A foundational session unpacking the methodology Jessica developed in her book Built for People. The premise: your employee experience is a product that team members subscribe to, and like any subscription, it can be cancelled at any time.

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What's covered:

• The origin and evolution of People Ops as a Product, from Jessica's 2020 blog post through to the Modern People Leader Academy.
• The two coexisting elements of the People function (the systematic build work and the genuinely human work) and why great leaders excel at both.
• The three-layer product model (core, actual, augmented) and where People teams should be putting their energy for maximum impact.
• Two operating principles for product-led People functions: maximising impact to the mission, and accomplishing everything through others.
• The employee lifecycle viewed as a customer journey: employer brand, recruitment, day-to-day experience, referrals, and exits.
• Where most People teams under-invest: output metrics, experimentation, user research, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Why "strategic HR" on its own falls short, and what it looks like to build solutions inside the business rather than waiting on six-month vendor cycles.

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What you'll walk away with:

1. A working mental model for treating People Ops as a product function.
2. Practical first steps for getting started: journey mapping, structured user research, output metrics, roadmapping, and test-and-learn cycles.
3. Confidence to operate as a builder inside your business, not just a consultant to it.