Tech & Innovation Blog
ADP Selected to Top 50 by Woman Engineer Magazine
Impact, Women in STEM, Award
We thank all of our associates who actively support the creation of rewarding opportunities across ADP.
At ADP, we are committed to driving diversity by providing opportunities for everyone to nurture and grow rewarding careers, ensuring everyone has a voice. We’re proud to offer the best opportunities to work and develop industry-leading technology and HCM solutions.
We’re happy to announce that the culture our associates help to create has made ADP a Top 50 Employer by the readers of Woman Engineer Magazine for the third consecutive year.
Each year, this professional publication surveys women in engineering, computer science, and information technology, asking ADP associates to select companies that provide the most positive working environments for women and position those organizations as highly preferred workplaces.
ADP Tech Associate
The Top 50 list features companies that champion, hire, and promote women engineers with an understanding to value an inclusive, diversified workforce. This award reflects ADP’s strong reputation for supporting career development and opportunities across the teams.
Our Global Product and Technology (GPT) organization aims to set industry benchmarks and has adopted measures that continue to drive progress. Our teams built the ADP DataCloud Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Dashboard to help companies see real-time workforce demographics, which was named the Top HR Product of the Year. This effort joins other products that promote diverse workforces, including our Candidate Relevancy tools and the award-winning Pay Equity Explorer.
ADP Associates in Brazil
ADP also supports philanthropic organizations that nurture the career development of girls and women in the technology field, helping them fulfill their potential as future tech leaders. Our partnership with Girls Who Code and Women in Technology has led to other significant distinctions, such as being named to the Women Impact Tech 100 List, Top 50 Best Workplaces for Women in India, and the 2021 Top Large Company for Women Technologists by AnitaB.org, also marking the third consecutive time ADP earned this achievement. This is on top of our Business Resource Groups and opportunities to share innovative ideas with company events such as the ADP Global Hackathon.
We thank all our associates who actively support the creation of rewarding opportunities for individuals across ADP. Our technology is better because we work together, and Each Person Counts.
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move and visit Who We Hire.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Remote Work Era: Three Challenges to Overcome
Impact, Voice of Our People, Future of Work
Time to grab on to the perfect opportunity to learn organizational skills, independence, and self-motivation!
Remote Work Era: Three Challenges to Overcome
By Amy H. Chiu, Tech Brand Content Developer
In May 2022, Airbnb’s career page received 800,000 visits since its remote work announcement. What’s the hype? When people say, ‘I work remotely,’ do you think of working from home in pajamas and not worrying about being stuck in traffic?
Remote working is more than that.
As we embrace hybrid and remote workspace, there are more conversations you and your team will be having, including challenges and solutions. As a full-time remote associate who works from a different time zone, I’ve learned methods to stay connected with my team.
My friends in tech often ask me what it’s like working remotely because some of them are considering switching their workstyle. My short answer is remote working is not for everyone.
The story began when I started working remotely as a freelancer a few years ago. Without going to the office, I engaged and experimented with various strategies to complete projects with accuracy and efficiency.
Challenge One – Communication
Are you afraid of missing the hallway conversation that could potentially build trust and work relationships among the team? As an extrovert, my solution is to speak up and share my updates during virtual happy hours and video calls. For example, I challenge myself to say more than “how are you” and answer more than “I’m good.” Having a real, human-to-human conversation during virtual happy hour has taught me to be more empathetic and understanding. I’d check in with my coworker from the other side of the country who caught the flu and adjust the calendar priorities accordingly.
I imagine reaching out can be a challenge for those more reserved in a new environment when they first start in a full-time remote position. This is when turning on video cameras can be helpful during online meetings. We recognize facial expressions during conversations that help us understand the tone of voice without saying too much, and smiling is always a plus!
Challenge Two – Time Management
Another challenge comes in time management, which is especially important for those who work with teams from different time zones. I recommend productivity and time tracking tools such as Toggl and DeskTime that allow you to log the time you spend on each project. The key is to build a schedule for yourself and stick to it. It’s easier to have a routine despite having scheduled meetings on the day or not.
Knowing when to start and pause working is the key for ambitious individuals. Since there’s no hard stop or visually seeing your coworkers packing up to leave at five in the afternoon, give yourself the reminder and permission to finish tasks during your working hours.
Challenge Three – Work Motivation
For those who enjoy the office atmosphere, I recommend joining coworking spaces such as WeWork and Galvanize. You could find a variety of office layouts and meeting spaces, using them to focus on your business. The community can also be an excellent opportunity to network and increase motivation at work.
I work from home and dedicate a space for work only. Having the habit motivates me and sets me in business mode every morning. According to a Social Psychological and Personality Science paper, the researchers asked subjects to change into formal and casual clothing before cognitive tests. They found wearing formal business clothing increases abstract thinking. On the days when I need an extra energy boost, I put on business clothing, even off-camera. The formal attire makes me focus better, and I tend to complete my tasks faster with accuracy.
Welcome to Remote Work
Remote working requires self-discipline, communication skills, and an open mind to collaborate. There will be challenges working with time zones and across teams when you are not sitting across from your coworker in the same office. However, the rewarding feeling of accomplishing projects remotely with the team makes the experience valuable. Please grab on to the perfect opportunity to learn organizational skills, independence, and self-motivation!
