Ten Takeaways from Transform 2023

Last week, I had the chance to check out my first Transform in Vegas.

Previously referred to as ‘HR Transform’, the event has rebranded to focus on the shifts that are changing our entire work experience.?

Whether I was watching sessions, chatting with HR leaders, or meeting with dozens of brands on the expo floor, it was a clear validation that WorkTech’s scope is evolving.

As we wrote in 2019, the evolution of HRtech saw solutions blend and merge with adjacent categories like workflows, collaboration, and project management. As these products have demonstrated meaningful impact on teams across the enterprise, HR leaders are joining what has become an increasingly dynamic buying committee. In the words of Steve S. ,

"HR technology as an industry is dead. Failure didn’t kill it. Success did."

This has created unprecedented opportunities for WorkTech brands – and unprecedented challenges. When you add the economic climate that's brought budget cuts, layoffs, and the dreaded 'consolidation', it becomes clear we are in the midst of what Bret Starr has referred to as a 'tectonic shift' happening in our industry.

It was clear from the start that Transform designed its experience around a singular understanding of the future of work. It was refreshing to see sessions and exhibitors challenging traditional forms of thinking around difficult topics in the workplace.

When it comes to the technology piece, however, I walked away from Transform reminded that it's rarely the best products that win –– it's often the best brands.

Tech founders are already beginning to challenge the status quo of WorkTech. Investment continues to pour in without interference. International brands are well-positioned to take market share from legacy incumbents.?

In short, the future of work is here, but it hardly seems settled.

For buyers, it's a confusing time. Brands in this space won't win with growth hacking or performance marketing. It will be won by brands who adopt new ways of sales and marketing engagement.

With this context in mind, here's everything I thought you should know about Transform.

TEN TAKEAWAYS

1. SMB/MID-MARKET HR IS RED-HOT

Perhaps the most dynamic segment of the market right now is what the SMB and Mid-market segments are seeing with HR and EOR software. The majority of people leaders I spoke with worked for growing companies with multinational teams. They'd outgrown their traditional ATS and were looking for a more sophisticated means of streamlining HR processes.

It was no surprise to see the expo floor covered with dominant brands like Deel , HiBob , and Oyster? . This category has seen tons of investment and brands are demonstrating a strong ability to manage distributed work.

It's also become a strong category for international companies to build market share. One example of this is the great conversation I had with Multiplier?? , a Singapore-based HRIS that's scaling its growth in the US.

This has quickly become a red ocean category, though. Dominant brands have deep pockets. Competing on features and benefits isn't viable. Newer players need to focus on key segments of the market and start saying something different.

2. CONSOLIDATION IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD

In talking with marketers, AEs, and SDRs, it's clear that tech consolidation is taking a heavy toll. Many WorkTech brands have long operated as a 'nice-to-have' solution. These products often also have a buyer within HR, but a value chain that exists outside HR.

When renewal comes, these often very useful tools don't have the buy-in outside of the HR silo and they're getting replaced by the 'just good enough' solution that already exists within their system of record. Lots of conversations I had with vendors focused on extending value beyond the product's core proposition. Some even insisted they could replace other functions despite my skepticism.

For many at Transform, consolidation is an exciting opportunity. Ashby looks to be a great use case for businesses growing out of their basic ATS and looking for a product that checks 2 or 3 boxes. With a little boost to brand awareness, they have the right tools to can make tech decisions easier in the mid-market.

If you're a brand that fears being bucketed as 'another solution', share-of-usership, lifecycle, and brand awareness remain key priorities for marketing efforts.

3. "ALL-IN-ONE", "SOFTWARE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS", AND OTHER MESSAGING THAT WILL SINK YOUR CX

There were two booth messages that I saw more than any other. In fact, I saw them a lot:

The All-in-One [Insert Category] solution

[Insert Category] Software that *actually* works

Given everything I just wrote about consolidation, it's understandable that brands want to promote versatility. But these are flimsy product claims that mean different things to different buyers.

