Tech & Innovation Blog
ADP Wins 2020 Breakthrough AI Award
Recognition, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science
Accessible Video Controls
Video: AI and machine learning to help our clients
[TEXT] Welcome to ADP DataCloud
[DESCRIPTION] In animation, a man speaks.
[TEXT] Hi, I’m Jack. I’m excited to share some of the recently launched DataCloud Features that are helping our clients navigate the Dynamic Workplace.
[DESCRIPTION] The word “Start” on a screen. Underneath it, the numbers 1 through 4. Jack touches number 1.
[TEXT] We’re helping Organizations Understand how their workforce has been impacted by Covid-19. How? Data Mashups. Data Mashups – Covid Workforce Impact. Data Mashup refreshes daily, displaying the # of Covid-19 cases documented by Johns Hopkins. This has helped organize and understand how their workforce has been impacted by Covid-19.
[DESCRIPTION] Jack presses 2.
[TEXT] We’ve identified Millions in tax credit opportunities for our clients. How? Say Hello to Storyboards. Storyboards – Employee Retention Tax Credit. Storyboards helps clients easily identify if they are eligible for Employee Retention Tax Credits. The platform will automatically calculate the tax credit opportunity based on eligible employees. E.R. T.C. has proactively surface to millions and tax credit opportunities for our clients.
[TEXT] 3. We are helping millions of Practitioners monitor employee sentiment about returning to the workplace. How? Meet Return to Work. Return to Work – Readiness Survey. Practitioners can now send short surveys to collect worker Readiness and sentiment about returning to the workplace. Surveys are delivered to workers through the easy-to-use a. D. P. Mobile app. Practitioners are monitoring employee sentiment about returning to the workplace.
[TEXT] 4. We’ve helped Practitioners Answer key questions about their organization. How? With Organizational Benchmarks. Benchmarks – Organizational Benchmarks. Clients can take a deep-dive into their organizational data and benchmark their company against peers. Uncover organizational questions like what percentage of labor cost do my peers spend on sales and marketing. Discover how their head count breakdown compares to their industry. ADP DataCloud, Learn, Get Inspired, Join the Conversation
Congratulations to our DataCloud team! Recognized for its impressive capabilities and significant value it brings to businesses, ADP’s DataCloud won a 2020 AI Breakthrough Award in the “Best AI-based Solution for Data Science” category. Watch the video.
In a constantly shifting world of work, businesses, now more than ever, are looking for a solution that helps them make informed decisions about their organization. Enter ADP DataCloud, a powerful people analytics solution.
Utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI), the solution analyzes aggregated, anonymized HR and compensation data from over 30 million workers in more than 730,000 organizations to allow companies to benchmark and compare compensation data, turnover rate, and overtime. Endless possibilities open for better managing a global workforce when pairing this empirical data with the power of machine learning (ML) and AI.
The AI Breakthrough Awards recognize the top companies, technologies, and products in the Artificial Intelligence industry today. As more and more companies join the growing global AI market, this awards program honors those that stand out among a crowded field of competitors. In other categories, winners included IBM, Capital One, NetApp, and others.
Congratulations to the team for all your hard work to deliver amazing solutions and real-time trends to our clients. Way to break through!
Tech & Innovation Blog
Meet (some of) the Women of ADP DevOps
Women in STEM, Voice of Our People, DevOps
One group of women within our DevOps team share their story of camaraderie and making a difference at ADP. Every day, they work in close support of one another to tackle exciting technical challenges and to drive data-centric development across the company.
ADP is a 2020 Grace Hopper Award recipient for our commitment to diverse teams and the overall development of women, no matter where they are in their careers. One group of women within our DevOps team share their story of camaraderie and making a difference at ADP. Every day, they work in close support of one another to tackle exciting technical challenges and to drive data-centric development across the company. We recently caught up with Monica Bansal (Application Developer), Natalia Ermolayeva (Senior Application Developer), Tao Hu (Principal Application Developer), and Stella Jia (Senior Director, Application Development). It was clear from our chat and how they complement each other’s work why they’ve become such a tight-knit group. Below, they share what makes their collaboration work so well, their recent wins, and what they’re excited to learn—and build—in the months and years to come.
What do each of you do at ADP, and why did you join the team?
Monica: My job is a blend of application development and data analytics—I assist ADP’s data scientists with experiments and then build out the APIs. I’ve been with the company full-time for about a year now; I started as a summer intern while getting my master’s in data science and computer science. I knew I wanted to continue my career in this field, and I liked getting to work with real data and implement it in the real world. I did another part-time internship last spring while finishing my degree, and then I joined Stella’s team.
