What happens when you treat employee experience like a product? Neervi Shah Patel, Chief People Officer at Faire, joins the show to share how her team brings the same level of operational rigor and customer obsession to PeopleOps that product teams bring to user experience. From leveraging data to embracing transparency, Neervi breaks down how to build scalable, fair, and high-performing orgs—without losing the human side.
If you lead people, run HR, or are scaling a team at a startup, this episode will shift how you think about the function.
Key Takeaways – Think like a product team: Employee experience should be intentionally designed, tested, and iterated—just like a customer journey. – Rigor means relevance: Metrics, clarity, and outcomes matter—but rigor doesn’t mean making HR transactional. – Fairness is a performance strategy: When employees believe the system is fair, trust increases—and so does performance. – Don’t ignore the anecdotes: When stories and data diverge, it’s a signal to dig deeper. Listening matters as much as measurement. – AI is now a must-have filter: Every HR tool Faire evaluates now gets assessed through the lens of its AI capabilities.
Timestamped Highlights [02:26] Applying product discipline to PeopleOps [05:43] How Neervi’s background in sales and consulting shapes her HR leadership [08:24] Why fairness and trust should drive policy—not just process [12:00] How manager messaging can build (or break) organizational trust [15:03] What data they collect—and how they make it useful across the employee lifecycle [21:11] Why every new HR tech tool must be AI-native moving forward
Quote of the Episode "If it saves us three steps but makes it ten steps harder for the employee, that’s not a win. We’d never do that for a customer—why would we do it to our people?" — Neervi Shah Patel
Resources Mentioned – Faire: faire.com – Neervi on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/neervishahpatel – Referenced (paraphrased) Jeff Bezos quote: “If data and anecdotes diverge, trust the anecdote—you may be measuring the wrong thing.”
Pro Tips for Operators – Build in feedback loops at every employee lifecycle stage—onboarding, engagement, exits. – Require manager alignment and ownership in performance processes to avoid undermining fairness. – Don’t sacrifice employee experience for operational ease—just like you wouldn’t for customers.
Call to Action If you’re ready to run PeopleOps like a strategic business function, not a support team, share this episode with a fellow leader. And make sure you’re subscribed to The Talent Tango for more conversations like this one.