We are hiring!
Learn more about what it’s like working for ADP here and our current remote openings.
Tech & Innovation Blog
APIs vs. Web Service: What’s the Difference?
Learning Curve, Innovation, Application Development
Key takeaway: All web services are APIs, but all APIs are not web services.
APIs vs. Web Service: What’s the Difference?
We live in a digital age where almost everything is done through an API or Web Service. Have you ever wondered about the differences? Why should you care? This blog breaks down the differences between APIs and Web Services and explains why you might need one or the other for your business.
Definitions
Application Programming Interface (API):
APIs are a set of routines, data structures, and protocols that support building applications. You can find them in libraries or operating system services such as those offered by the language in your projects.
Web Service
Web Services are a way to provide machine-to-machine communication over the internet. W3C defines them as software systems designed for interoperability and connectivity among devices, people, or organizations across networks.
APIs vs. Web Services
Key takeaway: All web services are APIs, but all APIs are not web services.
Style of Communication
- APIs: takes in any style of communication
- Web Services: supports styles such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI), and Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
Operation
- APIs: Don’t need a network
- Web Services: Need a network for its operation
Web Services 101: Three Things You Need to Know
1) Web Services can be developed by one company, used by another, and hosted by a third company.
2) Developers can write Web Services in various languages and still have them communicate with one another by exchanging data using web services.
3) Web means HTTP protocol, and Service refers to request/response. Web Services are not tied to any operating system or programming language.
APIs 101: Three Things You Need to Know
1) APIs and industry standards make communication easier between different programs. They don’t indicate or restrict how you use the data. What you do with the information is in your control.
2) APIs allow you to get data between two systems in real-time. This means that you don’t have to wait for the data from one system to be copied over to the other system. You can start using the data as soon as they are entered into the first system, saving time for your team.
3) An API defines how data is stored and transmitted between systems. An API also means the operations required to process the data.
With industry-standard APIs in place, it’s now easier for one organization to say, “we support HR-Open version x,” and other organizations will know precisely what that means by learning the industry-standard API definitions and documentation when it comes to data representations and operations.
HR Open Standards Consortium (Leslie on the right)
Future Integrations: How Can You Help?
ADP works with two industry standards at ADP: HR Open Standard and LIMRA. We spoke to Leslie E., Senior Director of Application Development, and she shared with us her take on integrations for our Human Capital Management (HCM) products.
Q: What’s the difference between using HR Open standard and LIMRA?
Leslie: ADP participates in two industry standards to understand the future of application development. If you are looking for help with your HR integration from a full hire to retirement, then HR Open is a great option. If you are more interested in voluntary benefits, LIMRA would be your perfect choice.
Q: What’s the future of using API standards? 
Leslie: Using API standards is critical in moving forward. Our job is to make sure that we’re doubling down on investing our time to make these standards usable. A great best practice is to work with partners on terminology and sample data, then go through the translation step.
Q: What’s the future in application development?
Leslie: Moving forward, I’d like to see us all use integration and standards instead of building custom layouts. But it’s only possible when we work together to design, enhance, and maintain standards, ensuring they are meaningful and effective in application integrations.
As our world becomes increasingly more complex, the need for APIs will continue to grow. They will allow businesses to quickly and easily bring together various applications to share data while hiding the details of how those systems work. The industry standards set by API providers help ensure that both sides of the integration use the same structure or schema, making it easy to repeat the implementation with other partners.
Q: Why should we care about industry standards?
Leslie: Efficient communication comes from using industry standards. Industry standards allow us to define a system record, translating our languages and partners’ languages into one common language. In the end, we provide a better experience for our clients, improving accuracy and reducing errors. It’s a win-win!
Q: What’s one piece of advice for developers interested in using APIs?
Leslie: When sharing information, remind your teams to be highly content-conscious when transmitting and securing the data sets. We have a detailed security review checklist for our partners here at ADP. Make sure everything you are doing in data transmittal follows strict security guidelines!
Final Thoughts
Developers continue to find ways of combining the two services to build more fantastic applications. The web APIs vs. service debate is not one with a clear-cut answer, but the benefits for both sides are adding more possibilities to application development.
Do you prefer using one over the other? Both APIs and Web Services serve as essential cores in the field and are especially useful in different projects. Remember, while APIs can be one or offline, Web Services require a network. The overlapping idea is that all web services are APIs, but not all APIs are web services.
Interested in a career in Application Development?
Learn more about what it’s like working for ADP here and our current openings.
Tech & Innovation Blog
We are Proud to Design and Create a Workplace for Everyone
Impact, Innovation, Award
ADP will continue to strive to be the best place to work, creating a workplace for diverse talents.
We are Proud to Design and Create a Workplace for Everyone
At ADP, we’re constantly working to provide the best possible experience for our clients and associates. We’re proud to announce that we’ve been recognized with various awards! Whether providing outstanding service or creating a great place to work, we always strive to be the best.
iWIN – Business Resource Group
Women Impact Tech 100
When it comes to gender equity in the technology industry, ADP is leading by example. Our technologists are dedicated to developing inclusive products and services, providing a path forward for all our teams.
