The TechWolf Podcast

Technology in HR is booming, yet confusing.Many vendors claim to include AI (agents), skills, seamless integrations, and other technologies in their product offerings.In practice, product promises often differ from reality.In this podcast, our host, Julius Schelstraete, holds no-nonsense conversations with business practitioners and thought leaders on everything related to "the skills-based organization": what it is, whether it's realistic, typical roadblocks, real-life use cases, and more.Join us as we move beyond the hype and examine skills-based HR from a critical, realistic lens!

The TechWolf Podcast is a technology podcast hosted by TechWolf, with 34 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

TechWolf hosts The TechWolf Podcast, a technology show with 34 episodes published.

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  Episode #34

  “It's not a super sexy problem, but it's the foundation of everything.” | Ian Bailie, Synopsys' VP of People Strategy, on a best-of-breed skills stack

  Aug 3, 202643 min

  Most companies chase a skills strategy and end up with a portal nobody opens. Ian Bailie has built this twice, once at Cisco a decade ago, the hard way, and now at Synopsys, a 40-year-old company that just doubled in size and absorbed a $35 billion acquisition. His take is blunt: stop turning skills into an HR project. Lead with what AI is doing to the actual work, fix your job architecture first, and give people a reason to care before you ever ask them to touch a profile. Timestamps 00:45 — The Kyle Forrest question: how to actually get HR, IT and finance in one room 02:30 — Why “we're HR, and we have the solution” is the wrong way in 06:00 — Doing this at Cisco 10 years ago, before the tech existed 07:50 — The Synopsys stakes: doubled size, a $35B acquisition, 40 years of legacy 11:30 — 3,000 people, one job title: when job architecture is too simple 15:00 — Why he refused to buy another skills portal 22:00 — One taxonomy, three platforms: Degreed, Avature, BetterWorks 27:40 — Automate, augment, human-only: reading the task data 31:00 — Giving people the agency over how AI changes their job 38:30 — HR's moment, and the risk of missing it

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  Episode #33

  “Nothing’s being asked of HR that hasn’t been asked before.” | Deloitte's Kyle Forrest on zero-based work, spotting fake AI agents, and what the CHRO job becomes by 2030

  Jul 22, 202651 min

  Every vendor at every conference is selling you an agent. Most of them are selling you a workflow with a chat window. Kyle Forrest runs Deloitte’s Future of HR practice and its Next Generation CHRO Academy, and he spends his weeks in the room with CHROs trying to separate the real from the rebranded. In this episode, he lays out the test for a genuine agent, why “make HR strategic” has been the same ask since the 1980s, and what it actually costs a leader to redesign a function that includes their own job. Timestamps: 02:00 - The knowledge walking out the door as boomers retire 09:36 - Can HR’s “unique AI moment” and “nothing new here” both be true? 15:37 - The three types of HR function, and why “be strategic” is a lazy demand 24:00 - Stagility: 75% of workers want stability, 85% of execs want agility 28:09 - 42% of workers say no one is measuring AI’s impact on them 31:45 - AI assisted, augmented, powered: telling people where their role is headed 33:19 - Zero-based work: should this work even exist? 40:55 - The BS test for a real agent versus a workflow with a chat window 47:10 - The trend Kyle wants you to push back on: pre-built agents

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  Episode #32

  “What took us months now takes minutes.” | Cotality CHRO Kendra Angier on building a skills engine, engaging the C-suite, and her 12-24mo strategy

  Jun 26, 202641 min

  Most skills programs never make it out of the spreadsheet. Cotality's CHRO spent nine months trying to hand-build a skills taxonomy before she killed it and started over. In this episode, Kendra Angier explains how she rebuilt the workforce-intelligence stack around dynamic data, pulled her COO, CTO, and CFO into the buying decision, and earned an 80% employee NPS on skills along the way. It's a candid look at what actually moves a skills strategy from theory to Monday-morning reality. Timestamps 00:50 - Why she rejects the idea that AI is killing early talent 02:43 - The Cotality rebrand, and what it demands from the workforce 06:09 - The case for a 12-24 month horizon, not a ten-year plan 08:36 - How she got the CFO, COO and CTO to fund skills 13:42 - The nine-month taxonomy that nearly broke the team 21:22 - “What took us months now takes minutes” 25:47 - Why the change-management risk beats the data risk 38:17 - From chief HR officer to chief work officer

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  Episode #31

  AstraZeneca’s 4-year Odyssey with skills intelligence | Lara Martinez, Global Director of Talent Intelligence, on why agility beats the SBO label

  Jun 17, 202638 min

  Everyone wants a “skills-based organization.” Almost no one has built one. At AstraZeneca, Global Director of Talent Intelligence Lara Martinez Gonzalez has spent four years connecting a tangle of recruitment systems, development platforms, and job architecture into one language for the workforce, and she’s blunt about how hard it has been. In this episode, she argues skills is a data problem, not an HR project, explains why she refuses to say the word “skills” in front of business leaders, and shows where the value has actually landed so far. Plus the trap that cost her almost a year, and the company she’s seen get closest to skills-native. Timestamps: 00:57 — The one skills claim leaders should push back on 02:05 — Four years of skills work, told as an Odyssey 05:46 — How to pick which problem to solve first 10:48 — Why she drops the word “skills” in business meetings 16:30 — Reading the market: from skills to tasks 20:19 — Who should own tasks: HR or the business? 21:54 — The honest ROI: “still squeezing the lemon” 31:32 — Her 90-day advice to peers two years in

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  Episode #30

  "Tell me about your strategy. Skills can wait." | Sandoz's Workforce Intelligence Lead on the one move that flips SWP from push to pull

  May 25, 202639 minS0

  <p>Most strategic workforce plans never make it past the CHRO's desk. The horizon is five years, the work is detailed, and the business leader you need in the room would rather talk about anything else. </p><p>Felipe Hessel runs Workforce Intelligence at Sandoz, and he's worked out how to flip that dynamic, getting executives to pull SWP towards them rather than dodge it. </p><p>In this conversation, he walks through his six-step framework, the contracting move that earns him the right to ask about critical roles, and the agents he built that cut his own SWP cycle...

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