what this is about. And I’m hoping that’s what my research has done is just change the conversation, let’s just have a different conversation about payroll. And let’s, let’s help you understand what payroll could be for your organization and what it’s going to prevent for you. If you don’t modernize, and you don’t invest in it. You know, and I’ve got concerns too, just for the profession, like we’re, we’ve got a lot of people that are going to be leaving this profession in the next few years. Right next 10, five to 10. And that’s concerning. That’s concerning.
Julie Fernandez 20:36
Yeah, that’s right. It’s heavy on. It’s heavy on everyone’s minds, including payroll practitioners and leaders who are wondering where the next generation of talent is going to come from and how you backfill that
Pete Tiliakos 20:46
oh, yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of professions and sectors, I’m sure that I was talking to someone just recently about certified mechanics, right? Like, it’s, it’s waning, there’s not a lot of people doing that like, like, maybe past generation. So maybe our cars aren’t going to get fixed quite like they should. But, you know, we’ve got to think about the next generation of practitioners. And that’s another thing I think we’ve got to do for this profession is we’ve got to start figuring out how we encourage hate to use the word younger, because that’s not really the right thing. I want to say, I want to say people earlier in their stages of their career, or folks that are looking for that career advancement and transition, bring them to payroll, right. I mean, there’s some great I’ve seen some great leaders come from outside of payroll and do amazing things at some really big company. So you don’t have to be the world’s greatest payroll expert, right? You just have to have a desire to learn. And I think payroll is one of those areas that is going to be very technology led in the future. And it’s going to it’s going to lend itself to folks that are interested in you know, in leaving their stamp right putting their mark on something. And so here’s the opportunity.
Julie Fernandez 21:48
That’s right. Yeah. So in, in listen beyond our opportunity to start and kick off kind of the executive summit day. We did join, you know, some of the main mainstream attend attraction, right. Broader Congress early on in the event. And then we came back with the leaders of the organizations as part of the executive Summit, and had kind of an all star lineup on AI and payroll. Right. The likes of I think we had Sherry Sullivan from Esri was there we had. We had Joe Oh, man, I for David Malin was there for Deloitte. Yeah, yep. So we had we had, we had Deloitte and we had KPMG. And we had Ernst and Young. And where’s Joe from? Again?
Pete Tiliakos 22:31
I know I’m forgetting we’re forgetting somebody.
Julie Fernandez 22:33
Sorry, Joe. Yeah.
Pete Tiliakos 22:34
I know, right?
Julie Fernandez 22:35
Anyways, they’re like the brightest, the brightest. And the best. Oh, yeah. The leading advisors that are that have the most volume of client activity right in the market were asked a number of questions by Nick day, right was that was moderating that. Yeah. Oh, my God, no, I’m going to have to look up Joe’s payroll podcast. Yep. And, and, and so got a chance to really interact and also take some questions from leaders and, and share a little bit about what they’re seeing or what they’re doing in this space. Yeah,
Pete Tiliakos 23:09
no, I thought it was great. It was very much a, it was very much a from the frontlines view, right, a lens from the frontlines. And just to just to double check here, I looked it up. Joe Rancho rounds out Yeah, rounds that was from Grant Thornton. And Demetrius puppet Giorgio was from KPMG. Yeah, I forgot Demetrius, he was up there as well. So we had representation from basically the Big Four plus Grant Thornton, and of course, led by, you know, the wonderful Nick day of the payroll podcast. But yeah, no, it was great. I thought that I thought it was a very, it was just a different lens. Right. It was like leaders that are out there helping companies solve this and figure this out and telling stories about how to do that, and what works and what doesn’t. And I thought it was very well received. Like I said, I thought we could have gone, I thought we could have gone another afternoon, right? I mean, we could have easily had maybe some more subjects I know that will build on this. And so I’m excited to see this become, I’d love to see this become almost like the way ADP operates their meeting of the minds executive track within their, you know, bigger, bigger event with their larger North American base, where they do a, an executive track that runs parallel to the event, I think this could turn into that. And I think there could even be some education on the back end of it as well that you could, you could pair so I know we’re going to work closely with payroll org and help shape this and I’m excited for us to hopefully be a part of the next one. And the next one and the next one. So yeah, it’s important stuff. I feel like this is really important stuff. So