Women Impact Tech, an organization focused on improving opportunities for women in STEM, has named ADP one of the top 100 Women Impact Tech companies. The recognition criteria measure employee feedback on workplace culture for women, benefits, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
We are excited to see that our work is reshaping the tech space.
“These top 100 companies are doing the right things that make a difference in women’s ability to have meaningful careers, offering a culture for women to thrive,” said Paula Ratliff, the President of Women Impact Tech.
The good news doesn’t end here! We have also earned recognition from Top 50 Employer by Woman Engineering Magazine, Top 50 Best Workplaces for Women in India, and the AnitaB.org 2021 Top Large Company for Women Technologists for the second consecutive year.
“As a leader, I want to create an environment of empowerment with a diversity of thought and perspectives,” said Laurie Liszewski, VP of Product Development at ADP.
Opportunities across ADP include participation in our Women’s Leadership Development Program, Grace Hopper Celebration with AnitaB.org, and our Business Resource Groups such as iWIN (International Women’s Inclusion Network).
“There’s a lot here to be excited about. We’re all working together, and we’re going to be stronger in the long run,” said Amber Abreu, Senior Manager of User Experience (UX) research at ADP.
We can’t wait to see what’s next!
Next Big Things in Tech
ADP DataCloud has been named on Fast Company’s first-ever list of the Next Big Things in Tech list, honoring the technology breakthroughs that promise to shape the future. We have earned this recognition for our powerful people analytics solution, ADP DataCloud, which leverages our vast workforce data to address the most significant challenges businesses face today, including employee retention, pay equity, diversity, equity, and inclusion shift economic policy. Read the press release here.
In addition to this award, ADP DataCloud has also earned a Stratus Award, the Top HR Product of the Year, and the Data Analytics Innovation of the Year.
We are proud of the product enhancements our teams developed:
- The new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Dashboard allow companies to see the makeup of their workforce and address underrepresentation.
- Organizational Benchmarks taps ADP’s workforce data to help companies decide how best to deploy workers.
- When paired with ADP DataCloud’s Pay Equity Storyboard, clients can generate a personalized planner and budget to help them close gaps and measure maturity against peers.
This award further validates our clients and prospects of what’s to come and why they need us. Congratulations to everyone who has been a part of the development!
ADP 2022 Built In Best Places to Work
We are the proudest of our valuable people and the culture here. Built In, a top industry source for tech candidates to research and review companies, has named ADP with seven awards, including 2022 Best Places to Work in LA and New York City, Best Large Companies to Work & Best Benefits in both cities.
“Now more than ever, we’re proud to offer an engaging workplace with a dynamic culture that empowers our associates to foster innovation and develop innovative ideas with limitless possibilities,” said Aaron S., Senior Vice President of Product Development at ADP. “We are thrilled to be recognized in New York City and will continue our relentless focus on growing our technology from the energy of our associates.”
“Our highly engaged associates know we’re committed to providing each person with opportunities to use their diverse expertise to develop great products and technology that help deliver amazing client experiences,” said Leonard K., Senior Vice President of Product Development. “Built In LA’s recognition is an honor and a direct reflection of the innovation and dedication of our associates.
Built In’s Best Places to Work program rates companies based on their compensation, benefits, and culture. This year’s list highlights those employers who have created a culture that supports employees in-office and virtually that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
Great Place to Work®
Great Place to Work® (GPTW), a global authority on workplace culture, named ADP Brazil Labs and ADP India one of the best companies to work for 2021. GPTW has a mission to build a better world by helping organizations become a great place to work for all.
Here are the award nominations.
ADP India
ADP India
- India’s Best Workplaces for Women 2021
- India’s Best Workplaces™ in IT & IT-BPM 2021
- India’s Best Companies to Work For 2021
- Commitment to Being a Great Place to Work
ADP Brazil Labs
ADP Brazil Labs
- One of the Best Companies in the Rio Grande do Sul.
- Women Impact Tech 2022 Honoree
The awards recognize ADP India and ADP Brazil Labs not only for their talented associates but also for an environment of technological culture and innovation applied in the workspace.
Our clients, associates, and tech recruiting teams remain focused on cultivating valuable relationships in the challenging times of pandemics. We will continue to strive to be the best place to work, creating a workplace for diverse talents.
Thank you, and Congratulations to all our associates who make ADP one of the best places to work!
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move and visit Who We Hire.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Career Journey from a Filmmaker to a Conversational Designer (CxD)
Voice of Our People, Innovation, Career Insights
For anyone who wants to work as a conversation designer, the first step would be to understand how human-computer interactions (HCI) work.
Career Journey from a Filmmaker to a Conversational Designer (CxD)
By Azfar Rizvi, the Conversational Designer
If you look at my current role at ADP, you might be surprised with my professional background. For a decade, I was a journalist and a screenwriter traveling and producing films for global news and media networks. In collaboration with World Wildlife Fund and the British Council, my last films toured across Europe and the UK, garnering a mention from editors at Rolling Stone Magazine.
Who would’ve thought I’d be a good fit at ADP?
It wasn’t until 2015, when I was asked to consult as a screenwriter for an Amazon Prime Video project, I realized how transferable my skills were from screenwriting. Being part of a writers’ room at a significant streaming network pushed me to explore my fictional dialogue and screenwriting chops! And I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.
