Research Library
Using the Research Library
The research below is drawn from more than five years of industry studies, practitioner interviews, and deep analysis of the most important topics facing talent leaders today.
Feel free to use the categories below to find what you are looking for, or you can search for content that matters most to you.
Insightful Highlights
Research Reports and Graphics
New Research: 81% of Learning Pros Say Disruption Drives Upskilling and Reskilling Demand
We keep hearing that artificial intelligence, bots, and other components of technology will force employers to rethink skills in the workplace. But what do the data say? In a new study, Disruption Drives Reskilling and Upskilling, our team found that 81 percent of learning professionals believe that the current pace of change, automation, and disruption…
New Research: The Evolving Employee Communications Technology Landscape
Are You Ready for Changing Workplace Communications? Click here to get the research In today’s world, communicating in the workplace is more challenging than ever. The sheer number of ways to connect and interact with others continues to expand, and that means critical communications from employers can get lost in the shuffle. On top of…
New Report: Career Planning as a 2019 Talent Imperative
Today’s workers have more transparency and choice of jobs than any generation before, which means retention is a critical component for employers across the globe. A variety of mechanisms have been deployed to keep people engaged at work, but research shows that one of the most valuable options of all is career management. A variety…
2019 HCM Trends: Market Size, Investment Priorities, and More
As we edge closer and closer to 2019, I’m receiving more and more questions from employers and vendors in the community about what trends I’m seeing. What will define the coming year? Obviously AI is going to be a big part of that, especially with my book coming out just before the new year starts,…
20+ Onboarding Hacks to Improve the Employee Experience [Free Report]
One of the talent areas that most businesses can improve is onboarding. In some cases the experience is poor, but even for those doing a good job, it’s always fun to pick up new ideas and concepts that help to align new hires with your culture and approach. Despite some advanced practices happening in some…
The Practical, No-Kidding View of Artificial Intelligence for HR
[Update 2019: The book is now live and is receiving rave reviews! Check it out here.] I’m in the middle of writing a book. Yes, a BOOK! I’m writing a ton, but I’m also looking for a little help. See, I need some examples from vendors and employers to help me fill in a few…
What We Know About HCM: 2017 Edition
This has been a year of discovery for us at Lighthouse Research, and 2018 is going to be a year of growth and expansion in both our coverage and company. If you’re curious about working with us, feel free to reach out to start a conversation. Want to download a high-quality version of this research…
The ROI of Video in the Candidate Experience
What’s the ROI of video? While it seems like a challenging question to answer, I’ll start you off with two scenarios: Your talent acquisition team partners with the marketing team and creates a beautiful, scripted ten-minute video exploring your company’s history, culture, and operations. The cost is $20,000. Your talent acquisition team visits with hiring…
The Value of the Employee Experience [Free eBook]
Think about your life. Most of the memories that immediately come to mind are based on powerful, emotional experiences. The idea that experiences form a connection and add value for employees is a relatively new idea. Based on what I’ve seen over the last year, many employers are still unsure about how to define the…
[New Research] Radically Rethinking Your Learning Content Strategy [Free Report]
Anyone who believes that yesterday’s learning content can engage today’s modern learner is sorely mistaken. More than ever employers need to think about how to offer learning content that not only delivers value for the learner, but value for the business as well. Frankly, it can be tough. Creating learning content is a tough game.…
Case Studies
Case Study Report: The Value of Company Culture in the Age of AI
In a world where technology reigns supreme, we must not forget the heart of our organizations—the culture. The beating heart of company culture guides our values, beliefs, and actions towards a higher purpose. Fulfillment, communication, trust, and diversity form the cornerstones of a transformative culture that fuels growth and fulfillment in the workplace. By championing…
Trusaic 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company Trusaic is a workplace equity technology company committed to advancing social good by helping organizations achieve pay equity, foster a more diverse and inclusive workforce, assist economically disadvantaged individuals with finding work, and ensure employee access to affordable healthcare. Trusaic’s mission is to create a better working world through data-driven, people-centered technology…
SmartRank 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company SmartRank is a Non-Traditional Productivity-ATS that completely automates the job applicant screening process, stack-ranks and filters those applicants, and gives hiring managers exactly what they’re looking for without using/needing a résumé. This saves time, increases hiring quality, and reduces both hiring manager frustration and recruiter workload. SmartRank was originally founded in April…
SkyHive 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company SkyHive is a Certified B Corporation and software provider of global workforce intelligence technology, optimizing labor market efficiencies in real-time for companies, communities, and national economies. Like the DNA of the human genome was coded, SkyHive has coded human capability. By doing so, governments, large enterprises, and educational institutions can reskill the…
