Tech & Innovation Blog
Celebrate National STEM/STEAM Day with ADP
Early Talent, Impact, Women in STEM
Celebrate National STEM/STEAM Day with ADP
Grace Hopper Celebration 2022
ADP is a place with opportunities to grow, from supporting young talents to providing resources for women technologists.
According to Microsoft’s study in partnership with KRC research, young girls lose interest in STEM as they get older. However, the study found 63% of middle school girls who know women in STEM feel powerful doing STEM. By connecting and building their confidence in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), we can make a difference in our future workforce.
By hosting STEM events, increasing the number of STEM mentors, and building an inclusive environment, we can all take part in encouraging young talents to develop their interests in the field.
Supporting Young Talents
With a commitment to growing opportunities for women in STEM, ADP’s International Women’s Inclusion Network (iWIN) Business Resource Group (BRG) was proud to offer insight and guidance to new technologists, even before the young talents begin their careers.
ADP just participated in the amazing and successful GirlHacks 2022 Hackathon. Aini Ali, Vice President of Major Accounts Operations and member of ADP’s International Women’s Network Business Resource Group (BRG), had this to say about it, “The iWIN BRG was proud to sponsor the event that aligned closely with our mission to provide tools and a network for women and children of all ages,” Aini said.
This year’s GirlHacks, a 36-hour women-centric hackathon, featured motivational speakers, discussion panels, and mentoring programs created to inspire women and support advanced career growth. ADP iWIN BRG would like to thank the EMPOWER committee and members who generously donated their time to engage with the students. We encourage you to learn about the fantastic opportunities for collaboration and partnership our BRGs offer.
Internship: Let Talents Shine
Nina P.
With core values of inspiring innovation and social responsibility, team leaders and associates are constantly promoting the GPT Development programs, summer internship positions, and work opportunities across ADP. We take pride in providing resources and connecting with next-generation talents.
Nina P., a Data Science intern, met with her mentors weekly during her two-month internship at ADP. She utilized the 30-minute sessions to discuss project progress and personal growth.
“I love connecting with people both in and outside meetings. Everyone was there to share ideas and brainstorm together,” Nina said. “When I return to school, I’d encourage future interns to ask questions and reach out to as many people as possible from day one.”
Nina described her two-month data science team experience as innovative, with hands-on opportunities. She was assigned to work on projects that led her to learn new technologies. Nina also widened her area of interest in tech as she dived into using Natural Language Processing (NLP) which was not her focus of study at school.
At the end of her internship, the Data Science team was pleased to offer Nina a full-time position. “I am so happy to have accepted the position as a Data Scientist at ADP following my graduation from Georgia Institute of Technology,” Nina said. “I am thrilled to be surrounded by such a brilliant group of innovators starting in December!”
Women in Technology (WIT) 2022
Women in Tech Scholarships
ADP sponsors scholarships to encourage women to pursue tech careers through the Women in Tech (WIT) organization, promoting STEM opportunities for young talents.
In June, ADP was a VIP sponsor of 2022 Women in Technology (WIT) Connect, one of Atlanta’s most engaging and interactive events for science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM), with over 700 top-level executives and leaders attending. This event was about giving back and supporting the development of young girls and women in STEAM. The event highlighted the WIT Girls, Campus, and Single Mothers in STEAM, awarding scholarships to the WIT Girls and WIT Campus students.
Jimmy Adams, Senior Vice President of Global Product & Technology, and Melanie Shook, Vice President/General Manager of Small Businesses Services, presented the scholarship of $15,000 to Rian T., a student in Information Technology at Georgia Gwinnett College. Rian, the WIT Campus Scholarship third place winner, would be using the scholarship to fund her studies.
Jimmy Adams and Melanie Shook Presented
2022 WIT Campus 3rd Place scholarship
As the Executive Sponsor for WIT, Melanie shared her journey helping with the WIT scholarships to her recent appointment on the WIT Advisory board.
“STEAM careers have always been part of my DNA. As an industrial engineer out of college, I made it my mission to promote the advancement of these fields and did so individually,” Melanie said.
Fast forward 20+ years later, she connected with WIT and was immediately drawn to the organization and empowering girls and women in STEAM. In addition to WIT, ADP is a National Club partner for Girls Who Code, and a sponsor for the Grace Hopper Celebration.
“I’m proud to work for a company that encourages leaders to drive an increasing presence for women in STEAM,” Jimmy said. “It’s been great watching the Atlanta WIT events and community grow over the past years.”
ADP also celebrated the current and future female leaders in tech at another WIT Awards ceremony in October. The awards included Girl of The Year, Campus of The Year, and Women of The Year, along with a WIT Build Her Up award for an individual who championed women in their networks, workplaces, and communities.
“The mission remains the same, and I can’t wait to meet the girls at the WIT Campus Next Level Up Mentorship Program closing event in Alpharetta,” Melanie said. “I’m excited to see what the future holds in our partnership.”
For the Campus Club of the Year award, we presented $5,000 to Georgia Gwinnett College as the top college campus across Georgia, recognizing their sponsorship with companies for workshops, competitions, mentorship, and internship placement.
“Providing opportunities for women in technology will enable a more diverse workforce for ADP and all technology companies in the future,” Jimmy said. “There is a lot of momentum with our WIT partnerships, and the future looks bright!”
Manjula (seond from the right) and her team
The Future: Support Women Technologists
Women make up more than 50 percent of our workforce at ADP, and we continue encouraging them to celebrate each other’s achievements to build an inclusive culture here.
Manjula G.
“I am passionate about ADP’s commitment to support WIT and other programs,” Manjula G., Senior Director of Product Development, said. “The opportunities allow us to foster a workplace that attracts, engages, and retains the top tech talents, building reliable and innovative HCM solutions for our clients, partners, and associates.”
Initiatives such as supporting talents and building business resource groups for women technologists have also helped ADP earn recognition from different organizations.
We are named one of the Top Companies for Women Technologists Winner for the third year by AnitaB.org. Further reading: Meet ADP Women Technologists who spoke at Grace Hopper Celebration 2022.
Celebrate National STEM Day with us! Consider volunteering, joining mentorship programs, and giving back to the communities.
