The fourth industrial revolution has arrived, offering organizations more options than ever to get work done.  How can HR leaders guide and enhance decisions about how to optimize the balance between employment, automation and employment alternatives?  How, when, and where should we apply automation in our organization?  Is it a stark choice between humans vs. machines?  How do we stay on top of these trends as work and automation continue to evolve?  How do organizations and society insure the greatest social and economic benefit, and reduce the costs and risks?

In this one-day program, work and human capital experts Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau will present findings from their forthcoming book, Reinventing Jobs, with Harvard Business Press.  They will describe a new set of tools to answer these daunting questions.  Going beyond traditional concepts like a “job,” Jesuthasan and Boudreau will show that optimizing work and automation calls for a re-examination of what a job really is and show how to determine variations of tasks within jobs, and how those elements might be reconstructed into new and different combinations.

We will show why the endless debate about humans being replaced by machines is the wrong question, and how smart leaders instead are optimizing human-automation combinations that are not only more efficient, but generate higher returns on improved performance. They will present the latest research findings about how work automation is evolving.  You will have the opportunity to apply their original, structured approach and a new set of tools for taking action on applying automation in their organizations, using their practical four-step framework:

• Deconstruct
• Optimize
• Automate
• Reconfigure

Participants will learn how to collaborate proactively across functions, to continuously “reconstruct” work and create optimal human-machine combinations.  You will also have the opportunity to learn from industry leaders from AT&T, Crowe Horwath LLP, and Amazon, who will share their successes and challenges.

Target Audience

This dynamic and interactive Thought Leaders Exchange is meant to bring together CHROs (or the person at your organization responsible for driving workforce strategy) and their direct reports to meet the future head-on.

This session is intended to be a free flow of information and sharing, so come prepared to share your story and learn from your peers, as well as from John and Ravin.

Presenters

• Optimizing Work Automation: Getting Past the Hype
  John Boudreau, Senior Research Scientist, Center for Effective Organizations and Ravin Jesuthasan, Managing Director, Willis Towers Watson
• Helping Workers Help Themselves: Thinking in 4T
  Terri Griffith, Professor, Santa Clara University
• Reinventing Jobs: Lessons from the Trenches
  Julie Wood, Chief People Officer, Crowe Horwath LLP
• The Transformation of AT&T: A Fireside Chat with Scott Smith
  Scott Smith, Senior Vice President, Human Resource Operations, AT&T  with Ravin Jesuthasan, Managing Director, Willis Towers Watson
• Scott Pitasky, Vice President, Consumer HR, Amazon

Program Topics

• Beyond the hype of “Robots Replacing Humans”
• A framework for reinventing jobs and organizations to optimize work, employment and automation
• Discovering the pivotal opportunities to optimize work and automation in your organization
• Helping workers help themselves to adapt and thrive in the new work reality
• The evolving role of leaders as coaches and collaborators in a fast-changing work world