Schoox 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company Schoox is workplace learning software with a people-first twist. For organizations with frontline, remote, and corporate learners who need an engaged and skilled workforce ready to take on the new challenges of their evolving business, Schoox is an award-winning learning management and talent development company. This SaaS solution delivers social-, mobile-, and…
HiBob 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company HiBob is on a mission to enable companies to thrive through change using people-first strategies. The HCM platform, Bob, simplifies the complexities of today’s global, hybrid, and remote world of work, driving greater impact for HR, managers, and employees. The ideal customer is a modern, multinational, mid-enterprise company with 250-3,000 employees with…
Jobvite 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company Jobvite, an Employ Inc. brand, is a purpose-built proven talent acquisition (TA) solution built to innovate, scale, and solve the hiring complexities within sophisticated organizations across the entire TA lifecycle. Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite is a comprehensive TA solution, empowering teams to address challenges across the entire talent acquisition lifecycle. The…
Cornerstone 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company Cornerstone powers the future-ready workforce with a next-generation talent experience platform designed to unite technology, data and content and inspire a work environment of growth, agility and success for all. With an AI-powered, skills-forward, experiential platform, built on an open architecture designed for neutrality and scale, Cornerstone helps organizations modernize their learning…
Harri 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company Harri is the revolutionary global leader in Frontline Employee Experience. The Harri platform is built for companies that have service at the heart of their business and believe that the customer experience will never exceed the employee experience. The Harri suite of talent attraction, workforce management, employee engagement and compliance technologies enable…
15Five 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company 15Five is the holistic performance management company. 15Five equips HR teams with a complete, single-platform solution to improve manager effectiveness, drive high performance and engagement, and increase retention. 15Five was founded in 2011, by serial entrepreneur, David Hassell, and born of his deep desire to help people reach their fullest potential at…
Videos, Interviews, and Podcasts
RPO Buyer Study: Key Findings and Preferences [New Research]
Each year we partner with the RPO Association to produce a research study to examine and understand how the recruitment process outsourcing market is changing, what buyers expect, and the realities of the current landscape. Our latest report was recently released featuring findings from more than 500 RPO buyers, and it’s currently available at no…
Lighthouse Listens: 6 Innovative Talent Acquisition Technologies
As part of our ongoing research efforts, our team meets with technology providers across the HR, talent, and learning space on a regular basis. Last month we held a special set of briefings as part of a talent acquisition deep dive we called Lighthouse Listens. In it, we met with six different providers touching on…
Predicting Pay and Skills From Job Market Intelligence Data on #HRTechTalks
In today’s world, things change and evolve so quickly. Take pay for instance. It’s changing faster than the surveys and other data sources can keep up. So what do we do? One area of emerging data comes from labor market intelligence tools. In this episode of #hrtechtalks, we chat with Cary Sparrow, CEO of Greenwich.HR,…
Personalization and Wellness: How AI Supports Wellbeing at Scale
“You need to have a competitive pay and benefits offering. When you go to do that, the employer ends up paying for a lot of things that go unused just because there’s too much to communicate. What’s just amazing about the time and space we’re in now is you can really use personalization to surface…
Compliance Challenges? You’re Not Alone: Featuring ThinkHR/MammothHR on HR Tech Talks
Since the start of this year, multiple new laws have passed that change responsibilities for employers, and that’s just a small sample of the overall changes in the workplace over the last few years. Even when you’re focusing on those evolving requirements, it can be overwhelming to decipher what applies to your company and how to adopt the new regulations.
In this discussion on HR Tech Talks, I am going to chat with Nathan Christensen, CEO of Mammoth/ThinkHR about why navigating compliance is a critical skill set for HR leaders and how his team supports this need for the business (without breaking the bank).
#HRTechTalks
Solving Pay Equity and Comp Challenges: Featuring Curo Compensation on HR Tech Talks
More and more companies across the globe are attempting to tackle the pay equity issue, but it’s not always easy if you don’t have the right tools to support the process. In some brand new research at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, we found that compensation technology is not only becoming more powerful, but it’s becoming a staple of the HR leader’s toolbox for navigating pay decisions across the board.
In this episode, I’m talking with Ruth Thomas of Curo Compensation about how this company has exploded into the scene of compensation management tools. We’ll also cover the firm’s priority focus on pay equity and how it is helping employers to create a fair and equitable playing field when it comes to pay.