#NationalSTEM/STEAMDay #GHC22 #ADPTech #WomeninSTEM #YoungTalents
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move, and visit Who We Hire.
Tech & Innovation Blog
AI Art: Will it Disrupt the World as We Know it?
Innovation, Tech Trends, Machine Learning
If Picasso were to be alive in 2022, would he use Artificial Intelligence technology to make art?
AI Art: Will it Disrupt the World as We Know it?
By Amy H. Chiu, Tech Brand Content Developer
I can’t help but wonder, if Picasso were to be alive in 2022, would he use Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to make art?
With a background in visual arts, I spent sleepless nights in the art studio, sketching and studying every brushstroke. Every step in the art creation was filled with unexpected beauty. A small drop of black ink could alter the entire canvas. In traditional art forms, there was no control + z key to undo changes.
I remember Adobe visited my art community years ago and showcased a variety of digital tools from Creative Cloud. The tutorials broadened my horizon and challenged my definition of art. I experienced the power of switching pen tools and colors on the screen, including the accuracy and consistency of texture in design. The techniques would have taken hours and days in a hands-on studio, considering mixing colors, cleaning the tools, and using multiple mediums come at a cost.
Little did I know, that was just the beginning.
Fast forward to 2022 – all it takes is a few keywords and programming languages to create art.
An AI-generated work, “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial,” won first place in the digital category at the competition. Credits to Jason Allen
Several weeks ago, a Colorado-based artist sparked controversy when they submitted a piece created using artificial intelligence (AI) and brought home a $300 First Prize.
By harnessing the power of machine learning algorithms, artists can now create works that would have taken hours and years to complete with traditional mediums. That said, what are the pros and cons of relying on algorithms? Let’s look at what we know about AI art and its impact.
What Defines AI Art?
AI art is any artwork created partially or entirely by artificial intelligence. In most cases, AI art is generated by algorithms, meaning artists write code or use software for the machines to learn. The algorithm then captures the style and aesthetic the artists want by reviewing thousands of existing paintings before generating one.
One of the most famous examples is “The Painting Fool,” a software that generates artwork digitally and paints in various styles. It was created by Simon Colton of Imperial College, London. Further reading: Painting Fool’s portfolio reveals artificial artist.
The Algorithm to Make AI Art
When you make AI Art, you will encounter a class of algorithms called Generative adversarial networks, or GANs. They are composed of a generator and a discriminator. The generator creates images from scratch while the discriminator evaluates them and determines whether they’re real. Both the generator and discriminator get better at their respective tasks, resulting in increasingly realistic fake images.
In other words, one may generate photographs of human faces and realistic images of animals that don’t exist in the world. GANs also translate images from sketches to color photographs and texts to images. For example, users may put in: “a small bird is purple with green and has a very long beak,” and get realistic photographs that match the description in the output. Read more examples here.
If you want to try GANs, here are a few steps. Step one is selecting several authentic images for training. Next, generate a few fake images using the generator. Step three is training the discriminator to use both real and fake ones. Lastly, generate more fake images and train the full GAN model using only counterfeit images. You may find detailed instructions and working python code here.
The Scary Side of AI Art
Technologies are evolving. They are convenient yet dangerous.
My biggest concern as a creator is to see people lose their respect and appreciation for artists. Although one may romanticize and say art is about the process and the original ideas behind it, the result matters, especially for agencies that hire graphic designers and advertising experts.
“Art? I can do that in 20 seconds with a detailed description in AI.” Hearing comments like this has impacted the motivation and the reality of artists. That’s when I think about the cost and effort art students pay to attend art schools.
What will the Dean tell future art students on their graduation day? ‘Good luck finding an art job out there and doing better than AI’? Although this may sound a little extreme, the concern remains as there are already limited career opportunities in the field.
My best friend attended the Otis College of Art and Design to become a fashion designer. The annual tuition on a full-time basis for 2020/2021 is $69,532. She always drew fashion illustrations on tablets and paper. Every shade and every detail mattered. Handing in the illustration collection late could result in a lost opportunity in a competitive internship.
If AI could do what she learned in four years and at a much faster speed with more pattern selections, was it worth it for her to pay the tuition and go through the training?
The Cost of AI Art
With AI Art in place, how does one price the work? Is it based on the artist’s fame, artwork’s material, time spent, or simply how “good” the art looks?
In 2018, an algorithm-generated painting sold for $432,000 at Christie’s, one of the world’s largest auction houses. The ‘painting’ was created by a designer using a computer. The news sure sparked intense conversations in the art communities. How should AI impact the value of the art generated? Should it be worth less? Then again, look at the price of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). Need we say more?
AI-generated art challenges the definition of what we call ‘art.’ Consider how NFTs and AI art are created and sold. Both use algorithms, which are a set of rules. How they are applied can produce different and unique results, sparking inspiration and controversial debates. Only time will tell what else AI can do in the realm of art, but one thing is for sure: it has brought us closer to the future.
AI Art Continues to Evolve
AI art is still relatively new, and there’s much we don’t yet know about it. However, AI is profoundly impacting the art world—creating new types of artwork and how experts judge artwork in competitions.
“I see the power in AI Art, and that makes me want to support and protect traditional artists even more,” Srinivas P., the Sr. Mainframe Developer, said. “There could be a different category for AI-generated artwork in future competitions.”
Srinivas and I also connected with Sangeetha G., an artist specializing in character drawing. “Live art competitions would be great opportunities for people to see the value of traditional art. Creating-in-progress is something computers do not show.”
Computers didn’t develop the painting concept solely on their own. AI still requires human involvement before generating the result. The algorism can take a photo of a seascape and apply the style of van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” If the user is unhappy with the result, edit the input by changing a few words and generating the “perfect” one.
It’s fair to ask: are we creating art or playing a puzzle game?
For now, the ability to produce something entirely new from scratch separates us from machines. In the future? Maybe not so much.
For more emerging tech topics, subscribe to our blog and receive monthly newsletters.
Tech & Innovation Blog
NFTs: The Price of Bragging Rights
Innovation, Tech Trends, Machine Learning
If buying an NFT does not give you the right to reproduce and sell copies, what exactly do you own?
