PrismHR 40th Anniversary: 3 Workplace Trends From 2015—Then and Now

The year: 2015 

PrismHR is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2025. To commemorate the occasion, we will periodically share stories related to workforce trends over the past four decades. In this blog, we head back to the 2010s to see how much technological progress we have made since then. 

Ten years ago, two brothers made a bold move when they rescued a bald eagle from a trap—and then decided to take a selfie with it before setting it free.  

Thankfully, it appears that no animal or human was hurt in the process. 

That same year, an HR outsourcer tech company made a painless yet poignant move as well that set its customers and their clients soaring to new heights.  

2015 was the year the world was introduced to PrismHR for the first time. Let’s clarify that: PrismHR was not a new brand by any means, but that was the year that F.W. Davison & Co. officially introduced the new moniker, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Indeed, the world of HR outsourcer tech would never be the same while the advancements keep on coming with innovations galore.

Read our 1985, 1995 and 2005 posts, and stay tuned for 2025 and what the future holds.

Popping in on Pop Culture 

Saying farewell was a big theme in 2015. Two late-night talk show mainstays said their goodbyes in 2015: David Letterman and Jon Stewart. Letterman had been the host of The Late Show With David Letterman since 1993, and Jon Stewart had hosted Comedy Central’s The Daily Show ever since he took over from Craig Kilborn in 1999. 

2025 Update: Both comedians are back doing what they do best—telling jokes and interviewing people. Letterman’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman” has been on TV for five seasons now, and Stewart returned to The Daily Show in 2024. 

Guess history does repeat itself after all. 

In pop star Taylor Swift’s case, that’s pretty much a given. Her 2015 1989 world tour—lots of digits there, we know—was the talk of the town bringing in a whopping $250 million, which was the highest amount for any concert that year. 

Then Taylor said hold my carbonated beverage almost 10 years later when her Eras Tour traveled the world and pulled in a pedestrian $2 billion from 149 three-hour-plus concerts. 

2015 At-a-Glance 

* IPhone 6S Plus
**iPhone 16 Pro Max (starting price) 
Sources: Android Authority, The Numbers, Pollstar, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via FRED, U.S. Postal Service 

2015 was also the start of a new era when it came to innovation.  

That was the year when the hoverboard scooter was added to lots of kids’ holiday lists. It was also the year the Microsoft HoloLens, an augmented reality/mixed reality headset, was announced. It wouldn’t be available till the following March.  

The top-grossing film of 2015 was Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and the HuffPost dubbed 2015 as “The Year Streaming Went Mainstream.”  

So, under that backdrop, let’s look at which workforce and HR tech “forces” were “streaming” into businesses 10 years ago and how that compares to today, shall we? 

3 Trends From 2015 and 2025 

1. Then: Time magazine republished a post from Roger W. Ferguson Jr. At the time, Ferguson was the president and CEO of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA). He previously served as vice chair of the Federal Reserve. The theme of the post was a common one: Leadership. 

As Ferguson wrote, “A recent Amazon.com search turned up more than 140,000 books on the topic of leadership. It seems there is an endless amount to say about this important topic. But the main thing you need to know is that leadership is really all about ‘followership,’ or getting others to want to follow you.” 

To inspire people, Ferguson listed four key qualities: 

1. Expertise
2. Appeal
3. Empathy
4. Fortitude

Let’s focus on that first point. Expertise, Ferguson explained, comes from a “big-picture perspective to earn followership beyond your functional area.”  

And where is one key place that informative view can come from? Data. 

As Database Trends and Applications proclaimed in early 2015, Data Warehousing with its “logical layer” was becoming an important tool to help companies make better decisions. “Companies are increasingly taking full advantage of the distributed capabilities of Hadoop to collect data with all the variety and velocity demanded by the flood of data coming in from multiple data sources,” the publication wrote. Hadoop, by the way, is an open-source framework used to store and process large datasets.  

Strong leadership never goes out of style—and not in a Taylor Swift song kind of way—and neither does superb analytics. 

Now: Somewhat surprisingly, Amazon now has over 70,000 “leadership” books, so the field has shrunk considerably. 

Not only leadership but also managers and other employees rely on the outputs from technology to help them make better decisions. As we enter the Age of AI, the ability to extract key information even from disparate datasets is only going to get better, too.  

