Several frameworks exist to deliver on the promise of the evolution of work. One of these is diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work that has significant, measurable impact. Another is data-driven workforce experience design. There is also a common framework centered around aligning intelligent talent strategies with business strategy, minding the skills gaps as you future-fit your workforce for sustainability.

One of our favorite frameworks comes from a book co-authored by Chris Shipley and Heather McGowan, The Adaptation Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce.^[3] The book reminds us that change happens exponentially over time, meaning that at any given moment, we’re experiencing the slowest rate of change we’ll experience for the rest of our lives.

Technology will drive incredible innovation through atomization, automation and augmentation, but this isn’t where we’ll find our advantage. Instead, our greatest competitive advantage will come from what we learn to do with the extra human capacity this provides. True innovation will come through connecting human performance to human purpose. Clearly and traditionally defined careers won’t make sense when we start asking why we work instead of how we work. This evolving question— not the latest AI application — coupled with agile learning about work and leadership will change the nature of work.

So that’s the crux: The shift of work, the workforce, HR and all its supporting technology have everything to do with a freshly empowered workforce. This isn’t about a technological evolution at all; it’s about a human revolution driven by a shift of employee power.

Technology will follow suit, but we will know it differently. We’ll know it as the Digital Revolution.

How does the Digital Revolution support the evolution of being human? First, to understand “digital,” we must understand the difference between being digital and doing digital.

Being digital is both your foundation and multiplier regarding workforce experience. It includes design consideration in the tools, systems, processes and programs people use to do jobs. Those tools and systems are designed to meet people where they are, driving natural human addiction rather than unnatural technology adoption in the flow of work. Digital solutions are designed to be frictionless, seamless, intuitive, and iterative and are built for continuous improvement. Digital solution design is high-touch digital (almost entirely automated and intelligent) when it can be and high-touch human (analog) when it must be — and knows the difference.

Being digital is much more than the digitalization of processes or a technology strategy. The practice of being digital looks at all the ways in which work can be accomplished and then sorts those into “hands,” “heads” and “hearts” categories. It automates as much hands work as possible, provides digital assistance for the heads work and applies human-centered design thinking to improve workforce experience, so hearts work can focus on being purposeful and impactful.

Human resources and people leaders are called to disrupt work to meet the business’s performance demands and sustainability needs while also exceeding the reasonable and evolved expectations of humans. These goals are not mutually exclusive; they are symbiotic efforts through which organizations learn to design for the whole person, including health, wealth and career.

People-first organizations in the now of work are:

• Evolving their talent and DEI strategies
• Addressing pay and well-being
• Enabling a skills culture and providing talent agency
• Conducting fluid workforce planning fueled by talent intelligence
• Deconstructing jobs and rapidly shifting from counting heads to making people count

This is more than people supply chain management; this is human performance driven by, not replaced by, digital acceleration.

Being digital is human-centered, technology-enabled experience design. It is empathy at scale. Doing digital, by contrast, is a bare-boned technology implementation and leaves 90% of the desired value on the table.

Although digital transformation touches every part of the organization, human resources (HR) remains the only function of the business with the word “human” in its name. Therefore, HR and people leaders have an imperative to become strategic advisors to the organization when it comes to disrupting work, learning to be digital, and leveraging human-centered design thinking to activate and automate humans and work.

This requires a fundamental shift in our understanding of workforce experience; measuring how work gets done and how work makes people feel; and designing with humans at the center of data, technology and business strategies. You owe this experience to every part of your worker population: candidate, full- and part-time employee, gig worker and contingent labor, from the front line to the knowledge worker.

The talent landscape has undergone drastic technological and societal shifts. Digital transformation must embrace the concept of changefulness.