Tao: I’m a principal application developer, which means I build many of the libraries and components that allow our work to scale—they become the blueprint other teams implemented. I’ve been with ADP since 2013. Before that, I worked in finance as a Java developer. A friend of mine recommended ADP after my company moved farther from my home. I have two young boys, and I wanted to make sure I had time to take care of them. I knew ADP had a reputation for being a family-friendly employer.
When I started at ADP, my work focused on producing reports. But once Stella joined, our team shifted to more machine learning. I love problem-solving and simplifying processes, so it’s been really fun for me.
Natalia: I’m a senior application developer, and I see my role as keeping data safe and available—I handle testing and operations. I’m very new to ADP; I joined about four months ago. One big attraction was the level of collaboration between departments. I was very impressed with the people who interviewed me. Everyone was very professional, and they mentioned many modern tools that I was excited to use. I knew ADP would be a good place to broaden my skills across a lot of different areas.
Stella: I’m a senior director for application development. My job is to lead the Application Development team and make sure we’re delivering insights that will help ADP build better products. As Tao mentioned, that involves a lot of machine learning work and other statistical analysis, as well as data mining and visualization techniques. An intrinsic strength of this team is connecting the data to the real people we serve. When we look for patterns and anomalies, we’re trying to figure out how we can make people’s jobs easier as we ADP innovate and grow.
I joined ADP about four years ago; a mentor and friend I’d previously worked for recommended I apply. He had great things to say about the leadership and the vision for transformation from a service company to a technology company. The people were great, too, and I liked that I’d get to learn about a lot of domains I hadn’t worked in before. I think it’s an excellent environment for anyone who wants to grow by adding value and helping others.
How do you support each other’s work?
Tao: We’re helping each other every day, sharing results and ideas for new approaches. For example, we’ve been using a new data analysis tool to build some reports, and now we’re looking at other projects that might benefit from those same functionalities. Because of our roles, Monica and I work especially closely, but I feel like I can pick up the phone or message anyone on the team when I have something to figure out, and I’ll get help right away.
Natalia: Yes—I like that my teammates are always just a call or text away. Knowing each other as people, chatting and joking around makes it so much easier to communicate and work together. We’re comfortable sharing ideas freely and collaborating, even when we’re not in the same room.
Stella: Definitely. We’d love to hang out in person more, but even with everyone virtual, it’s turned out really well. And that collaboration is so important. I think of the team as a set of pillars—if any of them aren’t there, none of it works. Monica is doing the analytics and research, slicing and dicing the data. Once we’ve found something we want to build upon, Tao steps in to create that foundation. And then Natalia is there to make sure we’re not only maintaining privacy but keeping things sustainable from an operations perspective. We all need each other, and we’re all working toward the same goal and figuring out how to measure success, which could be a product’s stickiness, preventing errors, or saving people time.
Monica: I think everyone on the team is naturally very passionate about working toward what we all want to achieve. You can always go to someone with a question, and everyone pitches in when someone needs help to make sure we’re hitting our targets. Stella is great about making sure we’re all happy and doing the kind of work we want to be doing.
Tell us about some of the ways you’ve made an impact at ADP.
Tao: We recently started using a new workflow manager tool, which has been a big win. Before, if we had a lot of ETL (extract, transform, load) jobs, we’d get files from other teams and load them into the database. With all the pieces and feeds, it wasn’t easy to see the status of any particular piece. That was frustrating. Stella recommended a workflow tool, which I hadn’t heard of at the time. After I got up to speed, we started building things out, adapting the data monitor and using the workflow manager to grab all the outputs, sending them to the monitor, and building the dashboards there. Now we have an accessible overview to see what’s working and what isn’t. It’s been so helpful.
Natalia: Due to the nature of my work, success isn’t always obvious. If things run smoothly, no one notices what happens in the background, which means I’ve done my job. As I get more familiar with how things work at ADP, I’ll have some opportunities to automate more daily, repetitive tasks. That’s a big priority.
Monica: We did an error-detection project recently where we built a model to help us flag problems on the back-end when a client runs their payroll and how users respond when they get those warnings. If we have a proper pipeline of data to run the model regularly, clients can see predictions for the entire week, and we can see whether they’re using or ignoring the information, which tells us whether we need to make some corrections.
More broadly, our team helps others understand the importance and potential of data, especially here at ADP, where we have such rich data. We want to drive data-centric development, which starts with data collection. Before we can do the analytics, our data needs to be clean. So we work with a lot of other teams, helping them understand how to use the tools and making sure they’re comfortable and up-to-date on everything they need.
Stella: We are part of a data-informed culture. Technology evolves quickly. At ADP, we want to stay ahead and be proactive rather than reactive. Data is a huge asset in that effort. It gives us much faster feedback loops and insights into our clients. We can quickly see when and whether a client’s hitting a milestone.
