CULTURE TRANSFORMATION: How Dayforce is shaping the Future of Work with Optimism and Agility
Several years ago, I had the good fortune to meet David Ossip , the Canadian Chair and CEO ?of Ceridian, now Dayforce, at a technology conference in Toronto. David spoke passionately about the culture at Ceridian and how that culture had been at the center of the organization’s meteoric success and growth globally. Since then, I have had the opportunity to interview several other leaders from the organization and remained impressed at the deeply held conviction they all have in their own corporate culture – and the important role their software platform played in building and nurturing committed cultures across their client base. Recently I sat down with Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Eric Glass from his home office in beautiful London England to talk about the brand relaunch from Ceridian to Dayforce and to discuss their most recent global research report on workplace trends. In my previous interviews Dayforce executives have always been enthusiastic and energetic. I was delighted to find Eric was equally engaged and insightful.
HB: Eric, glad we could schedule this time. That’s a postcard-worthy sunshine day in London behind you. I’m jealous. Let’s start by understanding you and your role at Dayforce a little more.
EG: <Laughs> It is brilliant isn’t it. Trust me London isn’t always blessed with sunshine like this.
So, I’m the Chief Marketing and Communications officer here at Dayforce, a role I’ve held for coming up on three and a half years. I've been in the HCM (Human Capital Management) arena for about 15 years now, so maybe I’m a little long in the tooth perhaps. But I'll tell you, I really love this space. Specifically, because these systems and platforms get at the heart of how organizations grow, how organizations take care of their people, and how they get the best out of their people and building amazing cultures. It really is meaningful work and, with the nature of work evolving and changing so rapidly, it’s a fascinating place to simultaneously be an observer, a learned counsel and a participant ourselves.
There is something amazing that’s central to our Dayforce culture, and our brand promise, which is “make work life better.” Prior to joining the company that perspective was very appealing to me as I, like many around the world during Covid, was reflecting on my own relationship with work, home, career, family. Now, post-pandemic, the evolution of this thing called work has been more transformative, more monumental, than many of us could’ve predicted. It's an extraordinary inflection point in the world of work. If you're interested in that transformation or evolution, this is the most exciting time to be in the HCM space and doing this kind of work.
I’m struck by how many people talk about the Future of Work as a distant destination. The reality is we’re living in the future of work right now and it is a fascinating place to be in because we’re all learning so much and having to adapt very quickly.?
HB: Appreciate that context. You recently led a rebranding of the organization from Ceridian to Dayforce. What prompted the rebrand and what has been the internal impact on the Dayforce culture?
EG: I initially came in as our chief communications officer. One of my initial observations was that we were still the tale of two brands in the market. Ceridian, which is almost 50 years old actually, and Dayforce which is the newest, most modern cloud-based HCM system in the market since its release in 2009. That created a degree of customer confusion which we obviously wanted to avoid perpetuating. Ultimately Dayforce and the Dayforce platform are the clearest, most obvious manifestation of our brand promise to customers and the market.
The internal reaction from our colleagues – whom we now refer to as Daymakers – was overwhelmingly positive. The rebrand gave us a wonderful opportunity to re-energize our colleagues and our customers which, you know, put even more pressure on the team to ensure the rebrand transition went off well. You know how many moving parts there are to schedule and sequence in an exercise of this scale. I’m very proud of the team when I look back at all they did to make the rebrand happen.
While I’ve got a forest of datapoints on the rebrand, the fun fact I like to share is that the re-launched Dayforce merchandise store sold more in 10 days than the previous 5 years. There was often a backlog of orders we needed to fill too. While that might not be the most strategic marketing KPI to share <laughs> it does highlight the energy and enthusiasm that swept through the organization at the time of the relaunch.
David (Ossip the founder of Dayforce) actually commented that the rebrand injected a fresh kind of start-up energy and vitality into the entire organization which is probably the best feedback any CMO can receive. The customer feedback was equally positive with many telling us they appreciated the new clarity we’d given them and the renewed focus they saw from us as an organization.
HB: Congratulations, that is no small feat to pull off. I’m going to go deeper into the Dayforce culture piece, particularly against the backdrop of the Future of Work. DEI, Professional development and adaptability have long been the bedrock of the culture. Is that still the case and how have those elements helped the organization differentiate and succeed?
EG: Great question. You know, I think one of the great benefits of Dayforce is that we remain?founder-led, because so much of building culture needs to start with the leadership of any organization.
If your leaders aren't aligned around what are the most important dimensions of the culture and are not clear and repeatable about what the culture should be, that's very problematic. Ultimately it comes down to being very intentional about designing, and manifesting, the culture you want.
