The critical role of HR in helping leaders envisage and create the future of work

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I was recently interviewed by Anita Lettink for the 25 on HR 2025 Podcast series, speaking about the future of work and the role of HR in 2025 and beyond.

You can listen to the podcast on the site or below.



It was a wide-ranging discussion centered on my ideas on the future of work.

I focused on my major theme: we must envisage what the future of work should be in order to create it.

Ultimately this is the responsibility of the CEO and board as a central issue in building an organization that will be successful in a rapidly evolving environment.

However leaders are not always well equipped to consider what could be a very different future of work, or do not understand how important it is to proactively design their future organization rather than let it evolve, often from a present mentality focused on efficiency.

Optimizing current work models has a strong chance of being a dead-end path. Tomorrow’s work models must be clearly envisaged today in order to be able to create them.

This requires extensive work in understand the role of AI and technology in value creation within the organization’s business model, and how to make humans and machines complementary in work processes, each playing to their respective strengths in a symbiotic system.

I believe it is the responsibility of HR leaders and teams to help business leaders envisage the future work models that will underpin the organization’s success.

This starts from ensuring that leaders understand the importance of undertaking the journey, and supporting them in the visionary process which is essential to create a thriving organization of tomorrow.

From that vision of what the future of work should look like in the company there will be a journey of designing and shifting to new organizational structures, re-prioritizing capabilities, developing skills, and shifting approaches to hiring, onboarding, and development.

In a rapidly changing world business and government leaders must consistently engage with, envision, and design their future organizations and the role of their people in that success.

HR has an essential role to play in assisting them to create a positive future of work, for both the organization and all of society to prosper.