But to leverage that asset, as Monica mentioned, we need a certain level of data literacy throughout the business. If developers understand how data can help them build a better product, it will be much easier to scale. Part of our team’s job is to encourage data literacy. We also help establish standards, offer training, and get development teams running on an autonomous path to adopt a canonical format every team can follow. We find that it is contagious. Once a few teams embrace the data, other teams understand the benefits more quickly and have more colleagues to help them learn.
What are you excited to learn next?
Natalia: There are a lot of tools I’m excited to learn more about, including the ones my colleagues have mentioned. I’m looking forward to using new technologies in general, particularly machine learning tools. I think I’ll have many opportunities to code for our team’s internal purposes, for affirmation and monitoring, too. Because I’m new to the team, I’m also learning the big picture and how everything’s connected. ADP is great with documentation, so I can find almost everything I need on my own. But I can always ask my colleagues or get up to speed through a learning session with one of our senior team members.
Tao: I’m excited to keep learning new technologies, too. I’ll often jump over to educational resources to get a quick sense of something, then I come back and try to use it. The machine learning side of things is especially exciting. Besides learning new languages, I love new concepts for how to approach our work.
Monica: I feel like I’ve grown so much already! From the start of my first internship to now, I’ve been able to work on many different services and projects, from machine learning models to APIs to analytics. Whenever Stella says, “I have an idea,” we get excited. The technologies are always changing, and that helps us grow.
Stella: One thing I’m thinking about is how to give developers more visibility into what we do. As Natalia mentioned, most of our foundational work tends to happen behind the scenes. We look forward to building stronger connections with our frontend partners, which will provide even more opportunities to enjoy the results and get recognition for our work.
At ADP, our talent pipeline is so important. It’s about getting the right people and building a strong culture. We want the goal, in everything my team does, to be a better developer experience. We strive to make people happy, make their jobs easier, make their days more efficient. If we provide them with a platform that allows them to test and measure their ideas more quickly, they’ll have more time to explore new ideas and innovate.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Race Against Time: How ADP’s Product Team Helped Thousands of Businesses Secure Critical Paycheck Protections Loans
Pandemic, Innovation, Voice of Our People
Bill and Terri look back on a whirlwind weekend in April, when the Small Business Administration (SBA) had launched an unprecedented new loan program established by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). Here’s their story.
In the wake of COVID-19, ADP’s product teams have worked tirelessly to ensure our clients weather the storm. We wanted to catch up with two of the people who’ve made this possible. Bill Leonard, Director of Product Management, was once the payroll director for ADP. He advises early-in-career colleagues to say yes to new opportunities—it’s brought him to where he is today. Terri Thomas, Senior Director of Product Management, says that she owes her 35-year career at ADP to outstanding mentors and the advice she received from day one: Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know.
Below, Bill and Terri look back on a whirlwind weekend in April, when the Small Business Administration (SBA) had launched an unprecedented new loan program established by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). Tens of thousands of companies applied in the first hour alone. Thanks in part to our team’s hard work, many loans went to ADP clients in the first funding round.
Take us back a few months when you first got involved in this project. How did it start?
Terri: I remember I got a phone call the day the CARES Act passed, the last Friday in March. The SBA would start accepting loan applications under the new Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) the following Friday. We wanted to be there for the thousands of ADP’s clients we expected to apply for the loans and give them the tools they would need to help their employees. That meant they needed information from us as soon as possible. I was asked to take the lead on the product side.
We had already been working on the provisions of the FFCRA, or Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which had passed the week before and potentially affected all 600,000 companies who use ADP. But the impact of CARES was massive, too, and we had far less time to take action. So, there was no debate, no red tape. We just got on a call and started working.
Bill: Absolutely. There was limited funding, especially in that first round, so our clients all wanted to be ready the minute the application period opened. We wanted to have their payroll cost reports and other supporting documents ready by Monday.
There were a couple of factors that made that difficult. For example, loan amounts were based on each employee’s annual payroll cost but capped at $100,000 per person per year. We couldn’t just pull data and run a report. The number of moving pieces was pretty astounding due to the rapid shifts in the regulatory environment with unnaturally compressed timelines. We had to respond just as quickly to ensure our clients could keep up and continue to thrive. We had a clear objective; we knew what we needed to do. I think ADP is at its best when we have a dragon to slay.
What were those first couple of days like before the project went live?
Bill: First, we needed to interpret the regulations. We received excellent internal guidance from ADP’s Legal and Compliance teams. They were fantastic in helping us navigate the regulatory language to figure out exactly what it all meant. We couldn’t make any assumptions—for example, defining full-time equivalent hours for employees. In the Affordable Care Act, that meant 30 hours per week, but in this legislation, it was 40.
Since ADP serves so much of the market, we had support at the federal level to ask questions and get answers quickly—and in some cases, we even made recommendations that helped shape the SBA’s guidance.
