Where HR Tech is Headed With Lars Schmidt, Founder of Amplify

In this episode, I speak with Lars Schmidt, Founder of Amplify, and he shares broad insights about the rise of HR tech in response to COVID, the HR tech stack for modern company leaders, and how work itself will change 3-5 years down the road. 

Transcript

Alexei Introduction 0:00

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the future of work tech, a podcast where we covered the nexus of new HR trends and the technology that supports them. I'm your host, Alexia Dunaway. And today I welcome to the show. Lara Schmidt, founder of amplify, as you'll hear Laura's wears many hats as an HR consultant and advisor as an accelerator of the next generation of HR leaders. And as a thought leader through the redefining HR podcast and new book, we recorded this conversation late last year. And in it, we talked broadly about the rise of HR tech in response to COVID the HR tech stack for modern company leaders and how work itself is and will change over the next three to five years down the road. Let's dive in.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 0:42

Laura's thanks so much for coming on the show. Why don't you start by giving our listeners a little bit of background about yourself and.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 0:48

Yeah. Hey Lexi. Good to be here. So I'm Laura Schmidt. I spent a little over 20 years in this space. Most of that time in the corporate world. So running global talent recruiting teams that, Ticketmaster, um, source e-commerce company called Magento, and. then most recently NP. Kind of leading them through their transformation from radio and broadcast to digital, left NPR about seven and a half years ago to start my own firm amplify. And so, amplifies, you know, gone through some different, evolution over the last seven and a half years. But, Really the focus today is, is three primary verticals. One is agency where I do HR executive search and advisory work. The other is an accelerator platform, which is aimed at kind of building and developing and supporting the next generation of chief people officers. And then the third channel is a amplify media, which houses, the redefining HR book, the podcast, and then a blog and a newsletter as well. So really a kind of commonality across all of those things. I try to get involved in projects that accelerate innovation and HR. And so, that's really, what, uh,

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 1:44

Really lovely to hear. I'd love to zoom in a little bit on the work that you're doing with the people leader accelerator that I know is emerging and all of the work that you do with redefining HR podcasts that I've been following for for a bit. Now, you have really excellent guests that come through have really excellent insights. So we'd love to just learn a little bit more about.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 2:02

Yeah, Well, they're all kind of connected, I'd say the, the podcast really spun out from a series I did in 2019 and fast companies. I've been contributing to fast company for about five years now. Usually covering kind of modern people practices. In 2019, I did a year long series called 21st century. And originally the podcast spun out from that. rather than just, covering a story in a thousand words, I wanted to include a podcast where I can go deeper. So if a reader wanted more context, you know, I could provide that to them. And then that kind of became its own standalone podcast. And then that really led to the book, which I began writing in 2020, in published earlier this year. And then, so the book was titled redefining H. I read named the podcast, redefining HR, just so it was consistent and, you know, less confusing. And then that actually, you know, the book ironically led to the accelerator platform because it had a lot of people who read the book, follow up with me afterwards and say, okay, I want to continue my learning and growth and development in modern HR and people practices. Where can I go to do that? And I didn't really have a good answer, for them. So I thought, you know what, this is kind of the world that I've been immersed in for the last five plus years. Why don't I build something that can, kind of take a more active role in developing and supporting the next generation of chief people, officers. So that's kind of how that all came to.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 3:20

Well, thanks for those that are listening. I have the book right here and I just want to give a really strong endorsement. It covers a lot of different trends that are emerging in HR and how they've shifted over the past decade or longer. And what's ahead. And it's, it's really, really excellent. So thanks for putting that together and I'm glad to see the work that's emerging from it.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 3:38

Yeah, well, that's kind, I appreciate it.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 3:42

Through all these different platforms, you have a really unique perspective, right? Working with so many different companies, talking to so many different HR leaders, a perspective on the challenges, the opportunities emerging across the industry, what's happening in 21st century. HR, really curious to understand how technology is playing into some of the trends that you see. And we can drill into a few key elements from, from there.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 4:04

