UKG Aspire 2023: Caring for Your People Leads to Better Business Outcomes

UKG CEO Chris Todd speaking on the main stage at UKG Aspire 2023

Every person deserves to work at a great workplace.

That was the resounding message this week at UKG Aspire in Las Vegas, where more than 5,000 UKG customers, partners, employees, and HR industry thought leaders and influencers gathered to talk about the latest workplace trends, next-generation innovations, and how UKG is inspiring every organization to become a great place to work through technology built for all. 

“What makes UKG unique?” asked Bill Bartow, group vice president of product management at UKG, to a packed house of thousands during the opening keynote at the largest UKG conference, yet. “First, we have years of insights from working with the world’s leading companies, helping them to create a great place to work ‘For All.’ Second, we design for people first and business process second. It’s all about caring for people and helping them thrive. When you care for people, great things do happen for the business! And third, we are focused on making the hard stuff simple for the frontline worker.” 

Here are five ways UKG is helping customers realize that vision. 

1. Let GenAI be your trusted advisor. 


A shining example of UKG technology empowering great workplaces is the introduction of UKG Bryte, an AI-powered assistant for great workplaces that uses generative AI (GenAI) to help guide employees, people managers, and HR leaders by shining a light on important insights that support great workplace experiences. Aspire attendees received an exclusive first look at the proactive, personalized, and intuitive experience provided by UKG Bryte, to better understand how GenAI, provided by UKG, is your trusted advisor. UKG recently joined the Future of Privacy Forum to deepen our commitment to the responsible and ethical use of AI.


2. Transform and simplify your global payroll. 


A hallmark of every great workplace is that employees have the same great experiences across the world—so, at Aspire, the success of UKG One View and its ability to transform and simplify global payroll was celebrated. UKG One View is a first-of-its-kind, technology-led experience that extends the strength of the UKG Pro suite to help multinational organizations manage their entire workforce—from complex scheduling to payday—with the same, consistent experience, regardless of where in the world their employees work.

3. To achieve greatness, we’re building an ecosystem of likeminded partners. 


UKG shined a light on our premier partners who significantly contribute to the strategic vision of UKG technology and help innovate with purpose. At Aspire, UKG announced an expansion to our longstanding strategic collaboration with Microsoft that will utilize the UKG FleX and Microsoft Power platforms to offer no-code/low-code premium connectors and templates, to make it even easier for mutual customers to create unique employee experiences specific to their business. 

UKG introduced a payroll industry-first collaboration with PayPal that will empower millions of people to direct deposit all or some of their pay each pay period into a PayPal Balance account. In some circumstances, PayPal will make anticipated payroll funds available up to two days ahead of time, creating another avenue for people to have faster access to their earned wages. PayPal is one of the most used digital wallets to manage funds and facilitate peer-to-peer payments.

At the conference, UKG also highlighted our partnership with Eightfold AI, a leader in AI-powered talent intelligence, to help companies that strive to be great workplaces transform high-volume hiring by more effectively attracting and engaging high-performing, diverse talent.

4. Great workplaces lead through culture.


Innovation, equity, and great workplaces echoed throughout the corridors of the event—converging into the Expo Hall, which offered more than 200 booths with 90 UKG partners buzzing with technical innovations—all centered around the “Equity for All Pavilion,” which served to broaden the knowledge and perspective of attendees so they see first-hand what equity for all can look like.

UKG Aspire 2023 Equity For All Pavilion


For UKG, connecting culture insights and business outcomes helps customers realize what’s possible when you invest in your people. A direct output of that belief is the UKG Great Place To Work® Hub, which was on display at Aspire. It’s an industry-first solution that combines decades of Great Place To Work benchmarks and Trust Index™ survey results—only available to UKG customers—with UKG Pro HCM data to unlock the true drivers of engagement and performance and make more informed decisions about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging across teams.

5. We’re innovating with purpose.


UKG is surging in the SMB market with more than 45,000 organizations with smaller and leaner teams using the UKG Ready HCM suite to help create great workplaces. UKG is doing so through many of the above innovations headlined at Aspire—such as GenAI and enhancements supporting personalized experiences, ease of use, and the 2024 availability of the UKG Great Place To Work Hub for UKG Ready, specifically.

At UKG, we pride ourselves on hosting a conference built for our customers’ ambitions. We partner for life and work every day to help our customers realize their goals through our UKG technology built for all. 

More importantly, we learned so much from the conversations we had with each of you. We hope the week was as educational as it was inspiring—and we look forward to a bright (or Bryte) year ahead.