What Is a Writers’ Room?
A writers’ room is a workspace where TV writers brainstorm
each element of a TV series including episode breakdowns,
the series arc, the season arc, character development, and
various substories within each episode or each season. A writers’
room is where the direction of the season is determined and refined,
& where all the creative minds—the showrunner, producers, and writers
—brainstorm the ways in which they can help create an excellent show.
– MasterClass
As I emerged from my journey through Hollywood, I consulted on a year-long Conversational AI project for Google Assistant. This was a daunting undertaking. My Conversational Design work surfaced in front of over two billion users worldwide overnight. The new GA experience combined text and voice interaction ranging from songs and jokes to easter eggs and riddles. We pioneered an interface to bridge the gap between human conversational intelligence and artificial intelligence. Millions of these users were migrants from diverse backgrounds – so embedding grace in the experience to produce content that resonated with everyone took a significant amount of self-reflection and research. When we launched, we hit it out of the park. That was the day I truly understood what it meant for content to converge in the sweet spot between AI tech and storytelling.
I fell in love with this new universe and this journey eventually culminated at ADP!
Q: Why did you come to ADP and why do you stay?
This is a great question, and the answer constantly evolves for me. Arriving at ADP during the pandemic, I saw the team’s efficacy in the work of Conversational AI. Thousands of users and clients were trying to access accurate financial information using our existing platforms, and I saw an opportunity to be a part of these exciting acts of service – to be able to make lives easier by serving the best possible solutions in the most empathetic manner.
I continue to stay and grow at ADP because I love the learning opportunities provided by our UX leadership. The people-centric open-door policy here is unlike anywhere I’ve worked. I collaborate with an amazing team where people and culture triumph in service to overcome personal challenges every day. What more can one ask for!
Q: Let’s talk about using your creative and technical skills at ADP!
My role at ADP is a combination of conversation design and process ideation. From a CxD perspective, I collaborate with Product Owners and Managers. At this stage, we dive into what use cases we need on our roadmap and the tradeoffs. Internally, with the User Experience team, it becomes more hands-on as I design the conversational experiences and mockup the technical and functional base of what a multimodal experience could look like.
For the conversation design process, I leverage skills acquired across my previous work: UX writing, VUI design, interaction design, and audio/visual design. I like to think of my role as that of a bricklayer – understand the user needs, embrace the tech constraints, figure out the underlying logic (APIs, etc.), and design a detailed specification document that represents the complete user experience. The last step is to curate this experience and work with the developers to produce it. This journey forces me to leverage a combination of both industry chatbot standards, and the direction our ADP UX leadership wants our virtual assistant, A.V.A, to take.
Q: What is a piece of advice for candidates looking for jobs in Conversation Design (CxD)?
For the past decade, Conversational AI has been incorporated into a diverse collection of form factors empowering users to interact more organically with automated systems. This is when A.V.A, ADP’s virtual assistant comes in place. A.V.A combines digital concierges and AI-powered chat solutions, extending our users’ significant level of intelligent service automation and personalization.
Conversation Design (CxD) at its core is the craft of delivering a comprehensive experience users might engage in to arrive at a pre-determined automated outcome. It is the discipline of producing a series of detailed design flows/outcomes leveraging the businesses’ purpose and underlying logic to curate a holistic user experience.
CxD is a new field so there are quite a few pathways into the industry. For anyone who wants to work as a conversation designer, the first step would be to understand how human-computer interactions (HCI) work.
A good place to start would be to get comfortable with ambiguity. Begin with diving into UI (User Interface) and UX design. Understand the basics of a storytelling arc. Read, write, and analyze dialogues and screenplays. Utilize existing CxD platforms where you can design interactions, preview prototypes, and implement the final experience. Both Google and Amazon have detailed design tutorials for their Assistants. Use these resources to create experiences for your portfolio and start sharing these with peers on LinkedIn.
Q: What is some overlapping, essential skills required in both filmmaking and designing?
Before ADP, I produced conversational experiences for virtual assistants at Google and Verizon. A significant part of my skills is a continuation of my learnings from screenwriting and storytelling — understanding the user journey, how can we use context to create an empathetic user experience, and how can we continue to iterate on the results. Take a feature-length documentary as an example: you start with a core narrative, shoot the right visual, and edit to create a final product. The same logic applies to conversational AI chatbot. Before coming to ADP, I spent a lot of time poking holes in my own work – showing it to friends and family and asking them what works and does not work for them.
Q: What are leaders like at ADP? What is your team’s dynamic?
The UX leadership at ADP is unlike none other I’ve worked with in the past. These are some of the most empathetic and seasoned professionals in the industry who continue to push the envelope. The conversational AI technological roadmap is constantly being iterated upon and is just one of the hallmarks of ADP’s current work. We have a Design Guild where we show up to support each other’s work, experiment with emerging CxD and UX use cases, and future-proof ADP’s brand. Our leadership is committed to uplifting all of us through weekly 1-on-1 sessions and biweekly feedback walkthroughs.
Q: What inspires you outside of work?