NFTs: The Price of Bragging Rights
Why would someone spend $2.5 million on a Link to a JPEG?
You might have already seen examples of NFTs like funny ape drawings or celebrity avatars used as an account holder’s picture on Twitter. So, who would buy a personalized digital token of a dancing bear in a tutu? Is it worth $2.5 million dollars? What value are you really getting?
First, a quick definition of an NFT:
Non-fungible token (NFT)
noun
Units of data that are stored on a blockchain. People can buy and sell NFTs; they can be associated with unique digital files such as photos, videos, and audio.
What is the difference between buying an oil painting at a gallery and buying a bunch of 2D digital pixels?
Here’s the definition of ownership.
If you purchase a painting from a gallery, you get to take it home and hang it up in the physical world we live in. You OWN the original painting. All others may have photos or even reproductions, but they will never have that one piece of unique physical canvas. For example, Picasso’s original artwork will always be Picasso. People cannot recreate the same exact painting.
NFT Buyers:
If you purchase an NFT, which could be anything from JPEG to a screenshot of a tweet, it does NOT make you the owner of the “art,” it only gives you the right to claim partial ownership. Buying an NFT does not give you the right to reproduce it and sell copies. Buyers showcase immutable public transactions on the blockchain to prove ownership. Read more: NFTs – what exactly do I own?
It’s worth pointing out that although the owner has the right to use the NFT EXCLUSIVELY, a copy of the digital art can literally ‘look’ as good as the original when people take screenshots to copy and paste the images. With a right-click to save, the copies of digital files are precisely the same as the original NFT. It comes down to the owner bragging about whether they own the original NFT.
NFT Creators:
For NFT creators, you have the right to reproduce, distribute copies, and display the work in public. However, the NFT royalties work differently. Creators earn royalties through subsequent sales in the secondary market. The transaction occurs without the need for any intermediaries. Remember, not every NFT generates royalties. Everything needs to be written on the smart contract; otherwise, the creator has no claim. Read more: What are NFT royalties?
Why do people go crazy over these?
Let’s break it down.
An NFT gives you a token of ownership on the blockchain. Rather than supporting an artist by donating to them on PayPal or BuyMeACoffee, you can support them by purchasing their NFTs in exchange for documenting your purchasing record on a public, visible ledger. A second benefit, buying an NFT may appeal to collectors who gain pleasure from owning rare, digital goods. A third benefit is that each NFT has a market value, and anyone can buy/sell NFTs. For starters, it is more accessible than investing in the housing market. New to NFTs? Here are some options to store them.
Risks in NFTs
But before you dive right in, consider the risks of buying and selling NFTs. If you want to purchase one to support an artist, ask if the value you derive from ownership aligns with what it means to own an NFT. There are business opportunists who create NFTs from written codes, disregarding the meaning of art creation. For example, the 10000 Lazy Lions NFTs with different combinations of eyes, clothing, and mane are made from randomly generated codes instead of careful craftsmanship from artists.
Another danger is the way we are using NFTs. Before the pandemic, everyone from organizations to influencers jumps on trends trying to chase the cash. For example, agents have produced NFT from past photographs and artwork of the famous deceased to “celebrate” their legacy using them in the NFT market.
Many are predicting this could be the next housing bubble. Has it started to crash? What do you think? Something to consider before purchasing that dancing bear in a tutu.
For more emerging tech topics, subscribe to our blog and receive monthly newsletters.
We’re hiring! Learn more about what it’s like working for ADP here and our current openings.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Hacking the Future of STEM with iWIN EMPOWER and GirlsHack
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
We thank the EMPOWER committee and members who generously donated their time to make this event successful.
Hacking the Future of STEM with iWIN EMPOWER and GirlsHack
In celebration and recognition of International Women’s Month, ADP’s International Women’s Inclusion Network (iWIN) Business Resource Group (BRG) sponsored GirlHacks 2022 Hackathon event at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). GirlHacks 2022 was a 36-hour women-centric hackathon that featured motivational speakers, discussion panels, and mentoring programs created to inspire women and support advanced career growth.
The event was an initiative propelled by the iWIN EMPOWER Committee. With core values of inspiring innovation and social responsibility, many ADP iWIN BRG members volunteered to participate in the event. In addition to providing tech guidance during the hackathon, our associates engaged students in thought-provoking discussions about the GPT Development programs, summer internship positions, and work opportunities across ADP.
GirlHacks at New Jersey Institute of Technology
“With a commitment to growing opportunities for women in STEM, the iWIN Empower BRG is proud to offer insight and guidance to new technologists, even before they begin their careers,” said Aini Ali, Vice President of Major Accounts Operations at ADP. “This event aligns closely with our mission to provide tools, guidance, and a network for women and children of all ages to reach new heights of success in STEM careers. It was an amazing experience too.”
The first-place winner of GirlHacks 2022 was Imposter Bubble, a mobile app inspired by the idea submitter’s own experiences with Imposter Syndrome (IS). IS refers to an internal experience of believing you are not as competent as others perceive you. 75% of executive women identified having experienced IS at various points during their careers. Imposter Bubble provides positive, powerful affirmations to women, helping them process their negative thoughts. The application was built using Flutter, a cross-platform app development framework by Google that allows the same codebase to develop apps for iOS, Android, and web platforms. Learn more about the Imposter Bubble and other submissions on Devpost.
ADP iWIN BRG would like to thank the EMPOWER committee and members who generously donated their time to make this event successful. ADP is committed to Diversity and Inclusion. We encourage you to learn about the fantastic opportunities for collaboration and partnership our BRGs offer.
Join our community!
Click here to search for your next move and visit Who We Hire.
Tech & Innovation Blog
How AI/ML are Driving Innovation and Opportunities at ADP
Innovation, Voice of Our People, Future of Work
The future of learning will involve more personalization and customization based on learning styles, competencies, and preferences.
