AI has changed “the system in which work happens” so the workplace “operating model has to change with it”: Bloor Research

“The workforce is no longer just human – work is now being done by a mixture of human and digital hands”.

That’s how Lee Baron MP, Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group for Modernizing Employment, kicked off an in-person event hosted by Bloor Research at the UK Houses of Parliament.

He continued: “The future of work is already here”.

AI is more than a tool, and it does more than automate tasks, it “changes the system in which work happens”; those are the words of are the words of Cheney Hamilton, Lead Analyst – FusionWork™ at Bloor Research, during the event.

According to insights from Bloor Research, most organizations are going wrong because they treat AI like any other piece of software, but that means they’re trying “to bolt it into an operating model that was designed for a human-only workforce”, added Hamilton.

“AI cannot correct a broken operating model”, continued Donna Lamden, Head of Partnerships at Bloor Research.

HR systems were “built for an age that all the workforce was purely human”, as Nico Decock, transformation expert and CHRO, shared on stage – but now with digital labor has changed the system, the workplace “operating model has to change with it”, noted Hamilton.

“This is not a technology problem, it is a design problem – the good news is that design problems can be solved deliberately, thoughtfully and in a way that works for people, organizations and societies,” she added.

What actions do organizations and leaders need to take to intentionally design a better future of work? Let’s dig in.

Is ‘fusion’ work the solution?

Bloor Research’s event centered on the concept it terms FusionWork™ – this hinges on the hard truth that you can only have one operating model – in the same way that a car “can only have one steering wheel”.

“You cannot run one operating model for human, another for digital systems” that simply drives fractionalization, fragility and hidden risks.

“If nothing changes, if work continues to be designed the same way…where does the risk go? It doesn’t disappear, it compounds”, Hamilton stated.

“The question is no longer if [redesign] happens, the question is whether it happens by accident with risk, fragility and exclusion baked, or by design in a way that protects earning capacity, organizational resilience”, she said.

Instead, Bloor Research’s FusionWork™ framework offers an operating model that plays to the strengths of humans and AI.

It realigns human capability and judgement with digital labor’s scalable outputs – ultimately, it is about moving away from time-based roles, to a focus on outcomes.

This means “designing an organization that can adapt deliberately as conditions change”, in the words of Lamden.

FusionWork™ requires a shift in mindset from not seeing AI as just as a tool that drives incremental productivity improvements – instead it is a true force multiplier.

Decock noted that, as the world of work evolves, “it’s not going to be around tools, it’s going to be how we architect the whole system we are working in”.

“The Fusion age doesn’t care about what you can do today” – “it’s what we will need tomorrow to have a competitive advantage,” he continued.

Importantly, in this framework, as Hamilton shared, “workforce design stops being a HR issue” – it becomes a “a macro-economic issue”.

Yes, “HR cannot stay the same” now that the workforce is not just human, but Hamilton is clear that work redesign “does not solely belong with HR”.

By the same vein, work redesign “can’t be solved by Finance alone. It can’t be owned by technology, and it can’t be addressed by policy in isolation” – “it is going to take all of us” to make fusion work a reality.

That was Hamilton clarion call to the HR, Finance, Procurement, IT and legal experts in the room at Bloor Research’s event.

Redesigning work to fuse humans and AI is much easier said than done; Bloor Research’s event provided some recommendations of where to start.

“The single most practical action organizations can take is to stop hiring the old way,” stated Hamilton.

“Every time you recruit into a role… that’s designed for human only workforce, we locking in assumptions that no longer hold”, continued Lamden.

Hamilton concluded the day by declaring: ““Doing nothing is no longer neutral. It is not a holding position.”