Most company failures are the result of a break in continuity between the different areas of customer experience. Brands must adopt a holistic CX vision and ensure that vision is carried across your entire CX.

I noticed this at Transform – particularly with DEI software. Many touted 'all-in-one' capabilities, but all had fairly unique functionality and focuses. Factor in that many buyers are still trying to understand what DEI actually means for their organization, and you have a potential for trouble. More often than not, these types of messages sound great in sales and marketing but don't often hold water in the other areas of CX.

That being said, I was still impressed with products like Mathison which looks well-equipped to help most organizations develop and navigate different DEI journeys.

4. EMPLOYEE BENEFITS KEEP GROWING

Benefit buyers want equitable benefits they can customize at scale. There's obviously an opportunity here for elective benefits. Hiring and retention have moved to the forefront of the talent conversation. Well-being, recognition, and even caregiving solutions all have the ability to offer the kinds of perks that persuade potential hires and keep existing employees in place.

However, every category I saw at Transform faces its own unique marketing challenges:

Financial Well-being

It's no secret that money and debt can be the ultimate disengager keeping employees from being present in their work. There's genuine pressure for leaders to offer real instruments and strategies to help employees cope with these struggles.

While on-demand pay has dominated much of this conversation, there’s a healthy group of buyers who believe earned-wage access is a perk at best and predatory at worst.?There's an opportunity for brands to offer a broader, more holistic view of financial health.

Many have heeded the call...like a lot.?

I've seen several startups in this corner of financial well-being already. Even then, I found several more at Transform whom I was meeting for the first time.

These all look like capable products. What's important to acknowledge, though, is they all do pretty much the same thing. Aside from BrightPlan , who wasn't bashful about their tech-forward approach, vendors almost unanimously touted the same things: a) the quality of their financial experts, b) adoption, and c) superior customer success.

This is one of the reasons I liked Northstar 's booth. When I approached their booth, I was almost immediately passed from sales to one of their actual certified financial planners for a tour of the product. It was a great way to showcase something that's otherwise very hard to prove in your marketing.

Generally speaking, however, institutions like 摩根士丹利 , 富达 , and SoFi are taking B2B seriously. If startup brands want to compete, they must be able to speak to substantive financial programs that provide real solutions. They also need to have a compelling point-of-view; some way to differentiate their brand from a lot of sameness.

Healthcare Benefits

Both Family Planning and Chronic Condition Management are growing segments within employee benefits and healthcare. It was great seeing vendors from this space exhibiting at Transform. These were some of my favorite conversations.

I was particularly impressed with Peppy , a UK-based healthcare brand I've wanted to meet for some time. They've designed a platform that brings care to what they call "underserved health journeys". This includes Menopause, Endometriosis, Fertility, and even a men's health benefit launching later in the US.

I love the messaging here.

It reminds me of the stigma that once existed around financial care – that it wasn't for everybody. Brands in that space have done well to emphasize that financial health is for everyone and that it's critical to have these benefits available when they're needed. We've done research in the past that indicates buyers simply aren't prioritizing benefits like gender-specific health or family planning.

Peppy is going to market with a similar mission to remove the stigma around health benefits that are in fact for everyone at one time or another. While I'm not certain how solutions like this complement (or replace) more holistic healthcare benefits, this is a brand that continues to excite me.

Caregiving

With 2020 came a more direct conversation about work/life balance. While much of the conversation highlighted the ways in which the pandemic disproportionately impacted working mothers, it gave greater visibility to the caregiving obligations of the workforce in general.

Similar to other categories mentioned here, brands in this category bear the burden of educating buyers on how caregiving needs are underserved and how they can impact productivity at work.

I was impressed with ianacare 's messaging at the conference. They had an elegant explanation of not only what caregiving was, but what implementation actually looks like, and how it positively impacts employers.

Lifestyle Spending Accounts

Maybe it's my own personal bias, but I'm here for the LSA evolution. The idea of recognition coupled with a fund for critical expenses I hate paying for otherwise? It just makes too much sense. I got to talk to several vendors at Transform like Fringe and Espresa and loved what I saw.