?A lot of credit goes to David, our founder and CEO. He is relentless about talking about, and reinforcing, the culture at every opportunity. And I do mean every opportunity. Whenever he presents internally or meets customers or the press externally, he’s always hitting on our brand promise and the culture element beneath that. It’s always there in his talking points and in his congratulatory messages.
?One of our core values that David loves to talk about is optimism. I’d not be surprised if you pulled messaging or video of David from two, five, eight years ago where optimism wasn’t a central theme. Equally, transparency is another core value of ours, and we’ve likely been talking about it longer and more deliberately than many other organizations who have come around more recently to the power of transparency in a culture.
Learning and professional development has always been central to our organization. On one level we want to be the most diligent users of our own products and the most critical on where we can improve and get better. That requires our people to have that curiosity – and then the support of the organization – to focus that curiosity on our products and our customers. I think it’s very hard to be a truly customer-centric organization without that ethos of curiosity.
In truth, as we’ve discussed before, many organizations are in a state of flux or transformation right now. The remote versus hybrid versus Return-to-Office is one dimension. Flexibility, in its many shapes and sizes, is another element employers and employees are all coming to grips with. At the heart of our solution, our platform, is a way to integrate and address many of these challenges in a cohesive and consistent fashion. One important element for us is ensuring that we are testing and pushing what we deliver to our customers as rigorously as we can. That’s the only way we can keep improving.
HB: Appreciate the perspective, Eric. Two macro-movements or inflections organizations are grappling with. Remote/Hybrid/RTO, as you just mentioned, and the other elephant in the room is AI. I’d love a Dayforce perspective on both of those from an “inside Dayforce” and from what you’re seeing from customers and clients.
EG: Those are definitely two white-hot topics we’re discussing internally and with customers. You know, it's been interesting to watch the return to office debate and seeing the different directions that many organizations go. We've been pretty vocal at Dayforce that this is the new world of work which we’ve contextualized as the boundless workforce, meaning it's borderless, it's hybrid, it's always on, it’s fluid, it's flexible. It's all these things which, as you know, discussing these concepts isn't new either. Of course, technology has made these feasible in a way that wasn’t possible a decade ago. And the pandemic certainly accelerated the adoption and the evolution of the technology to address this reality.
On remote/hybrid internally at Dayforce, we talk a lot with our Daymakers about the importance of being together in person, getting into offices around the world, using that time to really collaborate, to be together, not just go in, be at a desk and peck at your keyboard. But use the time and opportunity to genuinely and purposefully get together. That goes back to some of those elements of culture and our belief that you need connectivity, in-person connectivity, real human connectivity to maintain culture.
Of course, across the multiple sectors, geographies and industries that our customers represent our Dayforce model makes sense for some and doesn’t for others. That’s the reality leaders are facing – what makes the most sense for our (unique) business and our employees. Inherently it goes back to balancing flexibility. Our culture has always put an emphasis on deep collaboration and while technology can facilitate that in many incredible ways today, we still want to ensure that the person-to-person, human-to-human connection isn’t completely lost. But that needs to be done deliberately and purposefully or you just end up frustrating your people and that’s a terrible outcome.
That dovetails into the AI part of your question. We’re obviously investing heavily into that technology as its impact in the Human Capital space is undeniable. We’ve launched a Dayforce co-pilot module because we’re of the opinion that AI should augment, not replace, the employee. It should remove or reduce the mundane and boring and unlock the full potential of your workforce. That means more deliberate career pathing, more overt integrations into L&D so employees can be exposed to new learning that will help them progress.
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That is what we’re calling the “boundless” workforce where traditional constraints are reduced and organizations can use platforms like ours to truly give their workforce the flexibility and freedom they are demanding.
HB: Helpful answer and context. I’m going to pick up on that Dayforce “optimism” characteristic and your recent “Pulse of Talent” Report which had some very interesting paradoxes that leaders are facing right now. Do you want to go into that Report and its impact on how organizations should be thinking about culture? What’s your optimistic view??
EG: I’m glad you picked up on that and our Report does an excellent job synthesizing what we’re seeing and hearing from our clients globally. We talk about this balancing act leaders are facing right now. Specifically those areas are “Agility vs Stability”, “Productivity vs Flexibility” and “Efficiency vs Empathy”. The dimensions are pretty self-evident and, by and large, paradoxes facing companies globally.
This is our 14th year of delivering this Report so there’s robust data and history behind it but what’s surfacing is this balancing act and tightrope employers and employees are struggling with.
