reimagining work: 3 ways to design for the next era of performance.

as AI reshapes the boundaries of work, the challenge for organizations becomes less about traditional transformation, and more about redesign with intent

Every organization is under pressure to adapt. The challenge: Redesign work in a way that creates growth and preserves coherence, identity and humanity. Efficiency today and readiness for tomorrow must now coexist. 

To reimagine work is to rethink how performance happens, why it matters and what makes it possible — a practical blueprint for how organizations renew themselves in an AI-shaped world. In essence, reimagining work marks the next inflection point in competitive advantage.

the new shape of work

We’re quickly moving from the industrial age into the intelligence age, characterized by a shift in how value is created through the interplay of humans, machines and meaning. Traditional talent systems were built for predictability and reward control over curiosity. But that model no longer works in a world defined by emergence, experimentation and learning.

Reimagining work isn’t about tearing everything down, but finding a more intelligent balance between human judgment and machine capability — and, importantly, a return to purpose. 

When we design work this way, performance becomes a living system rather than a fixed plan. Three forces are accelerating this shift:

1. 1. AI and intelligent agents have already redrawn the boundaries of what’s possible. The fusion of generative and synthetic intelligence is transforming what we can automate and expanding what we can imagine. The boundary between tool and collaborator is dissolving, creating new opportunities for augmentation and new questions about trust, capability and purpose.
      

   2. The half-life of skills has collapsed. Expertise that once lasted a decade can now fade within months, or years at best. Technology, markets and customer needs are constantly rewriting what value means, yet many organizations remain stuck in a draining cycle of short-term fixes that chase efficiency at the expense of purpose. That depletion of energy and belief is far more long-lasting — and harder to recover — than any financial loss.
      

   3. People are jaded. After years of transformation, employees are running on empty, craving meaning, agency and growth rather than another cycle of restructuring. They want to contribute to something meaningful and within their control.
      
      

This is why reimagining work matters now. The organizations that survive will make adaptation a habit. Real progress rarely comes through big bang transformation, but from consistent  experimentation — short, practical cycles that test, learn and strengthen capability over time, like muscles that grow through deliberate and regular practice. Each small step restores people’s sense of agency in shaping how work evolves. This then scales for impact. 

But before we can redesign work, we need to redefine it. Most organizations still think about work as a set of jobs and processes, but that lens no longer reflects how value is created. The system itself needs rewiring. 

a new lens on work 

For decades, organizations have been built around jobs: fixed bundles of tasks and responsibilities, written but rarely lived. That model is breaking down and the logic of jobs is unravelling; work has become fluid, shaped around problems, projects and outcomes rather than static roles.

AI has made this shift impossible to ignore. Work can now be deconstructed into tasks, automated or augmented in ways we could never have imagined. Instead of asking: “Who fills the job?” we must now ask: “What is the work, and what’s the best way to get it done?”

This rewired system connects human imagination and empathy with machine speed and precision, aligns people’s skills and aspirations with evolving outcomes, and builds learning and adaptability into the flow of work. When designed this way, work becomes a living system, a continuous loop of sensing, adjusting and improving. Growth stops being managed from the top and instead emerges naturally, where it’s most needed, much like an ecosystem that instinctively distributes energy to sustain balance and life.

pixelation, pruning and gooing: 3 paths to redesign 

Naturally, every organization begins from a different place, and each journey will be unique. You might be ready to rethink everything, or just need room to breathe. What matters most is starting somewhere, because clarity about the work itself unlocks change.

Whatever your context, there are usually three ways to begin:

1. 1. Traditional pixelation: See what’s really happening now.
      Often the first step is to simply look closer. Pixelation means breaking work down into its smallest parts — tasks, skills and outcomes — so you can see where value is created and where inefficient and ineffective time and energy are spent. You then reconstitute with automation, AI and humans in alignment and augmentation to optimize outcomes. 
      
      As an example, as we wrote in People & Strategy magazine, nurses found they spent less than half their time with patients; the rest went on paperwork and logistics. Automating admin and triaging routine requests with AI flipped the balance. Nurses spent more time caring, patient care improved, and capacity almost doubled. It wasn’t a grand redesign, just careful reallocation, and it changed everything.
      

1. 1. Pruning: Let go to move forward.
      Sometimes progress comes from subtraction. As a tree is reshaped by trimming to allow for new growth in the shape wanted, this is also true of work. For example, a sales team Randstad Advisory worked with was looking to ensure growth in a super tough market. Activity was high, but impact was waning, and everyone was chasing meetings. This meant they were busy, but not always productive. Instead of piling on additional volume, new tools or incentives, we took a step back and examined what actually mattered. The answer wasn’t “more meetings,” it was “better conversations.”
      