How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are Driving Innovation and Opportunities at ADP
Julio Hartmann joined ADP as a software development manager in 2004. Seventeen years later, he is now the Vice President/General Manager, head of ADP’s global software product development center and innovation lab in Porto Alegre, Brazil. His team works across the global product and technology portfolio, always looking for new opportunities. Julio leads product innovation and research, exploring growing technologies and evolving trends. He and his team aim to create the next generation of human capital management applications that drive learning and training in the workforce.
How it Started: Human Capital Management (HCM) Software
Steve Jobs said, “Things happen fairly slowly. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you’re going to surf. It takes years.”
People tend to assume technology evolves linearly—growing at the same rate over time—but it develops exponentially instead. Some examples of exponential technologies include 5G networks, 3D printing, robotics, and blockchain. As the speed of technological innovation increases, it creates frustration in product development. People perceive a gap between expectations and performance, then quickly learn the products are not the problem. We inflate our expectations beyond what technology delivers. Despite uncertainties in the environment, the emerging tech follows an exponential growth and improves until it reaches a pivotal moment of breakthroughs.
For many, the pivot point may be challenging to foresee, and companies are caught unprepared. With market research observation, we know breakthroughs happen for a number of reasons. The moment is often tied to technology becoming cheap enough to reach mass consumption. In other words, a breakthrough occurs when a component becomes more viable with a combination of factors, creating the perfect environment to throw the innovation into disrupter status.
The phenomenon played out clearly in smartphone market. When the iPhone arrived, that changed everything. We live in a time when anything and everything is possible. Modern technologies drive the future and bring endless learning opportunities to the next generations. To prepare ADP for the next move in the industry, my team continues to develop, recognizing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The Future of Learning: HCM Systems
Julio at the Beach
The future of learning will involve more personalization and customization based on learning styles, competencies, and preferences. In other words, artificial intelligence (AI) and adaptive learning are the future. These powerful technologies will affect both humans and machines in the coming years. Our goal at ADP is to develop a combination of tools that harness the power of AI and facilitate learning, ensuring companies and employees grow at a fast, steady pace.
The job market is shifting due to the broad impact of AI, automation, and robotics. There is a reduced demand for specific jobs, such as factory roles that can be automated. On the other hand, there is an increasing demand for particular jobs that belong in the future. According to the report by the Institute for the Future, 85% of the jobs in 2030 do not exist yet. It’s time for leaders to identify skills gaps based on current trends to prepare organizations and professionals.
In fact, we might be heading towards a disruptive breakthrough in artificial intelligence and data usage in human capital management (HCM). We are not far from a pivotal point, meaning we can expect many advancements with the power of AI and data information in HCM for the upcoming years.
As an industry leader, ADP looks forward to the future. My team supports innovation through our mantra — always designing for people. HCM solutions provide opportunities for companies and workers to grapple with the demands of a futuristic workplace. AI helps companies manage their workforce while anticipating changes and preparing their employees for upcoming challenges. Specifically, my team is working on technology that allows companies and employees to navigate a variety of scenarios. It combines traditional training and cutting-edge tools that connect people with mentors and experts in various communities.
We can’t talk about the future without understanding users’ needs. The good news is human capital management systems and training tools have become more predictive with ground-breaking developments in event-based systems, meaning they carry on as usual until they require inputs. For instance, a system can recognize users changing their addresses and further instigating necessary documents and paperwork. Another example is for the system to alert managers of a potential alarming pattern that shows an employee has not filled out a timecard.
AI’s Applications in Real Life
AI’s applications in real life are everywhere. Companies like Walmart hire a significant number of workers every month, experimenting with augmented reality (AR) and other technologies in new hire trainings. Wouldn’t it be more efficient for new employees to see the procedures before joining the company? The new hires at Walmart could see the supermarket’s organization in a virtual environment through a peer-to-peer reality before their first day at work.
Human resources (HR) managers may also benefit from using AI. From recruitment to employee experience and talent management, AI can automate routine HR tasks, deliver personalized experiences, and gain actionable insights from HR data. For example, AI may serve as a helpful tool to help track the workforce and notify managers that they need to hire more data scientists.
Another scenario is using AI as a user interface (UI) through natural language processing for seamless interactions between humans and technology, for example, using chatbots as the user interface. AI can be a powerful ally to promote diversity, inclusion, and equity among employees if leveraged carefully.
These are all opportunities and concepts that will change the future of jobs.
Challenges in AI Technology
Julio and his family
“With greater power comes with greater responsibilities.” There are risks with using the tools. At ADP, we have an ethical committee that looks at privacy issues and built-in biases. The technologies are developing quickly, which makes predicting outcomes challenging. Nevertheless, we always try our best to watch for violations and learn as we go. The teams at ADP are investing in a well-detailed approach to monitor how the machine learns and develops, ensuring all technologies evolve in the direction we expect.
Looking Forward: ADP’s Future
Technology development plays a huge role in ADP’s transformation into a technology company. There is more capital available than ever before, and the cost of building innovative products has become lower. In other words, we have more funding to experiment which leads to more breakthroughs. We are on the cusp of seeing more efficiencies on a massive scale through AL and ML.
The possibilities of using AR and VR during the company’s onboarding training are exciting! I can imagine applying AR and VR in digital workplaces for associates who work from home. The technologies bring efficiencies, save costs, and improve learning. Workers will have the ability to see the office and understand procedures even before joining the team in person. The implications are astronomical for national and global companies.
As we research more possibilities in tech, humans will benefit from using technologies in the workforce. The foundational trends include faster computing power, increasing data volume, low-cost communications for everyone and everywhere. These opportunities are life-changing, and we’ll see this come to fruition soon. I look forward to how the industry creates unique jobs in the workforce and breakthroughs. In the future, technologies at ADP will continue to help companies and workers adjust to changes, improving their job performances and making tasks easier.
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move and visit Who We Hire.
Tech & Innovation Blog
AWS re:Invent 2021 – ADP Uses AWS to Enable Workforce Insights
Video, Leadership, What We Do
Accessible Video Controls
Video: AWS
[JACK] Having spent more than 30 years in the tech industry working on analytics in the cloud,
[JACK] I was drawn to ADP because of its mission.
[JACK] It’s a mission that’s aligned to my core values.
[JACK] Those values about helping people improve their lives by unlocking the power of data.
