Greetings from sunny Barcelona! I'm here for Workday Rising, and I will write about that shortly. But I owe you my observations of UKG's Analyst Day that took place two weeks ago. I attended virtually, but that did not hinder the experience at all. Even if you don't use any of UKG's solutions, read on for great insights about the frontline workforce.

I have one more public session this year: No, I'm still not doing 2026 predictions, but I will have a conversation with Charlotte Benoit and Dominic Holmes from Cornerstone about Balancing Now and Next. A combination of the practical and the aspirational so to speak. Join me on December 9th at 10am for this conversation. Sign up here to receive the link.

Thanks for reading and have a great day, Anita

When Work Works, Everything Works

I've attended many HR technology events over the years, and it often takes an effort to ignore the buzzwords and find the real signals. At UKG's Analyst Day I was pleasantly surprised. From CEO Jennifer Morgan's opening to the closing remarks, there was a clear and coherent story: one that felt less about chasing trends and more about solving real problems for real workers.

It wasn't any single product announcement. It was the deliberate framing of everything around UKG’s new, central statement: When work works, everything works. It's a simple tagline, but it anchored two days of presentations that revealed UKG's strategic direction. Rather than overwhelming us with features, they organized their vision around clear pillars that matter to the people doing the actual work.

Let me walk you through what I noticed, in six topics, starting with the people who represents nearly 80% of the global workforce but often receive the least attention in HR tech innovation.

One: The Frontline Worker as Strategic Priority

Jennifer Morgan didn't open the conference with AI. She opened with data about the labor market: skills shortages, simultaneous vacancies and layoffs, and the unique pressures facing frontline workers. It was refreshing to hear an HR tech CEO speak frankly about the economic challenges organizations are facing rather than glossing over them. It’s a sign that you know your customers and their problems well. (More on the Workforce Intelligence hub below)

The centerpiece announcement for frontline workers was the Frontline Worker Network, powered by UKG Bryte™ AI. This isn't a perk portal or a third-party integration. It's embedded support delivered within the flow of work, organized around three topics that are key to the experience of hourly and shift-based employees:

1. Financial Wellness – Including earned wage access, tax preparation tools (with early partners like Chime, TurboTax, and OnePay)
2. Health – Resources delivered based on real-time work data
3. Lifestyle Essentials – Transportation and childcare support

What I appreciated here was the recognition that frontline employees need something fundamentally different from knowledge workers. Too often, HR technology treats all employees as if they have the same relationship with work - sitting at desks, checking email, navigating enterprise software. The Frontline Worker Network acknowledges that if you're working shifts, paid hourly, and juggling transportation and childcare logistics, your needs are distinct and different.

The approach focuses on what UKG calls "micro-engagements". These are small, timely interventions that build trust over time. As the live interview with Marriott illustrated, it's about asking "where will humans have the biggest impact?" before automating a process. Ty Breland from Marriott emphasized that flexibility and transparency have become central to what they offer their workforce, not just what they demand from it.

Two: Intelligence That Predicts, Not Just Reports

UKG's Workforce Intelligence Hub represents a strategic bet that billions of workforce data points (hours worked, pay rates, scheduling patterns) can be transformed into predictive insights and benchmarks that help organizations optimize for both operational excellence and human potential.

The use cases presented were compelling:

• Retail: Noticing shrinking hours before turnover spikes
• Healthcare: Predicting burnout from inadequate rest between shifts
• Hospitality: Adjusting staffing as demand shifts throughout the day

This is where UKG's installed base becomes a genuine competitive advantage. They're not building predictive models from scratch or relying on third-party labor market data. They're analyzing patterns from their own customer data to surface early warnings of market pressures. The Workforce Intelligence Hub essentially turns UKG's knowledge base into actionable intelligence. The customer stories from PepsiCo, YMCA, and Cava reinforced a consistent theme: keep planned hours steady, reduce friction, and connect financial wellness to retention. It sounds simple, but it requires the kind of integrated data that most organizations struggle to maintain.

I hope to learn more about how these benchmarks are constructed. Benchmarking is only valuable if the comparison group is meaningful. What's the process for ensuring they're relevant across different organization sizes, industries, and geographies? As a customer, you should ask for details, so your organization can trust and contextualize these insights, especially if you operate around the world. Is this data available for other countries (in comparable depth)?

