Luke O'Mahoney is the founder of SapienX, a platform of content, courses, and community for what he calls the "post-HR generation." His central argument is that People teams should operate like Product teams - designing, measuring, and iterating on the employee experience rather than administering it through siloed functions.

We dig into the limitations of the Ulrich model - the framework that split HR into Business Partners, Centers of Excellence, and Shared Services decades ago and has dominated ever since. Luke makes the case that those silos have produced systems that serve the function rather than the people, and that product thinking offers a way out.

We explore the Jobs to Be Done framework applied to HR, the difference between enabling performance and trying to drive it, and why reverse engineering problems matters more than jumping to solutions. I push back on some of the measurement assumptions embedded in product thinking and whether it risks falling into the same traps that broke performance management.

Whether you're a People leader feeling like the current model isn't working, or a compensation professional wondering why your systems aren't producing the outcomes you expected, there's a lot to chew on here.

Contact Luke O'Mahoney:

LinkedIn: Luke O'Mahoney

Website: sapienx.co.uk

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Post-HR Generation
• 15:42 Adopting a Product Operating Model
• 26:27 Shifting to a Product-Centric Approach
• 33:49 Implementing Product-Centric Thinking
• 45:06 Challenges of Traditional HR Models
• 55:29 Cut the Cape Request
• 01:03:05 Measuring Success
• 01:18:24 Pushing Back and Asking Questions