Julie Fernandez 24:35
hey, so I had a session and you had a session when you spend a couple of minutes on each and make sure that nobody feels like they missed something. And we’re like, Yeah,
Pete Tiliakos 24:42
well, my session I did a I did a great panel with DailyPay. We had one of their executives and a couple of their clients. Sarah Chesney, one of my good friends are good friends of the show. She was on there telling their stories and it was really interesting because they DailyPay was citing a good bit of their data from the back end. So we were talking a bit about the context of what we really see with how people behave within wage access. So it was really well received. And then of course, on Friday, after everyone was exhausted, I know I was, we were all I presented the payroll profession Confidence Index results, which we’re going to do an episode on. And that was incredibly well received. So thank you to everyone who was a part of that and came to that. But yeah, those were mostly my sessions. And then, of course, the exec Summit, and then podcasting here and there with DailyPay, and UKG, and some others. So it was a good time. That’s
Julie Fernandez 25:32
great. And on Tuesday afternoon, I did a session, building relationships across HR Payroll, and it Yes, and looking at some of the profiles and the different lenses of stakeholders, with payroll squarely in the middle of them, no matter where it’s owned in the organization, whether it’s HR owned, and kind of what that lens looks like, or finance owned, and what that lens looks like. And then all the different constructs that we find with it sitting in shared services, or sitting in it, or even business operations, when things are really decentralized and use that to talk a little bit about kind of the, the wonderous unicorn that a payroll practitioner needs to be to be successful and to exceed, you know, excel in the organization they really need to understand and, and have that emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence to navigate very different stakeholder groups.
Pete Tiliakos 26:26
Yeah, yeah. And
Julie Fernandez 26:27
then the second, sorry, go ahead.
Pete Tiliakos 26:28
No, I was going to say I was in that session, I thought it was great. It was very interactive. You had everybody, everybody engaged, for sure. That’s right.
Julie Fernandez 26:34
And, you know, the second part was the funniest for me, because it really tied into a lot of what you your heart has been into here in your, in your survey. And that is just the different skill sets and how those skill sets are evolving and how the nature of the payroll practitioner work has evolved over time into something that is, you know, much more than its early stage bookkeeper days where maybe you were running the calyx, which is what the technologies do for us today, right and applying some of the laws. And so technology has stepped into that role. And the payroll practitioner really is a, a super skilled person. And, you know, we’ve talked about it in a number of our different episodes, but trying to leave the group with the idea that it’s such a great jumping ground, you know, for a person who likes to deal with a number of different things, or maybe as a mover and shaker in the career world. And, and there’s so many different places you can go when you start with payroll at the heart, and such a learning opportunity. So hopefully, that’s a little bit of what people took from this session.
Pete Tiliakos 27:36
Yeah, no, I thought it was a great session, and you had a lot of engagement, even some folks, you know, I think coming up to you after so that was a great, great, great session. I wish I would have been able to sit in more to be honest. But yeah,
Julie Fernandez 27:45
I know, it’s so hard to be able to get in and see. See all the things that you want to I don’t I jumped into one about union payrolls for a while and I thought, why can I do this to myself, like, I know, it’s very ugly, but I always feel like there’s something more I need to know. So just jumping in and being able to take advantage of all of the knowledge that’s together in one place is super exciting about the pay, payroll, org event and payroll Congress.
Pete Tiliakos 28:10
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What else did you get to just get the tool around the expo a little bit, get some I did some just get some swag for
Julie Fernandez 28:17
your kids, whatever, you know, my kids are out have outgrown tchotchkes so I don’t even bring them home. I’m, I’m happy to say but I’m always looking for great ideas, right? Yeah, for you know, any of our own any of our own clients and customer events and that sort of thing. So you know, a lot, a lot of folks a lot of turnout. It was a great expo hall. It was down in the downstairs. So you had to make a point to go down there. It was on a different level than some of the other activities. But I just saw people roaming across the whole entire expo hall. So I’m pretty sure that everybody got a chance to jump in and check things out.