A direct example is the “Efficiency vs Empathy” continuum. On one level, organizations are seeing record levels of employee stress, fatigue and burnout. And those seem to continue to rise. Those factors all have a direct impact on employee well-being and productivity so there is a critical need to have ways to understand where that’s happening, what systems and processes are creating those situations and then, ultimately, programs and initiatives to tackle that. ?Then there’s the business reality that work still needs to be done and, in an increasingly competitive market, organizations are looking for more effective, more efficient ways to increase output and productivity and bring new ideas and products to market. That often comes with large corporate change and transformation initiatives which, lo and behold, directly increase employee stress, anxiety and burnout.
Solving for these paradoxes is the most urgent and important leadership, and culture, challenge we’re seeing globally. Human Capital is at the very heart of it. From identifying where it is happening inside your company to being able to quickly deploy solutions to minimize the risks.
So what we’re seeing is a lot of experimentation across companies. Trying things like fully Remote and also experimenting with 3 days back in the office and seeing how those initiatives are impacting productivity. So that’s how the “Productivity vs Flexibility” paradox is working its way through many organizations. They’re asking critical questions like “how is this impacting productivity and output?” “Can we measure the impact on culture?” “Do we see declines in collaboration when we operate in this way?” “How are our employees reacting to these new ways of working?”
While there are no clear universal “silver bullets” the amount of data that systems like ours can collate for leaders does start to give them a richer ability to see the impact of these paradoxes they’re trying to balance.?
Going back to AI for a moment. There’s another emerging technology opportunity that, if deployed with care and foresight, can potentially be highly impactful in addressing some of these challenges. Even basic applications that make meeting scheduling and debriefing easier for managers, streamlining one on ones for both manager and contributor, helping make report curation and insight gathering faster for employees are obvious ways of reducing some obvious areas of stress. And those aren’t even the advanced types of AI applications that we’re seeing coming to market. My optimistic Dayforce side would say this is a positive manifestation of AI that can start to have a measurable impact on employee stress. That’s definitely a good thing.
HB: Great answer and I think you’ve done a fantastic job pulling apart those paradoxes and challenges. Finding some sort of balance has to be an urgent priority for every leader out there. My final question is what advice do you give – or are you giving – to peers and customers right now? What should they be thinking about that they may not be considering?
EG: Not surprisingly we have this wonderful vantage point of seeing how work is evolving because we have such a phenomenal set of global customers and clients. And, back to that experimentation attitude many are taking, we’re seeing how companies are tackling those paradoxes head-on.
One caution I often share is not to be too binary in your approach to these transformative times. Again, the discussion about Remote has gotten quite binary – it is either this or it is that – with little room in the middle to experiment. I completely understand why some organizations will implement a mandate – see you all on Monday or find another place to work – but I think that defeats the objective. Why not let the various teams make the decision around what works best for them and what allows them to deliver what the company most needs. Showing that trust and empowerment are huge, particularly in today’s work environment, and you’re more likely to get an increase in efficiency from showing an increase in empathy.
The other area I caution organizations on is looking for some magical playbook for this period of work. It just doesn’t exist because many of these things are brand-new and our solutions – or attempts to solve them – are brand new too. Remember at the start of Covid we all got very excited by Friday Happy Hours on Zoom or Teams? We tried to replicate our traditional in-person culture and connection efforts in a 2-D way virtually. Very quickly we learned that those efforts fell flat and actually became more of the ”forced fun” initiatives that no-one likes. However, we also learned that we could do quick simple virtual check-ins on our team members and that was hugely helpful in keeping some elements of culture alive. Again, there’s no playbook but an attitude of test, experiment, learn, adapt we all need to be leaning into.
Finally, and perhaps this is that optimism coming through, I tell my team and our customers that we’re living in the Future of Work.It’s not some distant destination we’re heading toward. Its everything around us right now that we’re collectively trying to solve. The biggest opportunity is we all get to shape and influence what the Future of Work is and becomes.
That’s an enormous responsibility inside the companies we lead and on behalf of the colleagues and employees we serve. So, take on that responsibility on fully. How are you shaping the Future of Work inside your leadership team, your company and your industry? Why would you miss the opportunity to shape it and put your fingerprint on it? That’s the most exciting part of my role and what we’re striving for at Dayforce.
HB: Superb answer Eric. As I mentioned earlier, I’m always impressed by the energy and passion that Dayforce folks all seem to have. Must be something in the culture. So thankful for your time today. Go enjoy that London weather.
EG: Thanks Hilton I enjoyed our chat. And, you’re right, it’s time to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. Take care.
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