[JACK] But before I tell you how we do that, we need to start at the beginning.
[JACK] ADP started in 1949 in New Jersey, helping businesses pay their employees.
[JACK] From its early days, the company has always been focused on invention and innovation.
[JACK] We’ve had a proud history of a lot of great products and great firsts, fast forward to today, we’re the largest provider of human resource software and services.
[JACK] So, what does that mean in terms of the size and scale of our business?
[JACK] Well, those numbers are pretty impressive. We have over 920,000 clients doing business in over 140 countries.
[JACK] Our technology powers, payroll processing, tax payments, job applications, timesheets.
[JACK] That means a lot of data, and a lot of money is moving through our systems on a daily basis.
[JACK] In fact, we move over $2.3 trillion a year.
[JACK] This is the money that’s used to pay you, pay me, and to submit our taxes, and to put money into our retirement funds.
[JACK] Now, the issue with $2.3 trillion is a massive number.
[JACK] And for me, it’s a hard number to understand.
[JACK] So, I thought about it a little bit, and I said, how can I conceive of that?
[JACK] Well, what if it was GDP?
[JACK] It’s not GDP. But if it was GDP, how big would that number be?
[JACK] So, we kind of took a look at it.
[GRAPH] Comparison charts of GDPs in other countries.
[JACK] Here’s the top ten GDPs.
And if that $2.3 trillion was a GDP, ADP would land somewhere between France and Italy.
[JACK] So, all of that data, all of this information gives us a unique perspective on the world of work.
[JACK] In fact, every month we issue a report in the public interest called The National Employment Report, came out just this morning.
[JACK] And so, as you can see, we deal with all this data,
[JACK] It takes a special ability for us to be able to scale and manage it.
[JACK] We started our journey to the AWS cloud for this data in mid 2019, and we did it for three important reasons.
[JACK] One, so that we could tap the new capabilities.
[JACK] Second, so that we could get elasticity in the cloud.
[JACK] And third, it really has helped us create a data driven culture, so that we are more reactive, more understanding about what’s going on in the world.
[JACK] Today, we’re processing over two and a half petabytes of data with over 25 billion individual data points represented, and that’s boiling down to 312 trillion decisions a month being taken by our analytics and machine learning processes.
[JACK] Our team is at the very heart of that treasure trove of data.
[JACK] We build data analytics products, including the ADP DataCloud, which provides people analytics and HR benchmarking to help companies measure, compare, predict, and understand their workforce and support them.
[JACK] This allows them to see trends, allows them to see if the programs and policies that they’ve put in place are effective.
[JACK] Everything you’re seeing here is calculated on AWS using a full range of data analytics and machine learning capabilities.
[JACK] We use Amazon Sage Maker for our machine learning, Amazon EMR, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Redshift, and Amazon Neptune to perform aspects of our overall data processing.
[JACK] These capabilities have enabled us to keep innovating on behalf of our clients, and one way we’re doing this is to help them with some pressing needs in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion across their workforce.
[JACK] That’s why my team developed the new Diversity Equity Inclusion dashboards that we launched earlier this year.
[JACK] It helps a company baseline and understand their diversity program and not only internally, but for the first time in the industry, to be able to compare themselves to other companies, not just other companies in their location, but also other companies in their industry, and by company size.
[JACK] And this baseline information allows them to see whether or not their programs are having a positive and beneficial impact on the diversity programs that they’ve put in place.
[JACK] We still have issues, though, to address in terms of pay equity, but before we get into that, let’s step back and take a look at what’s happened in the US employment market over the past 20 months.
[JACK] What I’m showing you here is data from ADP that shows you what happened in the total US employment over those past 20 months.
[JACK] You can see when the COVID crisis began.
[GRAPH] Total US Employment Rate Change
[JACK] Unfortunately, there were differences in terms of the types and genders of people losing work.
[JACK] In fact, what you can see is, yes, a lot of people lost their jobs. Those jobs are coming back, but men actually fared a lot better than women during the pandemic.
[JACK] Certain industries were affected a lot more as well, hospitality, manufacturing, retail; areas that have not yet made full recoveries.
[JACK] If we look at pay, you can see, though, that the gap between men’s pay and women’s pay is not where we all want it to be, but it seems to be level over time.
[JACK] However, these numbers are a little bit misleading, because if we add back in those jobs that women lost at a larger extent in those industries from hospitality, transportation, the pay gap is actually getting worse.
[JACK] In fact, my associates at the ADP Research Institute tell me that 20 years of progress for women have been lost in terms of pay equity gaps over the pandemic.
[JACK] But collectively, we have an opportunity to improve that.
[JACK] So how do we do that?
[JACK] Well, our team has also recently built and launched a new capability called The Pay Equity Storyboard.
[TEXT] Pay Equity Storyboard
[JACK] It’s a set of insights and tools and explanations and visualizations that allow companies to understand the pay equity issues that they have and to do plans and to make changes proactively, taking insights straight to action to correct pay gaps.
[JACK] Now we released this just a few months ago at the beginning of the summer.
[JACK] So, on just a few months of data, we’re starting to see some pretty incredible reactions.
[JACK] About 1000 clients have started to use the pay equity storyboard, 65% of them showing pay equity improvement.
[TEXT] Improving Pay Equity
1,000+ clients using the storyboard
65% showing improvements in pay equity
$1.1 M average impact
$728 M returned to communities
[JACK] On average, per client, they’ve made a $1.1 million impact, that’s over $720,000,000 returned to communities.
[JACK] This is about people, individual people, and for an individual person that’s equated to about three $500 for 210,000 people and for workers whose industries are hit hardest by the pandemic.
[JACK] This is meaningful money.
[JACK] This could mean making a need of car repair. It could mean enabling children to participate in extracurricular activities, or simply saving money for a rainy day.
[JACK] At ADP, we’re always designing for people and data informs how we do that.
[JACK] At the end of the day, all of our data and everything we do starts with them and you and I, and tens and hundreds and thousands of people.
[JACK] Now is the time to use data to help people, to understand what actions we can take, to create a more diverse, more equitable and a more inclusive work environment and to build the future we all want to create.
