Tech & Innovation Blog
Life @ ADP S2EP4: Let’s Talk #ADPTech
Life @ ADP, Voice of Our People, What We Do
A podcast episode for applicants interested in the scale ADP operates at, including the leadership teams’ strategies and their focus on data security.
Life @ ADP S2EP4: Let’s Talk #ADPTech
Our hosts, Ingrid and Kate, invited Lohit Sarma, a Senior Vice President of Product Development, to the show to chat about what’s happening in #ADPTech.
Lohit’s ADP journey began in 2014 when he helped build our Next Gen team, Lifion, in New York City and scaled up the organization to about 700 associates.
“I can’t believe it’s been eight and a half years,” Lohit said. “It’s been an incredibly humbling learning experience, and I’m super excited for what’s ahead.”
Lohit Sarma
The episode is great for associates and applicants interested in the scale ADP operates at, including the leadership teams’ strategies and their focus on data security. Lohit spoke about various areas in #ADPTech, from User Experience (UX), Security Engineering, to Site Reliability Engineering.
“Our clients trust us with some of the most sensitive information in the world,” Lohit said. “Security engineering is a huge focus for our products. Reliability DevOps is just across the board.”
You wouldn’t want to miss out on the episode, especially if you are interested in learning more about ADP’s Next Gen products and ADP’s role in the US financial system. From launching the iHCM, a cloud-based platform that simplifies Payroll and HR management in one scalable, compliant solution, to our next-generation time and payroll products, ADP has transformed into a technology company.
“We attract talents based on our adaptation of modern software engineering, product management, and UX practices,” Lohit said. “We’re able to not only hire but also retain and contribute back to the industry.”
From sponsoring the Grace Hopper Celebration to hiring female engineers and managers, ADP’s leadership team is building a culture that welcomes and nurtures tech talent. Further reading: Seramount Names ADP One of the Best Companies for Multicultural Women.
In addition, ADP is continually enhancing and evolving the way we do things. “We’ve been heavily investing across the board in pure engineering and management practices,” Lohit said. “That’s reflecting the quality of our products.”
Life @ ADP is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google, iHeartRadio, and Amazon Music. Listen to the full episode here or on your preferred podcast player!
Learn more about what it’s like working for ADP here and our current openings.
HCM Technologies, Women in STEM, User Experience, Product Management, DataCloud
Tech & Innovation Blog
Is Data Science the Right Career for You?
Voice of Our People, Career Advice, Career Insights
Data Science is perfect for you if you enjoy storytelling and solving complex problems with data.
Is Data Science the Right Career for You?
Mark P.
By Mark P., Lead Data Scientist, Product Development DataCloud
As a Data Scientist at ADP, I use workforce data to tell stories, using curiosity to analyze and display the data. In this blog, I’ll share my observations of experiences and trends in the growing field of data science.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, data science will continue to grow, and the number of jobs is estimated to increase by 28% through 2026. In other words, data scientists are in demand, and our role will continue to impact many industries.
What comes to mind when you hear “data science”? Numbers and graphs? Machine learning and big data?
Let’s dive into a quick definition.
What is Data Science?
My perspective on data science was shaped years ago. People started referring to themselves as data scientists and posting jobs for “data scientists” around the same time that machine learning with big data was spreading to industries and companies beyond tech.
I view data science as the methodical analysis of an extensive dataset to understand a subject of interest. Machine learning is a powerful means of such analysis, but not the only one. I focus on a different area, writing query code and dynamic calculations to produce interactive visualizations. To me, the significance of big data is more of a spectrum than a boundary. Science is a systematic study for understanding, and we can understand things with smaller amounts of data too. But big data like ADP has made the insights and applications deeper and more reliable.
Pragmatically speaking, data science can be whatever an employer considers it and communicates through the specific skills they seek. No definition of data science can replace an employer’s expectations, the candidate’s expression of their experience, and conversations about career fit and advancement. With evolving technologies and models, there are a growing number of opportunities in this career. As a Data Scientist at ADP, it is certainly rewarding to have occupational, organizational, and demographic facts on over 30 million US workers to explore – anonymized of course!