My curiosity and passion for storytelling inspire my day-to-day outside of work. Before we were plunged into the Covid world order, I was working with emerging entrepreneurs to empower them to share their stories outside of their communities. ‘Life of I’ is my passion project that has fueled live storytelling events across cities in Canada, the US, Afghanistan, Australia, and Pakistan. I personally work with a select few storytellers who narrate a personal story of their choice in front of a live audience. We’re currently pioneering a new remote storytelling format in collaboration with a local NYC-based co-working space!
In addition, I am still involved with my original screenwriting team. We’re putting together a spec script for Netflix about a girl who travels across different magical worlds through a portal in her bedroom’s closet. The team’s super excited about this story of resilience and empowerment, and we start shooting in September. Fingers crossed!
Q: What do you look forward to the most in the future?
Deep down, I identify as a storyteller. I started my career as a radio producer around 20 years ago. Back in the day, it took me over two hours to line up the right theme music and queue up the correct songs for a 45-minute radio show. Today, the same can be accomplished in less than 5 minutes. The days of DATs are gone!
Behind all this evolution is the power of AI and automation.
AI’s technological development has constantly been transforming the way businesses nay the world operates. Developments in VR/AR space, the Metaverse, and the haptics have proven humanity’s desire to continue to push the proverbial boundaries. Over a decade ago, the first smartphone was launched, and it rendered keypads on mobile phones redundant. With this change in the traditional user interface, it was evident that technology will continue to evolve, reducing the size of our devices. Every ten years, human-computer interaction completely changes – Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Bixby, and other AI-powered virtual assistants are a testament to this change. And A.V.A. our virtual assistant is a step in that direction.
Interested in a Conversational Design career at ADP?
We are hiring! Click here to see what we have available.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Team APIs: What They Are and Why They Matter to Teamwork
Voice of Our People, Innovation, Future of Work
Team APIs could vary depending on team context and needs. One universal value is to listen to your people and act on what they vocalize.
Team APIs: What They Are and Why They Matter to Teamwork
Charles L., Senior Director of Application Development, shares team topologies and how you can use the concept of APIs to better manage teams. In this blog, Charles explores various team management methodologies, including four different team types and three interacting models.
We live in a world where people are always looking for the next best thing. When it comes to leadership, we know that if you’re not engaged with your team, they won’t be engaged either, which translates into a lack of passion and excitement in the products they are creating! One way to create more cohesiveness and get everyone on board is to use Team APIs. These team communication interfaces have become the backbone of modern tech companies.
What is a Team API?
In the case of software development, an API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of instructions that tells a computer how to interact with another piece of software. We can use the same idea to create instructions for interacting with our team.
I first read about the Team APIs in Team Topologies, a book by Matthew Skeleton and Manual Pais that talks about creating effective teamwork and helps businesses choose the right pattern of interactions for their organizations. The authors also teach you how to keep software healthy while optimizing value streams.
Let’s Begin: Build an API
A critical first step to creating a communications API for your team is to establish a contact point. This can be a team lead, business analyst, or product owner. All communication will flow through that person from outside the team. This keeps the work visible and consolidates the Works in Progress (WIP) under one contact.
Charles and his son
Tool Recommendations
If you are looking for a tool to assist in this process, consider products such as Asana, Basecamp, or Jira to streamline communication within your company. The tools can help you manage projects, tasks, and meetings efficiently while also providing an environment where everyone can work together harmoniously.
My prioritization and goal-setting approach have changed over time, influenced by Allen Hollub and Domenic DeGrandis. When running a software team, the two hardest things are working together and ensuring each person’s work is meaningful and making sure each team player produces quality results without feeling overwhelmed or undervalued by their organizations. This is when these tools come into play and help us stay organized, while creating an easy developer experience.
Easy Developer Experience
While prioritization comes down to leveraging and optimizing the flow, it’s also important to create an easy developer experience. This translates into spending time improving our team’s development process every quarter to make code more efficient and ready for production. It’s essential to optimize and align goals between business and development processes.
Developer experience is so important because developers should focus on building software that solves business problems. Developers should not be burdened with non-business value add work like dealing with infrastructure, deployments, firewalls, domains, provisioning, procurement, or networking etc. A good developer experience makes it so easy for a developer to do their work, so they can focus on building and experimenting with features that enable our clients to do more.
Introducing Team Topologies
According to Team Topologies, the authors introduced different team types and interaction modes.
Four Types of Teams
- Stream-Aligned: A team that is uniquely positioned to drive business change and opportunity, with an alignment of core values, skills mix tailored towards delivering value on their own.
- Platform: A team that helps to reduce cognitive load by providing everything in one place.
- Enabling: A team dedicated to helping other teams with the adoption and modification of software, as part of their transition period.
- Complicated Sub-system: A team with the mission to help other teams transition as they jump from old software and processes into something more modern.
Three Interaction Modes
- Collaboration: Two teams work together to solve a shared goal, particularly when it comes down to finding new technology or approaches.
- X-As-A-Service: One team consumes APIs, tools, or full software products from another team.
- Facilitating: An enabling team facilitates the other team learning or adopting new approaches.
The bread-and-butter of team types is Stream-Aligned. This team type has everything it needs to deploy software to production independently. The most common interaction model is a collaboration where two teams work closely together, for example, X-AS-A-Service, meaning one team uses another team API.
