VP of People says the most valuable employees are the ones who “build themselves away”
See how a VP of People uses AI to improve hiring, document workflows, and reshape HR roles around employees who automate repetitive work.
Linnea Bywall
VP of People at Quinyx
AI Transformation: Linnea Bywall discusses how AI is reshaping HR roles and expectations for efficiency.
Hiring Process: The implementation of AI in hiring enhances alignment, customization, and selection accuracy for candidates.
Documentation Importance: Proper documentation is essential for AI readiness, enabling smoother processes and a self-serve function.
Tool Utilization: Bywall outlines various AI tools improving HR effectiveness, from policy creation to competency frameworks.
Adoption Challenges: Uneven AI adoption among employees highlights a need for ongoing experimentation and collaboration for success.
Linnea Bywall is the VP of People at Quinyx, an AI-powered workforce management software. In addition to the People roles she's held, her background as an organizational psychologist informs her work.
We sat down with Linnea to learn more about how she's using AI to transform HR and People Operations. She gave us a detailed look at her approach, as well as the challenges she's facing and how she's overcoming them.
A leadership journey shaped by organizational psychology
I grew up on the track, competing in the 100m, 200m, and 400m. My coach, Peter, was a psychologist, and since he was the coolest guy I knew, I naturally decided to follow in his footsteps. Despite wanting to become a psychologist, I knew I didn't want to work clinically. So, early on, I started specializing in organizational psychology.
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After graduation, I worked as an organizational psychologist, focusing mainly on recruitment and leadership development. After a couple of years, I joined a Stockholm-based start-up called Alva Labs, where I built the People function and got my first manager role.
After teaching others all the theories, it was about time I got to taste my own medicine. After 6.5 years at Alva, I recently joined Quinyx as their VP People, now managing a team of 8 great people!
How AI reshapes HR roles and leadership assumptions
The expectations for increased efficiency with AI, without a decline in quality, are clear. This requires me to up my game on documentation. Without proper documentation, it is hard to leverage AI models or let agents loose.
The implementation of AI has also pushed me to try new ways of working for myself, my team, and the organization. I am a firm believer in setting clear expectations, so using AI is now a given part of my expectation setting for all my direct reports.
Regarding organizational structure, what we used to see as talent will be different from the talent we are looking for today. Historically, we needed superstars. I've even heard of companies trying to base salary increases and performance reviews on how many Slack messages someone got as proof they were important.
Today, the people who "build themselves away" are the most needed talent. An employee who removes repetitive tasks and opens up time for something else will have the biggest impact on the organization. And that is not the same as a leader. Could be, but doesn't have to be.
How AI transforms hiring processes and team operations
Hiring is crucial for any organization's success, making it a key area for improvement with AI. We use Alva Labs' Hiring System to reshape how we move from an intake meeting to a tailored process. Alva helps build a detailed role description based on your input (or simply the title), then identifies all skills needed for the role, and creates a tailored, role-specific hiring process, complete with AI-generated, role-specific interview questions.
Alva allows for better alignment, designs a process based on that, and ensures everyone evaluates what we agreed upon. Short term, it leads to a better hiring process and experience. Long term, it can increase our likelihood of selecting the right candidates.
How to document processes for AI readiness
Lack of documentation is a significant hindrance to AI readiness. So many organizations want to use AI, but too many processes live in people's heads. We are currently updating and documenting all information and processes.
This is the first step to creating a self-serve People function. I provide a clear structure for what and how to document, explaining the potential gains of this work, and then setting a target for the outcome.
We are updating some existing aspects with AI to match tone of voice, accuracy, format, and purpose. For sections completely lacking documentation, we created drafts from scratch. We also used AI as a sounding board to ensure we covered all necessary pieces. This made the entire process very smooth.
We rewrote our People Handbook and Manager Handbook at Quinyx. To ensure we documented and leveraged information, we added the number of views as a Key Result within our People team's quarterly OKRs. This ensured we all saw the value of this work.
It can feel scary to "fall behind" when adopting AI. So many people preach about how they have revolutionized their ways of working, but few explain how they are doing it. I think that can feel overwhelming to people, and prevents them from really diving in. Making "documenting processes" a first step is a way to demystify the situation.
My team and I are also taking a practical AI course together through Anthropic (which offers courses for free). I find it helpful to lower the bar by explaining which tools to use for specific tasks, showing examples, and working together.
It can feel scary to “fall behind” when adopting AI. So many people preach about how they have revolutionized their ways of working, but few explain how they are doing it.
How AI tools enhance HR and leadership effectiveness
I use AI a lot as a sounding board, for both research and benchmarking. We are improving our competency frameworks with AI as well. As a first step, I had Claude research best practices. We then used AI to update our Employee and Manager Handbook with guides. We created a template and a prompt for managers to use for creating a framework from scratch.
I find Gemini particularly useful. It has improved my productivity and quality in many areas. I am constantly learning and can easily get input on my drafts. I find it helpful to evaluate my work from different perspectives, like prompting it with, "How would a CEO react to this?"
We also run AI-classroom sessions as well as "show-and-tells" across the organization. Within the team, we highlight AI wins in our team meetings to provide examples.
There is so much more we need to do, and I don't think we are ahead as a team here. But individual adoption within my People Partner team has massively improved both quality and efficiency.
Here is a list of the tools I use in my HR tool stack:
- Gemini and ChatGPT: sounding board for exploring alternatives and best practices, and creating policies, career frameworks, job descriptions, job ads, you name it.
- Alva Labs & LinkedIn Recruiter: sourcing, creating hiring processes, and evaluating candidate relevance.
- Confluence: assisting employees in finding answers to policy questions.
Why AI adoption varies and how to address it
A challenge we face is uneven adoption. Some employees are all in and are seeing a lot of gains, others are just getting started. In many cases, AI models lack the context to make a meaningful impact right away.
We have included AI usage in our competency frameworks, meaning everyone is expected to leverage it as a skill. Depending on seniority, it will mean different things to each person.
Why experimentation and collaboration are key for leaders
Leaders - continue to experiment.
Document your processes. Solve real problems you have today. Find a peer to share the AI journey with and explore together. In addition, choose someone who is ahead of you and ask for help.
Over the next five years, I predict that half the People functions will become redundant. The professionals who remain will be those who can handle both people and agents.
Follow Along
You can follow along with Linnea Bywall on LinkedIn — and don't forget to check out Quinyx.
More expert interviews to come on People Managing People!
