 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Predecessors | |
| Founded | April 1, 2020 |
| Headquarters | |
Key people |
|
| Revenue |  $3.656 billion (2022) [1] |
| Owners |
|
Number of employees | 12,000+ (2024) |
| Website | www |
UKG is an American multinational technology company with dual headquarters in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Weston, Florida. It provides workforce management and human resource management services.
The company was founded in April 2020 as a result of the merger of Ultimate Software and Kronos Incorporated. [3] Former Kronos CEO Aron Ain was the CEO and chairperson of the combined company until July 1, 2022, when he stepped down as CEO to become Executive Chairperson. [4]
On February 20, 2020, Ultimate Software and Kronos Incorporated announced they agreed to form a new cloud computing venture specializing in workforce management and human capital management. The combined company, valued at $22 billion, would be one of the largest cloud computing companies. Kronos CEO Aron Ain became CEO and chairman of the new company, with more than 12,000 employees and dual headquarters in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Weston, Florida. [5] [6] [7] [8] The merger was officially completed on April 1, 2020, [9] [10] and in August, the company's name was announced as Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG), which became effective on October 1. [11]
In May 2021, the company appointed tech industry veteran Brian Reaves as the company's Chief Belonging, Diversity, and Equity Officer. [12]
In December 2021, UKG launched its Close the Gap Initiative, a $3 million campaign funded by the company to address salary inequity for U.S. workers' wages, in particular for women and people of color. [13]
In July 2022, UKG named Christopher Todd as chief executive officer succeeding Aron Ain who was named executive chairman of the board of directors. [14]
UKG has been noted for its inclusive, diversified workforce and community-oriented work environment. [15] [16] [17] [18]
In July 2024, UKG eliminated approximately 2250 positions (14% of their global employee population) worldwide. UKG accidentally notified impacted employees by prematurely emailing FedEx labels and instructions on how to return their laptops.
In July 2024, UKG replaced Christopher Todd as chief executive officer with former SAP Co-CEO, Jennifer Morgan.
In 2023, the company sponsored a $1 million prize for the NWSL Challenge Cup, an annual tournament organized by the National Women's Soccer League. [19]
Following the merger of Ultimate Software and Kronos Incorporated, the Ultimate Kronos Group was established in April 2020. According to Society for Human Resource Management, the new company became one of the largest HR technology vendors in the highly competitive economy section that includes ADP, Ceridian, Taleo, Successfactors, and Workday. [20] [21]
In June 2021, the company acquired EverythingBenefits, a developer of cloud-based business software that connects employers to insurance, retirement and other information. The acquisition allowed UKG to incorporate EverythingBenefits’ procedural knowledge including its suite of payroll, HR service delivery, and workforce management, among other tools. [22]
On September 1, 2021, UKG bought Great Place to Work® Inc., the company behind Fortune’s annual list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. [23] [24]
In December 2021, UKG acquired Ascentis Corporation, a midmarket provider of HCM and time management solutions. [25]
In February 2022, UKG acquired SpotCues, an employee engagement and communication solution. SpotCues was relaunched as UKG Talk. As of July 2023, UKG Talk has more than 1 million users. The company also expanded into the Caribbean market with its acquisition of Interboro Systems Corporation, based in Puerto Rico, the same month. [26]
In November 2022, UKG acquired the Oxford-headquartered strategic workforce planning software company, Quorbit. [27]
In June 2023, UKG acquired Immedis, an Irish global payroll platform from CluneTech for over €550 million. The platform was relaunched as UKG OneView with a focus on multinational workforce management, payroll, tax and funding. [28] [29]
Established in 2007, Workforce Institute is the company's think tank and research platform for organizations providing information on Human Capital Management issues that include working environment optimization, analytical and educational tools, accommodation of people with disabilities and more. The organization also conducts surveys and issues annual reports on global workforce trends and developments. [30] [31] [32] [33]
The Workforce Activity Report is an index analyzing shift work trends from over four million people across more than 35,000 U.S. businesses. Reports are published and briefings are held each Tuesday prior to the publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Report. The Report is covered widely by news organizations and government sources. [34] [35] [36]
In December 2021, UKG disclosed that it was targeted by a ransomware attack that was first detected on December 11, 2021. The malware attack affected the Kronos Private Cloud feature used by many large businesses including Boots, Gap Inc., Marriott International, MGM Resorts International, PepsiCo, Sainsbury's, Samsung, Staples Inc., Tesla, Inc., Whole Foods Market, Yamaha Corporation, YMCA, and others while some governmental entities such as the cities of Cleveland, Springfield, Massachusetts as well as the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority were also affected. [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]
Many sources reported that the attack possibly occurred as a result of the Log4Shell zero-day, but UKG claimed it did not have evidence of Log4Shell being responsible for the ransomware incident. [41] [42] [39] [37]
Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, which was the controlling shareholder of both Ultimate and Kronos, is the controlling shareholder of UKG. [43] Blackstone, which also owned stakes in both previous companies, is the largest minority investor with a 20–25 percent stake. [2] [6] Other minority investors include GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and JMI Equity. [5]
Intuit Inc. is an American multinational business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application TurboTax, the small business accounting program QuickBooks, the credit monitoring and personal accounting service Credit Karma, and email marketing platform Mailchimp. As of 2019, more than 95% of its revenues and earnings come from its activities within the United States.
