A merger of two software companies was the catalyst for a culture of representation at the No. 3 large organization on Computerworld’s ‘Best Places to Work in IT 2024’ list.
UKG was built on the melding of two distinct camps — Ultimate Software and Kronos Software — which merged in early 2020 to create a workforce management and HR software powerhouse. The merged company’s commitment to diversity, for both workforce representation and promoting different perspectives and ideas, is a hallmark of UKG’s IT organization, reflected in everything from its hiring choices and its hybrid work model to fostering collaboration and cross-pollination across teams.
“We sell diversity wrong in the United States — it’s really about bringing in different people with different points of view,” says Scott Howitt, chief digital officer at UKG, ranked No. 3 among large companies in Computerworld’s “Best Places to Work in IT 2024” survey. “Because of cultural experience, gender experience, or age experience, people see problems in different ways. Diversity gives us the opportunity to come out with better outcomes, because we consider all the angles.”
As it works toward its representation goals, UKG has created nine employee resource groups (ERGs), including groups for women; people of color; the LGBTQ+ community; veterans; cancer patients; and more recently, NEST, for working parents and caregivers. The company launched a digital peer-to-peer foundational learning initiative for DEI&B (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) designed to help employees better understand complex issues such as unconscious bias and microaggressions. DEI&B ambassadors help spread the word and model inclusive leadership.
One example of how UKG is bringing diverse teams together is Spark Tank, a quarterly innovation event. The event enables employees from EPIC (engineering, product, innovation, and cloud) teams to come together to explore and test product, service, and experience innovations. Working concepts are presented to a panel of UKG leaders, and the winning projects are added to the UKG product road map.
“Spark Tank brings people together from different teams to try things they haven’t worked on before,” says Howitt. “It’s great for cross-pollination of ideas, and we’ve seen a lot of good results from diverse sets of teams who are learning from each other.”
Hybrid work flexibility
When it comes to hybrid work, UKG has no formal policy but rather emphasizes tools and programs that deliver the flexibility for employees to work where they are most comfortable. The U Choose benefit, launched earlier this year, is a quarterly reimbursement that employees can use to spend on physical wellness, financial wellness, workplace experience, or work/life well-being. “It provides benefits that people might get coming into a physical workplace, but delivered remotely,” Howitt says.
Recognizing individuals for their contributions is another important part of UKG’s culture, including within IT. Consider the UKG 1 initiative, a massive transformation undertaking to integrate the merged entities on unified systems, data, and processes, which involved more than 1,000 employees, including many in IT. The quarterly UKG 1 Champions program was designed to recognize and reward all project participants with spot bonuses, personal recognition from management, and callouts in companywide town halls and on digital signage in the company’s Lowell, Massachusetts, headquarters. UKG also actively promotes Celebrate U, a recognition program that furthers peer-to-peer acknowledgement, service anniversary milestones, and other rewards.
“When something involves thousands of people, it’s hard to see that everyone is recognized individually in a meaningful way,” Howitt says. “We provide an ability to recognize people in the moment and encourage them to do bigger and better things.”
