Wouldn’t it be nice if we could work less, maybe get paid less, but have access to the same range of benefits? Turns out, AI might actually help us get there, but only after we get over some initial speed bumps.
As AI rapidly changes how employees approach their work, it’s also dramatically changing what work humans perform. While nearly half of entry-level, white-collar jobs could be eliminated in the next few years, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told CNN in a recent interview, jobs in every industry are susceptible to AI disruption. Some 12.6% of roles in the US are at a “high risk” or “very high risk” of being displaced altogether, according to a recent report from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The report also found both white- and blue-collar jobs are vulnerable to AI.
What’s going on? “I don’t think HR and L&D know what’s about to hit them. Some are really dazed and confused,” said Rishad Tobaccowala, author of Rethinking Work.
As AI adoption accelerates, people leaders need to reimagine workforce management, he told HR Brew, starting with “removing” how HR thinks about job structures from hiring, job descriptions, and job titles. Instead of a traditional structure where mainly full-time employees complete work, he suggested HR reallocate tasks across various combinations of full-time, part-time, contractual, freelance workers, and AI tech.
It can also be thought of as a human-to-AI continuum, where each job we have nowadays will be done by “a human, a human powered by AI, an agent supervised by humans…or AI,” Bryan Ackermann, head of AI strategy and transformation at consulting firm Korn Ferry, previously told HR Brew.
“In today’s world, a company will basically say, ‘I have this work to be done. What combination of human beings and [AI]…do we need?’” Tobaccowala said. “That is how work is going to get done, and any company that does not have that agility or flexibility is out of business.”
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This can be a useful strategy as agentic AI technology decreases the amount of work done by most humans, Tobaccowala said, adding “10% to 20% of work, which is currently being done by humans, will be done by AI, so now a company has a choice, either they create new streams of work, or they decide to lay off 10% to 20% of the people.”
Creatively avoiding layoffs. Some companies, like Tesla and Intuit, have already conducted mass layoffs to reinvest in AI. But conducting layoffs isn’t the only strategy to reduce talent costs, Tobaccowala said. He suggests moving part of your full-time workforce to part-time or contract roles, but keeping 100% of their benefits. Some employees want benefits, he said, but might not want to work full time at your company.
“The reality of it is, if you actually told everybody in your company, ‘Hey, next year, do you want to work 60%, 80%, or 100%?’ I have a feeling you’ll end up with an average of about 85%,” he said. “You can basically reduce your headcount by 15%, without doing a single layoff…The lack of imagination of people to reinvent this is the key thing that I’m finding really astonishing.”
Another aspect of this strategy is reducing middle management and increasing the number of individual contributors, Tobaccowala said. “We don’t need a whole bunch of people to manage the work, so, in effect, what also begins to happen is this whole layer of what I call ‘bosses’ are going to be replaced by ‘leaders and doers,’” he said.
These actions and strategies require HR to “reinvent” themselves to avoid becoming “irrelevant,” he said. “Managing processes, which is what a lot of them do, is going to matter less and less when the whole process changes.”