#HRTechTalks
Embracing Flexibility in Your Talent System: PeopleFluent on HR Tech Talks
When HR technology first became a “thing,” tools were rigid and structured. Today, some tools are still that way, but others have taken the opposite approach: they allow employers to customize and tailor the settings and capabilities around their unique and specific needs.
In our 2020 research, we found that 97% of firms that say they are adaptable also say that their HR technology plays a key part in that flexibility.
In this episode of HR Tech Talks, I’m going to talk with Stephen Bruce of PeopleFluent about how his firm has adopted this approach and how it results in better customer relationships, stronger capabilities that fit each client’s needs, and deep expertise in talent. We’ll touch on talent mobility, talent analytics, and the need for a flexible system to meet the needs of an agile organization.
#hrtechtalks
Technology Reviews
HR Tech Awards 2024: Winners Announced
In our daily work with talent leaders and solution providers, we run into some incredible technology. Some of the tools available to organizations right now help them hire, develop, and retain their people, and the platforms and systems are amazing in their ability to support intelligent decisions, personalized actions, and more. According to some sources,…
2023 Recap: A Turbulent Year with Significant M&A Changes in the HR Technology Market
Our annual reporting on M&A in the HR technology space is one of our most popular pieces of content year after year (see our 2022 version here). We look at some of the many announcements that happen over the course of the year, flag some key ones, and identify any big trends that seem to…
Trusaic 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company Trusaic is a workplace equity technology company committed to advancing social good by helping organizations achieve pay equity, foster a more diverse and inclusive workforce, assist economically disadvantaged individuals with finding work, and ensure employee access to affordable healthcare. Trusaic’s mission is to create a better working world through data-driven, people-centered technology…
SmartRank 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company SmartRank is a Non-Traditional Productivity-ATS that completely automates the job applicant screening process, stack-ranks and filters those applicants, and gives hiring managers exactly what they’re looking for without using/needing a résumé. This saves time, increases hiring quality, and reduces both hiring manager frustration and recruiter workload. SmartRank was originally founded in April…
isolved HCM Connect Conference: Serious Growth, Aggressive Roadmap, and a Critical AI Strategy
This week I spent time in beautiful Palm Springs at the isolved Connect user conference. If you’re not familiar with the name, isolved HCM’s hot pink brand is spreading quickly across the nation as they pick up customers, build out the product, and celebrate their increased successes in recent years. See my notes from the…
Ceridian Rebrands to Dayforce, Launches Range of New Features and Strategic Efforts
Fall for analysts like us in the HR technology space equates to travel season, with industry conferences and technology user conferences happening on a weekly basis between August and November. This week is Ceridian’s Insights conference in Las Vegas. Ceridian has been known for its Dayforce product for many years (the company has a 30…
2023 Compensation Data and Technology Buyer’s Guide and Landscape Report [New Research]
Every other year our team takes a deep dive into the world of compensation. We look at all of the top technology providers. We gather data from a wide variety of employers to understand how they are using data and technology to support comp practices. And we ultimately write the industry’s most in-depth research report…
SkyHive 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company SkyHive is a Certified B Corporation and software provider of global workforce intelligence technology, optimizing labor market efficiencies in real-time for companies, communities, and national economies. Like the DNA of the human genome was coded, SkyHive has coded human capability. By doing so, governments, large enterprises, and educational institutions can reskill the…
Schoox 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company Schoox is workplace learning software with a people-first twist. For organizations with frontline, remote, and corporate learners who need an engaged and skilled workforce ready to take on the new challenges of their evolving business, Schoox is an award-winning learning management and talent development company. This SaaS solution delivers social-, mobile-, and…
Jobvite 2023 HR Tech Awards Case Study
About the Company Jobvite, an Employ Inc. brand, is a purpose-built proven talent acquisition (TA) solution built to innovate, scale, and solve the hiring complexities within sophisticated organizations across the entire TA lifecycle. Jobvite’s Evolve Talent Acquisition Suite is a comprehensive TA solution, empowering teams to address challenges across the entire talent acquisition lifecycle. The…
See the Latest from Lighthouse Research & Advisory
How Learning and Skill Development Affect Business Agility, Employee Belonging, and Productivity [Report]
There’s an old proverb that essentially states “the shoemaker’s children have no shoes.” The more modern version is “the cobbler’s children have no shoes,” even though handmade shoes are mostly a lost art. However, the metaphor still has a profound message. Where we have expertise, we often use that expertise for the benefit of others,…
Read MoreThe Power of a Skills-Based Approach to Talent
