You read The Atlantic’s September feature - “The Job Market Is Hell” - and it hits: it’s not just about resumes ghosted by HR or the endless interview loops. The bigger question is this: what if the real hiring signal isn’t in what candidates say about themselves, but how teams work together once they’re hired?
While the job market tightens its grip and workplaces demand “adaptability” and “collaboration,” how exactly are we measuring those things? Most companies still rely on gut feel, sporadic feedback, or one-size-fits-all engagement surveys. In the meantime, people are quietly burning out in meetings that go nowhere, while execs wonder why strategy isn’t landing.
⚠️ Spoiler: it’s not about better icebreakers.
At the same time, headlines are getting... slightly sci-fi. Just this month, Albania appointed the world’s first AI Minister (Politico)- a fully virtual, generative-powered persona named Diella, integrated into the country’s digital services and decision-making workflows. And while some rolled their eyes, others saw a bold move: when expectations for responsiveness and transparency grow, governments - and companies - are turning to tools that actually observe how things get done, not just what people say they’ll do.
💼 Why meetings are the real culture deck
Anyone can slap “collaborative” on their LinkedIn. But what happens in a typical strategy meeting?
- Do two people talk 90% of the time while everyone else nods politely?
- Does that "next step" vanish into the void before lunch is over?
- Is there a consistent voice missing… the one that asks: “Why are we even doing this?”
The truth is: team culture lives in those calls - in tone, participation, clarity, energy. You don’t need a thousand survey responses to find out who’s burning out or zoning out. You need the data that’s already there… just not visible. Yet.
🔍 Enter ULLA HR Engagement: Real Insight, Not Vibes
We’ve said it before, and now it’s truer than ever: meetings are the new performance reviews. But only if you actually look under the hood.
While any decent notetaker (Ulla’s, or otherwise) can give you transcripts and summaries, Ulla Engagement goes a layer deeper:
- Meeting-level Insights: total time attended, speaking time, and engagement metrics; meeting scoring
- Participant-level Insights: tone, reasoning, clarity, supportiveness, involvement, collaboration, responsiveness to feedback.
- Company-level reports: Company Quadrant Plots employees from low time/low participation to high time/high participation for quick pattern recognition
In short: Ulla HR doesn’t replace your people. It simply listens more carefully than anyone in the room can - and turns that into actionable, respectful, privacy-first insights.
🧠 But why now?
Because the illusion of productivity is louder than ever.
Remote work blurred boundaries. Hybrid made everything a meeting. And somewhere between “Can everyone mute?” and “Let’s take that offline,” teams stopped reflecting on how they actually work. Managers still spend 50% of their week in meetings, yet most don’t know if they’re helping or hurting.
And now, we’re entering an era where AI is becoming a team member - not metaphorically, literally. Diella in Albania isn’t just a symbol - it’s a reminder that the systems we design will either enhance our clarity, or automate our chaos.
🔧 Easy to start. Easier to trust.
Using Ulla Engagement is simple:
- Use Ulla Notetaker, or any other meeting recording tool.
- Let Ulla process your meetings - securely, without third-party AI like OpenAI.
- Get dashboards and reports that HR and leadership can act on - no extra meeting required.
Yes, we also make summaries. Yes, we’re GDPR-compliant. No, we don’t want your data.
👀 Final thought
In a world where job boards feel like slot machines and performance is hidden behind emojis on Slack - maybe your meetings already know what’s working. You just haven’t looked yet.
And here, at Ulla Technology, we’re not building AI ministers. We’re just making sure the humans still running the show have real insight, not just “gut feelings in a Google Doc.”