Three: Use AI to Release HR

"AI fatigue is real," said Corey Spencer, UKG's GM of AI, and that acknowledgment set the tone for a conversation about artificial intelligence in HR. UKG's positioning is clear: they're not trying to replace HR or frontline workers. The goal is to free up teams from menial tasks to give them more time for what truly matters: people.

Jay Henderson, GVP of Emerging Products, explained how UKG is developing both assistive and agentic patterns in practical work settings. What resonated most with me was the focus on making AI intuitive and conversational, seamlessly embedded into everyday work. UKG calls it Project Alto, a conversational AI assistant built specifically for frontline workers and their most common use cases. Instead of navigating through menus and clicks, workers can simply type or say what they need and jump directly to the task. Workers will own their personal information (with employer consent and governance), even when working for different employers. Instead of creating a profile for each employer, project Alto lets front line workers create a central profile that is voice-first, integrates with their personal calendar and allows them to coordinate shifts across brands or employers (subject to employer governance). In addition, licenses, certifications, and preferences will be included for instant onboarding. This can radically change the front-line worker experience.

The demos showed how this works in practice: employees can ask questions in normal language to get HR tasks done. It's the kind of change management in action that actually has a chance of driving adoption. If frontline workers can interact with the system the way they'd ask a colleague for help, that's a massive reduction in friction. It can also alleviate pressure on the HR service center.

With pay transparency in mind, features like "shift value" help employees visualize their expected earnings before accepting shifts, which addresses one of the fundamental information asymmetries in hourly work. Employees can make informed decisions about their time based on transparent information about what they'll earn.

The success of these features will hinge on trust. Frontline workers are often (rightly) skeptical about algorithmic scheduling and management. UKG will need to demonstrate that these tools genuinely improve worker outcomes, not just operational efficiency. The transparency features are a good start, but sustained communication and proof points will be essential.

Four: Platform Thinking Over Point Solutions

Suresh Vittal, EVP and Chief Product Officer, framed UKG's vision as a Workforce Operating Platform. The platform unites HR, Pay, and WFM under one data foundation ( People Fabric). This reframing is crucial as it signals a shift from being a functional, point-solution provider to being the connective tissue of how work gets done.

Suresh announced several key product innovations and acquisitions designed to expand UKG’s market reach and accelerate growth. As example, Dynamic Labor Management (DLM), an AI-driven system that monitors real-time signals (weather, traffic, staffing levels) and then suggests or even automates schedule adjustments. DLM will initially focus on retail, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Corey Spencer mentioned that UKG is building toward:

• Reducing barriers to data access, ensuring insights aren't confined to silos
• Making data accessible to everyone, not just executives, so all can act on meaningful information
• A platform built to anticipate, not just automate, and elevate the employee experience

The key word here is connected and that vision was evident in several announcements. Payroll isn't a separate system, it's part of the operating platform, integrated with scheduling, time tracking, and workforce intelligence. These solutions are available across platforms regardless of organization size, which is critical for ensuring that small and mid-sized businesses aren't relegated to a lesser experience.

The introduction of Beacon for UKG Ready reinforces this platform approach. Beacon expands the definition of what a workforce experience platform can be. From recognition and rewards to mentorship and manager insights, this is more than an engagement tool—it's an operating system for workplace belonging.

For small and mid-sized businesses, this is a game-changer. While personal connections drive success, SMBs often struggle with the resources and data to maintain consistent, scalable engagement. Beacon’s integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams embed recognition directly into the daily workflow, eliminating the need for leaders to push employees to use yet another platform. This allows SMB managers to develop their leadership and soft skills in a way that’s both trackable and manageable.

The integration of Great Place To Work into Beacon is particularly intriguing. By combining survey insights with recommended actions embedded in the platform, UKG helps organizations turn feedback into direction. It's the difference between having insights and having a roadmap for real change.

There is a practical question that every HR leader will need to wrestle with: pricing. UKG speakers emphasized that many AI capabilities are built in as “empowering people shouldn't be an add-on.” That's the right message, and it will be welcomed by customers tired of being nickel-and-dimed for every enhancement. However, some of the complex agentic features and capabilities come with a cost on top of the base platform. This raises a critical question: how much are customers willing to spend in additional fees, particularly in an environment where budgets are tight and ROI scrutiny is high?