The Power of a Skills-Based Approach to Talent: Reducing Risk and Unlocking Workforce Potential In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, understanding the skills of your workforce is more important than ever. Whether it’s for hiring, development, or strategic decision-making, a skills-based approach to talent management has emerged as a powerful way to unlock the potential…
Read MoreRecruitment Process Outsourcing in the Age of AI: Streamlining Value and Impact
This past week I was in the great city of Chicago speaking at the RPO Association annual conference. I had the privilege of delivering a keynote on the newest research on RPO buyers, their priorities, and what they want most. There were so many incredible organizations represented in the attendee audience, and I am honored…
Read MoreHR Technology Conference 2024: Busting the “There’s Nothing New or Interesting” Myth
Every year our team attends HR Tech in Vegas, and inevitably every year I hear from someone on the show floor or post-event with the exact same complaint: There’s nothing new or exciting. -Various people For whatever reason, I put on my crusader hat and I end up highlighting a few of the companies I’ve…
Read MorePerformance Management is Out: Performance Enablement is In
In the realm of organizational success, the approach to enhancing employee performance is undergoing a significant transformation. Gone are the days when traditional performance management methods—marked by goal-setting, monitoring, and reviewing—were the norms. These outdated practices, often criticized for their ineffectiveness and tendency to induce stress, are making way for a more dynamic and supportive…
Read MoreWhat a Family Disney Trip Taught Me About Learning Experiences [Livestream Event]
When was the last time you had an “aha” moment that really excited you? For me it was during a recent family trip to Disneyland. I was keynoting at a conference in Indian Wells, California, and our kids tagged along for a quick visit to Disney before the school year began. We were at Star…
Read MoreHR Summer School Back 2 School Recap
As the back-to-school season has kicked off for our children, it’s the perfect moment to revisit the highlights of this year’s HR Summer School 2024! Since its inception amid the 2020 pandemic, HR Summer School has stood at the forefront of bridging the HR community, delivering unparalleled virtual learning, and fostering a sense of inspiration…
Read MoreGhosting isn’t Unsolvable [Infographic]
The phenomenon of candidate ghosting, where candidates suddenly cease communication with potential employers, has become an increasing concern in the hiring landscape. This trend manifests in various forms, including candidates who apply and never respond to outreach, individuals who participate in interviews but vanish without feedback and even new hires who fail to show up…
Read MoreThe Powerful Intersection of Performance, Development, and Recognition [Infographic]
The confluence of employee performance, development, and recognition within an organization holds transformative power as a cornerstone for fostering an invigorating and productive workplace atmosphere. When these elements are effectively integrated and supported, they enhance individual engagement and satisfaction and propel the organization’s collective success forward. Conversely, lacking adequate support in these areas can lead…
Read MoreCreating a Positive Data-Driven Employee Experience [Infographic]
Crafting a top-notch employee experience is all about creating a workplace where everyone feels engaged, processes run smoothly, and the overall culture adds value. The secret? Using the right data at the right times. This approach transforms the day-to-day for employees, aligning their personal journey with the company’s goals. And here’s something interesting in our…
Read More4 Critical Skills for the Modern Payroll Practitioner
Of all the disciplines within HR, payroll is often given short shrift. It’s arguably the most essential component of how employees interact with the company, but it’s not “exciting” and therefore gets little attention in the industry. Let’s change that. Let’s stop assuming that payroll is where the least qualified HR people end up. Let’s…
Read MoreCornerstone Connect 2024: Acquisitions, Product Releases, and More
In the last year, most of the conversations I’ve had with employers around trends have come down to two big themes: skills and AI. Today, I had a chance to hear from the team at Cornerstone at Cornerstone Connect 2024 about some of the company’s future, and it is deeply tied to both of those…
Read MoreQuality of Hire is Critical: How to Make it Count
Recently there’s been a considerable amount of discussion on LinkedIn about this concept called “talent density.” Essentially it means that employers have to ensure that they have a high-quality workforce (a high concentration, or density, of top performers). In my opinion it’s just another name for quality of hire, the top metric that talent acquisition…
Read More2024 Talent Acquisition Trends: What’s New and What’s Next [Report]
Every year I look forward to our team’s survey and analysis of the talent acquisition market, because it’s a space that moves quickly and has a tremendous amount of innovation both in the technologies as well as the practices that employers use to create successful outcomes. This year’s report is no exception, highlighting what is…
Read MoreTalent Acquisition Trends Study: Top Insights Employers Must Know [Webinar]
When speaking with a talent acquisition leader recently, he mentioned that some of the challenges his team is facing have been the same ones that he’s faced at other organizations for over a decade. While that may be true, there are also many companies that are overcoming obstacles and creating hiring outcomes that are positive…
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