Sure, there are some marketing challenges. There isn't really an LSA aisle of the 'WorkTech grocery store' just yet. Words like perks, stipends, and reimbursement aren't the best functional associations either. But there's a compelling story to tell buyers who are fatigued on legacy (and even 2.0) reward brands.

5. COMPT FULFILLS A WORKTECH PROPHESY

When we talk to clients about how HRtech evolves, we speak through the lens of Organizing Principles. The arrival of the Internet age was the inflection point that led to a new organizing principle – SaaS.?The Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and the arrival of mobile devices and social networking led to a new organizing principle – Engagement.?Today, with changes brought on by the pandemic era shift to remote work, we believe there’s a new organizing principle at hand – Experience.

More specifically – the decentralization of work is driving technology to innovate around the single employee's experience at work. This is leading to an upheaval of traditional categories as buyers are looking for solutions that don't check boxes, but instead simply solve talent problems.

This was much of what fueled our hypothesis around WorkTech in 2019. We often had to defend our position when we made bolder claims like, "Expense Management and reimbursements are Employee Experience". You'll understand my enthusiasm for meeting the team at Compt and learning about its employee reimbursement platform.

As these products gain traction in the market, much of what I just wrote about LSAs still applies here, but this product evolution is a near-perfect distillation of the changes that will define the next era of Work Tech.

6. THE GLUE OF EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

The whole notion of Employee Experience was quickly falling victim to buzzwordiness we often see in B2B marketing. The truth is there is no generally accepted definition for EX and there's been no shortage of brand and product marketing that has added confusion to the market.

For our own clarity, we define Employee Experience as the perception of the quality of time an employee spends at a company. We believe there are five distinct sub-domains of EX: 1) Candidate Experience, 2) Recruitment Marketing, 3) Employer Brand, 4) Work Experience, and 5) Employee Success.

What was so strange about Transform, if not a little refreshing, is?that EX was almost nowhere to be found. That is except for Glue , a newly rebranded EX platform that's designed to help remote workforces find engagement and connection at work. At the heart of Glue are familiar functions: Surveys, Events, 1:1s. What makes this brand interesting is the intentionality around helping organizations build social capital at work.

Our agency has talked at length about the growing need for connection at work. However, most categories that are best equipped to solve this have struggled to demonstrate a meaningful impact that resonates with buyers. Product capability aside, Glue has some brand and messaging elements that could plant a compelling flag in the sand around Employee Experience.

7. Performance Management and Well-being 3.0

Another standout was the number of brands challenging the status quo of performance management and well-being. Much of the innovation in both of these categories still seems to be taking root in the market, but these many brands I met don't seem to be an extension of this thread. Rather, they're challenging many of the concepts that they believe are already outdated with all of the changes the workforce is experiencing. A few examples:

• Canadian startup, headversity , showcased a very cool product that focuses on proactive mental health training that prevents emergencies before they happen.
• Similarly, Coa wants to use nudge-based resilience training to build mindfulness to address and prevent burnout.
• Confirm wants performance reviews to be a collaborative exercise. Its platform uses a science called Organizational Network Analysis to highlight key contributors that are driving genuine impact. I loved Pando 's mission to combine employee development with performance management to create a platform to drive 'continuous, on-demand career progression'.

8. THE EX OF ONBOARDING

All of the sudden, leave management is all the rage. Tilt , Sparrow , and Cocoon all had a large booth presence and were ready to talk about the next generation of employee leave. Kudos to Sarah White and the work of Aspect43 on opening my eyes to the evolution of Employee Experience across all aspects of Modern Onboarding.

It remains to be seen how these solutions can prove their value against legacy operations, but the proof of concept is obvious: There are few moments with greater impact on EX than going on and coming back from leave. As Employer Brand and perception grow in consideration, this will be an intriguing space to keep an eye on.

