Attending the recent UKG Aspire event was an inspiring experience, filled with announcements and roadmap insights that reflect UKG’s forward-thinking approach to HR technology. Beyond unveiling new capabilities, UKG demonstrated its commitment to transforming corporate culture and aligning organizations on a path that prioritizes people and purpose. With so many challenges facing HR today, UKG’s focus on culture through Great Place To Work® (GPTW) resonated as both timely and strategic.
A Foundation Built on Culture and Data
Back in 2021, UKG acquired Great Place To Work (GPTW) with a vision that’s proving essential in today’s HR landscape. For businesses navigating rapid changes in work, economy, and technology, GPTW provides an invaluable framework to cultivate stronger corporate culture. GPTW has collected and analyzed tens of millions of data points over 30 years across industries, allowing them to identify what drives success and employee satisfaction within different organizational environments. As I listened to the event discussions, I was reminded of how effective and well-aligned organizations tend to foster positive, unified cultures that propel both individual and organizational growth.
The Complex Terrain of Modern HR
Since 2020, HR has faced a unique convergence of challenges, from pandemic-driven disruptions to economic fluctuations, the rise of remote work, and rapid technological advancements like AI. These shifts demand an agile and future-focused approach, yet traditional HR teachings don’t fully prepare leaders for this new reality. In our own recent survey, a staggering 82% of HR leaders reported struggles with executive, corporate, and employee alignment. These organizations are not only grappling with retention but also with identifying where to invest in technology to support their workforce.
For the fortunate 18% of HR leaders who have achieved alignment with executive and employee goals, the path is noticeably smoother. They experience greater success securing buy-in for new initiatives, see higher employee engagement, and enjoy a stronger connection to organizational objectives. Culture, it turns out, is a vital component in creating this alignment. It impacts everything from retention to employee satisfaction and, ultimately, the bottom line.
Great Place To Work as a Catalyst for Positive Change
GPTW’s data-driven insights offer a roadmap for organizations striving to cultivate impactful corporate cultures. Their research and frameworks help organizations initiate incremental changes in culture that lead to substantial business outcomes. At the event, UKG emphasized GPTW’s ability to help organizations assess where they stand, identify culture gaps, and set a clear path toward improvement and real business transformation with the goal of improving the organization’s bottom line.
In an era where employees are motivated by purpose as much as by paycheck, cultivating a positive workplace culture can be transformative. Our survey found that nearly 81% of respondents considered leaving their jobs in the past 6 to 18 months. Many were driven by a lack of motivation or dissatisfaction with management—issues that can be directly addressed by strong cultural alignment. UKG’s emphasis on GPTW suggests a recognition of culture’s power to turn workplaces from mere job sites into environments where people feel motivated and valued.
Why Culture and Cloud Software Together Drive Success
Interestingly, despite UKG’s exciting product updates and previews at the Aspire event, the conversation often returned to culture. The reality is that technology alone does not create transformation—it’s the foundation of a strong corporate culture that amplifies the impact of technology investments. Organizations spend heavily on software solutions, yet many struggle to harness their full potential because they lack the cultural cohesion to effectively implement, utilize, and sustain them.
GPTW gives organizations a clear starting point to build this cohesion. For those just beginning their cultural transformation journey, GPTW offers pathways for initial progress. For others further along, it serves as a guide to take the company towards certification, and ultimately a top employer among peers (industry, geography or employee size). This approach to culture is a game-changer for organizations, as it enables them to leverage technology as a true enabler of meaningful change, not just a set of tools.
UKG’s Accelerating Momentum
Showcasing how culture and cloud software go hand-in-hand, Hugo Sarrazin, president, chief product and technology officer, talked about dozens of new features and enhancements to UKG’s suites, including the UKG Pro HCM suite, UKG Pro Workforce Management suite, UKG One View multi-country payroll suite, and the UKG Ready suite for smaller businesses. Sarrazin highlighted UKG’s 2,500 AI models already in production, and emphasized the ability for UKG’s first wave of AI agents to autonomously complete complicated multi-step processes. A new Talent Marketplace, also leveraging AI, will help employees map future career growth while paving the way for organizations to build an external talent bench that provides a gig-like experience to folks who don’t want a traditional part-time role.
UKG has not only gone all in on AI within its products, but it is utilizing AI across the business. Bob DelPonte, executive vice president of customer experience, talked about how UKG is using AI to simplify the implementation experience to help customers realize time-to-value even quicker. DelPonte also detailed successes around UKG’s new customer success model and the measurable increases in customer satisfaction that it is already delivering.
There were two notable first-time UKG Aspire attendees at the event, too: UKG CEO Jen Morgan and UKG Go-to-Market president Rachel Barger. Morgan and Barger, along with DelPonte and Sarrazin, each emphasized a very similar message: UKG is making a deliberate effort to simplify the UKG experience for customers across the board, from product development and direction, to implementation and ongoing support. At one point during the opening keynote, Morgan, who declared that customers are UKG’s north star, shared her own email and invited the 5,000 customers and partners in attendance to contact her directly if their UKG experience doesn’t meet expectations.
Where Do HR Leaders Go from Here?
For those in HR leadership, the insights from the UKG Aspire event underscore the importance of prioritizing culture as the first step in any organizational change initiative. Start by evaluating your current culture and identifying areas of misalignment. GPTW provides an accessible and data-driven way to make incremental improvements that will directly benefit retention, engagement, and productivity.
In summary, UKG’s Great Place to Work offers a framework built on years of data that helps organizations tackle culture challenges head-on. With HR navigating unprecedented times, now is the moment to lean into resources like GPTW. As organizations strengthen their cultural foundations, they’ll not only enhance employee experience but also maximize the potential of every technology investment, creating a thriving workplace ready to tackle the demands of modern HR