Terri: Agreed; our Legal and Compliance teams were amazing. The government would release something at 1 a.m. that we’d have to translate the logic of it, to see whether it changed what we were doing, and Legal was right there with us. FTE and lookback periods were big ones, and we also had to figure out what costs qualified, in terms of retirement and health care, and wages. Plus, there was a whole other set of guidance to interpret when it came to loan forgiveness.
ADP has such a large, diverse group of clients—everything from multinational corporations to pizza shops—we offer many different products to our client base. We had to find a way to produce reports that accommodated all those differences but were still consistent enough that a lender’s API could pull out the information they needed. So there were many conversations regarding which fields to “lockdown” and which to let clients edit. For example, if an employee doesn’t come back to work because their job is eliminated, the portion of a PPP loan based on their payroll cost usually isn’t forgivable. However, if an employee has the option to come back to work and refuses, it is. So, we had to build options for clients based on their unique situation.
What happened once the reports were posted—and what’s happened since?
Terri: In the first couple of days after we launched, clients relied on us to help them navigate the calculations. We explained why the numbers on our reports were different from the gross wages they saw on their regular payroll reports—and why they were supposed to be.
One thing that helped, though, was that we’d been able to quickly create not just the reports but some FAQs and other collateral. We shared that with our clients and our Service teams. I think those resources were a big key to our success. We got so much positive feedback from people saying how relieved they were to log on Monday morning and see that we were already on this. They didn’t have to go searching for answers.
Bill: Yes, I think from the client’s point of view, the most valuable thing we gave them, especially in that first week, was assurance. Many business owners were really scared—imagine your company’s entire existence is in question, and here’s this possible lifeline, but you don’t know how or whether you can actually use it. We were able to say, “We’ve got it; we’ll help you through this..”
Terri: Also, while we’d had to make some executive decisions internally to get through the initial launch, we immediately shifted into getting external input. We were pulling everyone into working sessions—clients, CPAs, banks—to find out what they thought about every aspect of the project and how we could do things even better. We kept iterating based on that feedback coupled with the government guidance that continued coming in. We’re still tweaking things even today.
What did you learn from this project that will help you going forward?
Bill: I think this project was an excellent example of keeping things simple. As Terri mentioned, ADP has lots of different products and tools, and for a good reason—we have many different clients. When we simplify, the easier it is to deploy new features and enable innovation. When things like this happen, it needs to be easy, innovative, and quick to market. Most of all, it needs to be right for our clients.
I also learned a lot about—and from—our team. There were many times when Terri and I and the rest of the people leading this project would talk something through, and then a developer would come back to us with a question that was complete gold and entirely changed the way we’d been thinking.
Terri: I couldn’t agree more. It doesn’t matter what your role is; if you have an idea or a suggestion, we want your voice to be heard. Innovation happens here at all levels, and the feedback is immensely powerful in moving the company forward. I’ve already seen numerous examples, and I’ve only been in this role for a few months. My goal as a leader is to encourage that as much as I can.
In true ADP style, the collaboration we saw between teams was amazing. Nothing was about titles or who was attached to what product. The difference this time was that people who don’t ordinarily work together teamed up to make this happen, and having all of those unique perspectives at the table was incredible. Our shared purpose is something I really love about ADP. We’re all working toward the same goal of making an impact for our clients.
In closing, Terri and Bill, you’ve been here 35 and 27 years, respectively. Would you share how you’ve seen ADP change and what advice you would give new people starting with ADP?
Terri: I had some fantastic mentors, and they pushed and made me think about the different opportunities. The advice given to me from day one was don’t be afraid of things you don’t know. That stuck with me for 35 years, and I leaped into things that I never thought I’d even consider. You control your own destiny. Nothing is just handed to you. I got myself in the door and continued to drive my career into different areas. It took a lot of hard work, but I was dedicated to doing it and have had many supporters. So, to me, the sky is the limit at ADP. You don’t have to be stuck in one area. You can go anywhere. It’s like taking a new job when you transition to your next role.
Bill: There is a lot of runway for people on the technology side these days. If you wanted to go into management, there has always been plenty of room there. Today, there’s been much more opportunity to stay on the technology side without having to move into people management to grow your career. As an example, this year, we named our first Distinguished Engineer.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Stronger Together
Video, Culture, Pandemic
Accessible Video Controls
Video: Stronger Together
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[DESCRIPTION] Cars lined up next to a sign, COVID-19 Drive-up testing.
Rows of empty seats in an auditorium; sign on a window: Sorry, we’re closed.
[TEXT] In 2020, our world changed.
[DESCRIPTION] Sign on a street: Coronavirus Crisis, Lockdown Rules Tighten.
An empty diner. Sign on a window: We are all in this together.
A woman stands at a laptop holding a child with another child reaching out to her.
[TEXT] Our lives were immediately affected.
