Product discipline (discovery, iteration, and evidence over opinion) is not just for software. Applied to People teams, it turns employee experience into a product that people choose, every single day.
I started my career as a Product Manager for news products in the media industry, shipping features, running discovery, and learning what it means to build something people actually want to use.
From there, I moved into Corporate Venture Capital in tech startups, where I learned to read the second product every company builds: the financial product, the narrative, the business model, the vehicle that investors choose to invest in.
Today I work in People Leadership. And I have come to see that this is the third product world: the People Product, the experience that employees subscribe to when they join, and renew every day they choose to stay.
Having worked in all three worlds, I bring a rare lens to People teams: the rigor of product management, the commercial clarity of the investor's perspective, and a deep care for the humans at the center of it all.
Most organizations only manage the first one deliberately. The other two usually happen by accident. My work is about making all three intentional, and making sure they reinforce each other.
For customers
The offering the company exists for: the software, service, or product that solves a real problem in the market. This is what most people think of when they hear "product."
For investors
The vehicle investors put their money into: the story, the metrics, the growth thesis. It shapes and is shaped by everything the company does on the ground.
For employees
The experience employees "buy into" when they join, and re-subscribe to every day they decide to stay. Culture, growth, tools, and belonging, managed like a product. This is where I work.
Think of the employee experience as a subscription product. Employees buy into it during recruiting, subscribe month after month, and stop subscribing the day they resign. That changes everything about how People teams should work.
Every HR process, policy, and program is a feature of a product whose users are the people doing the actual work. Design for them, not for the org chart.
Use the tools of product management (user interviews, journey mapping, jobs-to-be-done) to find real needs before building anything.
Open, continuous feedback channels complement the annual survey. Transparency is the foundation of honest input, and honest input drives iteration.
Ship small, measure adoption and sentiment, learn, repeat. A great People Product is never "done"; it evolves with the people it serves.
Crucially, a strong People Product is not a perk; it is a competitive advantage. Investors increasingly know this: they evaluate the quality of the team and the ability to attract talent. The three products are deeply connected, and misalignment between them is dangerous.
Where does your organization stand in treating its People Product like a product? Select the stage that best describes you today.
Most People teams evolve through four stages. The model is deliberately simple: the point is not the label, but the direction of travel.
Jessica Zwaan is one of the pioneers who formalized the ideas behind People Ops as a Product, bringing product management, design thinking, and continuous feedback loops into the People space. Her work shaped how I think about the People Product, and I admire both her work and her as a person deeply.
Visit Jessica's website