Ramco Systems Limited is an Indian multinational enterprise software product & platform provider. Founded in 1997, it is a part of the Ramco Group, and is headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Dayforce, Inc., formerly Ceridian, is a provider of human resources software and services with employees across its global footprint in the United States, Canada, Europe, Middle East,Latinamerica, Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region. It is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange.
Visma (acronym for Visual management) is a privately held company headquartered in Oslo, Norway, that provides cloud accounting, payroll, invoicing, and HR business software products. The majority of the company is owned by HgCapital, a private equity firm.
Sopra Steria is a European-based consulting, digital services, and software development company with 50,000 consultants. The company is headquartered in Paris and has operations in several countries in Western Europe.
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is a professional human resources membership association headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. SHRM promotes the role of HR as a profession and provides education, certification, and networking to its members, while lobbying Congress on issues pertinent to labor management.
Workday, Inc., is an American on‑demand (cloud-based) financial management, human capital management, and student information system software vendor. Workday was founded by David Duffield, founder and former CEO of ERP company PeopleSoft, along with former PeopleSoft chief strategist Aneel Bhusri, following Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft in 2005.
Kronos Incorporated was an American multinational workforce management and human capital management cloud provider headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts, United States, which employed more than 6,000 people worldwide.
Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments. H&F has focused its efforts on several core target industries including media, financial services, professional services and information services. The firm tends to avoid asset intensive or other industrial businesses. H&F is based in San Francisco, with offices in New York and London.
A talent management system (TMS) is an integrated software suite that addresses the "four pillars" of talent management: recruitment; performance management; learning and development; and compensation management.
Ultimate Software was an American multinational technology company that developed and sold UltiPro, a cloud-based human capital management (HCM) software system for businesses. Headquartered in Weston, Florida, the company was founded in 1990 by Scott Scherr, and it released its first version of software in 1993. As of the fourth quarter in 2017, Ultimate Software reported total revenues of over $940.7 million. As of 2017, the company employs more than 5,000 people and services 4,100 customers in 160 countries. Ultimate had offices around the U.S., Canada, UK, and Singapore. On February 4, 2019, Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners announced it would purchase Ultimate Software Group for $11 billion; the purchase closed on May 3, 2019.
API Healthcare is based in Hartford, Wisconsin, and is a developer of healthcare-specific workforce management software. The company is best known for providing workforce management solutions to the healthcare industry.
Paycom Software, Inc., known simply as Paycom, is an American online payroll and human resource software provider based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma with offices throughout the United States. It is attributed with being one of the first fully online payroll providers. It has been recognized by Fortune and Forbes as one of the fastest-growing publicly traded companies in the world, and as one of the World's Most Innovative Enterprise Companies by Fast Company in 2022. Founded in 1998, it reported annual revenue of $1.375 billion for 2022, up from $1.06 billion for 2021.
TriNet Zenefits is a technology company based in San Francisco that offers cloud-based software as a service to companies for managing their human resources, with a particular focus on helping them with payroll and health insurance coverage. The company was founded in 2013.
A human resources management system (HRMS), also human resources information system (HRIS) or human capital management (HCM) system, is a form of human resources (HR) software that combines a number of systems and processes to ensure the easy management of human resources, business processes and data. Human resources software is used by businesses to combine a number of necessary HR functions, such as storing employee data, managing payroll, recruitment, benefits administration, time and attendance, employee performance management, and tracking competency and training records.
PeopleDoc was a cloud-based human resources service delivery and document management platform that was founded in France. In 2018, it was acquired by Ultimate Software for approximately $300 million. UKG, the successor company of Ultimate Software delivers former PeopleDoc technology as part of their suite of solutions.
Aron Ain is an American software technology executive and author. He became the CEO of UKG in 2020, a role he held until being named UKG Executive Chair, effective July 1, 2022. UKG was created from the merger of Ultimate Software and Kronos Incorporated, and provides global HCM and workforce management solutions. Previously, Ain had been the chief executive officer of Kronos Incorporated since 2005.
Oracle Cloud Human Capital Management is a cloud-based HCM software application suite for global HR, talent, and workforce management released by Oracle Corporation in 2011.
Deel is an Israeli-American payroll and outsourcing company based in San Francisco, California. The company provides hiring, payments, and outsourcing services for companies hiring international employees and contractors.
Log4Shell (CVE-2021-44228) is a zero-day vulnerability reported in November 2021 in Log4j, a popular Java logging framework, involving arbitrary code execution. The vulnerability had existed unnoticed since 2013 and was privately disclosed to the Apache Software Foundation, of which Log4j is a project, by Chen Zhaojun of Alibaba Cloud's security team on 24 November 2021. Before an official CVE identifier was made available on 10 December 2021, the vulnerability circulated with the name "Log4Shell", given by Free Wortley of the LunaSec team, which was initially used to track the issue online. Apache gave Log4Shell a CVSS severity rating of 10, the highest available score. The exploit was simple to execute and is estimated to have had the potential to affect hundreds of millions of devices.
