Why "Just Get Some AI" Is the Worst Brief You Can Write, Rod Schneider, Workforce.com
Rod returns to the podcast after two years to discuss what has genuinely changed in workforce management, and what is simply being repackaged.
A familiar pattern is playing out across the industry: leadership sees AI-branded software, decides it looks promising, and tasks an operations manager with finding it. One layer deeper, the desired outcome is rarely defined. The brief drives the purchase, rather than the problem.
In this episode:
- The Workforce.com origin story, from a university bar with questionable timesheet accountability and 30,000 pound punch-card scanners to a cloud-based product built around that problem
- Why multi-region European payroll is so difficult, and how being built in Australia, home to some of the most complex earnings rules in the world, became a genuine competitive advantage
- The decline of the detailed RFP, and why discovery conversations uncover the real requirement that documents cannot
- The cost of poor alignment: mis-bought and mis-sold software, and how the sale gets celebrated while the operator's problem remains unsolved
- A measured view on AI: bullish on accessibility, sceptical of "world first" claims for capability that has existed for years
- The open question for the category: customisation in the operator's hands, or hardcoded into the system
A practical, operator-first conversation for anyone evaluating workforce technology or trying to translate a vague AI mandate into a real outcome.