Yeah. I mean, there's not a lot of elements that technology isn't playing a role in. my friend, uh, George LaRoc, who's one of my favorite kind of HR tech analysts in the space. He had a report in his work tech, series, about a month ago. Now there. was a, I think it was $4.7 billion. Invested in HR tech in Q2 of this year alone, which is astronomical. Right. We've never seen anything even remotely like that. And so I think that we're in part of what's fueling that is we're at this, pivotal moment in not just the field of HR, but in work itself. Right? Whether it's the shift towards remote hybrid, the way we're using analytics in ways that we never had before. The way that, uh, we're thinking about leveraging technology to, help remove some systemic inequity and, address kind of DEI issues within our workplaces. there's no, there's no area that is, is kind of in motion right now that doesn't impact HR tech. I think the one thing that, I always, add on to the conversation around technology is, technology is a tool. To support the practices. I think our practices broadly need to change and technology can support that change. in a way that kind of serves our employees, in our business.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 5:15

So with such a huge investment in billions of dollars in Q2 alone, there's such a growth in the number of products and services that are being offered. How our HR teams in CHR is making decisions about all the emergent software. How should they be making decisions?

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 5:31

Yeah, I honestly, I don't envy, uh, SROs who have to make an HR tech stack decisions? especially in this market. I mean, you know, a like just setting aside the insane demands of their jobs right now, and also setting aside the massive stress. And, hardship, debt, they continue to carry for the past 18 months. Right? I think that that, that role has been uniquely burdened by all of the events of the last, year and a half. I think that those pieces are all very real. I would make the recommendation, you have to, you have to do obviously do your homework and do some research, but you might want to even, leverage, external. Experts and analysts to help kind of guide that decision because they're going to know the landscape in a way that you won't. The other piece is a 1000%. You've got to be able to leverage your peer networks to get recommendations from your peers who have used those different platforms and those technologies to find that because again, with the amount of money that's being poured in the space, some companies are great at marketing. There are solutions, but their solutions aren't really the solutions necessarily that are the best fit. Maybe they are, but not always. And so the loudest, most prominent companies, aren't always the wisest investments for a specific company. And so I think having those peer networks that you can leverage to say, Hey, who's using X, what is your experience been with X? I see those conversations. On a daily basis and different, CHR and CPO communities that I'm in. So I think those peer networks become really important, especially when it comes to vendor selection.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 7:02

Extending what you were just talking about. There's somewhat of a prioritization game here, right? There's so many opportunities to apply these new tools. what's your recommendation for how CHRs should think about where to look for.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 7:14

Yeah. I think you have to prioritize based on the needs of your business, and the needs of, not just your business today, but how you expect your business to be developing over the next two years. I think a two to three here horizon, is probably a good line of sight to be planning towards, I think, longer than the. You know, the world has taught us that things are too volatile to get too locked into plans that go deep with that two to three years, some might argue is actually too far already. So I would say, you know, you have your core HR systems, you have your ATS, you have your HRS, you have payroll, et cetera, et cetera. those are the foundations. You need to have those in place. And when it comes to bolting on to that or enhancing. Your options are unlimited, right? So then you have to think like what our biggest pain points as an organization, as a business and as a culture, and then how can we prioritize, additional tools that can help support those needs specifically? So, whether it's, shifting to hybrid and remote work and you need to have better kind of asynchronous collaboration and coordination tools, maybe that's where you invest, uh, whether you want to invest more in kind of automation. To, onboarding and pre-boarding new hires, sourcing technology, if DEI is a big focus of yours and hopefully it is, there may be tools there where you want to invest, but I think you have to really start with the strategic roadmap of the business and the particular pain points you have and then design around that. But typically you're going to get the foundational elements of your HR tech stack in place. First, before you start considering some of those.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 8:40

And we'd love to push into a little bit and extend our understanding of some of the key trends that you have pointed out. Some of the key opportunities here, you've talked about the shift towards hybrid and remote work. And I know that's been a major topic of conversation over the past, past 18 months with, with COVID and now people are wrestling with this. What does it look like to come back to work? What does it look like to form, libraries or different spaces? That don't have to look like traditional offices and you spoke about asynchronous collaboration tools as one opportunity there. But what are other opportunities for technology to enable the wrestling with or grappling with the return to work or what work looks like moving forward?

