Workforce strategist Bruce Morton would like everyone to stop talking about talent. “Talk about the work,” he said at a breakout session at Talent Connect 2024. “It all starts with the work.”
As the head of strategy at Allegis Global Solutions, Bruce has worked with companies around the world helping them build more effective workforces. He’s also the author of Redesigning the Way Work Works — which means that he’s spent a lot of time thinking about the best ways to get work done.
The most important thing to remember, he told the audience, is that companies usually start in the wrong place. “When we have to get work done,” he said, “the conversation jumps too quickly to talent.” Instead, companies can take a skills-based approach and break down silos to boost productivity.
Let’s look at the three things Bruce suggested to help companies work more effectively:
1. First, deconstruct work and projects into tasks
The first thing companies need to do, Bruce said, is get rid of the idea that you need to match a job description to a resume or CV. “That’s probably not the best way to get things done in today’s world,” he explained, “but we’ve created that monster and it’s now our responsibility to destroy it.”
He suggested that when work needs to be done, a project needs to be completed, or an employee needs to be replaced, companies can start by breaking the work down into tasks. If, for example, a manager wants to replace an employee, the company can look at exactly what the employee did.
But don’t do this by looking at the job description. “I often say to people, ‘If you’re feeling a bit down one day, just pull out the description of what you were hired to do, to give yourself a good laugh,’” Bruce said. “I can guarantee that’s not what you’re doing now.” Likewise, he said, you won’t have luck breaking a role down into tasks by looking at a job description that’s already in the system.
“So, the deconstruction part is absolutely essential,” he said. “You can ask, ‘What are the tasks in the work? Task by task, what needs to be done? What are the most efficient, effective ways to get it done?’”
Bruce offered the analogy of a quantity surveyor to illustrate this. A quantity surveyor takes a blueprint of a house or building and creates a spreadsheet, estimating how many bricks, how much cement and glass, or how many miles of copper wire will be needed to complete the project — along with how long it will take and how much it will cost. And that, Bruce said, is what we need to do with work.
2. Next, look at the channels you can use to get the work done
Once you’ve broken the work down into tasks, the next step is to figure out how each of these tasks can be completed. Bruce suggested asking, “Can I automate this? Can it be AI? If not, could a contractor handle this project? Does it make more sense to bundle it out?” Or do you need to hire a full-time employee?
To test this disruptive model, Allegis tried it in their own company, starting with their IT function. What they discovered was that IT had pockets of workers all over the company, with no clear path for career progression. So, Bruce told the audience, “we blew the whole thing up and said, ‘Let’s just start again.’” They held a three-day workshop with their top 30 IT people and created a list of all the projects or tasks that needed to be done. Then they asked where each specific task belonged; does it go to, say, R&D or operations.
“Somebody would say, ‘We need a project manager,’ and I’d say, ‘No, we need to manage the project.’ And somebody would say, ‘We need a solution architect.’ No, no, no, we need to architect the solution.” If you get stuck, he suggested, “just take your job title and flip it, and then you’re talking about the work, not the job.”
After Allegis broke everything down and created buckets of where work should go, they grouped workers together in new ways, so they’d be more effective and have clearer career paths. The result? In less than four months, the IT function’s productivity jumped by 120%.
3. Enlist the help of technology to oversee it all
Finally, Bruce said, you need a technology platform to oversee all of this workforce planning and strategy. At Allegis, he added, they built a platform called Acumen, but there are other commercially available tools such as Eightfold, Phenom, or Gloat.
“The reason I’m saying you need some overarching technology or something that sits underneath all this,” he said, “is that you need to have visibility of your workforce in one place, regardless of the type of contract you have with an individual or company.” This will help you see whether someone is a contractor, employee, freelancer, or service provider.
And once you get to this point, Bruce explained, you can also see clearly what the data is telling you — which will help you plan for the future.
Final thoughts: Start small
When you’re implementing big, systemic change, the best idea is to start small. “Don’t try and boil the ocean,” Bruce concluded. “Just start very, very small.”
He suggested finding just one task or piece of work — or even one job profile — in your company and then finding a leader who’s willing to take a bet and do things differently. After you’ve deconstructed one small project, you’ll have proof that this approach works. And that will only bolster your case for trying it on a larger scale.