[DESCRIPTION] People look at each other at a bus stop, standing distanced.
[TEXT] We were pulled farther apart.
[DESCRIPTION] A woman stands with her hand against a window, the hand of an older woman in a mask on the other side.
Montage of people with masks.
[TEXT] We lost many of the things we took for granted.
[DESCRIPTION] Montage of various gatherings, a Thanksgiving dinner, four clasped hands, a picnic, a wedding,
[TEXT] and, sadly, we lost loved ones.
[DESCRIPTION] A man in scrubs sits on a hospital floor, candles on a stone floor.
From above, a crowd marches down a street.
From above, a crowd of people and traffic on a street.
[TEXT] The world also saw what many already knew…
that a different reality exists for Black people in America.
[DESCRIPTION] A Black woman with a mask kneels on a street painting of a Black woman.
Demonstrators with masks walk on a street holding signs that read “No Justice No Peace, and Black Lives Matter.”
[TEXT] 2020 has been a challenging year. But during challenging times, our integrity is tested the most.
[DESCRIPTION] A Montage of several people with bright smiles.
Sign on a floor: One Way, This way please, Social Distancing, Please stay 6 feet apart, A sticker on a table, Please Sit Here.
[TEXT] ADP associates never wavered
[DESCRIPTION] People at computers in their homes.
[TEXT] in our commitment to our clients,
[DESCRIPTION] People with masks in an office, a man in an ADP mask, two men in ADP masks at a table.
[TEXT] to our communities.
[DESCRIPTION] Two women hold boxes with ADP labels behind an open back of a van.
A group of people wearing bicycle gear stand and smile, one with a bicycle. Two people hold a box of supplies.
[TEXT] to each other.
[DESCRIPTION] A man and woman hug, the man holds a Black Lives Matter sign. A man sits at a desk with two monitors, a boy sits in front of the keyboard and wears a headset.
People in workspaces in their homes.
[TEXT] Despite all the hardships of the past year, the new day-to-day challenges, the pain of racial injustice.
[DESCRIPTION] A person stands outside with a Black Lives Matter sign, four people outside with signs in front of a crowd.
[TEXT] and the uncertainties that may lie ahead,
[DESCRIPTION] A woman and two children in a household ADP signs. A person takes a man’s temperature.
[TEXT] duty, humanity, and love can keep us together.
[DESCRIPTION] A woman holds a challenge sign. A woman holds a juice box.
[TEXT] So let’s take some time to thank our teams who never stopped delivering service.
[DESCRIPTION] A man at a computer outside a house, people work from home.
[TEXT] to thank our associates who never stopped spreading hope.
[DESCRIPTION] A montage of people at work in their homes.
People in squares on a video call.
[TEXT] When we show who we are, when we stay true to our values
ADP is stronger together!
[LOGO] ADP, Always Designing for People
[MUSIC PLAYING]
2020 has been a challenging year, and during challenging times, we are tested the most. At ADP, our associates never wavered in their commitment to our clients, our communities, and one another. We want to share what it means to be #ADPStrong and never to stop spreading hope. Watch our story.
Tech & Innovation Blog
ADP’s Annual Developers Conference Video
Engineering, Innovation, What We Do
Accessible Video Controls
GPT Connect: ADP’s Developer Conference
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[TEXT] GPT Connect. ADP’s Developer Conference. Cool People.
[SPEAKER 1] They built it, they ran it, and they owned it.
[TEXT] Cool people connecting with cool stuff. 3 days. 4 tracks – artificial intelligence and machine learning, product and user experience, clean code and reliability, and product showcases.
[DESCRIPTION] Slides filled with different speakers and information and graphs flash across the screen.
[TEXT] 5 keynotes.
[DESCRIPTION] Photos of 5 speakers.
[TEXT] Ian Swanson, Worldwide Leader, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
[IAN] AI and machine learning have become more accessible to all businesses — champion an ML culture throughout all roles at ADP.
[TEXT] Teresa Torres, Product Discovery Coach for Product Talk.
[TERESA] Bringing the product manager, the design lead, and the tech lead together to be jointly responsible for making discovery decisions.
[TEXT] Andy Hunt, Author of the Pragmatic Programmer, Agile Manifesto Co-Author and Musician.
[ANDY] Learning and communicating, that’s exactly what we do all day. We communicate to other people and we learn new things. A team is a complex adaptive system of exploration and dialogue.
[TEXT] 114+ speakers, 20,000+ sessions views, unlimited connections…
[ANDY] We have amazing teams doing amazing work all around the world.
[SPEAKER 5] End to end, we have an opportunity to directly touch the lives of 2.9 billion people.
[SPEAKER 6] We’ve got to live in this world right now, right? We will actually be able to get much more done because of our converged system.
[SPEAKER 7] GPT is the backbone of the company. ADP’s data is so massive in terms of representative of the overall economy.