      The sales team now uses AI to help identify which clients are ready to engage, shifting focus from volume to depth. Engagement has grown, stress has decreased and the work feels worthwhile. The sales team has improved performance, but also rediscovered purpose — proof that productivity and joy are often two sides of the same coin.
      

1. 1. Gooing: When it’s time to begin again.
      Other moments call for complete reinvention. Gooing means dissolving the old shape of work so something new can form — much like the way music moved from CDs to streaming. It’s not an upgrade, but a reimagining. Just as a caterpillar in the chrysalis becomes “soup” and then turns into a butterfly, this is gooing in action.
      
      These moments demand imagination, a skill often lost somewhere between childhood and our first job title. Yet it’s essential when the rules change, as it’s what makes transformation human.
      
      A global tech giant explains the steps the organization is taking as it adopts this phase, where its people can focus on the human elements of work: “the creative and the zone of genius.” For the organization, transparency, psychological safety and reskilling investments are paramount in helping both the company and its employees transform. 

Pixelation, pruning and gooing are disciplines, design muscles that strengthen every time we use them. So the more we practice, the more the organization adapts as part of standard ways of working.

making space when you’re already at capacity

It will be no surprise to read that almost every leader says the same thing: “We’re already flat out … how do we make space for redesign?” And it’s a fair question. But many organizations prioritize the urgent at the expense of the important, and if you never step off the treadmill, you never escape it.

The answer lies in starting small. Choose one role, a workflow or a process to experiment with. Run a short defined sprint (six weeks works well) to test and learn. By the end, you’ll not only have a redesigned way of working but also a repeatable capability.

In one client pilot, a six-week work design sprint produced a clear blueprint for the future. The lift was manageable and the learning lasting. Once people can see results, they start to make space for more.

What’s great about this approach is how it helps HR move from doing work design to being its custodian. HR shouldn’t own or execute work design; it should teach the business how to do it. When teams learn to think in this way, redesign becomes part of the organization’s DNA. That shift, from ownership to orchestration, makes the change sustainable and much more powerful. It also ensures HR adds value to business outcomes.

lessons from experience

Through our own pilots and client work, a few patterns have emerged:

• • Involve people early and throughout.
    Change lasts when people help design it, not when it’s done to them. Early involvement builds trust and ownership.

  • Combine data and dialogue.
    Technology shows where to look, but only human judgment decides what matters. Real breakthroughs happen when both work together.

  • Start small, scale fast.
    Early wins build confidence and momentum for wider change.

  • Work redesign is always collaborative.
    HR, finance, IT and operations all bring vital perspectives and can help turn insight into better, more coherent ways of working.

how to do it

Reimagining work is a way of thinking that combines data, behavioral insight and honest dialogue about what work is for. 

1. 1. Start with purpose: Be clear about what matters and for whom. It sounds obvious, but most organizations skip that step. Without purpose, redesign becomes a process rather than a practice. 

   2. Map your current state: Where does time get spent, and on what tasks? What gives people energy, and what drains it? AI tools can reveal patterns, but it’s the human conversations that will make sense of them.

   3. Reimagine the role: Identify what work should be removed, automated, redesigned or cocreated with AI. Redefine success by impact, not activity.

   4. Model the future state: Simulate scenarios for cost, efficiency and skill impact. The output is a living blueprint that evolves as the organization learns.

   5. Build capability: Real value lies in teaching people how to do this themselves. HR’s role is to build the muscle to help teams become confident in rethinking their own work. Only then does redesign stop being a project and start becoming part of how the business operates.
      
      

What we’ve seen, again and again, is that the process changes people as much as it changes the work. Once people learn how to look at work this way, they never see it quite the same again. 

deciding what to automate and what to keep human

Reimagining work is as much about intentionality as it is about innovation. It’s about deciding what to let go of, what to enhance and what to protect.

As AI becomes more capable, you’ll not only need to decide what it can do, but what it should do. That requires nuance. Some tasks suit automation, others benefit from augmentation. But there are also skills humans should deliberately retain, even if they could be outsourced to machines.

