Improving Culture with Data and AI at ACE

Announcer: Welcome to the Recruiting Community Podcast, the go-to channel for talent acquisition leaders and practitioners. This show is brought to you by CXR, a trusted community of thousands connecting the best minds in the industry to explore topics like attracting, engaging, and retaining top talent. Hosted by Chris Hoyt and Jerry Crispin. We are thrilled to have you join the conversation.

Chris Hoyt: All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Recruiting Community Podcast. We’re doing weekly insights with talent leaders from around the world. Now, typically, we’re pulling from our membership at the CXR community—that’s hundreds of companies and thousands of practitioners and leaders who specialize in talent acquisition.

Something a little different today, if you haven’t seen one of these series yet. We’re in Las Vegas doing something kind of cool. Maybe you’re on a treadmill, maybe you’re just listening and can’t see, but we’re at the USA Today Top Workplaces 2025 Awards Conference. This is the second conference they’ve done for this, but the program has been going on for quite a while.

I’m super excited—we have KK here with us. KK, before we jump in, why don’t you give us a little background on yourself and what you do at American College of Education?

KK Byland: Sure. I’m KK Byland, Chief Human Resources Officer, and I’ve been with the college for 10 years. We’ve been a USA Today Top Workplace for four years in a row now.

Chris Hoyt: Nice! Congrats. That’s no small feat. What’s interesting about this, and a little different from some other awards—you know, not naming names—is that companies aren’t selected through a popularity contest or based on cool things they say they’re doing. What determines your rank here is actually the feedback from employees within your organization.

Can you share a bit more about what your company does, for folks who might not have heard of you?

KK Byland: Yeah. American College of Education provides online, accessible, and affordable degrees for adult learners—primarily teachers, leaders, healthcare workers, and nurses. We’re really focused on serving those who serve.

Chris Hoyt: I love it. So, you sent this out, employees gave feedback—were there any insights or “aha” moments that changed how you’re doing work, or maybe just reinforced that you were on the right track?

KK Byland: Well, I think every year brings some kind of “aha” in one area or another. Like with many surveys, you focus on areas of opportunity—the lower scores. But this year, we got more granular with the data sets, particularly looking at specific groups.

This year, we identified that our senior leader group could potentially be trending down with the scores. These are the leaders who report directly to the executives. It’s a very healthy group—scores in the 80th percentile—but we noticed some areas that were 3 to 5 percentage points lower than last year. That might not seem like much, but we want to get in front of it before it becomes a problem.

Chris Hoyt: Yeah, why wait for it to become an issue? Why not get ahead of it?

KK Byland: Exactly. We spent dedicated time with that group and the survey data to identify why the scores dipped and make sure it doesn’t become a trend or a problem.

Chris Hoyt: I love that. And you’ve got some innovative things going on internally that touch on that space. You were talking earlier about launching something new—want to share that?

KK Byland: Sure. Innovation is one of our core values. We’re constantly looking at how we can do things better and more efficiently. We’re 100% remote, so we’re always exploring better ways to communicate and collaborate—we don’t have the luxury of popping into someone’s office or gathering in a boardroom.

We recently adopted a new platform called Human Intelligence. It’s an online software tool that uses AI to help us better collaborate and communicate by analyzing our personal profiles. It tells you how someone likes to be communicated with, how they learn, what motivates them, how they like to receive recognition, and how to be more successful in meetings with them. It’s used across all levels—leaders, colleagues, employees.

Chris Hoyt: So, you’ve basically implemented a communications coach—like a pocket coach for everyone. How long has it been live?

KK Byland: We launched it for our full-time staff in January, so just about a full quarter.

Chris Hoyt: And you’re already seeing good feedback, even anecdotally?

KK Byland: Absolutely. Our organizational development and training team hosted what we call an “Empower Hour,” and one leader shared they were using the tool to better communicate with their employees because they understood their styles better. Another employee said they could communicate more effectively with their leader because they understood who their leader was based on personas. Others have reported scheduling more productive meetings based on the tool’s insights.

Chris Hoyt: I bet that’s a big one. I remember being in a corporate setting, going into meetings—just having that quick coach say, “Hey, this is how KK prefers communication,” or “Here’s an ideal approach”—that could make a big difference in having a productive day.

KK Byland: It does. And it sits on top of our Microsoft tools—it integrates with Outlook and Teams. So, if I’m writing an email to you, I can hit the “Suggest Improvements” button and it will rewrite the message based on how you prefer to receive information.

Chris Hoyt: I love that. Reaching out to employees regularly to see how they’re feeling and thinking about the direction of the organization must help drive decisions like this.

KK Byland: It does. We’re very excited to keep building on this and hopefully implement even more tools to keep moving us forward.

Chris Hoyt: That’s exciting. All right, KK—if you were in charge of USA Today for the day and they let you write the headline, top of the fold, what would it be?

KK Byland: I think it would be something like: “Top Workplaces, Great Cultures, Better Success.”

Chris Hoyt: Oh, I love that. Really well done—you might actually get a call! That’s great. Well, thank you so much, and congratulations again.

KK Byland: Thank you!

Chris Hoyt: If you want to see past episodes or find out what’s coming up on the podcast, head to cxr.works/podcast. And if you’d like to check out more of the leadership interviews we’ve done here in Las Vegas, go to cxr.works/usatoday. Thanks, everybody, for dialing in.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to the Recruiting Community Podcast, where talent acquisition leaders connect, learn, and grow together. Be sure to visit cxr.works/podcast to explore past episodes, see what’s coming up next, and find out how you can join the conversation.

Whether you’ve got insights to share or want to be a guest on the show, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a member of the CXR community, visit www.cxr.works. We’ll catch you in the next episode.