The value proposition will need to be crystal clear. Organizations will want to understand not just what's included and what costs extra, but also what they can reasonably expect in terms of outcomes and time-to-value. UKG's customer success approach will be tested here—if they can demonstrate clear ROI through early adopter stories and provide transparent guidance on which investments make sense for which types of organizations, they'll build trust. If the pricing model feels opaque or opportunistic, it could undermine the goodwill they're building with their product vision.

Five: Customer Experience as Competitive Advantage

Bob DelPonte's presentation on customer experience caught my attention because it signaled that UKG understands something fundamental: technology alone doesn't create value. How you enable and educate customers determines whether they succeed.

DelPonte emphasized UKG's commitment to customizing and personalizing the customer experience based on lessons learned from past implementations. The UKG Community advises customers on what to do differently during complex processes like year-end planning, drawing on accumulated knowledge across the customer base. It also delivers learning plans that adapt to each unique customer.

The days of basing the experience on company size or investment are over. It's a clear signal that UKG recognizes that smaller customers have historically received second-tier treatment in the enterprise software world, and they're committed to changing that.

Six: Rapid Workforce Agility

The announcement of UKG Dynamic Labor Management and Rapid Hire extends UKG's strategic workforce planning capabilities toward workforce agility: understanding where you need people and finding them fast.

The labor market will be characterized by simultaneous shortages and layoffs in different sectors and skill areas, and agility is increasingly critical. Organizations need to be able to flex up and down, shift resources between locations or departments, and bring new workers onboard quickly.

The focus here is on reducing time-to-productivity. If you can identify a staffing need, match it to available talent (internal or external), and accelerate the hiring and onboarding process, you reduce both operational disruption and opportunity costs.

What This Means For You

When I take a step back from the individual announcements, several themes emerged that are worth highlighting for HR and payroll leaders evaluating their technology strategy:

First, UKG is moving away from "more features" towards an "integrated platform." The emphasis throughout the days was on connection: how data flows between systems, how insights inform action, how different parts of the workforce experience integrate. This is the right direction, though execution will be everything.

Second, the frontline worker focus is both overdue and strategic. Nearly 80% of the global workforce is frontline, yet they've been systematically underserved by HR technology designed primarily for knowledge workers. UKG's investments here, from the Frontline Worker Network to conversational AI to shift value transparency, recognize that equity in employee experience isn't just about fairness, it's about business sustainability.

Third, the AI strategy feels grounded in pragmatism rather than hype. Acknowledging AI fatigue and focusing on practical, embedded use cases that reduce friction shows a mature understanding of what drives actual adoption. The assistive and agentic patterns Jay Henderson described represent a thoughtful progression rather than trying to jump straight to full automation.

And Let Me Leave You With...

What I saw at UKG's Analyst Day was a company that has done the strategic work of defining a clear point of view. They're not trying to be all things to all people. They're all in on the frontline workforce, betting that connected data produces better insights, and building AI that releases HR teams rather than replacing them.

The shift from being a functional-oriented player to a relationship-based one was evident in both the messaging and the product roadmap. From Jennifer Morgan's opening remarks about connecting first, not automating first, to Bob DelPonte's emphasis on customized customer experience, there's a thread about putting people (workers, managers, HR leaders) at the center of the technology.

Is this vision fully realized? No. UKG has set an ambitious agenda, and many of these initiatives are just beginning to roll out. Success will depend on execution, the partner ecosystem development, customer adoption, and sustained investment in customer success. The FY26 strategy is heavily dependent on partners to open doors and extend UKG’s reach.

But the direction is right. In a market that's often driven by feature checklists and vendor hype, UKG is making a substantive bet on solving hard problems for the majority of workers who've been systematically underserved by HR technology.

If UKG can execute on this vision, they'll have done more than build a better platform. They'll have helped organizations create workplaces where, as their tagline promises, when work works, everything works.

For HR and payroll leaders evaluating their technology strategy, UKG's approach offers a useful framework: Start with the workers who do the actual work. Connect your data. Embed intelligence in the flow of work. Build platforms, not silos. And remember that technology without enablement is just expensive software.