AI is creating a new responsibility no one in the business owns yet: designing how people and agents work together. The AI Work Design Blueprint shows the CHRO how to own it - and become the Chief Workforce Officer leading the entire workforce, people and AI. Here's a sneak peek of what's inside.
As AI redesigns work across the company, a set of responsibilities is emerging that has no clear owner today. They are yours. This blueprint names all 13 and groups them into four pillars.
A: See the work
B: Design & build the work
C: Bring your people with you
D: Measure & steer
Together they cover the full span of the CHRO's new remit, from the map of the work to the return you report to the board.
These responsibilities come first because everything downstream depends on sight. Once you can see the work at task level, you can redesign it, cost it and govern it.
1. Map the work
One source of truth for the work, mapped to the task level in a single Work Ontology, and how it is changing as AI moves through it. Not headcount and job titles, the work itself, with the coverage and confidence to trust it.
2. See the skills, people and agents
One view of capability across your total workforce, the skills your people hold and the skills your agents hold, reconciled in one place. Agents are workers now, and you own knowing what they can do alongside your people.
3. See the economics, people and agents
The cost of the work, side by side. A person against the token cost of an agent, task by task, so every people-or-agent call is deliberate, not accidental.
These responsibilities come next because this is where visibility turns into value. You redesign the work around the strengths of people and agents, rather than speeding up the process you already had.
4. A bold and responsible workforce strategy
The strategy over all of it. Redesign work to elevate your people, not displace them, and move fast on AI at the same time. Bold without responsible is chaos. Responsible without bold is falling behind. You own holding both.
5. Redesign the work and reinvent the workflows
Analyse where the opportunity is, then redesign the work for people and agents, reinventing the workflows around the best of both, rather than automating the old process.
6. Keep the Work Architecture live
Upgrade from a static job architecture to a living Work Architecture, the real structure of roles, tasks and workflows across people and agents, and keep it current as the work changes, so it never falls out of date.
7. Build and run the agents, with IT and the business
IT owns the technology. You own knowing every agent in your workforce, the work it does and the capability it holds, and you partner with IT and the business to build and run the right agents into the work.
8. Plan the total workforce
Plan your total workforce, the capability you need and the cost of it, across people and agents.
These responsibilities come next because your people turn a redesign into results. Most are more ready than their organizations are - meet them there.
9. Reset how your people work
Set the new expectations as the way people work changes, and lead them into the new ways of working, so the change is understood, not resisted.
10. Drive adoption
Make sure your people can adopt the redesigned work, so it lands in real behaviour and the potential is realised.
11. Reskill and pivot your people
Reskill and move people into higher value work as their old work is redesigned, so no one is left behind.
These responsibilities close the loop because proof earns you the next round of investment and the authority to lead it.
12. Intelligence for the board and C-suite
A clear, quarterly view for the board and the executive team of the AI opportunity, the impact on work, and the impact on your workforce.
13. Measure the return
Prove it in the terms that matter: the work redesigned, the velocity gained, the hours unlocked, and what you do with them, redirecting that capacity to higher value work rather than simply cutting.
Executive FAQ
What is AI work design? AI Work Design is the process of understanding work before deciding which technology to deploy. It involves asking: If we were designing this work today, knowing what is now possible, how would we design it? Key elements of this discipline include:
Why do enterprises need an AI Work Design Team in the business? If you don't build an internal team, work is reinvented in silos, leading to clashing AI strategies, redundant software builds, and skyrocketing agent costs. Historically, companies have paid external consultants millions to design these workflows. However, when consultants leave, they take your operational capability with them. An internal AI Work Design Team, led by HR, ensures that the capability to design, cost, and govern your hybrid workforce remains permanently inside your business.
What does the new role of the CHRO look like?
Download the AI Work Design Blueprint to see find out!
No CHRO has had an opportunity quite like this one. Work is being rebuilt from the task up, across people and agents, and the responsibility for shaping it has landed closest to HR. Own it, and you don't just keep pace with the change. You become the Chief Workforce Officer, leading people and agents, and decide what the future of work looks like.
Download The AI Work Design Blueprint -->