Ethan Ray is a senior research analyst at 451 Research from S&P Global Energy Horizons, where he contributes to the Workforce Productivity & Collaboration practice. Ethan leads research on employee experience technologies, performance and talent management systems, human capital management tools, and people analytics platforms, with a particular focus on how data and behavioral science drive organizational effectiveness. Ethan joined S&P Global in July 2025. Prior to this, he was a senior people scientist at Culture Amp, where he served as a strategic adviser to HR teams and senior leaders on evidence-based employee survey strategies and performance management initiatives. He also held roles in talent management at New York Life Insurance Company and served as an adjunct faculty member at Baruch College, where he taught courses in organizational psychology. Ethan holds a Bachelor of Science in Biobehavioral Health from Pennsylvania State University, a Master of Science in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Baruch College, and a Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. During his Ph.D. studies, his research focused on the intersection of technology and employee dynamics, particularly examining biases in asynchronous video interviews and perceptions of leadership in remote work environments.
The company is betting that AI agents, permission-aware knowledge access and outcome-based pricing can give midmarket IT buyers an alternative to heavy enterprise service platforms. Its core platform thesis will be tested with HR and IT workflows that are compliance-entangled, interpersonal and structurally resistant to clean resolution.
Employee skill development has emerged as HR's top strategic priority, yet the infrastructure to act on that priority remains incomplete, as few employees say skills intelligence is central to how their organization manages workforce development. This reflects an operationalization gap: Organizations have embedded AI across HR systems but lack the integrated operating models to translate those capabilities into workforce outcomes. As a result, organizations face skills visibility without attribution and employee development efforts without clear links to performance and progression. Closing this gap will require task-level diagnosis of how AI is reshaping work, as well as performance attribution, system integration and governance frameworks that ensure skills development is measured, validated and translated into credible career outcomes.
The US energy build-out is becoming a workforce execution problem. As demand for grid capacity, datacenters and AI-enabled operations rises, HR technology will determine whether organizations can forecast, reskill and redeploy talent fast enough.
The company is repositioning its platform from learning management to workforce capability infrastructure. Its AI-driven Learning Impact Suite generates role-specific skills, training plans and fully structured courses, and then links development activity to measurable business outcomes using customer data.
HR teams are adopting AI, skills intelligence and employee experience systems, but maturity depends on whether organizations can integrate systems, govern AI use and generate workforce data reliable enough to support decisions.
Voice of the Enterprise: Workforce Productivity & Collaboration surveys a panel of mid-level and senior professional decision-makers to provide you with actionable data and insight to track critical workforce transformation dynamics.
The productivity software space has long been dominated by oligopolies in defined product segments that have resisted disruption. But newer technologies and approaches are displacing them, giving rise to new behaviors and patterns of work, and increasing autonomy over how work is designed and executed. VotE: Workforce Productivity & Collaboration helps stakeholders understand challenges and opportunities in the market.
This survey also drilled down into how changes in workforce dynamics have forced innovation among vendors of human resources (HR) technology tools and end-user productivity software as they attempt to reconcile their offerings with the increasing importance of employee experience. VotE: Workforce Productivity & Collaboration helps leaders and stakeholders understand the changes in both the HR technology and productivity software markets, and the opportunities and challenges therein.
This online survey of 528 respondents was conducted in April and May 2026. The margin of error for top-line statistics is +/- 4 points at the 95% confidence level.
Employee skill development in the age of AI (Customer Voice report)
Employee skill development has emerged as HR's top strategic priority, yet the infrastructure to act on that priority remains incomplete, as few employees say skills intelligence is central to how their organization manages workforce development. This reflects an operationalization gap: Organizations have embedded AI across HR systems but lack the integrated operating models to translate those capabilities into workforce outcomes. As a result, organizations face skills visibility without attribution and employee development efforts without clear links to performance and progression. Closing this gap will require task-level diagnosis of how AI is reshaping work, as well as performance attribution, system integration and governance frameworks that ensure skills development is measured, validated and translated into credible career outcomes.
HR teams are adopting AI, skills intelligence and employee experience systems, but maturity depends on whether organizations can integrate systems, govern AI use and generate workforce data reliable enough to support decisions.
Crosstabs (Excel tables | Download link in sidebar to the right) – Crosstabs of complete worldwide and regional survey results datasets, including key metrics and segmentation.
Charts and Figures (PowerPoint charts | Navigate charts in sidebar to the left | Download link in sidebar to the right) – PowerPoint slide deck of complete top-line survey results in charts and figures.
Data Insights Deck (PowerPoint charts | Coming soon) – PowerPoint slide deck of advanced charts supporting deeper analysis and insight.
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