Mark and his niece
Top Trends in Data Science
Currently, two of the most visible trends in data science are cloud-based development and the advanced application of natural language processing (NLP).
Cloud-based platforms and services such as Amazon Web Services and Databricks make it easier to source data, develop analyses and models, collaborate with colleagues, and deploy products. We work closely with these partners and have often spurred innovation in their products as we expand our capabilities.
NLP has many current and potential applications in human capital management, including client support, occupation and skill classification, job posting development, and candidate recruitment. Since jobs are diverse, overlapping, and constantly evolving, building and maintaining comprehensive, systematic knowledge can be challenging. NLP can make our solutions more scalable and data-driven than classifications created by human experts alone.
Day in the Life as a Data Scientist
My research on restaurant employment and wages during the COVID-19 pandemic represents many common day-to-day components of data science work. While it is well-known restaurants were one of the most heavily impacted industries, ADP data shows some cities fared better than others. You can see this in the 18-month employment trends for 3 of the largest 50 US metros.
Visualizations like these are the tip of the iceberg: the most visible part of the work requires much more underneath. In addition to conceiving and developing metrics, models, and graphics to create knowledge, data scientists need to find good data sources and write code to retrieve and process their information. They need to understand the limitations of their sources – things like sample bias, predictive labels, outright errors – and communicate and correct them.
Restaurant employment change, monthly since Jan 2020
And data scientists need to query people as well as data! For example, interviewing local restaurant association executives for their expert perspectives and calling US Bureau of Labor Statistics economists to discuss statistical methods.
How can I gain experience in Data Science?
If you are interested in data science, you can find a ton of resources, including boot camps, online courses, Medium articles, and YouTube videos. If you look up #datascience on TikTok, it has 89 million views! Of course, classes are a great way to acquire vital education, but they can be a significant investment in time and money. You may wish to test your interest with a project that involves either a question you’d like to answer or a problem you’d like to solve. You’ll gain not only motivation but also a proof point to share with potential employers.
As an example, when 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang proposed a universal basic income, I was curious to know who might benefit from $1k a month and how to quantify the benefits objectively. I searched for household spending data, turned up relevant data and code from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and then used free versions of SAS and Tableau to create a public dashboard to answer that question.
Data Science Team at ADP
I’d advise anyone interested in data science to follow their curiosity and search the web for public data and free tools. You’ll face technical challenges along the way, but sites like W3 Schools and Stack Overflow can help you tackle them as they arise. Of course, many people prefer the structure of classes to an open-ended, “many-options-no-right-answer” type of project. The former is fine – but if you can take the leap and try the latter, you’ll gain a good experience of what real-world work is often like!
Final Thoughts
Data Science is a great option if you can:
- Think creatively and enjoy solving complex problems with data
- Problem-solve in a team environment
- Communicate effectively in programming languages
Three self-examination questions for Data Scientists interested in ADP:
- Does working with one of the most comprehensive employment data sets excite you?
- Are you inspired by transforming the understanding of and opportunities for millions of workers?
- Are you a technologist who continually breaks down challenges, champions creative approaches, and collaborates routinely with a diverse team of professionals?
Interested in a career in Data Science? Let’s work together!
Learn more about working at ADP here and our current openings.
Tech & Innovation Blog
We are Proud to Design and Create a Workplace for Everyone
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
ADP will continue to strive to be the best place to work, creating a workplace for diverse talents.
We are Proud to Design and Create a Workplace for Everyone
At ADP, we’re constantly working to provide the best possible experience for our clients and associates. We’re proud to announce that we’ve been recognized with various awards! Whether providing outstanding service or creating a great place to work, we always strive to be the best.
iWIN – Business Resource Group
Women Impact Tech 100
When it comes to gender equity in the technology industry, ADP is leading by example. Our technologists are dedicated to developing inclusive products and services, providing a path forward for all our teams.
