
HR tech companies laying people off: was it overdue? - Farbodkhz
https://joshbersin.com/2020/04/hr-tech-companies-laying-people-off-was-it-overdue/
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raghava
HR Tech is where many VCs have invested in, with the hopes of selling big
riding on the AI wave.

However, many HR Tech solutions (which claim to use AI/ML/DL under the hood)
are now being forced to answer how they counter hard-coded biases in the AI
models, how is explainability implemented, how they adhere to norms set for
algorithmic accountability (ex. Ethica etc)

Most of them neither have answers nor the mindset to even bother about these.

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neonate
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200419230250/https://joshbersi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200419230250/https://joshbersin.com/2020/04/hr-
tech-companies-laying-people-off-was-it-overdue/)

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kowsheek
I thought fintech companies had fluff until I worked at a HR tech company -
boy it was overdue.

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jw1224
Is HR Tech a big industry in the US? Over here in the UK, it feels very much
like it’s still emerging. There’s a few key players but no household names.

The companies I know who use some kind of HR software are typically paying
££££+ in expensive enterprise contracts for poor quality, old-fashioned
software.

I guess I was just a little surprised at the tone of this article, which
seemed to assume the market was totally saturated.

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jbkiv
In the US, a lot of "HR tech companies" are in fact insurance brokers, selling
both health benefits and workers comp. Those two lines are a massive source of
revenues.

In most countries outside the US, healthcare is not privatized. Benefits
brokers are virtually nonexistent outside the US.

"HR tech companies" provide free HR software and make money on selling
benefits insurance and workers comp insurance mostly to other startups who are
buying "nothing but the best" gold healthcare coverage (= more commissions).

Nothing new, the biggest companies are Paychex and ADP and they have been
doing that for a long time. Not a surprise if I tell you that their software
is horrible...

So if startups start to do layoffs or shut down, or even start to control
their expenses (lower benefits, co-pays), I would expect the "tech HR
companies" to not do so well.

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twblalock
HR has traditionally been viewed as a cost center and it seems like most
companies still treat it that way. Its expenses are going to be cut earlier
than other things when companies feel the squeeze.

In general, this must be a pretty bad time to be selling business software for
use in cost centers.

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winddude
HR mostly sucks anyways, and needs a ground up rethink, not just streamlining.

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pmiller2
Yes. For instance, how can companies treat people like humans instead of just
resources?

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kjaftaedi
For companies, treating humans better is nothing but diminishing returns.. so
you need to ask, "why would companies want to treat humans better?"

This problem is solved by government and societal rules that dictate what is
appropriate.

We still live in a world with rampant child labor, corporate pollution,
extreme tax avoidance, etc. These aren't entities that are known for their
compassion, and are actively working to loosen their constraints on a daily
basis.

For most the problem and necessary steps towards resolution are more or less
obvious, with the primary problem being the corporations have a significant
advantage in money and influence.

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scandox
> people need to get from place to place, and it’s very hard to build and run
> an airline.

Why is it hard? Seems like the dumbest possible business. I mean I think a
restaurant would be harder. There's more subtle unknowns in food than there is
in carrying people from A to B.

Educate me because I don't get it.

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aidanlister
Because an A380 costs $432 million and you need a bunch of them to run an
airline, where as a restaurant fit out is ~$1M.

You also need to maintain those planes, employ staff across multiple countries
and timezones, and comply with insane amounts of legislation for every country
you fly into.

Are you seriously comparing that to ... serving food?

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Legogris
Not to mention that on top of everything else, airlines also serve food.

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mschuster91
That's easy, contract Lufthansa LSG or Gategroup or one of the smaller (local)
competitors.

