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The HRTech Wire →This week's briefing →Submit newsPublish a sponsored article — $300Securian Financial Joins Workday Wellness to Advance Connected Employee Benefits Experience
Securian Financial has joined the Workday Wellness partner program, deepening the connection between the St. Paul-based insurance and financial services carrier and Workday's benefits administration ecosystem. The move is intended to give employers running benefits on Workday a more integrated experience with Securian as a benefits provider.
The AI Job-Description Gap, a Platform Benefits Bet, and 389 UK Pay Violations
Today's HR-tech news circles back to a single uncomfortable truth: formal HR systems keep lagging behind how work actually happens.
What Is Reference Data Management in Oracle HCM
RChilli has published a technical explainer on reference data management in Oracle HCM, covering how lookups and value sets enforce consistent HR data entry — and positioning its own LOV Mapping feature as an automation layer that keeps parsed resume data aligned with Oracle's approved picklist values.
Workers are ‘habit hugging’ despite new training, survey finds
A TalentLMS survey of 1,500 U.S. employees finds fewer than half consistently apply new ways of working after training — a phenomenon the company calls 'habit hugging.' Among workers expected to use AI on the job, more than a third said they sometimes revert to old methods, and 73% reported blending old and new approaches. Managerial behavior emerges as a critical lever: adoption rates were 49% when managers modeled new methods themselves, versus just 22% when they did not.
Dayforce Discover - agentic HCM brings dramatic change to enterprise HR - diginomica
Dayforce has unveiled Dayforce Discover, its agentic HCM offering positioned to significantly reshape how enterprise HR teams operate. According to diginomica, the platform's agent capabilities could mark a step-change in how HR functions are automated and orchestrated at scale.
HR TechnologyAgentic HCM Heats Up as Microsoft's Buyout Math Rattles Workforce Strategy
Dayforce moves twice in one day, SAP quietly upgrades onboarding, and Microsoft's voluntary exits are asking harder questions than vendors want to answer.
Welcome Back: Smarter, Faster Rehire in SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding 2H 2026
SAP's planned 2H 2026 SuccessFactors Onboarding release reportedly introduces automated rehire handling, including day-one workflow routing for returning employees, contractor-to-permanent conversions, and employee record merges — addressing a long-standing friction point for HR operations teams running rehires through SAP HCM.
HR TechnologyIdentity fraud, AI audits, and a Gartner reality check dominate a crowded Thursday
From deepfake hires to unproven AI throughput claims, today's news is a stress test for anyone buying HR tech on faith.
Workforce RestructuringMicrosoft expects 'very few people' to accept buyout, CFO says in internal memo - Business Insider
Microsoft's CFO reportedly signaled in an internal memo that the company anticipates very few employees will accept its voluntary buyout offer — a telling data point for HR leaders on the practical limits of voluntary exit programs at scale.
HR TechnologyHandling Job Approval Rejection in SAP SmartRecruiters: Re-triggering Approvals via API
A SAP Community post walks recruiting ops and integration teams through a programmatic workaround for one of SmartRecruiters' native approval-flow constraints: the platform only re-triggers job approvals automatically when a protected field changes. By combining the SmartRecruiters Approvals API with webhook events, teams can force a fresh approval cycle after a rejection — extending the platform's out-of-the-box behaviour without waiting for a product update.
Phenom Launches Women in Tech Leadership Council to Advance AI Readiness Among Women in the Workforce
HR technology company Phenom has launched a Women in Tech Leadership Council, reportedly aimed at advancing AI readiness among women in the workforce. Further details — including council membership, programming, and measurable objectives — have not been disclosed.
Dayforce Expands Public Sector Access to its Agentic HCM Platform Through Carahsoft - HRTech Series
Dayforce is expanding access to its agentic HCM platform for government employers by partnering with Carahsoft, a leading public sector IT reseller. The arrangement gives federal, state, and local agencies a new procurement route to Dayforce's AI-enabled human capital management suite.
HR TechnologyRavical raises $17M to break the link between accounting firms' growth and hiring - Tech.eu
Ravical has reportedly raised $17M to help accounting firms grow revenue without scaling headcount at the same pace, according to Tech.eu. The raise positions the company within the emerging category of AI tools designed to decouple professional-services growth from hiring.
Hungary's Intellihr raises $303K to scale AI recruiting platform - Dealroom
Hungarian startup Intellihr has reportedly secured $303K to develop and scale its AI-powered recruiting platform, according to Dealroom. The raise is early-stage and small in scale, with investor names and product specifics not yet disclosed.
Fronted raises €1.7M to simplify global hiring and business expansion - Tech.eu
Fronted, a startup targeting the complexities of international hiring and business expansion, has raised €1.7M in new funding, according to Tech.eu. The company aims to make it easier for organizations to employ talent and operate across borders — an increasingly critical capability as HR teams face growing demand for global workforce strategies.
Talent Acquisition TechnologyNew ICIMS and Kyle & Co. Research Links AI Readiness and Deployment to Stronger Hiring Performance - PR Newswire
iCIMS and research firm Kyle & Co. have released joint findings that reportedly draw a connection between organizations' AI readiness and deployment maturity and their hiring performance outcomes. Specific metrics and methodology have not been publicly disclosed in available reporting.
