SHRM26 Debrief · Strategic HR, Organizational Design & Change Management · #3763

Redesigning Work in the Age of AI: Unlocking Productivity and Human Potential

with Lauren Bidwell

▶ Watch on the SHRM portal ~63 min, distilled

AI and work redesignjob architectureAI literacy

"The question isn't whether AI is going to redefine work. That is an inevitability. It will. But I think the better question is will it happen to your organization or will it happen by design?"

What it was about

AI is inevitably redefining work, so the real choice for organizations is whether that redesign happens deliberately, guided by an evidence-based model that balances human and AI strengths. The alternative is redesign by default, leaving employees confused and roles drifting without guardrails.

By the numbers

93%

Share of people managers who say their job changed in the last year due to AI (SAP global study)

48%

Share of employees who think their organization will replace human managers with AI managers in the next five years

266% increase

Productivity increase employees expect from using AI over the next five years

Key notes

Start work redesign by writing a future-based job purpose statement that captures what outcome the role needs to deliver going forward, not what it does today.
Deconstruct jobs into component tasks at a useful level of granularity, and validate that task list with the subject matter experts actually doing the job.
Assess each task against a strengths framework (judgment vs. rule-based, data quality, emotional sensitivity, etc.) to decide whether AI, humans, or a combination should own it, rather than defaulting to whichever technology is available.

The contrarian takeThe speaker argues that optimizing AI for efficiency and time savings isn't even the right goal for organizations to pursue. Chasing 'minutes saved' distracts from the more important question of what work should be done at all.

Take this back Monday

Do this for your team

Pick one role, write its future-focused purpose statement, then sort its tasks by whether AI, a person, or both should own each one.

Say this in your next leadership meeting

AI redefining our jobs is inevitable. The only real choice is whether we redesign roles by design or let it happen by default.

Watch out for

Letting employees redesign their own jobs informally and unilaterally without organizational guidance, which is happening for roughly half of all task changes today.
Chasing 'minutes saved' or time-savings as the primary measure of AI success instead of redesigning what work should be done at all.
Assuming a task should go to AI just because AI can technically do it (the 'AI can vs. AI should' distinction), for example letting AI deliver a post-interview rejection or negotiate salary.

Fun fact · Lauren Bidwell

She holds a Ph.D. in Experimental and Decision-Making Psychology and has consulted with hundreds of customer organizations worldwide on AI's impact on employee experience.

If this landed, see these

↳ Go deeperFrom Jobs to Capabilities: How Organizations Actually Scale Skills-Based Workforce ModelsShows exactly how to operationalize task redesign into scalable capability models.⇄ The counterpointFrom Awareness to Advantage: Transforming Neurodiversity Into Organizational StrengthUniversal design, not a rigid task-sorting framework, may fit human variation better.✦ The unexpected onePlays Well With Others: Civility for Grown-Ups at WorkCivility frameworks arm people for the emotional work AI can't take over.