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Ep 284 – Jessica Zwaan on People Ops as a Product | MPL Build’s First AMA
Published about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Go listento the latest episode of The Modern People Leader.
Jessica Zwaan, Author, Built for People, recently joined us for MPL Build's first-ever AMA. We talked about what traditional HR mindsets must be let go to become builders, how to collect lightweight employee feedback to help build the right products, and more.
Here’s what stood out most from the AMA. ⬇️
“People as a product is a philosophy as much as it is an operating method.” — Jessica Zwaan
1. HR has to go through an “ego death” to evolve
Jessica didn’t sugarcoat it — moving to a People Ops as a Product model requires letting go of traditional HR identity.
For years, HR has been structured around compliance, administration, and process ownership. And in many organizations, power has quietly come from being the “keeper of the keys” — the one who knows the policies, owns the process, and controls the workflow.
But that model doesn’t scale in today’s environment.
“You almost have to go through a bit of an ego death… The way that we’ve been doing things for the past five or ten years just isn’t working anymore.”
To operate as builders instead of responders, we have to release the idea that running the process equals creating value. The shift is from owning tasks to owning outcomes. From protecting compliance to driving impact.
And yes — that can be uncomfortable.
💙 Make leave feel human - not chaotic
In one of our recent webinars, we talked about how leave is usually put into three buckets: compliance and pay, business continuity, and the very real human experience happening at home.
This couldn’t have hit harder for me and Stephen. We both recently became parents - and it showed how complex leave can be, even on a tiny team.
That’s exactly what Tilt is built for.
Tilt is a leave experience platform that manages all types of leave, nationwide - from FMLA and PFL to everything in between - while giving HR, managers, and employees clear visibility into what’s happening. It combines compliant leave management with a genuinely human experience.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Personalized leave plans for every employee
Role-based visibility for HR, managers, and employees
AI that automates admin and answers routine questions
Compliance-backed, expert support
It turns leave from paperwork into a people-first leave experience.
2. Stop being the glue bottle. Start building the machine.
One of the most practical takeaways: most People teams are drowning in “human operations.”
They’re running onboarding. Processing paperwork. Managing the performance cycle. Fielding Slack messages. Chasing signatures. Keeping everything barely on the rails.
The result? No time to improve anything.
Jessica’s advice is simple but bold: fix your own internal operating system first — even if things get temporarily messy.
“We have to just have six months of being really bad at keeping this stuff on the rails… because we’re restructuring how we work.”
That might mean:
Automating manual workflows
Building manager self-serve systems
Introducing ticketing instead of ad hoc Slack requests
Accepting short-term friction to create long-term leverage
You can’t build a product if you’re manually pumping the gears all day.
3. The power of solving the real problem (not the loudest one)
Jessica shared a story about a company struggling with “feedback culture.” Employees said feedback wasn’t working. Tension was rising. Managers were frustrated.
The traditional response? Buy a new feedback tool.
Instead, her team ran user research and discovered the real issue: people were giving feedback in pull requests using question marks, thumbs down emojis, and vague comments.
That small behavior was poisoning the experience.
So instead of buying software, they built a lightweight Chrome plugin that prompted engineers to give structured, useful feedback in real time.
“We didn’t spend money on a new tool. We found the root cause, built something small, and zapped it.”
That’s product thinking.
Start with the problem. Run research. Ask “why” five times. Ship the smallest possible intervention. Measure impact.
Don’t solve what’s easy to buy. Solve what’s actually broken.
📊Turn your people data into usable insight
In our MPL webinar on how HR teams are actually using AI, leaders like Jenny Molyneaux (Vercel) and Brandon Sammut (Zapier) kept highlighting the same idea: AI only matters if it makes insights usable. Teams don’t need more dashboards - they need clarity.
That’s exactly what Ask ChartHop is built for. You type a question and instantly get an answer. When we saw it at HR Tech, people were surprised by how fast it worked. Org charts, comp bands, churn risk, hiring timelines, pay equity views, headcount plans - all generated in seconds. No spreadsheets, no BI requests, no “I’ll get back to you.”
This was one of the most thought-provoking parts of the conversation.
Jessica challenged the assumption that everyone wants their job to be their purpose.
“Some people really happily want to go to their job, have a good time, get paid well, and be transformed by their life outside of work.”
For years, companies have over-indexed on purpose-driven messaging. But when layoffs hit, when AI reshapes roles, when economic reality shifts — that narrative collapses.
If the real job-to-be-done for employees is:
Stability
Fairness
Good pay
Flexibility
Opportunity
Then People teams should design around that — not around aspirational transformation.
When we misdiagnose what employees actually value, trust erodes. And once trust breaks, it’s hard to rebuild.
5. Lightweight user research beats heavyweight surveys
You don’t need a massive engagement survey to start operating like a product team.
Jessica shared two simple practices:
I. Structured 1:1 research conversations. She runs recurring conversations with employees using the same four questions to surface themes over time.
One of them?
“If Talentful went bankrupt in two years, what would you say was the beginning of the end?”
That question surfaces strategic insight — not surface-level complaints.
II. Message testing before major communications. Before sending a big policy update, she pulls five random employees into a quick huddle, has them read the draft, and asks what they understood.
Quick question: when was the last time your backup care benefit truly worked? Employees could use it easily, complaints were minimal, and costs stayed reasonable?
That question has been top of mind for us lately. With Stephen navigating life with a newborn plus two teenage daughters, and Daniel raising a toddler, we started evaluating benefits based on whether they’ll actually show up when real life gets messy.
A lot of employers are realizing their backup care program isn’t keeping up. Traditional options are often rigid, expensive, and built around one-size-fits-all networks - which means they don’t get used the way they’re supposed to.
That’s why more employers are switching to Wellthy Backup Care.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Flexible backup care for kids, adult dependents, and even pets
A vetted provider network or white-glove help from a Wellthy expert
Fully customizable programs with pay-as-you-go pricing
One of the biggest myths is that People Ops as a Product requires a big team, engineers, and complex squad structures.
It doesn’t.
“People as a product is a philosophy as much as it is an operating method.”
If you’re a team of one, you can still:
Frame problems clearly
Write hypotheses before launching initiatives
Ship in sprints
Share a roadmap
Prioritize based on business impact
The shift is mental before it’s structural.
And in many ways, it’s easier to change direction when it’s just you.
If you want to catch our next Build AMA with Jessica on April 16, go sign up now. We’ll be digging into org design, metrics, and real examples of people teams operating this way.
P.S. If you like MPL, help us grow the show by giving us a 5 star rating on Apple or Spotify. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
We’ve learned from the best HR leaders so you can lead like the best. Our newsletter brings you lessons from CHROs, Chief People Officers, and work pioneers who are reshaping the way we work. Through their stories, you’ll discover what’s working, what’s not, and how they’ve built their careers—giving you practical insights to shape what’s next for HR and for your own leadership.
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