Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work

How to Optimize Human-Machine Work Combinations

Your organization has made the decision to adopt automation and artificial intelligence technologies. Now, you face difficult and stubborn questions about how to implement that decision: How, when, and where should we apply automation in our organization? Is it a stark choice between humans versus machines? How do we stay on top of these technological trends as work and automation continue to evolve?

Work and human capital experts Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau present leaders with a new set of tools to answer these daunting questions. Transcending the endless debate about humans being replaced by machines, Jesuthasan and Boudreau show how smart leaders instead are optimizing human-automation combinations that are not only more efficient but also generate higher returns on improved performance.

Based on groundbreaking primary research, Reinventing Jobs provides an original, structured approach of four distinct steps--deconstruct, optimize, automate, and reconfigure--to help leaders reinvent how work gets bundled into jobs and create optimal human-machine combinations. Jesuthasan and Boudreau show leaders how to continuously reexamine what a job really is, and they provide the tools for identifying the pivotal performance value of tasks within jobs and how these tasks should be reconstructed into new, more optimal combinations.

With numerous examples and practical advice for applying the four-step process, Reinventing Jobs gives leaders a more precise, planful, and actionable way to decide how, when, and where to apply and optimize work automation.

Ravin Jesuthasan is Managing Director at Willis Towers Watson and a recognized global thought leader on the future of work. He is a member of the World Economic Forum's Steering Committee on Work and Employment and has been recognized as one of the 25 most influential consultants in the world. Jesuthasan has been featured extensively by leading business media including CNN, the BBC, the Financial Times, The Nikkei (Japan), Les Echos (France), Valor Economico (Brazil), and the South China Morning Post. He is coauthor of Transformative HR and Lead the Work and author of more than 70 articles about work, automation, and human capital.

John Boudreau is Professor of Management Organization at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business and Research Director at the university's Center for Effective Organizations. For over 30 years, he has been recognized worldwide for award-winning breakthrough research on the bridge between superior human capital, talent, and sustainable success. He has over 200 publications, including the books Beyond HR, Retooling HR, and Lead the Work, and is frequently featured in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Fast Company, BusinessWeek, Talent Management, CFO.com, and NPR, among others.