Ep. 217 - Tackling People Debt: Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social)
Listen to this week's episode with Crystal Boysen, Chief People Officer at Sprout Social.
We talked all-things "People Debt". We discussed what it is, how to identify it, and specific areas where Sprout Social is focusing its efforts to address it.
If you don't have time to check it out, read the highlights below. ??
?? MPL Webinar on Thursday: Is HR tech broken? Real stories of wasted time (and how to fix it)
HR leaders keep telling us the same thing:
"Our HR tech stack isn’t actually making work easier."
Or if it is, it still leaves them drowning in manual work, disconnected systems, and no time for what really matters.
What we’ll cover:
?? Real stories of the biggest time-wasters in HR (and why they never go away)
?? Why your HR tech is likely working against you
?? What great HR tech actually looks like
Can't make it live? Register anyway, and we’ll send the recording.
Sign up here. ??
?? People debt is killing your innovation efforts
Ever think about why companies keep having to "fix the basics" in HR instead of doing innovative work?
The answer: People Debt
Just like tech debt, People Debt is what happens when you take shortcuts in how you manage & develop talent. Those quick fixes pile up silently until they paralyze you.
Real example: Everyone wants "agile teams" that can solve any problem. Sounds great right? But if you rush to promote agility before clearly defining roles, you create chaos. Its tough to be agile when people don't know where their responsibilities start and end.
Another one from Crystal's time at Canva - hypergrowth hiring without proper onboarding. Sure you hit those aggressive hiring targets.. but new hires feel lost and leave shortly after. What did you actually accomplish?
The tricky part? People Debt rarely feels urgent. You think you've "moved past the basics." But those foundational cracks create friction that eventually grinds everything to a halt.
Want to innovate? Make sure your foundation is solid first.
?? How to identify people debt
Want to spot People Debt before it crushes your org? Here’s what actually works:
Run a “Brilliance & Blunders” exercise every Friday:
Do a simple 3-bucket assessment:
When Crystal ran this, her team at Sprout Social uncovered:
Look for these warning signs:
The key is creating psychological safety to surface these issues. Your team knows where the debt is - they just need permission to name it.
?? AI can’t help if your knowledge lives on sticky notes
The more we think about it, the clearer it gets—for AI to actually be useful, work needs to happen digitally.
We were grabbing coffee with Annie Dean the other day, talking about RTO mandates. Companies want people back in the office and they want to adopt AI to work more efficiently.
But here’s the problem—those two things don’t really go together.
As Annie pointed out, AI is only as good as the information it has access to. If your team’s knowledge is scattered across emails, sticky notes, and undocumented hallway conversations, AI can’t do much.
But when everything is digital - like within a tool like Confluence - AI becomes a game-changer.
Grab your free copy.??
?? The most debt heavy HR process? Performance reviews
HR leaders - stop writing novels in performance reviews.
Crystal shared how they transformed their performance process. Instead of subjective essays, they now use 5 simple rating-scale questions:
The magic? Their system auto-calculates recommended ratings based on these responses. No more manager bias. No more writing novels.
Key benefits:
?? Crystal ditched engagement surveys for a better approach
People teams - stop measuring how employees feel. Start measuring what they do.
The reality? Engagement surveys are great at measuring sentiment... but terrible at driving change. Their scores kept declining despite running the same playbook.
So Crystal and her team flipped the script:
Instead of: "How satisfied are you with leadership communication?"
They now measure: "How often does your leader share transparent updates?"
Instead of: "Do you feel psychologically safe?"
They measure: "How many times did you speak up in meetings this month?" The result? Way more actionable insights about behaviors that actually impact business performance. Key learning: Engagement surveys tell you how people feel. Culture surveys tell you what people do. And behaviors are what actually move the needle on performance.
?? Why she's designing her people team like a great product team
Stop organizing HR in silos. Start thinking like a product team.
Crystal shared a brilliant approach:
Instead of the traditional recruiting COE, L&D COE, DEI COE setup (which creates massive blindspots), they reorganized into cross-functional “squads” focused on the end-to-end employee lifecycle.
The results?
Key learning: Your org design might be your biggest source of people debt.
Simple example from Crystal: When DEI was a separate COE, other teams had to remember “don’t forget to add DEI to this program.” Now DEI is naturally woven into everything from recruiting to performance mgmt.
Want to try this? Start by:
Traditional HR structures worked for traditional companies. But modern orgs need modern people ops.
??Meet Boston’s top people leaders at MPL Live...10 days away
MPL Live Boston is bringing together the brightest HR minds from across the city for an exclusive live podcast + networking event.
Klaviyo. Smartcat. DraftKings. These top people leaders are speaking at MPL Live:
??? Carmel Galvin (Chief People Officer, Klaviyo)
??? Stacey Richey (Global VP of People, Smartcat)
??? Linda Aiello (Chief People & Culture Officer, DraftKings)
? Speed networking with top HR professionals
? Live podcast on rethinking employee engagement
? Actionable insights from industry leaders
Seats are filling fast—secure your ticket today.
See you next week!
I help Early Career Professionals Think, Act & Perform like C-Level Executives? | Creator of Executive Coaching Built for Early Career Professionals | Elite Training for the Next Generation of Leaders | Speaker | Mentor
5 天前Wow. "People Debt" - what a term. Wish I coined that! Thanks for the share Daniel Huerta and thank you for introducing the concept Crystal Boysen. I will be using this phrase moving forward (giving it proper attribution, of course :)) So many of the great people and teams that I work with suffer from People Debt, and this framing is an excellent way to bring the issue into focus - quickly and clearly!