Ask the Analyst: Job boundaries are blurring without anyone approving it – what's HR's first move?

Every week for The Briefing, UNLEASH’s weekly intelligence email for senior business decision-makers, we ask our community of analysts – the true HR experts – to solve the biggest workplace challenges.

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We asked: Job boundaries are blurring without anyone approving it — what's HR's first move?

Here what’s the analysts had to say.

Dr. Sharon O'Neill, Practice Lead- Analyst & Ecosystems Relations, Worktech Advisory:

The economic case for reskilling matters: what skills we have, what skills we will need, and whether we can build them faster and more economically than hiring them elsewhere. And I would add one more question: How confident are we in the workforce we are modeling for? AI is changing work quickly. But the workforce is changing too.

By 2030, organizations will be drawing talent from different generations, cultures and economies. I would consider three things:

• Context doesn't always translate; it changes across boundaries and transfers imperfectly. Context is not universal, yet the models we increasingly rely on are built from knowledge concentrated in languages, cultures and economies.
• There is also a paradox of choice in talent. As technology makes more candidates visible and searchable, it becomes easy to believe a better match is always out there. In that search, organizations can undervalue the institutional knowledge, judgment, relationships and potential of the people they already have. More choice does not necessarily mean a better choice.
• For CHROs, reskilling preserves something strategically important: the organization's ability to adapt. But reskilling alone is not enough. It requires strong change management and an execution plan that brings existing, reskilled and new talent together as workforce needs evolve. Are we modeling the workforce we understand today, or the workforce that will arrive in 2030? Perhaps the challenge isn't simply preparing people for the workforce of 2030. It's managing how today's workforce becomes it.

Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer, Brandon Hall Group:

HR’s first move is to make the invisible redesign of work visible. When job boundaries blur, rewriting job descriptions may seem natural, but it only addresses surface issues, not root causes.

HR teams should understand how work is done, determine official tasks, cross-team responsibilities, partners, and how AI supports or replaces roles. From that point, HR can organize work into tasks, skills, and results, aiding in selecting the best placement for work and suitable handlers. This strategy clarifies accountability and suggests where traditional job-based performance management might need updates.

The next step is to refocus performance management on contributions and outcomes rather than just the job. Employees contribute across projects, teams, and AI-supported workflows, so relying solely on annual goals tied to a fixed role may overlook their real value. Organizations should promote ongoing feedback, increase visibility into contributions, and develop measures that link efforts to positive business results. Start by mapping work rather than immediately redrawing the org chart or rewriting job descriptions.

When HR understands where, how, and who contributes to work, they can better redesign roles, set performance measures, determine rewards, and establish accountability based on the current work reality rather than the old structure.

Rebecca Wettemann, CEO & Principal Analyst, Valoir:

The near-term HR challenge when it comes to blurring job lines isn’t drawing a new org chart; it’s understanding the shadow org chart that AI is already creating.

We’ve all talked about skills-based organizations for decades, but this is really crunch time: without a clear, current, and consistent understand of who knows what, who’s supposed to do what, and who’s actually doing it, HR can’t keep track of how AI is shifting tasks across traditional job boundaries. HR needs to identify what work is actually being done and where, what has moved to AI, and what has migrated between people or teams, and, ultimately who’s now accountable for that work.

The next step is the harder part, which is determining which roles need to be redesigned, which skills are increasing or declining in value, whether managers who primarily supervise agents are still managers, and how org charts, compensation, and career paths should change. Before HR can effectively rewrite and reprice jobs, it’s going to have to map where and how work is getting done.

Anita Lettink, Managing Partner, HRtechradar:

Whenever I ask my audience: "When was the last time you read your job description?" the answer is often "when I applied." People rarely do just what's listed in their job description. A job is a living construct: tasks get added, removed and reshaped as the company changes. Job descriptions tend to stay fairly static. And work is changing so quickly right now, that it's too hard to keep them up-to-date.

Moving to a skills-based approach can be part of the solution. It gives HR more flexibility to think about work in terms of the skills and capabilities, rather than relying on static jobs with set boundaries. But flexibility still needs structure. HR should underpin this approach with clear accountability, decision rights and ownership.

Otherwise, they might solve the structural job boundaries issue while creating a new problem: introducing more ambiguity about who is responsible for what.