Why APIs Matter in DevOps
APIs are a crucial component of software development. They provide greater insight into how applications work and allow for faster integration, easier consumption across the lifecycle – all things that DevOps teams want in their task lists!
More companies have started to build core platforms, accelerating and scaling development. The state of DevOps conducted based on DORA metrics by Google points to an increase in large enterprises adopting cloud and high-performing software companies in 2021. Good documentation is key to implementing development capabilities and positive team culture to mitigate burnout risks. There is another DevOps report by Puppet Labs that focuses on team topologies. These are all evidence where Team APIs makes a positive impact on DevOps.
Team Success: Prioritize the Developer Experience
An effective team values the Developer Experience (DX), meaning the overall experience developers experience in working on your product. DX is essential for a company’s core product and development. Large enterprises learn to react quicker to market changes when they remove friction in the development process, which leads to revised change management practices and more frequent deployments. Shortly, I see this happening. Companies will modernize their change management processes to accelerate their software delivery. When teams prioritize the DX, their success is inevitable.
Charles and his family
Teamwork: Care for Your People
Another consideration in team building is the lag, meaning time spent waiting on someone or something to happen. Grouping people by functions like Dev, QA, or Ops, or Product creates a lag in your team’s flow. What happens when people must wait? They get bored and work on something else. Once a developer works on two things at once, the chance of introducing a defect rises.
Grouping people into functional tribes also creates unwanted behaviors. One of the most important things to understand in DevOps is the people; they are your teammates. Since everyone is on the same scrum teams, instead of calling each other by roles such as OPS or QA, use ‘my teammate’ and recognize ‘my teammate needs help on this item.’ Your mindset changes when you apply the rule in day-to-day life. You’d want to help and contribute more to the team.
What You Should Know: As a Leader in DevOps
How do you know that you are doing a fantastic job as a leader? The answer can be found in the feedback loop. Making the workplace a more comfortable and enjoyable place can help associates flourish. A positive feedback loop achieves that by listening to the voices and using the comments to improve organizational structures.
I recommend The DevOps Handbook for any technology leader looking to improve their organization’s culture and innovation levels. The book includes three DevOps principles: Flow, Feedback, Continuous Experimentation & Learning. To improve any system, you need feedback loops, and the faster the feedback, the better. It is important to improve any system, especially in delivering software to production. Not having suitable feedback loops can lead to poor outcomes.
For example, my team uses ADP’s Standout app, a high-performing tool that helps identify each individual team member’s strengths through a series of surveys that are designed for different types of companies with various needs, including software developers. You’ll find out exactly where tasks need improvement on both individual levels and group discussions, ensuring everyone has an opportunity to share their opinions about what works best within these parameters.
Our community: ADP’s Transformation
I’ve seen such a great technological leap forward over the last decade. I love the direction ADP is going. We didn’t have all these avenues for connection when I founded the ADP Developer Community back in 2013. Coordinating inner sourced projects was more difficult. Since then, the openness and sharing within GPT have been incredible. I feel encouraged hearing our leader, Don Weinstein, celebrate innovations such as CI/CD. What we do at ADP is incredible, especially the annual GPT Connect developer’s conference that shows sharing technology across teams is a high priority.
Team APIs could vary depending on team context and needs. One universal value is to listen to your people and act on what they vocalize. Prove to the team you hear them and do something about their proposed ideas. I believe a high-performing team will be open and honest with each other. It’s a group effort for the team members to use feedback to improve while receiving support and help from their leader.
Interested in DevOPs or Application Development positions at ADP? We’re hiring!
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Tech & Innovation Blog
Great Place to Work® Named ADP Brazil Labs one of the Best Companies to Work 2021
Award, Brazil Labs, Why ADP
At ADP Brazil Labs, the top two areas ranked most highly were pride in exercising the profession and teamwork.
Great Place to Work® Named ADP Brazil Labs one of the Best Companies to Work 2021
Great Place to Work® (GPTW), a global authority on workplace culture, named ADP Brazil Labs one of the best companies in the Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. GPTW has a mission to build a better world by helping organizations become a great place to work for all. ADP Brazil Labs was ranked 20th in the medium-sized category and was recognized as one of the most successful companies implementing people management.
ADP Brazil Labs
How does GPTW rank companies?
GPTW uses a comprehensive method to measure employees’ work experiences and analyze the organization’s practices and culture, setting standards in the industry. The research includes a variety of criteria and ranks the best work environments. The survey covers associates’ evaluations on growth opportunities, quality of life, credibility, a sense of respect, impartiality, and aligning with values in the company. At ADP Brazil Labs, the top two areas ranked most highly were pride in exercising the profession and teamwork.
ADP Brazil Labs Associates Bringing Awareness to Breast Cancer
Over the past few years, ADP Brazil Labs has further strengthened its people management strategies and practices, including team development, improvements, and consolidation to encourage professional growth. The lab values people’s voices, promotes associate engagement and offers management tools. These practices sustain an organizational culture marked by associates’ self-development, leading to great recognition.
The award reinforces ADP Brazil Labs is heading in the right direction. “Being certified by the GPTW RS seal is only possible thanks to our associates,” said Julio Hartmann, the Vice president of ADP Brazil Labs. “They give their best day after day, fulfilling our purpose in building the future of work through technology and innovation.”