Women Impact Tech, an organization focused on improving opportunities for women in STEM, has named ADP one of the top 100 Women Impact Tech companies. The recognition criteria measure employee feedback on workplace culture for women, benefits, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
We are excited to see that our work is reshaping the tech space.
“These top 100 companies are doing the right things that make a difference in women’s ability to have meaningful careers, offering a culture for women to thrive,” said Paula Ratliff, the President of Women Impact Tech.
The good news doesn’t end here! We have also earned recognition from Top 50 Employer by Woman Engineering Magazine, Top 50 Best Workplaces for Women in India, and the AnitaB.org 2021 Top Large Company for Women Technologists for the second consecutive year.
“As a leader, I want to create an environment of empowerment with a diversity of thought and perspectives,” said Laurie Liszewski, VP of Product Development at ADP.
Opportunities across ADP include participation in our Women’s Leadership Development Program, Grace Hopper Celebration with AnitaB.org, and our Business Resource Groups such as iWIN (International Women’s Inclusion Network).
“There’s a lot here to be excited about. We’re all working together, and we’re going to be stronger in the long run,” said Amber Abreu, Senior Manager of User Experience (UX) research at ADP.
We can’t wait to see what’s next!
Next Big Things in Tech
ADP DataCloud has been named on Fast Company’s first-ever list of the Next Big Things in Tech list, honoring the technology breakthroughs that promise to shape the future. We have earned this recognition for our powerful people analytics solution, ADP DataCloud, which leverages our vast workforce data to address the most significant challenges businesses face today, including employee retention, pay equity, diversity, equity, and inclusion shift economic policy. Read the press release here.
In addition to this award, ADP DataCloud has also earned a Stratus Award, the Top HR Product of the Year, and the Data Analytics Innovation of the Year.
We are proud of the product enhancements our teams developed:
- The new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Dashboard allow companies to see the makeup of their workforce and address underrepresentation.
- Organizational Benchmarks taps ADP’s workforce data to help companies decide how best to deploy workers.
- When paired with ADP DataCloud’s Pay Equity Storyboard, clients can generate a personalized planner and budget to help them close gaps and measure maturity against peers.
This award further validates our clients and prospects of what’s to come and why they need us. Congratulations to everyone who has been a part of the development!
ADP 2022 Built In Best Places to Work
We are the proudest of our valuable people and the culture here. Built In, a top industry source for tech candidates to research and review companies, has named ADP with seven awards, including 2022 Best Places to Work in LA and New York City, Best Large Companies to Work & Best Benefits in both cities.
“Now more than ever, we’re proud to offer an engaging workplace with a dynamic culture that empowers our associates to foster innovation and develop innovative ideas with limitless possibilities,” said Aaron S., Senior Vice President of Product Development at ADP. “We are thrilled to be recognized in New York City and will continue our relentless focus on growing our technology from the energy of our associates.”
“Our highly engaged associates know we’re committed to providing each person with opportunities to use their diverse expertise to develop great products and technology that help deliver amazing client experiences,” said Leonard K., Senior Vice President of Product Development. “Built In LA’s recognition is an honor and a direct reflection of the innovation and dedication of our associates.
Built In’s Best Places to Work program rates companies based on their compensation, benefits, and culture. This year’s list highlights those employers who have created a culture that supports employees in-office and virtually that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
Great Place to Work®
Great Place to Work® (GPTW), a global authority on workplace culture, named ADP Brazil Labs and ADP India one of the best companies to work for 2021. GPTW has a mission to build a better world by helping organizations become a great place to work for all.
Here are the award nominations.
ADP India
ADP India
- India’s Best Workplaces for Women 2021
- India’s Best Workplaces™ in IT & IT-BPM 2021
- India’s Best Companies to Work For 2021
- Commitment to Being a Great Place to Work
ADP Brazil Labs
ADP Brazil Labs
- One of the Best Companies in the Rio Grande do Sul.