[SPEAKER 8] And how we can connect our innovations and our teams to shape that.
[TEXT] Innovating. Connecting. Developing. Designing. What’s Next? GPT Connect. Ready to design what’s next? Visit tech.adp.com/careers.
[LOGO] ADP, Always Designing for People.
[TEXT] ADP and the ADP logo are registered trademarks of ADP, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Copyright 2020 © ADP Inc.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
More than anything, over the past year, we’ve learned the power of connections! To keep our global teams connected, a group of Global Product & Development (GPT) associates raised their hands to lead ADP’s global, three-day, all-virtual developers conference. Check out our sizzle reel!
AI and Data Ethics: 5 Principles to Consider
As organizations develop their own internal ethical practices and countries continue to develop legal requirements, we are at the beginning of determining standards for ethical use of data and artificial intelligence (AI).
In the past 20 years, our ability to collect, store, and process data has dramatically increased. There are exciting new tools that can help us automate processes, learn things we couldn’t see before, recognize patterns, and predict what is likely to happen. Since our capacity to do new things has developed quickly, the focus in tech has been primarily on what we can do. Today, organizations are starting to ask what’s the right thing to do.
This is partly a global legal question as countries implement new requirements for the use and protection of data, especially information directly or indirectly connected to individuals. It’s also an ethical question as we address concerns about bias and discrimination, and explore concerns about privacy and a person’s rights to understand how data about them is being used.
What is AI and Data Ethics?
Ethical use of data and algorithms means working to do the right thing in the design, functionality, and use of data in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
It’s evaluating how data is used and what it’s used for, considering who does and should have access, and anticipating how data could be misused. It means thinking through what data should and should not be connected with other data and how to securely store, move, and use it. Ethical use considerations include privacy, bias, access, personally identifiable information, encryption, legal requirements and restrictions, and what might go wrong.
Data Ethics also means asking hard questions about the possible risks and consequences to people whom the data is about and the organizations who use that data. These considerations include how to be more transparent about what data organizations have and what they do with it. It also means being able to explain how the technology works, so people can make informed choices on how data about them is used and shared.
Why is Ethics Important in HR Technology?
Technology is evolving fast. We can create algorithms that connect and compare information, see patterns and correlations, and offer predictions. Tools based on data and AI are changing organizations, the way we work, and what we work on. But we also need to be careful about arriving at incorrect conclusions from data, amplifying bias, or relying on AI opinions or predictions without thoroughly understanding what they are based on.
We want to think through what data goes into workplace decisions, how AI and technology affect those decisions, and then come up with fair principles for how we use data and AI.
What Are Data Ethics Principles?
Ethics is about acknowledging competing interests and considering what is fair. Ethics asks questions like: What matters? What is required? What is just? What could possibly go wrong? Should we do this?
In trying to answer these questions, there are some common principles for using data and AI ethically.
- Transparency – This includes disclosing what data is being collected, what decisions are made with the assistance of AI, and whether a user is dealing with bots or humans. It also means being able to explain how algorithms work and what their outputs are based on. That way, we can evaluate the information they give us against the problems we’re trying to solve. Transparency also includes how we let people know what data an organization has about them and how it is used. Sometimes, this includes giving people an opportunity to have information corrected or deleted.
- Fairness – AI doesn’t just offer information. Sometimes it offers opinions. This means we have to think through how these tools and the information they give us are used. Since data comes from and concerns humans, it’s essential to look for biases in what data is collected, what rules are applied, and what questions are asked of the data. For example, if you want to increase diversity in hiring, you don’t want to only rely on tools that tell you who has been successful in your organization in the past. This information alone would likely give you more of the same rather than more diversity. While there is no way to completely eliminate bias in tools created by and about people, we need to understand how the tools are biased so we can reduce and manage the bias and correct for it in our decision making.
- Accuracy – The data used in AI should be up to date and accurate. And there needs to be ways to correct it. Data should also be handled, cleaned, sorted, connected, and shared with care to retain its accuracy. Sometimes taking data out of context can make it appear misleading or untrue. So accuracy depends partly on whether the data is true, and partly on whether it makes sense and is useful based on what we are trying to do or learn.
- Privacy – Some cultures believe that privacy is part of fundamental human rights and dignity. An increasing number of privacy laws around the globe recognize privacy rights in our names and likeness, financial and medical records, personal relationships, homes, and property. We are still working out how to balance privacy and the need to use so much personal data. Law makers have been more comfortable allowing broader uses of anonymized data than data where you know, or can easily discover, who it’s about. But as more data is collected and connected, questions arise about how to maintain that anonymity. Other privacy issues include security of the information and what people should know about who has data about them and how its used.
