Tell us about yourself and your background.
I’m Katja Bilić, founder of Rewired Studio. I started my career in an HR generalist role in a startup turned unicorn, and after learning all about end-to-end operational HR I have spent over a decade in HR technology. At first in-house, then as an independent consultant.
My background is a mix of systems thinking and design thinking, which sounds fancy but really just means I’m building HR tech that actually works for people, not just on paper.
I’m based in the Netherlands and work with clients across the world, everything from fast-growing scale-ups to established brands, and I am rewiring how companies think about people tech entirely.
Why are you so passionate about HR technology?
Honestly? I got tired of watching expensive HR systems fail because no one thought about the people using them.
HR tech vendors sell you the dream in a 30-minute demo. Then the reality hits: the system doesn’t fit your workflows, your team hates it, adoption tanks, and you’re stuck with a three-year contract. I’ve seen this pattern repeat across dozens of companies, big or small and none of the People departments I worked at didn’t seem to actually like their HR tech. It was depressing and I wanted to change that!
What inspired you to found Rewired Studio?
I founded Rewired Studio because someone needs to flip the script. Design the employee experience first, then choose the technology to deliver it. That’s it, the whole philosophy. But almost no one does it that way and that’s the problem I’m here to solve.
What is the biggest HR challenge facing business scaling rapidly?
Three things hit at once: processes that can’t keep up, skills gaps in the People team, and falling behind on tech developments.
What worked at 50 people breaks at 150. What worked at 150 is chaos at 500. Scaling companies add headcount fast, but they don’t build the systems and structure to support that growth. Suddenly, the People team is drowning in manual work and everything feels reactive.
But it’s not just about processes. People teams often lack the technical skills to evaluate and implement new tools properly. And the tech landscape moves fast. What was cutting-edge three years ago is outdated now. Companies that don’t keep up end up stuck with legacy systems that hold them back.
The companies that scale well invest in their HR infrastructure early, upskill their teams continuously, and stay on top of what’s actually useful in the tech space versus what’s just hype.
What interesting HR projects have you implemented?
I’ve worked on many interesting projects and every tool implementation is different. But what I enjoy the most is the design part of my work.
I get to run workshops with clients who have been running things manually for years and People teams are drowning in admin. Then we redesign the way they work and free them up for more value-added tasks. That transformation, watching a People team go from buried in spreadsheets to actually having time for strategic work, is what gets me excited.
It’s not about the technology itself. It’s about what becomes possible when you remove the friction and give people their time back.
How do you approach a HR transformation project?
Transformation is an ever-ongoing process, but it only happens through people.
First questions we adress: what does your employee experience look like today? What are the pain points? Where does HR spend time on admin that could be automated? Where are the gaps between what employees need and what HR delivers?
Then we map the ideal state. What employee experience do you actually want to create? What does good look like for onboarding, performance management, time off, offboarding?
Only then do we talk about technology. We choose tools that fit the experience you want to create, not the other way around. And we implement in phases. Quick wins first, then build from there. No big-bang launches that overwhelm everyone.
How can the role of HR be made more effective within an organization?
People teams need to develop stronger business thinking skills.
Traditionally, HR comes from office management and psychology backgrounds. We’re really good at solving individual problems, supporting people through challenges, creating safe spaces. Those skills matter. But they’re not enough if you want to be effective at the leadership table.
The shift happens when we learn to speak the language of the business. What’s the business case for this initiative? How does improving retention impact our revenue growth? What’s the ROI on this learning program? How does our talent strategy support our three-year business plan?
It’s not about abandoning the people focus. It’s about connecting people outcomes to business outcomes. Show leadership how better onboarding drives faster time-to-productivity and revenue impact. Show how stronger performance management improves team output and customer satisfaction. That’s when we become a strategic partner, not just a support function.
What current HR tech trends do you see?
The biggest trend? Everyone slapping AI onto everything.
Go to an HR tech conference and every vendor has AI in their pitch. Every tool now has “AI-powered” features. It’s become the default selling point, whether the AI actually adds value or not.
But AI only works when your data is clean and your processes are clear. If your HRIS is a mess, AI won’t fix it. It’ll just automate the chaos faster.
The best People teams aren’t buying every AI tool on the market. They have the skills to know where AI will genuinely add value and where it won’t. Not every problem needs an AI solution. Sometimes you just need better processes, clearer communication, or smarter workflows.
The real trend I’m watching isn’t AI itself. It’s which teams develop the discernment to use it strategically versus which teams get caught up in the hype and waste budget on tools they don’t need, those are becoming true AI-powered People teams.
How can the current AI advancements be harnessed for the changing HR landscape?
Start small and solve real problems.
Don’t buy an AI tool because it sounds futuristic. Buy it because it solves a specific pain point your team has today. Maybe that’s automating candidate screening so recruiters spend less time on admin and more time talking to people. Maybe it’s using AI to surface patterns in employee feedback that a human would miss.
But always be aware of the real humans your AI use is impacting. Get trained on bias, understand the limitations, make sure you’re adding value across the board, not just creating efficiency for the business while making the employee experience worse.
AI should make things better for everyone involved, not just faster for HR.
How do you see the HR industry evolving over the next 10 years?
Honestly, 10 years is a long time to predict. AI was just recently developed and look how fast things have changed already. But I can tell you what I think needs to happen for HR to stay relevant.
HR needs to become more product-led. That means treating employees like users, designing experiences iteratively, measuring impact, and continuously improving. It also means developing T-shaped HR professionals. People with deep expertise in one area but broad understanding across multiple disciplines. We need HR people who understand data, technology, design thinking, and business strategy, not just traditional HR functions.
Interdisciplinarity is going to be crucial. The best People teams will pull skills from product management, data science, organizational psychology, tech implementation, change management. The days of HR being a siloed function are over.
And here’s the opportunity: People teams can be the ones managing AI change and transformation going forward. We understand people, we understand change, we understand systems. If we build the right skills, we’re perfectly positioned to lead organizations through this massive shift.
What is next for you? OR What are your goals for the next decade?
Short-term: keep building Rewired Studio into the go-to consultancy for companies who want HR tech that actually works. I’m expanding our network of specialist consultants and building out more structured offerings around multi-country implementations and AI in HR.
Long-term: I want Rewired Studio to become the standard for how HR technology should be selected and implemented. Design first, tech second shouldn’t be a unique approach. It should be the baseline. I’m focused on proving that this method delivers better outcomes, faster adoption, and happier HR teams. If we can shift how companies think about HR tech implementations, that’s the real impact.
The work evolves, the clients grow, but the mission stays the same: build people tech that feels good.
Where can readers connect with you and learn more?
Website: rewired-studio.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katjabilic/
Email: katja@rewired-studio.com
If you’re thinking about an HRIS or ATS implementation, dealing with multi-country HR complexity, or just want to talk about how to make your HR tech stack actually work, let’s talk.
