HRTech Interview with Simon De Baene, CEO and co-founder, Workleap

Simon De Baene, CEO and co-founder, Workleap chats more about how modern enterprises can build better talent management and performance evaluation strategies in this HRTech Interview by HRTech Series:

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Hi Simon, take us through your HRTech journey so far and time at Workleap.

I founded the company in 2006 with two friends, Guillaume Roy (GR) and Sebastien Leduc, in a small Montreal apartment. Back then, the Quebec IT scene felt gray with bleak offices, stale tools, no spark. We wanted to do things differently. We started out as a consulting shop, building custom software for clients. It was helping us pay the rent, but more importantly, it showed us where the real problems were.

In 2009, we decided to build something scalable: ShareGate. We thought it was going to be a hit. Instead, it flopped with fewer than 4 licenses sold over two years. So we dropped everything and started over. We tore it down completely and rebuilt it with one rule: focus on one problem and solve it simply. No copy-pasting the old code. Within a month of relaunch, we sold more licenses than in the previous two years combined.

In 2013, we launched Officevibe, an HR tool to help companies understand engagement in real time. We wanted to replace the clunky employee annual surveys. With our first iteration of Officevibe, we fell into the same trap we had with ShareGate: too many buttons, too much complexity. That’s when I realized that simplicity isn’t something you do once and move on: it’s something you have to fight for, product after product.

After 18 years, we took another big leap and GSoft became Workleap, a company on a mission to make work simpler. We’ve learned that the real problems at work aren’t solved by piling on more features or complexity. They’re solved by building products that feel intuitive, cut through the noise, and actually help people do their jobs better. That’s what we’re doing at Workleap with performance, engagement, and compensation. It’s the same belief behind ShareGate, which makes Microsoft 365 migrations and governance refreshingly simple. Different worlds, same idea: simplicity wins.

We serve more than 20,000 organizations in over 100 countries with a team of 400+ employees. We’re really proud of what we’ve built, and we’re just getting started.

We’d love the brief highlights of Workleap’s new acquisition of Barley and how that will impact the eventual Workleap platform once a final integration is done.

In July 2025, we acquired Barley, a Canadian compensation planning solution. This was an intentional step to close a big gap in HR tech: the disconnect between performance and compensation. Traditionally these have been handled separately from each other, making it hard for companies to make fair, transparent and strategic decisions. Barley helps us bring everything together. It will allow us to go deeper into performance management by adding an intuitive and user-friendly compensation tool.

With the addition of Barley, HR and managers will have all the necessary tools and insights in one system. They can go from performance reviews and goal tracking to compensation planning and total rewards. This includes flexible review cycles, AI-powered summaries, 360° feedback, goal tracking and comprehensive compensation planning. The tool also empowers managers to make data-driven decisions aligned with organizational guidelines and budgets.

By October, Barley will be fully integrated into the Workleap platform, rebranded and seamlessly tied to our performance management tools.

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What are some of the most common challenges around assessment of performance and compensation for business leaders today: what tips would you share to fix these pain points?

One of the biggest challenges leaders face is that performance and compensation conversations and decisions happen in disconnected systems. Performance management is still too complex, and too many companies are stuck with tools that don’t connect the dots.

So often, managers do not have sufficient access to data, which can lead to inconsistent or inappropriate decisions. Employees connect their worth to these performance and compensation discussions, so it’s imperative to have a 360-degree approach to keep individuals engaged, inspired and trusting.

Another issue is reliance on manual processes like one-off spreadsheets, documents and emails. With the technology available today, this mish-mash of documentation wastes time and leaves ample room for error.

To fix these pain points, companies need unified tools connecting performance metrics directly to compensation decisions. When managers see performance data alongside compensation guidelines and budgets, they’re equipped to make fair, transparent decisions. Modern workflows that replace manual processes will save time, reduce mistakes and create clarity for everyone.

What’s missing in most organizations’ end-to-end talent strategies and what thoughts do you have around it?

What’s missing in most organizations’ talent strategies is simplicity and alignment, especially when it comes to people decisions. These are some of the hardest decisions to make and they happen every single day. Performance and compensation are a perfect example. Too often, they’re managed in silos with different tools, processes, and owners. That fragmentation makes it hard for leaders to see what really drives impact, and even harder for employees to feel supported. But when these core areas are connected and clear, leaders can move faster, employees gain confidence, and trust across the organization grows.

Unified platforms for HR teams should also extend to actual department and business heads for them to assess their own team’s measurement and performance initiatives, isn’t it? Can you throw light on how businesses can do this more seamlessly?

Totally agree. When it comes to HR tech, whether it’s a platform or a stand-alone tool, the real opportunity is in giving leaders direct access to the insights and tools that help make hard people decisions that are important for the business That’s been at the heart of Officevibe from the beginning, and it’s one of the reasons Barley was such a great fit for us: they share that same philosophy. When managers have solutions that are simple, connected, and built for their day-to-day reality, they move faster, build stronger relationships, and create the kind of team culture that drives results. And that doesn’t just help HR, but it helps the whole business perform better.

Can you talk about the overall HRTech market and how you are seeing it shape up in 2025 and beyond?

Right now, three big forces are shaping HR tech: AI, economic pressure, and hybrid work.

AI is changing everything. It’s changing the competitive landscape and putting pressure on businesses to deliver more with the same or fewer resources. It’s not just a feature anymore, but instead, it’s becoming part of how teams actually operate and make decisions. It’s already influencing how companies think about performance, engagement, and development.

At the same time, economic pressure means leaders can’t afford tools that take forever to show value. If the impact isn’t clear and adoption isn’t simple, people will move on.

And hybrid work, like it or not, is here to stay. A lot of companies are still figuring out how to make it work, but the ones that get intentional about it will have a real advantage.

Put all that together and you get a market that’s moving fast. At Workleap, our bet is simple: build tools that make work easier, not harder, and give leaders the clarity they need to move with confidence.

A few thoughts and shout outs around the most impressive use of AI in HRtech from your perspective?

I’m definitely a bit biased on this one, but what we’re building right now around performance management is mind-blowing. We’re giving a second life to so much enterprise data by using it to fuel the performance review process. There are so many meaningful signals in the data to help you assess how people are performing at work, and we can finally use it to drastically accelerate and simplify a process that is very much disliked. Giving a performance review to someone is a great gift when it’s done well, but we rarely have the time to do it well, especially when we have a team of 10-15 people.

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