Work Intelligence: workforce leaders don't own the work

Too many organizations underestimate understanding the full scope of work being done. This crucial oversight stems from a fundamental gap. Workforce leaders don't own the work. This responsibility lies within the business. Traditionally, there has been no way to see work at scale.

Attempts to solve this with job architectures and skills models miss the mark. They overlook that understanding tasks is crucial. Tasks form the core of work and its outcomes. We've focused too much on talent visibility. Without truly understanding the work.

From my personal experience last year, when reinventing my workforce, I struggled with just a view of skills. Skills alone did not reveal the work being done. This made it difficult to reorganize my workforce. Or adopt AI. Skills signal that someone could perform a task. But they don't show what work is being done. Without this insight, strategic reorganization was impossible.

People have skills. Work has tasks. A task is a skill in action.

Every enterprise is deploying AI. Almost none can see the work they're deploying it into.

That's why we updated our previous skills model to Work Context (previously called "Work Ontology"). It won Product of the Year 2023 by HR Executive. Now, every customer sees their work at a deeper level:

• Tasks
• AI or automation potential of each task
• Tasks duplicated in other jobs
• Skills
• Requirements like education or certification
• Time allocation: fixed, flex, or gig

It's crucial that workforces have this intelligence about their business. It solves workforce challenges. It improves the match quality of work to workers. We focused too long on the talent side. We missed solving the actual problem. Getting the right work to the right worker.

From Job Architecture to Work Architecture.