Chris Harvey

HR Strategist, People Researcher, Startup Advisor, Author of Blackbeard’s Laws for Founders

I help companies select the right HR technology to meet the needs of their business and employees. I am passionate about company culture and how HR technology supports outstanding cultures. As Chief Research Officer at HR Technology Advice, I leverage my deep HR industry knowledge and broad HR Technology analysis to help organizations find the right HR technology solutions that meet their specific needs. In addition, I conduct industry wide research to identify areas where existing HR technology can evolve. As Head of Growth for Teamforce AI, I evangelize employee engagement for the deskless workforce. Many companies do a great job of listening to the needs of their professional workforce, but very few have mastered frontline and deskless workforce engagement. Over the last 20+ years, I have worked for industry leading companies (Ultimate Software and Kronos - now merged to become UKG) where I have built business functions from scratch (Competitive Intelligence (CI), ROI Analysis, Inside Sales/Business Development, and Startup Engagement) which have had a dramatic business impact. I love taking on the challenge of starting an entirely new function and execute on a unique vision. In 2022, I was part of the small team to launch UKG Labs. Labs is our in-house, startup ecosystem designed to identify and nurture early-stage companies that embody Life -work Technology - technology in the service of people. Labs was created to accelerate the growth of these companies and build a startup ecosystem. At Ultimate Software I created the Business Development function. In partnership with our outside sales team we consistently exceeded our quotas and were the engine to build a robust sales pipeline. The strategy included unlocking the individual Business Development Reps’ strengths by focus on having a value based informed discussion with every prospective client. We focus on quality over quantity and not the smile and dial approach. The CI function I created at Kronos increased win rates by over 50% and increased sales confidence. I took the approach of packaging CI data into actionable sales tools and competitive strategies to outmaneuver the competition. The ROI Analysis function I created at Kronos set the industry standard for ROI for the Time and Attendance industry which is still used 20+ years later. This new ROI analysis approach helped customers justifying spending tens of millions of dollars on Kronos solutions. I replicated this success at Ultimate, by revamping their ROI process.