Meet Melissa.
She’s an HR Director. Her team runs payroll, coaches managers, and gets tagged in every Slack thread about “quick culture ideas.” Every spring, she’s told to track HR tech trends. Every fall, she’s expected to make existing platforms “work.” When a new tool drops from corporate, implementation turns into a second job.
She’s exhausted. And she’s not alone.
Spring Hype, Summer Silence
March through May is peak HR tech season. Vendors release roadmaps. Analysts post hot takes. Conferences blur together with badge scans, recycled buzzwords, and lukewarm coffee in chilly hotel ballrooms.
Then June hits, and attention shifts to the SHRM conference and getting recertification credits.
If you’ve never been, SHRM is where HR gets real. It’s Melissa. It’s the HRBP from Dayton. The solo practitioner from Omaha. The school district admin in Arizona who keeps a notebook of acronyms she pretends to understand.
They’re there for compliance updates, fresh ideas, and maybe a drink ticket for a mediocre party with a DJ who thinks he’s Avicii.
They’re also the ones stuck executing “technology initiatives” from leaders who’ve never logged into the system.
Then comes summer. And in HR tech? Nothing sells in July because HR ladies (and everyone else) are on a break.
The Fall Rush and the Fundamental Problem
By fall, things heat back up. Budgets shake loose. Q4 creeps closer. Suddenly, the same people who ghosted you in April want a demo, a discount, and an integration that doesn’t suck.
Selling into HR is a long game. Maybe because we keep mislabeling what we’re selling.
Let’s Call It What It Is
I’m not breaking any new ground here, but what you’re selling isn’t HR tech. That phrase makes it sound like it’s only for payroll and benefits.
It’s not “work tech” either because work doesn’t stop at W2s anymore.
It’s business technology. It just happens to focus on people.
That means your buyer might be HR, or it might be a recruiter, marketer, finance executive, COO, board member, or founder trying to grow without breaking everything in the process.
We call it HR tech, but we sell it to ops. We call it work tech, but half the time, it doesn’t work for hiring managers or payroll administrators. No wonder adoption is a mess and ROI is mythical.
So What If We Called It People Tech?
Maybe we should stop positioning it as a point solution (even when it is) and start selling it as infrastructure for the modern workforce.
It supports hiring, onboarding, learning, performance, compliance, scheduling, and exit interviews—and yes, even AI agents who pretend to care during onboarding or answer benefits questions at 2 a.m. It touches every part of the employee lifecycle, and soon, it will do the same for contractors, consultants, fractional workers, and even AI agents.
And if we’re lucky? People Tech has fewer logins. Less anxiety.
So, if you’re building, funding, selling, or buying this stuff, stop pretending it’s just for HR.
It’s #PeopleTech.
Let’s see what happens when the name finally matches the mission.