You’ve probably seen the three letters that make up our company name somewhere before: spotted on an NBA jersey, on a golfer’s shirt on the PGA Tour, or seen in our latest TV ad. Maybe you’ve heard our CEO Chris Todd speaking on Fortune or Marketplace. And if you’re an HR or payroll professional, you’ve definitely seen us at SHRM or HR Tech. So, who and what is UKG?
In short, UKG offers technology and services to help organizations create cultures built on trust and belonging to drive business success. While UKG is a relatively new brand — it formed in 2020 as a result of the merger between Ultimate Software and Kronos — the organization has more than 70 years of combined experience in HR and workforce management solutions. We take pride in our tagline: Our purpose is people. We’ll break down what that means in the nine questions below.
1. So what does UKG do?
At the most basic level, UKG is an HR software company. But there’s more to it than that. Whether you call it HCM, HRIS, HRMS, or anything else, pretty much anybody who’s dealt with the people side of running an organization will tell you that having an effective technology platform supporting what you do makes the job a lot easier.
We provide that technology platform through our two main solutions, UKG Pro and UKG Ready, as well as multiple specialty products to support specific needs and industries. We’ll go into more detail about our solutions later.
In addition to our technology, we also offer guidance and services to help advise and partner with our customers to help them succeed, providing answers for every industry and size of business at any stage of growth.
While the technology and service are critical, it’s how we support businesses that really matters, which brings us to the next question.
2. What makes UKG different from other HR software vendors?
Like most vendors in the HR technology space, UKG solutions support organizational processes throughout the employee lifecycle—from recruiting to retention to retirement. But the way we deliver those solutions, how we develop the technology, and the way we support our customers and the market make us unique.
Like we mentioned in the introduction, UKG formed in 2020 a result of the merger between Ultimate Software and Kronos — two powerhouse HCM and workforce management brands. As such, we continue to build on our passion of supporting people at work. That’s why every piece of technology we build, every service we provide, every recommendation we make is designed to reveal what makes workplaces great and in turn, help you make yours great. Why should you trust us to share that advice? It’s simple, really—we’re the most qualified HR technology company to provide those recommendations thanks to 30 years of trusted culture insights from Great Place To Work. Building great workplaces is a defining part of our human capital management (HCM) strategy, as you’ll see below.
We’re the only HR technology company to provide workplace recommendations based on 30 years of culture insights from Great Place To Work data.
3. What is the connection between UKG and Great Place To Work?
In 2021, UKG acquired Great Place To Work, the world’s most trusted authority on workplace culture. Using Great Place To Work research and methodology, UKG provides customers with the tools to make meaningful changes based on data-backed insights to improve every employee’s experience. For example, our research proves that organizations who put culture first increase productivity by 30%, achieve a 50% reduction in turnover, and see more than three times the financial returns of competitors.
This data establishes benchmarks for great workplaces around the world and is the foundation for our proprietary Trust Index survey. Our unique partnership, which is composed of feedback from 100 million employees around the world, helps us define what makes a great workplace and enables organizations to capture, analyze, and understand the employee experience.
Our research proves that organizations who put culture first increase productivity by 30%, achieve a 50% reduction in turnover, and see more than three times the financial returns of competitors.
4. Who are UKG’s customers?
UKG is one of the largest private software companies in the world. As a result, our customers represent a diverse cross-section of employers worldwide. More than 80,000 organizations in 150 countries rely on our solutions to support their people, workplaces, and strategic goals. This includes organizations in healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and beyond. Some of our customers include MGM Grand, Waste Management, Inc., Feeding America, The Salvation Army, Crocs, Yoga Joint, and Costa Coffee, as well as smaller, growing organizations. Here’s what some of UKG's customers are saying:
- “Partnering with UKG has allowed us to evolve our business and have a meaningful impact on our organization and our people. We’re able to spend more time with our customers and coach, train, mentor, and listen to our people. UKG gave us the scalability to successfully manage our growth.”
- “We feel fortunate to have a partner that is so invested in our people and our future. From the first day of our partnership with UKG, we have received the full spectrum of support we need from our sales, services, and customer success teams, and we’re excited about the next phase of our UKG journey.”
- “What’s really important to us is that UKG and our company both have a people-first mentality. It’s embedded in UKG’s culture, and it’s embedded in our culture. We feel it everyday through our partnership with UKG.”
5. Are UKG solutions for large or small organizations?
Both! We’re the only HR vendor that offers a comprehensive HCM solution that fits the size of any organization—from complex enterprise organizations to lean, agile HR teams.
UKG Pro is our powerful, culture-driven HCM and workforce management solution designed for midsize and large organizations, whereas UKG Ready is our all-in-one HR, payroll, talent, and time solution designed for leaner teams.
Our specialized products also complement our core solutions by addressing the needs of a particular industry. For example, UKG Telestaff optimizes public safety staffing and UKG EZCall meets the complex scheduling needs of healthcare employees. You can see all our specialty products here.
6. How do UKG solutions work?
UKG provides cloud-based HCM and workforce management solutions that use a culture-driven approach to help businesses manage their people, payroll, talent, and time in a single, unified platform. Our solutions are embedded with thoughtful AI, offer seamless integrations, and are designed to be flexible and scalable to meet your organization’s needs. Plus, mobile-friendly tools engage critical groups like frontline workers. And in the past five years, we’ve spent nearly $3 billion in innovation to enhance our solutions.
7. How does UKG help with HR, payroll, and workforce management?
At UKG, our solutions help your team streamline scheduling and time and attendance while inspiring your people to reach their potential. UKG’s technology enables you to maximize productivity to empower all your people. We support HR teams to manage their day-to-day processes, implement HR policies, and simplify their administrative tasks. For payroll, we optimize and automate payroll processing, provide ease of access to stay up-to-date on regulations and compliance, and foster financial wellbeing. When it comes to workforce management, we understand people operations technology by managing time and attendance, offering flexible scheduling, and planning workloads specific to your workplace. UKG is designed to build great experiences with solutions designed for all people and all roles.
8. How easy is it to use UKG products?
Our solutions are convenient and easy to use for HR professionals and employees alike. In the past three years, we’ve invested $2 billion to improve the customer experience! When you partner with UKG, you become a partner for life. More than 7,500 UKG experts are dedicated to optimizing your operational processes. And when you need help, you can expect to receive a response within 60 seconds from our support team. We offer free learning resources so your people can get the most out of our solutions daily.
9. Where are UKG’s biggest areas of innovation and investment?
Since 2015, UKG has been a leader in AI, and we’ve recently doubled down on our commitment to make the workplace simpler through our built-in generative AI, UKG Bryte. The technology is woven into both UKG Pro and UKG Ready and is reshaping how people access information, analyze insights, and follow important processes. This technology will empower leaders to make better decisions to positively impact workplace culture.
In the past five years, UKG has spent more than $2.5 billion on research and is dedicated to continuously innovating our technology to help organizations empower their people and achieve better business outcomes. In addition to UKG Bryte, we’ve turned typical HR metrics into actionable insights to build inclusive, equitable cultures through the Great Place to Work Hub and we’ve built a tech platform to help organizations thrive and grow through UKG FleX.
To sum it up, as our CEO Chris Todd says, “We want to do more than solve complex HCM, payroll, and time and scheduling problems for our customers. Our goal is to be laser focused on the employee experience.” Through our HCM technology, we’re committed to helping your organization become a great place to work.
To learn more about selecting the right human capital management technology for your organization, check out our HCM Buyer’s Guide.