People sometimes have a tendency to cognitively offload — in other words, to let technology do the thinking for them. It can make the work happen faster, but also risks dulling the very muscles we all need for judgment, empathy and creativity. Design deliberate re-engagement moments when humans stay hands-on to keep those skills alive. It might feel inefficient in the short-term, but it sustains capability in the long-term and can help you avoid AI workslop.

the real gains of reimagining work

The greatest benefit of reimagining work is the shift in energy and the clarity of impact. When people see they can shape their own work, confidence and focus return. Engagement stops being something HR measures once a year and becomes something palpable that is felt every day. People spend more time on what matters, and that changes the tone of an organization.

In our pilots, Randstad Advisory has seen teams release 20%–30% of their time from low-value activity, which is great, but the deeper gain is psychological safety: freedom to speak honestly about what’s not working and to try new ways of doing things without fear. It’s ironic that companies almost never calculate the cost of not having psychological safety, but the lost focus, anxiety and wasted energy is enormous. 

Reimagining work changes that dynamic because it gives people a sense of agency, which, in turn, builds momentum and coherence: People start to move in sync, decisions come more quickly and creativity flows more easily. The real outcome isn’t just doing work better, but creating a place where people can do their best work.

the role of HR: from function to force multiplier

For HR, reimagining work is both a challenge and a turning point. Credibility can no longer rest on delivery: the process completed, the policy written, the problem policed. The opportunity lies in shaping how work happens. Our value is orchestrating the system; connecting people, skills and technology to create coherence and value across the organization. 

This demands new capabilities: curiosity, systems thinking and design discipline. Work design builds these by teaching us how to break problems down, understand their moving parts and redesign for impact. It’s a mindset that will outlast any methodology and one that HR teams are increasingly drawn to as they look to stay relevant in a world that changes faster than processes can keep up.

Of course, the instinct to step in and fix everything runs deep, but value today comes from enabling others to take ownership instead. HR’s role is to create the frameworks, tools and confidence that help teams question and redesign their own work. When leaders learn how to break work apart, rebuild it and decide what should remain human, what can be automated, and what can be co-created with AI, adaptability becomes part of everyday working life.

We see HR’s future as that of an ethical orchestrator, guiding not directing, keeping humans at the center while embracing technology. The best performance comes from energy, trust and coherence, and when those align, the organization renews itself almost naturally.

6 questions to ask yourself

Reimagining work starts with inquiry and reflection. Ask these questions to surface where energy flows, where it stalls and what’s ready to evolve.

1. 1. Which work truly drives business value and which no longer does?

   2. How can human skills and AI capabilities complement rather than compete?

   3. Are we designing work that builds learning and adaptability as well as results?

   4. Do our leaders model curiosity and experimentation in how work gets done?

   5. Are our metrics measuring impact and outcomes, not just efficiency?

   6. Do people feel empowered to shape and improve their own work?

This shifts the conversation from who we have to how work creates value, revealing structural inefficiencies and energy leaks that engagement surveys cannot detect.

redesign work around energy

For CHROs, this shift brings both responsibility and freedom. No longer confined to supporting the business strategy, you now have the chance to shape it, by questioning how value truly flows through the business, where it pools and where it drains. The most forward-looking leaders see these blockages for what they are: duplication, friction, fear. They design systems that free energy and turn work design into a rhythm of sensing, listening and adjusting to keep the organization alive to its purpose.

In the modern enterprise, the most powerful metric isn’t cost, it’s energy — cognitive, creative and emotional. The CHRO’s role is to release, mobilize and boost that energy, not contain it: building organizations that flex as conditions change, defining outcomes before deciding who or what should deliver them, and pairing people and AI intentionally so machines take the regular while humans focus on the remarkable. When learning is built into the flow of work, capability grows through applying, not just training.

At that point, the CHRO becomes the chief coherence officer — aligning work, culture and technology into one living system. But it cannot happen without having the courage to reimagine your own function, moving beyond policy and process to design the conditions where people can do their best work. Get that right, and your organization will become more human, not less; it will be a place where people grow, contribute and adapt with confidence.

the human-AI future

The future of work will be built on the relationship between humans and machines. When we design work intentionally, productivity and humanity reinforce each other.

There’s enormous potential in this partnership. AI can take the heavy lift out of complexity, freeing humans to focus on creativity, empathy and purpose. But technology must be guided by human judgment, and that requires leaders who understand both sides of the equation.

Reimagining work aligns what people can do, what they want to do, and what the business needs most. It helps organizations remain fluid, relevant and distinctive. And because every design is unique, it becomes your organizational fingerprint — distinct, human and impossible to copy. 

Explore how Randstad Advisory can help your organization redesign work for the future.