- Accountability – This is not just compliance with global laws and regulations. Accountability is also about the accuracy and integrity of data sources, understanding and evaluating risks and potential consequences of developing and using data and AI, and implementing processes to make sure that new tools and technologies are created ethically.
As organizations develop their own internal ethical practices and countries continue to develop legal requirements, we are at the beginning of determining standards for ethical use of data and AI.
ADP is already working on its AI and data ethics, through establishing an AI and Data Ethics Board and developing ethical principles that are customized to ADP’s data, products and services. Next in our series on AI and Ethics, we will be talking to each of ADP’s AI and Data Ethics Board members about ADP’s guiding ethical principles and how ADP applies those principles to its design, processes, and products.
Read our position paper, “ADP: Ethics in Artificial Intelligence,” found in the first blade underneath the intro on the Privacy at ADP page.
Tech & Innovation Blog
ADP’s 2020 Distinguished Engineer: Jigesh Saheba
Recognition, Voice of Our People, Engineering
Q&A on his Career Journey, Being the recipient for one of ADP’s most prestigious awards, and a few things you might not know (+ a Surprise Video)
With that mindset on innovation, it’s easy to see why ADP named Jigesh Saheba as their first Distinguished Engineer.
This new honor recognizes leaders and individual contributors who are at the forefront of ADP’s transformation into a global technology leader. To be recognized as a Distinguished Engineer, one has to have achieved noteworthy professional technical accomplishments in an engineering role. Also, that individual must have created and fostered technical career paths for technologists that allow them to master their craft, innovate, and generates groundbreaking solutions that can transform the future of work.
We caught up with Jigesh shortly after being named the ADP Distinguished Engineer to learn about the start of ADP’s Marketplace and asked a few questions about his journey. Here’s what he shared:
When did you start working at ADP?
I joined ADP in 2002 with the acquisition of AtWork Technologies, a benefits administration startup in Atlanta, GA.
Can you share your career journey at ADP?
I started at ADP as the Director of Application Development for Benefits eXpert system and later promoted to Senior Director role. In 2006, I briefly joined the Enterprise Architecture team and was soon assigned the CTO role for ADP Pre-Employment Services. There I played an essential role in the acquisition, assimilation, and growth of multiple products. I rejoined Enterprise Architecture in 2010 and started working on the mobile platform. Later that year, I joined the Roseland Innovations Lab, which delivered several groundbreaking technologies, including ADP Mobile Solutions, event-driven APIs, and semantic search. I received a promotion to Chief Architect in 2013. In the same year, I started working on building an integrated HCM ecosystem around ADP, which was the birth of ADP Marketplace. In 2015, I became the VP of Product Development for ADP Marketplace.
You are basically the cornerstone of ADP Marketplace. How were you able to develop such an integral part of the solutions we offer our clients?
For ADP Mobile Solutions, ADP systems exposed their data and services via hundreds of Web APIs. I started thinking about how Web APIs can expand the reach of ADP to new channels such as third-party applications, partner networks, and integrated solutions. I believed ADP could position itself in the center of a vibrant HCM ecosystem and drive higher customer engagement. I envisioned a business model expansion and new markets. I theorized that the app stores and marketplaces, a familiar notion of consumer-mobile ecosystems, could become essential tools for enterprise application innovation, discovery, and distribution. I created a presentation to convey the concept and gained senior management approval.
We incubated the idea in the Lab and demonstrated the working platform in the summer of 2014, and then we started working with a handful of partners to prove out the model and platform. We received industry acknowledgment when ADP won two prestigious awards at the HRTech Conference in 2015. Don showcasing the award-winning ADP Marketplace is one of the proudest and most satisfying moments of my professional career.
How did you learn you were going to be named ADP’s first Distinguished Engineer, and how did you feel when you were told?
I heard about the Distinguished Engineer role and my nomination from Rich Guinness, SVP of Product Development, Shared Services. I shed tears of joy when the announcement came and was so fortunate that I could share that moment with my family in person. I am incredibly honored and grateful for the role and very thankful to GPT leadership for enabling an environment where innovation and quality engineering thrive.
What excites you most about the opportunity to be a Distinguished Engineer at ADP?
I am very honored and grateful for the recognition. I hope I set an example of the role. I am excited about the voice it offers, and I hope to amplify the voice of all technologists at ADP.
What’s a day in the life like for you and your team?
I am very fortunate to be working with some of the most talented people I know. We enjoy collaboration, and one often hears spirited discussions at “the wall,” an open collaboration space with a whiteboard wall at our Lakeview home. We are known for clapping a lot, which promotes camaraderie. The best days are when I work with the team to drive product decisions, design solutions, participate in reviews and demonstrations, and even troubleshoot issues.
What advice do you have for associates who may have ideas that they want to share?
Never give up!
What do you believe is the best reason to work at ADP?
ADP Culture – Integrity, inclusiveness, diversity, trust, and innovation.
