Workplace

VP of People Ops at Zenefits explains how the role of HR is changing

Danny Speros says 2021 has changed the role of HR for the better.

A businessperson in an office handing over a piece of paper

HR departments have become the workhorse of tech companies.

Photo: Thirdman via Pexels

HR departments have become the workhorse of tech companies. It’s hard to pinpoint an earlier time when companies depended so much on HR to solve their myriad problems. Over the course of the pandemic, HR teams have been rightfully invited to the leadership table to solve for everything from hybrid work and pandemic protocols to tech-talent hiring gaps and the Great Resignation. And they’re bringing the data to back it up.

Danny Speros, VP of People Operations at Zenefits, has spent almost the entirety of his two-decade career in human resources, and to say he’s witnessed massive changes in the role HR plays in the industry would be an understatement. Gone are the days when it was OK for an HR team to solely focus on compliance. That’s the bare minimum, he said. Speros spoke with Protocol about how the nature of people operations and human resources has evolved within tech and the new challenges facing HR departments everywhere.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

How has the role of people operations within HR changed over the past two years alone?

There were times in my 20s, many, many years ago, when I would explain to friends and family who didn't necessarily know what human resources was, “Well, I'm involved in the hiring and the firing, and all the stuff in between.” And one of the other things that kept sort of floating up in the world of human resources is we want a seat at the table, we want to be strategic. And I think what's really flipped, especially in the last couple of years, is that we're at the table.

The things that people operations teams are driving are integral to the success of the organization. And the way I approach my job and the way my team approaches our job is we're providing the tools, the technology, the information and the assistance and guidance that our people need to accomplish the goals of the company. And so that can come in the sense of learning and development or planning or goal-setting or performance alignment.

I think one of the most important things we do right now is we've always been a source of listening and an advocate for the employee, but now we need to do that at scale. And we need to not just listen in conversations, but also have methods for employees to provide feedback that can be analyzed.

How have you and your team done this at Zenefits?

The Great Resignation has obviously been in the news this last year. I feel like in some ways, we've fared well with it. However, we've still seen our share of resignations this year. So we don’t just do exit interviews, we do exit surveys where we aggregate data from people on their way out the door. And we also correlate that with other data points within our environment. Whether it be performance or departments or locations or movement or promotions or compensation, we can tie some of those things together and start to see patterns.

What would you recommend to other HR teams observing patterns of attrition at their company?

By looking at [data], perhaps we can prevent the next one and the next one from leaving. So being able to use this and communicate it to our leadership team in real time — and by real time I mean weeks, not months, certainly not a year — we're able to make better decisions as an organization to retain our people.

So my advice to other people in the profession is to start connecting the dots. You have data, or at least you have access to it — people are willing to share this information with you — and to the extent you can collect those dots it can really help you and your organization be better off next year.

How have tech companies changed the way they think about their employees?

An overarching thought on this is that it's a two-way relationship. Historically, it's really been a one-way relationship where the companies made the rules and employees either followed along or chose to leave. And I think what tech companies and a lot of other companies are realizing in light of the Great Resignation, and in light of some of the changes that have come about in the workplace, is it's no longer a one-way street. Companies need to deliver value to the employees in exactly the same fashion that employees need to deliver value for the organization.

I think as long as the company and the employee agree that it's mutually beneficial, we’re good. When that starts to get out of alignment, or perhaps the company just can't offer the employee the types of opportunities that the employee needs to be able to build their career, then it's an opportunity to move on.

Fintech

Judge Zia Faruqui is trying to teach you crypto, one ‘SNL’ reference at a time

His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. Strangelove." That’s because he wants you — yes, you — to read them.

The ways Zia Faruqui (right) has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster.

Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Cryptocurrency and related software analytics tools are ‘The wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic.’”

That’s not a quote from "The Big Lebowski" — at least, not directly. It’s a quote from a Washington, D.C., district court memorandum opinion on the role cryptocurrency analytics tools can play in government investigations. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.

Keep ReadingShow less
Veronica Irwin

Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.

The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance. Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more.

Keep ReadingShow less
FTA
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) represents industry leaders shaping the future of finance. We champion the power of technology-centered financial services and advocate for the modernization of financial regulation to support inclusion and responsible innovation.
Enterprise

AWS CEO: The cloud isn’t just about technology

As AWS preps for its annual re:Invent conference, Adam Selipsky talks product strategy, support for hybrid environments, and the value of the cloud in uncertain economic times.

Photo: Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

AWS is gearing up for re:Invent, its annual cloud computing conference where announcements this year are expected to focus on its end-to-end data strategy and delivering new industry-specific services.

It will be the second re:Invent with CEO Adam Selipsky as leader of the industry’s largest cloud provider after his return last year to AWS from data visualization company Tableau Software.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donna Goodison

Donna Goodison (@dgoodison) is Protocol's senior reporter focusing on enterprise infrastructure technology, from the 'Big 3' cloud computing providers to data centers. She previously covered the public cloud at CRN after 15 years as a business reporter for the Boston Herald. Based in Massachusetts, she also has worked as a Boston Globe freelancer, business reporter at the Boston Business Journal and real estate reporter at Banker & Tradesman after toiling at weekly newspapers.

Image: Protocol

We launched Protocol in February 2020 to cover the evolving power center of tech. It is with deep sadness that just under three years later, we are winding down the publication.

As of today, we will not publish any more stories. All of our newsletters, apart from our flagship, Source Code, will no longer be sent. Source Code will be published and sent for the next few weeks, but it will also close down in December.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bennett Richardson

Bennett Richardson ( @bennettrich) is the president of Protocol. Prior to joining Protocol in 2019, Bennett was executive director of global strategic partnerships at POLITICO, where he led strategic growth efforts including POLITICO's European expansion in Brussels and POLITICO's creative agency POLITICO Focus during his six years with the company. Prior to POLITICO, Bennett was co-founder and CMO of Hinge, the mobile dating company recently acquired by Match Group. Bennett began his career in digital and social brand marketing working with major brands across tech, energy, and health care at leading marketing and communications agencies including Edelman and GMMB. Bennett is originally from Portland, Maine, and received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University.

Enterprise

Why large enterprises struggle to find suitable platforms for MLops

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, and as larger enterprises go from deploying hundreds of models to thousands and even millions of models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

Photo: artpartner-images via Getty Images

On any given day, Lily AI runs hundreds of machine learning models using computer vision and natural language processing that are customized for its retail and ecommerce clients to make website product recommendations, forecast demand, and plan merchandising. But this spring when the company was in the market for a machine learning operations platform to manage its expanding model roster, it wasn’t easy to find a suitable off-the-shelf system that could handle such a large number of models in deployment while also meeting other criteria.

Some MLops platforms are not well-suited for maintaining even more than 10 machine learning models when it comes to keeping track of data, navigating their user interfaces, or reporting capabilities, Matthew Nokleby, machine learning manager for Lily AI’s product intelligence team, told Protocol earlier this year. “The duct tape starts to show,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kate Kaye

Kate Kaye is an award-winning multimedia reporter digging deep and telling print, digital and audio stories. She covers AI and data for Protocol. Her reporting on AI and tech ethics issues has been published in OneZero, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, CityLab, Ad Age and Digiday and heard on NPR. Kate is the creator of RedTailMedia.org and is the author of "Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about how the 2008 presidential campaigns used digital media and data.

Latest Stories
Bulletins