Pete Tiliakos 28:53
Yeah, yeah. It was nice. I mean, for me, it was like, it was like, I was really kind of like just popping booth to booth talking to clients. I mean, selfishly, it was, it was nice. Everyone was there. I got to see everyone got to meet the new head of the new VP of product for payroll at workday, Jen, cocksure. She happens to live here in Atlanta. So I’m hoping I’ll get through spending a bit more time with her. Yeah, she just joined so that’s exciting for them. You know, I noticed Julie there’s there is definitely a lot more Global Payroll than there were in the past there was in the past. That’s very obvious deal was there Right? All the usual characters cloud base you know, a light you know, you name it. So but definitely a lot more. And Global Payroll seems to be a definitely a topic that is coming up more often I’m finding more and more orgs are really finding themselves with which we knew finding themselves with a global footprint and really trying to figure that out. You know, or mergers and acquisitions that pulled them there something like that. So was interesting just to see what was front of mine. I think that was one of the things and of course AI right? I mean, everybody’s kind of buzzing about that in some way or the other you Are they are looking at figuring out how to incorporate in their world or maybe having a little angst about what it might do to their roles. As you might understand, I’m sure we’re all kind of kind of worried about that. But otherwise, I thought it was a really good time. I mean, everybody, everybody always brings their best. Everybody comes and really leaves it all out there, if you will. So we payroll so hard, I would say.
Julie Fernandez 30:24
Oh, my God, you’re so funny. Yeah. So listen, like super congratulations to there’s so many people that are involved in pulling together a really fantastic event. Yeah, at payroll org. And they I know, I’m not even going to try to call out who because I’ll miss some important people, and then I’ll be in the doghouse. Yeah,
Pete Tiliakos 30:44
yeah, absolutely. They do a great job over there. So kudos to Dan Maddox, the executive director and his team, they all just do a fantastic job. And yeah, you can, you can definitely tell they know what they’re doing right. 4042 iterations of this, they’ve dialed it in. And I think it’s one of the most unique and immersive and just high quality events in the marketplace. And I probably attend them for a living in some ways. So I’ve seen them all. Almost all.
Julie Fernandez 31:09
All right, well, hopefully now our listeners also feel like they didn’t miss it. They didn’t miss a beat. Ya
Pete Tiliakos 31:15
know, hopefully. So I hopefully will see you at the next one. Jim Cole, I know you missed it to go on vacation. But next year, we got to see you there that he was he was the payroll artist was not there. He wasn’t spirit. We saw his art. But we’d love to see him there and others. So if you haven’t made it before, get to the payroll Congress. And if you can’t make it to the big, big show, that’s okay. Everybody, you know, not everybody can pull away for a week, look for one of your local regional shows, they’re really very, very high value. You know, there’s 20 or so of the of the of the chapters. I don’t know how many of them actually have events, but I’ll be out there speaking at least I think three or four, Atlanta, California, New England and possibly Carolinas, I’m trying to figure that out. But get out there and check those out there. They’re just as robust in terms of education, they’re a bit smaller, probably more affordable, and, and right in your backyard. So take advantage of that. That’s right.
Julie Fernandez 32:08
Well, thanks, Pete for pulling this together, making sure that we got a chance to share what we saw on what we heard and what we know. Yeah,
Pete Tiliakos 32:14
absolutely. We’ll keep you posted. And we’re coming back with a episode on the PPC or the payroll profession Confidence Index. I’m excited to share the results. If you don’t have that yet. Get out there and download it. I’ll throw it in the comments. And I know you’ve got some survey results coming up on your AI and automation research as well that we’re going to share so excited to
Julie Fernandez 32:32
reveal that we’ll be recording again soon.
Pete Tiliakos 32:36
Take care, everyone. We’ll see you soon.