9. ANALYTICS? NOT SURE WHAT ELSE TO SAY...

Data and Analytics are, without question, some of the most exciting categories in Work Tech. It's also completely overwhelming to me. In talking with numerous providers and people leaders, it's clear there is untapped potential here. But as Lance Haun stated in a recent interview, a gap still exists between the way vendors are selling data and the way buyers are using it.

Closing this gap in any tool's CX is likely the difference between "must-have" and "let's just use whatever Workday gives us". One example of this has been ChartHop 's shift to people operations. There are also strong indicators that HR is willing to bridge this gap, but there's a definite advantage for brands that can articulate a clear point of view.

OTHER CONFERENCE FAVORITES

BEST SWAG –?I'm always a sucker for the 'anti-swag' approach. I thought it was a cool flex for it to come from a gifting company. It was a moment of delight to open my email and see Loop & Tie ?? offering me gifts like planting trees in Tanzania or cleaning up plastic from the ocean.

Given that we're all in on experience at our agency, we think gifting will be central to sales, marketing, and employee experience. These companies are some of the very best at sales and marketing too. A lot of opportunity for the marketing team who can tell a cohesive experience story.

BEST BOOTH – My vote is for Cocoon.

The company used its booth to conduct and visualize some stellar research in real time around company leave policies. We believe marketing is about creating defining moments. That moment when you see or read something that makes you think differently about a problem. This was no doubt a defining moment for many and left a big impression on me. A beautiful visual brand, too.

OTHER PRODUCTS I LOVED

• For my money, there are few brands doing more exciting things than Campfire . There are lots of reasons to believe that cohort-based learning plays a big role in the future of talent and development. Steve and his team have built a product that takes the best components of leadership training, mentoring, and coaching, to create authentically human learning experiences. Consider me a fan.
• I loved my conversation with TOOTRiS , a solution that matches working parents with state-licensed childcare providers. Parents can complete transactions within the app for any range of child services. As someone who has felt the desperation of living far from friends and family, and struggling to find childcare on a particular day. This is a benefit that spoke to me.
• I love working from home. The stability it created for my family is invaluable. Our office is 45 minutes from my house, and I rarely go in. I miss my team, though. I struggle to connect outside of meetings focused on work. This was on my mind as I learned about Gable , a platform where companies can book remote working spaces near them for anything from events to team meetings to off-sites. Curious how niche this might be and what growth looks like, but I absolutely see the appeal of remote work as a benefit.
• Learnerbly wants a better way to curate learning experiences. They’ve created talent marketplace that connects individual learners with providers like Pluralsight, Blinkist, and MasterClass based on their development needs. The intersection of corporate and individual development is an interesting one. This has the flexibility to explore the market for learning as a perk (similar to MasterClass ). It also has the potential to bring those personal and professional learning initiatives together into the flow of work.
• One of my favorite things about Transform was the people I would randomly chat with at the conversation zone and town hall. This is how I met Conner R. , co-founder of Mentra , an employment network for the neurodivergent workforce. I loved his founder story and hearing about his vision for the platform. I look forward to looking at this product and following the brand itself.
• Finch is a universal API for the HRtech stack. This is the kind of product our marketing agency would love to sink their teeth into. Assuming the product works, there are teams who would consider this a miracle. I imagine their challenge is going to be a small target audience. Finding ways to reach the group of people supporting the backend of HR systems will probably be expensive. It's the kind of problem a great brand awareness campaign strategy was made for.
• Lastly, I was very much intrigued by When . When is a free tool that allows offboarded employees to find alternatives to COBRA. They're also launching an AI-powered tool named Jamie. Similar to how Jellyvision's ALEX helps you select health coverage, Jaime helps employees navigate the stresses of leaving a company or sudden job loss. Potential customers will likely have to see some of the value that this brings to Employer Brand, but it's a free product that can almost certainly gives employers financial benefit. That's incredibly interesting to me, and offboarding is not a huge topic of conversation.

All in all, I was incredibly impressed with Transform. The app, the experience, and the conversations were designed with purpose and created such a positive networking experience for me and everyone I talked to. I look forward to it becoming a staple of my conference roster in the future.