HRTech Interview with Mike Dolen, CEO of Humancore

Mike Dolen, CEO of Humancore talks about the transformative experiences HRtech can enable for improving employee onboarding and off boarding experiences in this HRTech interview:

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Hi Mike, take us through your HRtech journey and tell us about your role at Humancore.

I’ve spent my career at the crossroads of people, performance, and technology. At organizations like LinkedIn, Glint, and CEB, I saw how central managers are to success and how little in-the-moment support they received. My background in organizational psychology combined with years of executive leadership gave me a unique perspective on this gap. At Humancore, my role is to bring behavioral science and AI together to close it. We’re building technology that equips leaders and employees with personalized, real-time guidance, turning everyday challenges into opportunities for alignment, growth, and execution.

How does Humancore’s new IC Advisor enable better workplace and employee coaching?

Execution can’t rest solely on managerial heroics. With our IC Advisor, we’re extending AI-powered, role-specific coaching to every employee, aligning strategy with day-to-day execution. The platform personalizes support based on role, personality, and company context, so guidance is always relevant and actionable. It also adapts to team dynamics, making collaboration more effective across functions. In practice, employees gain clarity on priorities, understand how their work connects to strategy, and receive real-time coaching that accelerates both their individual contribution and collective impact.

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How is Humancore making onboarding more seamless an experience?

Traditional onboarding overwhelms employees with static content but provides little guidance once real work begins. Humancore changes this by delivering role- and team-specific coaching from day one. New hires see immediately how their contributions map to strategy and receive ongoing support as challenges arise. That shortens time-to-proficiency, reduces confusion, and builds early confidence. Instead of a front-loaded process centered on paperwork, onboarding becomes a dynamic experience that fosters alignment, accelerates impact, and creates lasting engagement.

Can you talk about some of the core problems HR teams still face when it comes to onboarding and offboarding?

A persistent challenge is the disconnect between strategy and execution. Leaders communicate priorities, but as messages cascade, they often lose clarity, leaving employees unsure of where to focus. Offboarding presents its own risk, as institutional knowledge walks out the door without structured transfer, weakening continuity. Compounding this, HR teams face leaner structures and greater demands for accountability, while traditional systems haven’t kept pace. Without contextual, real-time support, both onboarding and offboarding remain transactional instead of strategic levers for performance.

How is AI impacting HRTech as a segment today?

AI is shifting HRTech from broad automation to meaningful augmentation. At its best, AI doesn’t replace people—it makes them indispensable. The real value comes from providing managers and employees with insights that are contextual, timely, and actionable. For HR teams, this means sharper execution, stronger culture, and more sustainable performance. The companies that win will be those designing AI around real human dynamics and organizational context, not just efficiency gains. It’s about enabling people to lead, decide, and collaborate better in real time.

A few HRTech innovations from the global HRtech landscape that are of note in your view?

Innovations that bridge the gap between learning and doing are the most transformative. Real-time AI advisors that adapt to individual and team dynamics are reshaping how people work. Advances in personalization now factor in not only role but also working style, personality, and team interactions. Platforms that embed cultural and organizational context into recommendations are also raising the bar on relevance. Together, these innovations move the field beyond dashboards and static training toward dynamic guidance that helps employees perform better in the moment.

Five pointers around the future of HR and HRTech before we wrap up.

• Real-time enablement will replace static training, embedding support in the flow of work.
• Personalization at scale will become standard, tuned to roles, personalities, and team dynamics.
• Culture-aware AI will rise, ensuring guidance reinforces values as well as tasks.
• Coaching will extend across the workforce, empowering every contributor, not just leaders.
• Sustainable performance will be the ultimate measure, with AI serving as the connective tissue between strategy, execution, and well-being.

Read More on Hrtech : Invisible Gaps in Employee Experience: What your HR Tech Metrics aren’t Capturing

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