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 9:17

Yeah. I mean, I think you have, we're having to identify tools to do things like, verify vaccinations. Track negative tests, right? that's the whole space that we've never been in. And we being HR and, now we're kind of, health gatekeepers in a lot of ways, uh, where we have businesses that have people returned to an office. So that that's that whole space, COVID is not, you know, COVID is not done with us and it's not going to be done with us this year. And so we have to, you know, I think part of what we're doing now is like figuring out how we live with COVID and how we live with COVID means how do we. With COVID. And so, you know, being able to ensure that our workplaces are as safe as possible, becomes huge. And that's a huge new sector of, HR tech that frankly hadn't existed. It's certainly not at this scale. It was probably more of a niche thing. But now that's a massive space, you know, I I'm personally super bullish on, on async tools, and approaches and partly because I think. The async is foundational to fully distributed teams, right? that has to be your default. I think if we look at how most organizations operate today, most organizations who are co-located. And shifted to remote and or hybrid. Now they're still doing so largely out of, co located structures and operating systems. And that's not optimal. And I think that we have to get better if we unlock more, capabilities and potential in async coordination and communication and just work style. That makes us better, whether we're distributed, whether we're co-located, whether we're hybrid. So I think we're still in the early days of that, to be honest, moving away from kind of meeting cultures as a default, to async as a default. But I think the companies that invest in that now and get that right, are gonna unlock tremendous potential, in their business and their teams. And I think they're going to have a huge.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 11:02

And that too requires a big shift and habits and patterns of the rest of the workforce. Right. And shifting from that synchronous communication to that asynchronous workflow, what can enable or support teams to go through that transition?

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 11:17

Yeah. I think the transitions like that for the most part often have to be. you may have some teams that embrace that and they kind of develop those habits, but if they're getting sucked into projects above them that do not embrace async, then it kind of breaks at that point. You may have a sub-module of a project. That's great at async coordination, but ultimately still has to, fold into a larger project team that maybe is like, let's have a meeting about this, let's have a meeting about this. you know, it has to be embraced by the organization. It has to be kind of a, you know, a role model if you will, from the top down, because if you have, an executive team or even a specific executive leader who is still consistently scheduling meeting after meeting when those don't need to be meanings in large part. it's hard to have that, embraced systemically across the organization. So I think that piece is important.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 12:04

So then perhaps for entrepreneurs who are working on these tools and are part of this $4 billion of investment here, how should they navigate organizations to ensure that these products and services land well or get good?

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 12:19

Yeah. it's a hard one to answer because it's going to be different for every company. It's going to be different from every buyer. Right. You have some, buyers who will be very tech savvy, and they will have done their diligence and they're implementing your tool because, they know it and they know the business case internally to need it, and they can make that case internally for adopting. And support. And like, obviously that's a best case scenario for an HR tech, company you may have other companies where their CEO said, Hey, I read about this tool and fast company and we should implement it. And you have no idea what it does or how it works, how it integrates, but you've got a mandate from above, to implement it. That's probably worst case scenario because that's going to be a really hard. Implementation, especially to get buy in. So I think the key thing is whoever your point of entry is the organization. Maybe it's HR, maybe it's it. it depends on obviously the nature of the tool, making sure that the stakeholders feel very comfortable with the tool. they, have a onboarding process to the tool, especially if it's a sophisticated tool that kind of gets, it starts to get them with a high level of comfort with the core functionality before you layer in the more advanced functionality. Right. So you don't kind of lose them out of the gates. I think that those are, success measures that I think can be.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 13:29