- Women Impact Tech 2022 Honoree
The awards recognize ADP India and ADP Brazil Labs not only for their talented associates but also for an environment of technological culture and innovation applied in the workspace.
Our clients, associates, and tech recruiting teams remain focused on cultivating valuable relationships in the challenging times of pandemics. We will continue to strive to be the best place to work, creating a workplace for diverse talents.
Thank you, and Congratulations to all our associates who make ADP one of the best places to work!
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
Click here to search for your next move and visit Who We Hire.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Driving Innovation with an Ethnography of AI
Women in STEM, Anthropology, Innovation
How might ethnography help advance our understanding of human and machine relationships?
Driving Innovation with an Ethnography of AI
By Martha Bird, Chief Business Anthropologist at ADP
Humans are typically curious by nature, but there’s a deep resource around human behavior that can be tremendously valuable as we design our strategies in business and life in general.
Cultural anthropologists combine curiosity and empirical science to deliver sustained value. We’re trained to interpret and translate why people do the things they do and how unconscious and overlapping motivations influence their actions, their attitudes, their approaches to the myriad people, products, politics, and places of everyday life. We do this by spending time in the places where people make meaning, a method of inquiry known as ethnography. It’s what gets us excited, and it’s where we impact academia and industry.
Part of our work focuses on challenging the things we take for granted and, in so doing, encouraging new ways of looking at ideas, interactions, and people we may have overlooked in the forgetfulness of the routine. Curiosity is our “rocket fuel.
My colleague, Jay Hasbrouck, captures the spirit of the anthropological mindset when he writes, “When used as more than a research tool to expose consumer needs, ethnographic thinking helps companies and organizations build on the cultural meanings and contexts of their offerings, develop the flexibility to embrace cultural change, focus their strategies at critical cultural phenomena, and test and develop business model changes.”1
Where Ethnography Comes In
For those of us in the tech sector, in particular, our focus is quite aggressively on questions around data biases, including how algorithms are constructed and, ultimately, who they advantage and who they don’t. It’s a much bigger issue than simply feeding the machine and imagining that the outputs are somehow free of judgment. They’re not.
But who should be responsible for exploring the roots of these biases that pre-exist machine learning — biases that are already deeply embedded in culture. We hear a lot of blaming in the popular press about this or that platform creating unfair advantages. Nevertheless, should we leave it to data analysts and computer scientists to untangle these social inequalities? It seems a more appropriate area of investigation for those of us who study culture and the power flows that animate it.
So, we begin to ask questions. What’s fair in a data-mediated world? What role does empathy play in communicating evidence and big data? What constitutes evidence in a global context, among others?
Placing blame on flawed algorithms and the companies on which data-driven services depend is really missing the critical point. We need to look outside tech and start to get serious about the very non-technical realities that contribute to an unequal present and, consequently, an inevitably unequal future.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the admittedly broad subject of AI viewed from an anthropological perspective. My main goal in doing so is to further challenge the cultural category of AI (big and small), while also exploring how ethnographic methodology (direct observation/active listening) might help advance our understanding of the human and machine relationships forming here and now and tomorrow.
Specifically, I’m thinking about two main question areas. First, a definitional focus: How might we begin to articulate an ethnography of AI, what role might AI technologies play in the service of ethnographic practice, and how might (and does) ethnographic inquiry inform AI technologies? Second, a philosophical focus: Who is responsible for bias in data, algorithms, and outcomes to include discussion around how work related to AI is currently organized within tech companies today?
As companies become increasingly reliant on data-driven insights to build their offerings, market their products, and guide the scope for future projects, we need to get serious about the reality that data isn’t raw or clean — but rather deeply reflective of the social and political circumstances from which they are pulled and to which they contribute. It’s an exciting time to be an anthropologist working in technology where the human is deeply enmeshed with the machine.
Get more insights from Martha Bird by reading Storytelling in Business: Capturing Organizational Wisdom.
Interested in a tech career at ADP?
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1 Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset (Anthropology & Business) 1st Edition, Routledge, 2018
Link to the original article.
