We welcome Tom Cielak to this episode of the 3Sixty Insights #HRTechChat video podcast. Tom and I met several years ago to discuss his team's use of Ceridian Dayforce when he was director of HR operations at ACCO Brands. He later joined global asset management firm Allianz Global Investors, in mid-2018, as its vice president of HR operations. This is his current role, and Tom's team at Allianz Global happens to use Ceridian Dayforce too.

Tom is an advocate for the notion that, to be effective in their craft and as an asset to the organization, HR leaders today must become technologists. In today's environment, where decision-making to buy enterprise software involves a broad variety of stakeholders, the IT department still has a say. The HR Technologist is far better at articulating a technology-buying decision to the satisfaction of IT and able to get the most of out of a deployment.

Technology for human capital management proved to be fertile ground for a spirited discussion. One highly relevant tangent we took revolved around the various generations in the workforce today, from Boomers to Zoomers and everyone in between. Differentiation in functionality between vendors may resonate only for some buyers in that mix. For the younger generations, HCM technology vendors may need to make their case in other ways, especially as Millennials move up the ladder and take on buying authority. This led us to analyze the rationale behind why so many of these vendors focus on the strength of their own employer culture as their marketing message. From there we took a slight detour to delve into an idea covered previously on this podcast: that employers ought to rethink their calculus fundamentally by treating the workforce as an asset, rather than as a cost.

Make sure to watch this episode. Tom brings a savvy perspective to HCM and the role of the HR leader.