Executive AppointmentsTakeda appoints Jimmy Zhang as interim head of HR for China - People Matters Global
Takeda has named Jimmy Zhang as interim head of HR for its China operations, according to People Matters Global. Further details — including his background, reporting structure, and the circumstances prompting an interim appointment — have not been disclosed.
PNC Bank and ADP Announce Embedded Payroll Solution for Small Businesses
ADP and PNC Bank have announced PNC Payroll by ADP®, an embedded solution that brings payroll, HR, benefits, time tracking, insurance, and retirement capabilities directly into PNC's digital banking platform for small business customers. The partnership is designed to eliminate the friction of managing disconnected banking and workforce systems.
HR TechnologyADP's Big Day, Agentic Everything, and a W-2 Deadline You Can't Miss
ADP dominated Wednesday's news cycle, but the real story is agentic AI moving from conference buzz to payroll, comp, and compliance product lines simultaneously.
HR LeadershipKraton Appoints Brian Rea as Chief Human Resources Officer - PR Newswire
Specialty chemicals company Kraton has named Brian Rea as its new Chief Human Resources Officer, according to a PR Newswire announcement. Further details about Rea's background or the strategic priorities behind the appointment have not been disclosed.
Who’s really in charge at Anthropic after the IPO?
As Anthropic moves toward an IPO, TechCrunch has published a detailed breakdown of the AI lab's unusually layered governance architecture — one that leaves public shareholders with limited control while institutionalizing mission-driven oversight through a Long-Term Benefit Trust (LTBT) and, notably, a formal employee vote mechanism on certain board appointments.
VCs will make billions on Anthropic’s IPO, but Amazon is set to make much (much) more
Anthropic's S-1 filing for its IPO reveals Amazon as likely the single largest financial beneficiary, holding convertible notes with $6.2 billion in principal that Amazon's own books value at $97.9 billion. Amazon's total investment reportedly reaches ~$18 billion, and Anthropic has committed to spend at least $110 billion on AWS over the next decade. Google, estimated to hold ~5.6% after dilution, has secured at least $114 billion in cloud commitments from Anthropic through 2033. For HR-tech decision-makers, the IPO crystallises a cloud duopoly — Amazon and Google — sitting at the foundation of the AI models increasingly powering workforce tools.
Dayforce Introduces Agentic Innovations to Simplify Work from Schedule to Pay - HRTech Series
Dayforce is introducing agentic AI capabilities designed to streamline end-to-end workflows from employee scheduling through to payroll processing, according to HRTech Series. The move signals Dayforce's push to embed autonomous, goal-directed AI agents into core HR operations rather than relying solely on traditional rule-based automation.
Avante Raises $30M in Series A Funding - FinSMEs
Avante has reportedly raised $30M in a Series A funding round, according to aggregator FinSMEs. No further details — including the company's industry, investors, or intended use of funds — have been disclosed in the available signal.
Agentic AI can cut banks' transaction monitoring workload by up to 50%: McKinsey - ETHRWorld.com
McKinsey reportedly estimates that agentic AI could reduce the transaction monitoring workload at banks by as much as 50%, according to a summary published by ETHRWorld.com. The finding points to significant implications for compliance staffing, role redesign, and reskilling strategies across financial institutions.
Eightfold AI welcomes new CEO as the talent intelligence platform grows and scales - HR Brew
Eightfold AI has named a new CEO to lead the talent intelligence platform through its next phase of growth, according to HR Brew. The identity of the incoming executive and further details of the transition have not yet been disclosed.
ICIMS Named a Talent Acquisition Leader by Nucleus Research for Seventh Consecutive Year - PR Newswire
iCIMS has reportedly been named a Talent Acquisition Leader by Nucleus Research for the seventh consecutive year, according to a company press release. No additional detail on evaluation criteria or peer vendors assessed was disclosed in the announcement.
AI Makes The HCM Market Hot Again: Workday, SAP, Oracle, and More.
Analyst Josh Bersin argues that AI is triggering a renaissance for major HCM platforms — Workday, SAP, and Oracle chief among them — shifting their identity from administrative systems of record to strategic AI operating layers for business growth. Writing after a month of vendor meetings and attendance at both Unleash and Workday Rising, Bersin outlines five structural forces driving the shift: economic expansion, HCM's emergence as an AI data backbone, fragmentation in the standalone AI agent market, the opening of HCM APIs, and dramatically improved user interfaces. On the Workday front specifically, he highlights the launch of 17 'Superagents,' the new Workday Data Cloud, a universal Candidate Profile, and an agent management suite that includes identity capabilities reportedly acquired from c1.ai.
Deel vs. Rippling: Pricing, Features & Key Differences (2026 Comparison Guide)
Workology has published a 2026 buyer-oriented comparison guide pitting Deel against Rippling on pricing and features for global teams. The piece adds to a crowded field of similar head-to-head analyses but reflects sustained market interest in how these two prominent HR platforms differentiate, particularly for companies managing international workforces.
HR TechnologyAgentic HR is everywhere — but nobody agrees on where it stops
From misconduct reporting to SMB workforce orchestration, the industry is shipping AI agents faster than it's setting rules for them.
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