Redefining HR: Embracing Modern People Practices To Fuel Business Success With Lars Schmidt

Since it’s a new year, I’m already hard at work on achieving the goals that I set for myself, and my businesses in 2021. And one of my goals this year is to read 24 books.

Thankfully, I’ve got some good friends who are helping to fill my reading list with books that they’ve written, which were set for January 2021 release dates!

I spoke with my best friend Laurie Ruettimann about her new book, Betting On You, which released a couple of weeks ago in Episode 53 of the podcast, and in this episode, I’m chatting with my friend Lars Schmidt about his new book – Redefining HR – which releases worldwide on January 26, 2021.

I really enjoyed my conversation with Lars, and he has a great grasp on how leaders in all areas – not just human resources – should approach building strong and capable organizations through implementing modern people practices.

Lars Schmidt is the Founder and Principal of Amplify – a firm that helps progressive people leaders and companies navigate the future of work.

Long interested in emerging work trends, tech, and people practices, his curiosity fueled a career that has afforded him the privilege of solving complex talent challenges for some of the biggest brands in their respective fields including NPR, Ticketmaster, SpaceX, Duo Security, and Hootsuite. He’s always been drawn to HR leaders who operate at the leading edges of the field, who embrace 21st Century HR, and who are redefining people practices through their vision, experience, and approach.

Lars has long worked to accelerate the evolution of Human Resources’ capabilities and impact through efforts like co-founding the HR Open Source initiative, by contributing regular columns for Fast Company and Forbes, and also writing books, including Employer Branding for Dummies in 2017, and his latest book – Redefining HR, which will release worldwide on January 26, 2021.

Redefining HR provides a framework for leaders to build modern and world-class people teams, enabling them to create people-centric organizations that lead to long-term success.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

Lars’ transition from recruiting leader, to employer branding expert, to HR and People Operations community leader and curator.
How Lars and Ambrosia Vertesi applied the Open Source concept to create a platform for HR leaders to share case studies, templates, and learnings to accelerate innovation.
How curation of resources, experts, and the work of others can be an important part of building credibility, and a personal brand.
7 communities Lars suggests where HR and people leaders can get learning and development opportunities.
5 visionary leaders in the HR and people space Lars suggests that others follow and learn from.
3 skills that Lars believes modern people leaders need to master or develop in 2021 and beyond.

IMPACT MAKERS PODCAST – EPISODE 55

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Key Quotes From This Episode:

“To me, one of the most significant changes in the field of HR over the last 5 years is our evolution from black box, to open source. That’s the single most important enabler of the shift from legacy HR to modern HR.” ~ Lars Schmidt

“I think, in legacy HR, your role was based upon having HR acumen. Modern HR is based on having business acumen AND HR acumen. HR acumen is table stakes. You have to understand how to do x, y, or z depending upon what your job is, but you have to understand how that connects to the business, how that supports the business, how is that going to enable to the business to achieve its goals.” ~ Lars Schmidt

“Don’t limit yourself to HR resources and communities. Especially if you’re in a leadership role – you need to sharpen your business acumen. So whether that’s other forums – like Harvard Business Review or The Economist – or other platforms and publications that aren’t necessarily looking at things purely from an insular HR perspective, but more of a broader business perspective. You’ve got to be plugged into those other networks as well.” ~ Lars Schmidt

“Find some of the leading thinkers in the space, and absorb not just their own content, but find out who they are reading, where they are learning from, and where they’re getting their ideas from.” ~ Lars Schmidt

“If we’re not diversifying our sources, if we’re not diversifying the perspectives and the voices that we’re taking in, our outlook is going to have deep blind spots. You do need to be intentional and deliberate about diversifying the voices that are informing our perspective on the field.” ~ Lars Schmidt

“For leaders, your value to your organization, to your employees, to your company – it’s not just the knowledge that you have, it’s the knowledge that you have access too.” ~ Lars Schmidt