Today, HR Outsourcers (HROs) already have access to powerful tools like Report Center, which offers intuitive report building, data visualization and scalable Data Warehouse functionality.  

The more informed your clients are, the better expertise they will have at their disposal when it comes to HR and payroll decisions. It also leads to greater appeal, meaning having the data to back up those decisions.  

Empathetic and fortitudinous decisions are left up to the decision-maker, but at least they’ll have the information they need at their disposal when it comes to make those types of decisions.  

Translation: Data is intellectual currency and actual currency. 

2. Then: A traveler walks up to a counter at a hotel, and the attendant says, “Welcome, how may I help you?” Nothing special there, right? Well, what if we told you that “person” at the check-in counter wasn’t a person at all but a “robotic service” agent?  

The story gets more interesting right? 

In 2015, the New York Times reported that the Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki, Japan, was making extensive use of robots for guest check-ins, carting luggage and concierge services. “Watching robots in action is clearly part of the appeal,” the Times reported. 

Clearly. 

But more importantly, Chekitan Dev, a Cornell University marketing professor, told the Times: “Hotels are evolving from a purely ‘high touch’ business to a hybrid ‘high touch, high tech business.” 

We’ll touch on that, too. 

Now: A visit to the Henn na Hotel’s website today shows a slew of robotic helpers—from a dinosaur robot that assists with check in to a RoBoHon, which is an interactive bot that walks, talks and acts as a personal assistant. 

With today’s artificial intelligence (AI), the world of robotics is poised to make even bigger strides. Allison Okamura, a Stanford University engineering professor, recently spoke at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) conference in Atlanta on “The Interplay of Robots and Society.” 

“From the time of Rosie on The Jetsons,” she said, “we’ve dreamed of robots that can help us with tasks in our daily lives.” 

But, she explains, specialized robots that serve a specific purpose rather than ones designed to excel in many different ways could be optimal for more cost-effective, safer and reliable robotic assistance.  

In the HRO space, where sensitive data is housed and stored, a measured approach to AI is not only prudent but also imperative—but that doesn’t mean we can’t explore what the future might look like.  

While robots themselves might not have a place in HR just yet, we can think of many ways that things like agentic AI can help businesses find information or ask questions to help them make better decisions. One area is related to Marketplace partner choices. What if an agentic agent could help you decide which partners are best for you and your clients? Helpful, right? Or what about a compliance hub that is designed to help you and your clients keep up with regulatory changes? Interest piqued?  

We’re all a-bot the possibilities. 

3. Then: In 2015, Jeannine English, then-president of the AARP, wrote a column in the AARP Journal titled, “Global Aging: The Transformation Issue of Our Time.” 

In the column, she mentioned the U.S. life expectancy had reached 78.8 years. She wrote how, by 2050, “older people will outnumber children for the first time globally in history.” She also discussed the decline in the number of workers aged 25 to 44.  

Who will fill the void? 

As English wrote, there is and will be a large population of experienced older workers available who will want to continue working or return to the workforce. “Because AARP believes in the value of experienced workers, we believe in the wisdom of attracting and retaining them,” she wrote. “We believe that no one’s possibilities should diminish with age.” 

We couldn’t agree more; that’s a position that never ages. 

Now: Following a dip in life expectancy after the pandemic, life expectancy is back on the rise—and expected to reach 79.3 years in the U.S. this year. And, according to the World Health Organization, the number of people over the age of 60 outnumbered the number of children younger than 5 years old.  

What was not mentioned in that AARP column was saving for retirement. It’s a subject that never goes away. 

Besides earning more income for day-to-day or monthly expenses, staying in the workforce longer or returning to the workforce after a period away gives workers a chance to allow their nest eggs to grow. Keep in mind that only 60% of U.S. adults have money invested in a retirement savings plan, such as a 401(k). And for people with household incomes under $50,000, that number drops to 28%.  

By including a plan like PrismHR Retirement Services, you’re helping your clients help their employees—regardless of how old they are. As an HRO, doing what’s right for businesses means doing what’s right for your business.  

Next Time on PrismHR 40th Anniversary Reminiscing … 

It’s time to fast-forward to the present, and, perhaps, take a peek into the future as well. The future is bright with innovation and insights illuminating our path—for you and your clients. 

James Tehrani is PrismHR’s content marketing manager. He is an award-winning writer and editor based in the Chicago area.