Interested in a tech career at ADP Brazil Labs?
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Tech & Innovation Blog
2022 Workforce Trends
Future of Work, Innovation, Culture
Accessible Video Controls
2022 Workforce Trends
[LOGO: ADP, Always Designing for People]
[TEXT] 2022 Workforce Trends
Diverse workers in a variety of settings.
[MUSIC]
[TEXT] Work is having its Moment
[DESCRIPTION] Workers in offices; a cluster of multi-rise buildings
[TEXT], What will work look like in 2022?
Employee Visibility Redefined.
[DESCRIPTION] A woman, a man.
[TEXT] Where and how people are working has changed
On-site, Remote, Hybrid
A man and a woman.
75% of global workforce changed how or where they live…
85% are among Gen Z
People data will replace physical proximity
Leaders will lean into trust-based approach
Workers who trust their team and leader are 7 times more likely to be strongly connected
People & Purpose Drive Culture
Connection will become a measurement of workforce culture
Strongly connected workers are 75 times more likely to be fully engaged
Diversity, equity and inclusion will evolve to drive measurable progress
More than 50% of companies with DEI analytics took action and realized positive impact – ADP DataCloud DEI Dashboard
Data & Expertise Power Resilience
Leaders will increasingly turn to data to identify gaps
Nearly 20% small-midsize U.S. companies report facing regulatory compliance challenges
Quality data will be key in providing confidence
Workers completed nearly 3 million health status surveys enabling a safer return to workplace – ADP DataCloud Return to Work Toolkit
Innovation Accelerates Growth
Global shifts will force new efficiencies, fuel productivity
Use of ADP Mobile Solutions increased more than 25% year-over-year
Skills based hiring surges transforming the talent landscape
28% workers report taking a new role since pandemic
Visibility
Culture
Data & Expertise
Innovation.
The Future of Work Starts
Now!
[LOGO: ADP, Always Designing for People]
Work is having its moment. Rapid changes have made way for a newly transformed workplace. What can businesses and workers expect in 2022? ADP identifies the top trends reshaping the future of work. For more insights, subscribe to the tech blog and receive monthly newsletters from us.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Future of Conversational AI: Here’s What You Should Know
Voice of Our People, Innovation, Career Insights
The more we understand what drives our situational awareness, consciousness, and creativity, the more we will evolve conversational AI and sentiment analysis with more robust outcomes.
Future of Conversational AI: Here’s What You Should Know
By Azfar Rizvi, Conversational Designer
“I’ll be back.”
We first heard this iconic line in the 1984 Hollywood blockbuster The Terminator, and it’s become a part of our collective consciousness ever since. It was mainstream media’s first attempt in depicting a fictional artificially intelligent system (Skynet), thus catapulting the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Then the depiction of AI went downhill. At least for a while.
People started to fear AI taking over the world through sentient neural networks. There are entire television series dedicated to playing on our fears about how antagonistic AI can be. And rightly so – drama and destruction sell more headlines. That’s the realist ex-journalist in me, LOL! As AI continues to fascinate humanity, our understanding of its limits and potential is evolving, and within it, there lies hope.
Azfar Framing in Action
This year, we finally transitioned from fearing robot overlords to cheering for sentient non-playable characters (NPC). The most recent Hollywood movie, Free Guy with Ryan Renolds, is a step in this direction. The story starts when an NPC develops self-awareness and strays from its programming. The NPC interacts with elements around itself in the game – it starts to think and feel. While this is interesting to posit, NPCs can’t develop sentience and act beyond their programming without human interventions.
The juxtaposition of the extremes has challenged us to think about the boundaries in AI. Corollary, these strides have been a significant force behind the digital transformation of businesses and entrepreneurship. We managed to bootstrap humanity’s collective learning with these recent advancements in AI and deep learning, manifesting the true meaning of the term global village. We’re truly connected and have transitioned from merely if/then/else chatbots to contextual ‘Conversational AI.’
ADP: Leading Digital Transformation
We provide payroll solutions for over 38 million workers worldwide. That means one in six US workers interfaces directly or indirectly with our universe. From a chatbot/conversational AI perspective, it means even more people will potentially interact with A.V.A., ADP’s virtual assistant. That’s where someone like me comes in and introduces Conversational Design (CxD).
Azfar Rizvi, UX Designer
ADP’s Service Technology leadership makes enormous strides to invest in the right infrastructure and create the right teams, producing trustworthy conversational AI platforms. We’re reimagining AVA to ensure our CxD is inclusive. Our persona aims to be innovative and empathetic, allowing intelligent responses to meet user expectations. Unlike conventional chatbots, ADP’s conversational AI understands the context of conversations and answers scenario-specific questions for users.
ADP provides our clients with the best payroll and HR experience, reflecting our processes and outcomes. Our teams work with internal and external stakeholders to ensure the AVA experience has enough context and intelligence to solve our customers’ problems and help us learn for future iterations of our products. As a CxD and Persona evangelist, I relish the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and industry leaders, envisioning what AVA could represent to the workforce. For many employees, AVA is their first touchpoint with ADP. I write, design, advocate, and build an empathetic experience for this reason. We want to set the tone right for a great experience from the beginning.