[LOGO] ADP, Always Designing for People.
[JACK] Thank you.
ADP helps more than 900,000 businesses manage their people and processes payroll for nearly 70 million workers, generating a massive amount of data in the process. Jack Berkowitz, Chief Data Officer, presents how ADP uses AWS to enable workforce insights and raises awareness of payroll equity by using data measurement, analytics, and machine learning capabilities.
“Now is the time to use data to help people,” Jack said. “Together, we create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment.” ADP continues to help companies measure, compare, predict, and apply futuristic knowledge to their workspace. Watch the full presentation now.
More from our tech blog:
Great Stories: From LEGO® Bricks to Data By Jack Berkowitz, Chief Data Officer.
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move and visit Who We Hire.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Dr. Raji, Senior Director of Data Science, creates impact with data automation and transformation
Women in STEM, Voice of Our People, Innovation
Dr. Raji, one of the pioneers bringing AI/ML to Pi-Payroll innovation products at ADP, shares her career journey and the different automated processes her team creates.
Dr. Raji, Senior Director of Data Science
Dr. Raji came from a lower-middle-class family in which both of her parents did not receive high school diplomas. “I saw their struggles, and as a girl growing up, I also faced different social pressures. Then I soon realized my love for math at school.” As she says: “That was when I made the connection in my mind, and I believed a STEM career could make a difference.”
From Bioinformatics to Automotive Industry
Before joining ADP, Dr. Raji has worked in various industries, including three years in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she worked on H1N1 Vaccine strain selection models. Her team took serology, sequence, protein structure, and phylogenetic data; they compared whether the current vaccine strain covered the virus’s dominant circulating strain. Dr. Raji took a break from Bioinformatics and later joined a Cox Automotive company called Manheim to help roll out OVE, a product providing car recommendations for online users. She also worked at a healthcare fraud prevention company called Cotiviti that focused on claim overpayment, fraud predictions, and prevention.
“When I first came to ADP, I was surprised to see the amount of data. We can produce so many innovative products from these. Every data scientist would love to work for ADP,” she says. “The second thing that surprised me was the freedom I got. The amount of support I got from the leadership teams was terrific. I got to be myself at work, knowing they welcomed innovative ideas.”
Dr. Raji and her family
Coming to ADP
When Dr. Raji joined ADP a few years ago, the company didn’t have many data scientists. She built a team of full-stack Automation Intelligence Machine Learning (AI/ML) technologists from scratch. “We call ourselves PiBrain, and we solve use cases across different business units through an advanced state of innovative AI/ML products and solutions,” she says. “I built three notable products through Digital Transformation, using AI/ML algorithms and APIs.”
“The first product involved automating digital implementation for some of our products, which eliminated manual processes and increased our net promoter scores, gave a better user experience, and increased client satisfaction,” she says. This process gave her team a more accurate data conversion process and saved costs for the clients. Dr. Raji introduced another automated compliance checkup product for pay statements, which eliminated the laborious process of scanning pay statements one by one and automating the process. The last project involved form digitization with a feedback loop that continuously learns from overrides.
Deep Learning
Dr. Raji’s team focuses on several key areas in their current work. The first product is Deep Learning, an authentication stack that identifies, extracts, and connects the documents. Another one is a Natural Language Processing stack that demonstrates transformation translation.
Her team helped build API services that take company handbooks as inputs. They used Natural Language Understanding models and elucidated answers for questions such as “What holidays are offered?” and “What is the holiday pay for full-time/temporary employees?” The responses were automatically sent back to implementation systems as callbacks to fill out the guided interview process.
Dr. Raji and her team at the Southern Data Science Conference
Giving Back to Community
Dr. Raji and her team attended last year’s GPT Connect and gave three presentations. The first presentation was open-source tools for AI/ML. Another one was Computer Vision and Deep Learning for naïve to advanced data extraction. “We also showed our Associates how to interpret Vendor Language and map those in ADP constructs,” she says.
“My team and I looked for outside opportunities to create an impact. We attended the Southern Data Science Conference in 2019, where we used data to predict human trafficking.” Her team successfully visualized and built models to predict trafficking. They identified “hubs,” where children were trafficked to and who trafficked them. An FBI director attended the presentation ceremony and found Intel helpful in targeting criminals. “The project gave me satisfaction because we worked for a cause. We wanted to make sure our knowledge continues to help others and give back to the communities,” Dr. Raji says.
One STEM Education at Innovation Academy
“People say it could be engineering, science, or math. But to me, STEM is a combination of all! It is an application of each field coming together to solve a business problem,” Dr. Raji says. She believes STEM is an applied field where interdisciplinary work is valued.
This is especially important in Dr. Raji’s involvement with Innovation Academy, a STEM school ADP sponsored in Alpharetta. “The goal is One Stem Education. I was one of the ambassadors who helped set up the syllabi and influenced the type of education students received,” she says. Dr. Raji’s love for children and STEM made this a perfect opportunity for her to have conversations about STEM opportunities. She is looking forward to planning and creating lab spaces for more talents who are interested.
Dr. Raji is also a painter. This is her work: Serene morning sunrise at St. Simon Island.
Best Advice
“We talked a lot about my background and where I came from. My life is a lesson itself. If you have a dream, don’t give up,” she says. Dr. Raji believes the secret of life is to fall seven times and get up on the eighth. For those pursuing data science, she recommends thinking outside the box and approaching problems from different perspectives. “Keep in mind being a data scientist means spending substantial time in data prep, data cleaning, deployment, and data quality checking. Patience is critical as each of the tasks is essential in building a complete model,” she says. “There will be challenges and disappointments, but don’t lose faith. Keep learning and chase your dreams.”
Dr. Raji is looking forward to inspiring more people and attracting more talents to ADP. To her, #ADPTech is innovative, supportive, and welcoming. Her team wants to mentor more women technologists and have more of them in leadership positions!
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move and visit Who We Hire.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Innovating Retirement: How ADP Uses Machine Learning to Plan for the Future
How We Work, Culture, Team Collaboration
At ADP, people don’t have to be a leader by title. If there is an idea, and you can think big and innovate, that’s all you need.
