14 miles.

Thats the number of miles I walked on Wednesday & Thursday at last weeks HR Tech Conference in Las Vegas. If you’ve never been to #HRtechConf then be warned…walking miles upon miles is a requirement.

It was a 15 minute walk from my hotel room at the LUXOR to the expo hall at Mandalay Bay so my Allbird sneakers got a workout but served me well while trekking through the casino, dodging booths along the rows of vendors, and getting lost finding my way to the press room.

According to LRP, the event organizer, there were 450 vendors in attendance along with about 8,500 attendees. I’m told that brings the conference back to 2019 levels after taking a hit during the pandemic.

Spotlyfe, an employee engagement tool, took home the HR Tech Pitchfest award winning first place among 33 entrants including finalist Jobsync (whom I voted for).

According to their website Spotlyfe helps employees by “putting an end to hustle culture by prioritizing a full-life mindset”.

Definitely doesn’t sound like your fathers HR technology.

In fact there were a number of other startups working on the employee burnout problem in various ways. It’s a hot sector.

The last three pitchfest winners have not been in the talent acquisition area which to me is a little strange given that is still the biggest challenge facing employers. Sure employee well being is great but you have to find them first. I would have loved to have seen Jobsync win because they are making big impact in the hiring arena.

In any case I recorded the audio from the finals and will have that published to the pod shortly as well as interviews with a number of vendors such as WorkHuman, Zoominfo, Phenom and more.

As far as this year buzzword it seemed to be centered around the keyword ‘intelligence.’ A lot of vendors are incorporating this word into their taglines and product descriptions. Phenom for instance is now calling themselves a “intelligent talent experience management platform” and competitor Eightfold uses the term “AI-powered Talent Intelligence Platform”.

I’ve seen the word creep into all kinds of HR tech tools so be prepared to hear it a lot more in the coming year. Its better than “AI” I guess which dominated the past few years.

NOTES

HiBob the HCM platform had 3 booths and was a hit in the hallway with their Linkedin Photo booth. A pretty good brand awareness strategy I thought.
Reejig, a workforce intelligence tool got some praise from a few analysts I spoke with.
Goodtime (hiring/scheduling software) CEO Ahryun Moon had her dog with her at their booth and commented to me it that he was great at attracting visitors.
Shoutout to fellow podcasters Serge Boudreau and Shelley Billinghurst from the Recruitment Flex podcast whom I got to meet in person for the first time.
Best of the Week: hanging out at the nightly vendor parties.
Worst of the Week: The pool water at the Luxor felt like 95 degrees so wasn’t exactly refreshing.
Wishlist: put the press room closer to the expo hall.
Next years date: Oct 10-13 2023 at Mandalay Bay.

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