The Future of Conversational AI
In one of his letters, Ernest Hemingway wrote: “A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.”
That quote summarizes the journey in conversational AI – with chatbots starting ambitiously and, as time passed, aligning more with market expectations. The CxD universe that was first created by telling jokes during the formative years of chatbots has now segued into more transactional experiences. We are iterating rapidly at ADP, and the learning allows us to create better, more empathetic conversational AI experience with higher engagement levels. While I may have transitioned from narrative film production and journalism, not a day goes by when I don’t think about the quintessential role storytelling plays in creating holistic CxD.
The chatbot market is projected to grow from USD 2.6 billion in 2019 to USD 9.4 billion by 2024 – with an overwhelming 80% of businesses expected to have some chatbot automation by the end of 2021. According to insights on MarketWatch, “The chatbot market is driven by factors, such as advancement in technology coupled with rising customer demands for self-service and 24*7 customer assistance at lower operational costs. However, lack of awareness about the outcomes of the use of chatbot technology with various applications to restrict the growth of the chatbot market.”
Azfar Visiting School
Good news: ADP is ready for the challenge! We’re working to humanize AVA, our conversational AI. We will continue to create more empathetic, accessible experiences as we build from the number of experiential and transactional use cases every year. Whether enhancing value around payroll or helping to create workforce management automation through AVA, we are determined to harness AI as a tool to boost productivity and enable even better support to our clients!
A significant part of these #ADPTech enhancements depends on our ability to incorporate sentiment analysis and predictive analytics to intelligently understand our users’ conversations and the intents behind those queries. These enhancements allow us to deliver a more robust solution to standard enterprise functions such as employee onboarding, HR-related questions, and global help desk.
All this gives me hope for the future of AI AVA’s global footprint allows us to continue innovating and designing more holistic experiences. As one of the pioneers in Conversational AI, ADP is constantly evolving at a pace limited only by our understanding of how the human brain works. The more we understand what drives our situational awareness, consciousness, and creativity, the more we will evolve conversational AI and sentiment analysis with more robust outcomes. As a storyteller who fell in love with AI, I remain enamored by the possibilities of our collective AI future.
In the weeks to come, let’s talk more about the opportunities around AI storytelling, leadership, and mentorship at ADP. I’ll be back! 🙂
Interested in a Conversation Design career at ADP?
We are hiring! Click here to see what we have available.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Brazil Lab’s Alberto Boa Vista, Principal Technology Architect, Wins ADP’s 2021 President CSR Award
Impact, Innovation, Award
Alberto’s Full Stack Social program focused on web development and behavioral skills, tackling the massive gap of the technology workforce by empowering socially vulnerable youngsters.
Brazil Lab’s Alberto Boa Vista, Principal Technology Architect, Wins ADP’s 2021 President CSR Award
Social responsibility is one of ADP’s core values and is integral to our brand. We recognize two associates each year by presenting the Corporate Social Responsibility Award, acknowledging associates whose commitment to social responsibility has a positive, measurable impact on the communities where we live and work.
President’s Corporate Social Responsibility Award
Bob Lockett, Chief Diversity & Talent Officer, presented the 2021 President’s Award to Alberto Boa Vista, Principal Technology Architect, GPT. “Alberto played a critical role in organizing a course called Full Stack Social, a 14-month theoretical and practical training program to help socially vulnerable children enter the labor market,” Bob said. “He continued to engage other volunteers and presented the project to ADP’s Brazil Lab. The goal of the project is to alleviate poverty by giving software development skills to young people that otherwise would probably never have access to it.”
Alberto (right) with ADP Associates at Award Ceremony
Alberto’s Full Stack Social program focused on web development and behavioral skills, tackling the massive gap of the technology workforce by empowering socially vulnerable youngsters. It is conducted by Marist Social Center (CESMAR), a philanthropic and nonprofit institution with more than 20 years of history dedicated to social responsibility. The center is strategically located in Porto Alegre, Brazil, one of the lowest Human Development Index regions.
Alberto playing the electric guitar
“I play a role in organizing the course’s curriculum, engaging other volunteers, and presenting the project to potential sponsors. I’ve been doing it for almost a year now, and I’m sure it’s just the beginning of this relationship,” Alberto said. “I also believe the market of digital products contribute to this generation’s social and commercial goals.” By volunteering his time and giving back, Alberto feels grateful for every opportunity he gets to share knowledge, collecting beautiful stories from people around him.
Alberto with his family
The recognition was accompanied by a donation, which went to CESMAR, a social center with professionals who focus on education and health. Alberto is confident their well-organized program will continue to transform many more lives. He views the award as a reaffirmation for many people who chose to dedicate their lives to social responsibility. “It’s not easy, and I know it builds on the long history of this institution,” he said. “Thank you, ADP. The donation will surely bring positive changes to the communities.”
Alberto also shared the solid internal communication and a network of contacts he received. “I had no words to describe how proud I am. I received tremendous support from ADP throughout the project. It is inspiring to see people embrace and spread the ideas,” Alberto said. “Every contact I spoke to contributed to actions with inclusion and diversity.”
Congratulations, Alberto!
Thank you for contributing and giving back.
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move and visit Who We Hire.