Innovating Retirement: How ADP Uses Machine Learning to Plan for the Future
As one of the country’s leading HR technology companies, ADP uses its unmatched data in exciting and new ways. We had an opportunity to catch up with two people critical in recognizing the opportunity to innovate and create a machine learning product for Retirement Services.
Hemlata R., Director of Product Development, oversees the entire product development process. In addition to managing scrum masters, architects, developers, and tech leads, she also heads web development, mobile development, and the machine learning strategy for the entire Retirement Services team.
Sanjay V.R. is the Lead Application Developer and oversees the machine learning practice within Retirement Services.
We asked them how their small team creates cutting-edge technology to build data-driven solutions for their customers, and here’s what they said:
First, let’s hear a bit of what brought you to ADP.
Sanjay V.R.
Sanjay: I started at ADP as an intern while I was attending school in upstate New York. Once I completed my internship, I actually had multiple offers to join other companies. I chose to stay at ADP because getting good opportunities is one of the most challenging obstacles in today’s job market, and at ADP, if you put in the work, getting rewarded is the easiest thing.
Hemlata has been my director for 80% of my career, and I’ve been able to turn to her if I have an idea or if I want to pick up a new role or responsibility. She’s always encouraged me. My senior leaders make sure to recognize me for my hard work. I’ve been promoted three times in my three years at Retirement Services, and that speaks volumes.
Hemlata: I also had several offers when I was looking for a change after my last job. I was attracted to ADP because I’d heard that it was moving toward being more of a technology company that valued innovation—and that its leaders prioritized diversity and inclusion. I’ve seen first-hand that you don’t have to have an impressive title to be a leader here. You can be a leader at any level. You can innovate at any level, and ADP supports and invests on that front. I’m so happy and thrilled that everything I had heard about ADP turned out to be more than true.
Speaking of innovation, tell us about the Retirement Services product you built.
Sanjay: People Like You is a new feature based on machine learning algorithms; it helps participants better prepare for their retirement by offering benchmarks on how people similar to them are planning their retirements. For example, we can show you what percentage of your coworkers are contributing to their 401(k)s and how much of their income they’re contributing. Maybe you contribute 5%, and when you see that your peers contribute 8%, you have the confidence to invest more.
In the retirement industry, advisors usually group people by age or salary and then start giving advice. We wanted to answer the question better and offer advice based on what others in similar socioeconomic situations are actually doing.
Hemlata: ADP pays one out of six Americans; the amount of data we possess is unparalleled. When I joined the company, we discovered that many of our clients’ employees do not contribute to 401(k)s. Since we work for Retirement Services, we saw this as a problem. People often look at their peers and follow them, so we asked ourselves how our data could help create a solution.
How did you go about building People Like You?
Hemlata: We tried to combine the mind and the machine by leveraging our experts’ expertise at ADP and machine learning.
Sanjay: We have folks at ADP who have over 20 and 30 years of experience in Human Resources and Retirement Services. As much as data is our strength, our people and their expertise are equally valuable. So first, we talked extensively with our internal stakeholders since they already know the ins and outs of the industry intimately. Then we conducted market research to understand people’s motivations and concerns better about retirement investing.
After that, we went back to our data sets—everything we have from our payroll and retirement resources—and we started looking at this socioeconomic information to see any relevance between multiple parameters. For example, does age or compensation influence your retirement decisions? What if you’re married, single, or have kids? Based on our internal and external research, we were able to identify somewhere around 30 factors that make an impact; we then narrowed those factors based on the extent of their influence on an individual’s decision. Once we started analyzing that data and built models to create the personas, we realized that we had something worth integrating with our existing retirement products.
When we began this project, it started on a small scale. It was just one other data scientist and me. The two of us created the machine learning part of it, but as we built specific pieces of code for the APIs, we pulled in engineers as we needed them.
Were there any complications you had to work through?
Hemlata R.
Hemlata: The tricky part for me was to make sure that we were compliant with all the security olicies. People trust ADP. It’s our brand. That’s why they come to us for payroll, compliance, workforce management, legal, and security solutions. ADP knows what to do and takes excellent care of its customers, and we take this to heart and always obtain the consent of our clients and employees before we include their data. We’re extremely careful to keep all the data anonymous and not look into any specific client or individual employee data.
Sanjay: Yes, ADP is very sensitive toward privacy laws, so we were very specific about reading only as much data as people were comfortable with. One of the biggest advantages we had was that we partnered with ADP’s DataCloud team. They acted like a data custodian in the project and were responsible for making the data anonymous. They also made it possible to identify an employee—only with their consent—if I needed to access that data to connect specific pieces of information.
I’m a millennial, and I’m one of those people who always clicks on “Do Not Sell My Info” on websites. So, I’m particular about my data, and I think I always had that in the back of my mind. DataCloud made my job easy in that regard.
How do you think machine learning will affect your future work?
Hemlata: We are looking at leveraging this concept of combining the mind and the machine on other aspects of our business, such as compliance processes. As of now, we have used descriptive and prescriptive analytics. Next, we are planning to use predictive analytics to help our clients predict the upcoming required actions. ADP and our clients can solve any predicted problems upfront. We’re always trying to see how we can take our ideas and solutions to the next level.
Sanjay: This is the beginning of an entirely new way of thinking about improving our clients’ experience. We want to look beyond traditional solutions to ensure our clients and their employees feel empowered by our products. ADP also has a general excitement to identify pain points to be resolved and processes we can enhance using machine learning.
Speaking of your customers, do you see any results from People Like You? Are more people signing up to contribute to their 401(k)s?
Hemlata: The results are way better than what we expected. Employee contributions and new enrollments have definitely increased. We also saw this product gain so much attention internally within ADP that several other teams contacted us to see how they could leverage similar solutions within their departments. It’s been fascinating to see the outcomes and the interest from all the other teams.
Sanjay: It’s funny because a bunch of my peers was like, “Oh, I don’t really need a 401(k). I’m too young for that.” Then, two or three months after we released People Like You, someone remarked during lunch, “Hey, did you know that I just signed up for my 401(k)?” Then others joined in—four people also signed up. It’s just a wonderful experience when you hear people say your solution impacts their lives.