What’s the last book you read?
Something Deeply Hidden by Sean Carroll
What is your favorite TV or streaming show?
GOT (Game of Thrones)!
What is your favorite ADP value?
Integrity is Everything
If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Ice cream. Yes, really! (Those who know me would agree)
What is something that would surprise people about you?
I started my career at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, working on navigation software for the Space Shuttle.
Are you a cat person or a dog person?
Dog
Congratulations, Jigesh, on this amazing accomplishment. We’re excited to see what’s yet to come!
Mentorship and Allyship: Navigating Toward Diversity and Inclusion
Mentorship and allyship are critical considerations for any business aiming to be viewed as an inclusive, best-in-class workplace.
If there were ever a time to address allyship and mentorship it’s now. Social unrest in response to blatant injustice, specifically toward the Black community, has moved many organizations to new levels of action toward improving diversity and inclusion within the workforce and in communities where those organizations are operating. Companies are asking – What can be done to foster increase diverse demographic representation, nurture the careers of employees from underrepresent groups and create a greater sense of inclusion and belonging?
For organizational leaders, the importance of mentorship and allyship to employee development cannot be understated in addressing these and similar questions.
How Diversity and Inclusion Can Factor Into Mentorship
The importance of mentorship — that is, a formal or informal program that pairs a seasoned professional (a mentor) with another (a mentee) for the purpose of sharing their professional knowledge, skills and experiences — can be demonstrated in a number of ways. In a successful mentorship, a mentor can help their mentee learn the ins-and-outs of a role, department or organization faster and more effectively. A mentorship program can also serve as a way to develop historically underrepresented talent for leadership roles.
From a diversity and inclusion (D&I) standpoint, mentorship can give underrepresented employees exposure to opportunities and create a springboard for future sponsorship. For example, if data demonstrates that women or people of color are not well represented in the ranks of leadership, a mentorship program can be designed with specific development goals, coaching and/or advice on stretch assignments with career progression to more senior leadership roles in mind.
Mentorship, with a diverse lens, can also help foster a culture of inclusion. A mentor and mentee have an opportunity to cultivate a deeper relationship with someone who might be very different from them. So it’s not just about the representation statistics. It’s about literally making space for people to show up in an organization in the fullness of who they are.
At ADP, we are deeply committed to diversity and inclusion. For example, we have specific goals for representation of women and people of color in the executive ranks. We’re also deeply committed to driving associate inclusion and belonging, which allyship and mentorship are integral to.
Mentors are expected to be inclusive leaders by doing the following:
Evaluate their own respective professional networks. Who are the people that help you round yourself out, help you get your job done and help you with your career progression? Assess this group, and if the people in your network are mostly similar to you, you’re likely doing yourself and those you mentor a disservice. As leaders, we are charged with examining our networks in this way and encouraging others to do the same.
Disrupt unconscious bias. While there is no singular definition for this term, unconscious bias is generally thought of as the assumptions a person might unknowingly make about a person or group of people. These biases show up with us every day and we must do the work to ensure our unconscious biases do not impact how we view talent. Mentors should educate themselves on the subject matter and take steps to “disrupt” those unconscious biases.
It’s important that mentors remain vigilant around not letting their biases — unconscious or not — interfere with how they provide guidance to their mentees. Organizationally, ADP has made a commitment to broaden education on unconscious bias. ADP’s CEO, Carlos Rodriguez, signed the CEO Action Pledge in October, 2017. As of this writing, we’ve trained roughly 800 leaders within the organization, and have a goal of reaching all leaders over the course of our next fiscal year. This is being done to create awareness, as well as to provide the tools and resources needed to disrupt unconscious biases.
What Allyship Can Mean for an Organization
In the context of the workplace, allyship refers to support and advocacy for colleagues from underrepresented groups, including LGBTQ+, women, the differently-abled and people of color. Mentorship often focuses on strengthening workplace relationships centered on career progression, and allyship can function similarly. At its core, allyship is about consciously taking steps to eliminate individual and systemic barriers that underrepresented groups face in the workplace.
For example, ADP recently formed a “Men as Allies” network. This initiative will help support mentoring and targeted leadership development programs through greater advocacy and sponsorship for women and people of color. Allyship is critical to business success, as it promotes a culture of inclusion that extends beyond the D&I function where leaders drive performance and innovation through higher engagement and employee belonging.
Business leaders can also create and execute on allyship strategies that make sense for their particular areas of responsibility. These are a must-have, as executive buy-in is necessary for any program — D&I-centered or otherwise — to be successful. A commitment to allyship is a commitment to use your voice and create greater equity in the workplace.
Mentorship and allyship are critical considerations for any business aiming to be viewed as an inclusive, best-in-class workplace. Well-crafted programs driven by executive support and accountability can help organizations achieve this.
