The Future is People Ops with John Wetzel, Gather

Imagine a world where every person in a company is understood. They have engaging 1:1s with managers where their voices are heard, and consistent opportunities to connect with their peers—whether they work together or not. This is the future people ops products are building; and, it’s the same future John Wetzel is defining as CEO & co-founder of Gather. He explains how people ops is transforming companies, how product leaders in the space can get necessary feedback, and most importantly, how Gather strives to get people ops leaders at early-stage companies “off their islands” to deliver a better employee experience. 

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Takeaways: 

• People ops is owning more and more of what HR once covered. 
• The best outcomes of people ops products happen in real life. 
• Effective people ops leaders think like product managers. 

 

Things To Listen For:

[2:00] How Gather got started, with inspiration from 2019 

[3:00] John’s past experiences in hardware and software before founding Gather

[5:00] How John defines “people ops,” and how the category differs from HR 

[5:15] The three functions of traditional HR: talent acquisition, logistics, people operations (a.k.a culture, communications, DEI)  

[6:00] The reality: people operations is owning “more and more” of HR 

[6:15] Is people ops going to become the “new HR,” or something else? 

[7:00] Explaining how the Gather product automates people ops work 

[8:30] How Gather integrates with Slack as a “workflow builder”

[9:00] Why Gather leverages & automates HRIS, the “CRM” of people ops 

[10:00] Exploring Gather’s unique product features, like the onboarding buddy 

[11:30] The best outcomes of Gather happen in real life, not through automation

[13:00] Why John & Gather believe “the future is people ops” 

[14:00] How marketing a people ops product relates to category creation

[15:30] Why does the world need people ops? 

[16:00] How John pairs his personal brand with Gather’s in marketing people ops

[17:00] How the Great Resignation is affecting people ops products 

[19:00] People ops is about harnessing the small moments in the workplace

[20:00] For people ops leaders, their product is the employee experience 

[24:00] Community can give you early feedback on your product and priorities