After we launched, Don Weinstein pinged me on Webex Teams and said what a great job I’d done and that he was looking forward to what I’d build next. It was a total fanboy moment for me.
Hemlata: This goes to show you what I was saying earlier. At ADP, people don’t have to be a leader by title. If there is an idea, and you can think big and innovate, that’s all you need. Once you have that, you can take it to any level, and people will be so open to talk to you, encourage you, and help support any of these thoughts. It’s really amazing to see that!
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move and make sure to subscribe to our blog!
ADP’s Martha Bird on the ground at CES 2020 to talk about NLP/ML and AI, plus the top 5 themes for 2020
https://www.adp.com/spark/articles/2020/01/the-word-on-ces-whats-really-driving-nextgen-technology.aspx
ADP’s business anthropologist, Martha Bird, reports on the top five themes at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show that are important for today’s industry leaders.
With over 4,000 exhibiting companies, 2.9 million square feet of exhibit space, attracting more than 180,000 attendees and 307 Fortune 500 companies, there was a lot to take in at CES 2020 in Las Vegas. Some of the most innovative technologies to come included a flying taxi (Hyundai), electric multi-modal transportation, electric vertical take-off and landing craft (Uber), cool and creepy robotics, green and sustainability tech, 8K bezel-less TVs (Samsung), AI attended drive thru (McDonald’s lab), 150 digital health exhibitors and so much more. Within this tech frenzy, it was my great pleasure to represent ADP on stage and in studio where I discussed how natural language processing, machine learning and artificial intelligence (NLP/ML and AI), in general, is impacting the workplace – the tools, the processes and the people.
While it was impossible to see everything given the sheer magnitude of the event, there are some high-level reflections on what I consider to be the pervasive themes from this year’s event that industry leaders should keep their eyes and ears open for moving into 2020. These are my top five:
1. 5G: Data, data, and more data
On the CES floor, data was the common denominator across products and services on display and those demoed. Given the explosion of data contingent technologies, online privacy and security was a central talking point. How different regions address security concerns around data and privacy was less explicitly articulated although a continuum of highly private to blatantly public could be surmised. Along with a definite trend toward the true consumerization of AI.
Which brings me to 5G. In the next two to three years, networks will expand out exponentially. The first commercial deployments are already being seen but 5G is still in its infancy so it won’t be a matter of simply “flipping a switch” from 4G to 5G.
Along with 5G – increased speed, greater capacity and lower latency – comes huge possibilities for disruptive innovations. There was no limit to 5G talk and imagination at CES 2020. And, of course, there were both pronouncements and announcements on the topic around the coming of 5G handsets. AT&T and Verizon are aggressively developing the infrastructure in an attempt to get out ahead of competition across the globe.
5G will be the “central nervous system of the data age,” according to Steve Koenig, VP, Research at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA).
Martha Bird and others and CES 2020
[Inset above] ADP’s Business Anthropologist Martha Bird (right) took the stage at CES 2020. Bird’s panel “Emerging Technologies Enabling Enterprise” was moderated by Michael Miller, Editor-in-Chief at PC Magazine (middle) joined by fellow panelist Yonatan Wexler, Executive VP of R&D at OrCam Technologies (left).
2. IoI (Internet of Intelligence): The Decade of Connected Intelligence
Just as we were getting accustomed to the term IoT (Internet of Things) the talk this year was around IoI or “Internet of Intelligence.” This new way of thinking is a direct response to the way AI is being integrated into all facets of our technology and consumer culture.
We were told in the plenary keynote that as networks grow, we can expect 5G to unlock more opportunities for enterprise. Building upon what we’ve seen with IoT technologies (think smart home apps that rely on little bits of discrete data), the expansion of 5G and AI capabilities will provide multiple nodes of data informing a much more complex and inter-dependent data landscape. Enterprise applications are expected to lead in IoI in part because of massive data resources and the ability to form mutually beneficial partnerships between OEM, software and engineering. IoI covers things like remote robotic surgery and smart cities. Activities with a heavy data lift and, generally speaking, much higher stakes than let’s say a voice activated light in your home.
3. XR: The New Reality Training Our Future Workforce
XR – the latest technology encompassing augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies. Think virtual world up, down, left, or right, and experienced in 360 degrees. Form factors delivering this technology ranged from 5K gaming chairs to sleek eye glasses very much unlike the early Google glasses. Again, enterprise will have a big stake in this area with many use cases including B2B workforce training, safety inspections, AR glasses used by an architect to design a room, training surgeons across geographies, and in travel and tourism where you are able to take a trip to a tropical island right from your living room. Frankly, I prefer the actual trip but foregoing the lines at the airport and customs does sound appealing. Regardless of my preference, there was a lot of excitement for XR in commercial and industrial settings. Not to mention eSports which realized $1 billion in net revenue last year alone.
4. Culture: Pragmatics of Technological Innovation
While attending a panel discussion on “Future Cities” I was struck by a similarity between re-architecting an existing urban space to accommodate new technologies and the work we do at ADP.
A former secretary of transportation listed one of the greatest challenges to innovating cities as the pre-existing roadway infrastructure. He went on to say that between the legacy streets and traffic patterns it was actually the inability to imagine new ways of mobility that was the major barrier.
People get accustomed to “how things are done here” and find it difficult to adapt to changes in the system. This is a cultural and technical matter. Culture, at the most basic level, is the collection of practices and beliefs we take for granted. These habits are slow to change. New technical opportunities can catalyze innovation and cultural change, but this process is never a one-to-one.
Which brings me to humans.
5. Humans: Agency in a Data-driven Era
Humans (people like you and me) when faced with the explosion of new technologies – tech that augments our vision, our speech, our bodies and, even, our memory – begin to question their own reason for being. The existential ponderings around what it means to be human are concomitant with those group of technologies loosely described as “AI”.
Talk of “machine-human partnership” was pervasive on the CES exhibition floor and in panels and keynotes. For my part, I welcome the question as it points to a shared humanity that we often overlook. Yes, partnerships between people and technology will continue to evolve. Who has agency over the relationship will remain a critical point of personal reflection and public debate.
