Two, I’d booked to stay at Stratford, meaning I could get back home early in the morning and make the most of the day. I had a lot of notes and product papers to sort out! 10:14 p.m. In the taxi on the way to the hotel, I got a text from one of the HR heads I’d met over coffee that morning. Could I jump on a Google Meet tomorrow afternoon, after three? Of course! Right after that, a WhatsApp message confirming Pilar’s UK dates: arrival Monday 29th, her events all day Wednesday and a half- day Thursday, flying back to LA on Saturday morning. 4th July no less! I suggested that Thursday evening or Friday lunchtime would probably be the best times to have a meal together. She would confirm back as she needed to check the times and locations of her meetings. I started to think of those tapas….
various HR exhibitions in the past, where the vendors I knew well had been too busy to say more than a few words. This year, I decided to change things around a bit and invite a few of them out for drinks at the end of the Festival of Work, Day One. If there’s one thing about the HR tech world, it’s a friendly business, and everyone pretty well gets on with everyone else. I’d mooched around the expo checking new software products in an unhurried way. And later, there I was in the Sundown Bar, G&T in hand, seated with four vendors whom I’d known for years, talking a bit of shop around what buyers want and what’s going to happen over the next few years. As it was my shout, I figured I could ask away, without forcing anyone to reveal any secrets! AI was the major topic, as expected: how it was being embedded in
integrated systems, how buyers wanted it but weren’t too specific as to why, and how AI-native modules were popping up everywhere. One of our party had switched over from selling an older system to one of the newer modules and was having reasonable success. There were a few reminiscences of a time gone by in the 2000-2015 era. The clients had got smarter, and reality had taken over: no one wants a customer crying down the phone for five years! It developed into far more of a partnership. Sometimes, features requested by the users became benefits for the entire client base. After an hour or so, our numbers began to thin out, and a couple of HR people I knew who were staying over appeared and joined us, leading to more memories and horror stories! Although I wasn’t going to Day the vendors more accommodating,
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ISSUE 25 GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE
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