228 - Nobody gets People Ops as a Product 100% right (and that’s ok): Jessica Zwaan (Author, Built for People)

Jessica Zwaan, COO at Talentful and author of Built for People,  joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about “human ops” versus “people ops”, the sprint planning process for her people team, and how nobody gets people ops as a product 100% right (and that’s ok). ----  Sponsor Links: 🔗 Download the State of Teams 2025 Report from Atlassian. 🔗 Go book your next offsite with Marco Experiences. 🔗 Request a demo of ChartHop. MPL Links: 🔗 Buy your ticket for MPL Live San Francisco. 🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build. ----  (05:43) The Trap of Perfection & Self-Compassion in HR and Life (07:55) Excitement Over MPL Build Launch (08:45) Revisiting Jessica’s OG Blog on PeopleOps vs HumanOps (11:07) Defining the 3 Products: Shareholder, Consumer, and Employee Experience (12:58) What is HumanOps vs PeopleOps? A Practical Framework (15:04) Naming Regrets & Semantics of HR Frameworks (16:46) Evolving the Playbook: How AI Has Changed PeopleOps (18:30) AI in Action: Where Do Benefits and Chatbots Fit? (21:58) Efficiency Through AI: Freeing Time for High-Impact Work (24:19) HumanOps Litmus Test: Is a Human Presence Still Valuable? (25:59) Real Example: Productizing Performance Calibration (28:47) Healthy Split: How to Balance HumanOps vs PeopleOps (30:25) Agile Practices in HR: Sprints, Retros, and Planning (33:50) Tools & Structure for Sprint Execution in Small Teams (35:17) Addressing Misconceptions: Perfection vs Iteration (39:25) Metrics and MVPs: Doing the Best You Can is Enough (43:07) Common Questions: “Is Anyone Else Doing This?” and “What if I’m a Team of One?” (44:30) From Blog to Book: Scaling the Framework in Small HR Teams (48:17) Recap & One-Word Closes: Self-Compassion, Gasbagging, Cathartic ----  📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn ----  Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.