And I guess looking at this from the other side, for HR leaders who are wanting to implement a new tool, have someone come to them, but are encountering some resistance on rolling it out? What would they benefit from, from entrepreneurs? Trying to provide these services that would help them navigate internal dynamics to ensure.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 13:48

I think that you to have successful behind internally, it helps to have, internal champion. the tools and tech. So, again, I've been in a practitioner seat for seven and a half years, but when I was, and I was rolling out new technology, I would always develop, a tiger team or whatever it may be of people that I knew were influential in their different teams, and get them bought in, give them a private demo, help them understand the value, of the tool. And then let them be. encourage them to be advocates, for adoption within their teams. and again, every organization is different, but some organizations, and this will depend on the level of, trust and credibility in the HR team. But there are some organizations where it's like, oh, is this is another. Tool HR is pushing on us, right. it doesn't integrate other things has its own sign-on, it's more bureaucracy than value add, or the other side of the teams where it's like, okay, like our HR team is on point. They know these tools that will make my life easier and they're able to present it to me in a, in a clear value prop as to how this tool is going to make my. Easier like the whole what's in it for me factor. I think you've got to be able to articulate that, to get successful, buying an adoption. So, the, the ones that are successful, I think are good at making that case and good at getting the right people internally bought in so that they can also add.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 15:02

For those entrepreneurs or investors that are looking to catch wind of the future. What's ahead. you talked about a two to three-year horizon being how far, HR teams should think about planning in line with their strategic roadmap. What should investors and entrepreneurs be paying attention to as needs that are not yet addressed by the foundations of the tech stack that will need to be addressed in this.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 15:27

I mean, I think some of the biggest things are, you know, obviously remote and distributed work, right? I think that that's here to stay, to what extent will, we'll find out in the next year or two. But that is here at a scale that we've never seen. again, most of us in HR are not accustomed to working in that environment. We're used to co-located environment as are most employees, right? And so now we're in this new environment where, people can be based theoretically anywhere. We have to, think differently around how would we support, culture, engagement, wellbeing, development team collaboration, right? Like every facet of work itself. Is impacted by that. And so I think that that is going to be a space where, any tools coming out right now, maybe they're directly tied to supporting, distributed work, maybe they're not, but they need to be able to kind of speak to how they work in that environment. Whereas I think before. The majority of companies were co located. So that didn't really matter, right. It was just like, Hey, here's how it works. And this. is the tool And everybody's under one roof, except for if you want off people. And frankly, you probably are not, building for them, cause they're one off and that's how they're typically treated within the organization, but that's different now. So I think that that is, that's a big consideration, I think in, regardless of the second. Of the, of the other technology. You've gotta be able to make the case as to how you work in either environment, whether it's co located hybrid or fully.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 16:49

And I know it's dangerous to speculate too far in the future beyond that two to three year mark. But I'm curious when you hear that, whether there's anything that comes up for you about needs that, we'll sort out in the next two to three years, but that people planning even further ahead will need to.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 17:06

Yeah. I mean, it'll be interesting to. see, one of the big things that we really won't know for another couple of years is. The impact of the pandemic specifically on, and at what scale I should say on what people value, In terms of work and balance and, commute and just all these things. I think that we, it wasn't that long ago that we're still glorifying kind of hustle culture. Now it's like, we're the other other end where like people have been home with their families for 18 months. their priorities have shifted. They want more flexibility. They want more, agency over how, where, and when they work. I think that the history of, work, the recent history is kind of based on industrial era constructs of. We're capping in an office and it happened Monday through Friday and it happened nine to five. And of course I'm generalizing around certain types of roles with that statement. But we've proved none of those things that are necessarily true today. And so I think that's the big shift and we won't really know at what scale people, really want to continue to have that flexibility. I think we're going to see more people who might not want to work a full-time. They might not want to work full time period. They might want to work part-time they might want to work a bit, then take some time off, work a bit, take some time off. So I think that we've always defaulted in recent memory towards full-time employees or FTEs, and like that was our workforce. And occasionally we had contractors and occasionally we hired consultants or agencies. I think the nature of our work. Is going to be much more varied in the next three to five years and so tools that can also account for that flexibility of like, you're not necessarily, feeling that you have to, structure everything around. Full-time.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 18:42

I am curious what sort of two or three startups you are most excited about emerging in any of the spaces that we've talked about?

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 18:51

Yeah. I mean, so a couple companies that I'm intrigued by right now is, and I'll, I'll put a qualifier in this one because they are the sponsor of my podcast. That's not why I'm picking them because I think it's a great tool, which has all reason. I, agree with them, the sponsor of podcasts, but a. Pin. So Penn is a onboarding, and automation tool. Based out of Australia, their tool goes deeper than onboarding, but basically they created, a range of different automated prompts for hiring managers, recruiters, new hires, employees, et cetera, that allows, managers and recruiters to not necessarily have to consciously be thinking about, okay, like I have an employee going out on mat leave. What do I need to do to get ready? Like, it will prompt them. Hey, you have employee command mat leave. Here are the things you need to be doing. So you're able to. So many of those, key messages, a key moments of the employee life cycle, I'm intrigued by role share as well. So, role share is a platform that it basically helps facilitate, people sharing a specific. Role within an organization. So that could be for internal mobility that might be, being able to create career enrichment and advancement as a retention tool. And maybe having, two part-time people in a CSRO off role, you know, or a CFO role. And you're able to bring in additional. Expertise and experience to support that. I think that's huge. this isn't an HR tech tool, but, one of my favorite tools right now is, created from all turtles. So it's a video platform that allows you to, create essentially. Augmented slides on a screen with you. So like if we're, you know, we're recording this right now and I see you and you see me, if I was using my video player, I could pull up slides or videos or animations that would appear next to me, similar to like a weekend update on Saturday night live. But I've been using that for videos for probably six months now. And again, I think with more of us being. Remote, and communicating in this way. we're all kind of burned out from restraint, zooms and video chats. I think if we can bring that to life with, maybe it's tools like loom as Well, that we can bring more of that, asynchronous coordination and communication. Those are platforms that I'm a.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 20:53

Well, thanks again, Lars, for having this conversation, exploring the space with me. I want to bring us to a close and wrap up with just one last question. What's a key takeaway that you want people to leave with.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 21:04

Yeah, we can retire a future of work it's here. Every day is the new future of work and it's happening day by day. So I think that we just, we're in an environment right now that is very dynamic. It will continue to be. And so I think for a lot of the kind of modern HR operators that I tend to interact with, a they're they're burned out and they're tired. So we do have to acknowledge that because they've been under tremendous stress. But I think they're also very optimistic on the future of the field and the future of business and kind of this once in a generation opportunity to rewrite how work happens and everything that comes with that. And that is a, that is a macro. Thing, right. That's not like, are we just going to remote or are we just using these tools? That's like the very nature of work is changing. And So it's a, it's an exciting time. It's a stressful time. Obviously there's a lot of hardship and difficulty, but, it is exciting when we kind of look to a future beyond the pandemic, and kind of how this will be an opportunity for us to.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 21:59

So should we just call it the present of work now?

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--guest419412--lars-schmidt 22:02

Yeah, we just call it, we call it today. Yeah, we, we, we, we, we have to pull in some, marketing experts to give us a nice flashing part, all to replace future of work. But I did see that the future of work is over.

lars-schmidt_recording-4_2021-08-26--t05-04-19pm--611cb375b4b52d00890f4673--alexeidunaway 22:16

That's all for today, please subscribe and stay tuned for more conversations with investors, HR, practitioners, and entrepreneurs in the future of work ecosystem.