Our Job Architectures Aren’t Aligned to Business Strategy

At our recent Work Design Collaborative session with The Learing Forum, we ran a quick poll across the group. The numbers confirmed what many of us already felt.

Most leaders aren’t redesigning job architecture for the sake of theory or optics. The top drivers are skills and learning alignment, and the ability to move talent quickly. Agility and capability. 

Not compliance. Not documentation. Just outcomes.

Still, the majority said their current architecture is only partially aligned with their strategy. A third weren’t even sure. Only 8% said it’s fit for purpose. 

No one claimed it was “working well.”

When asked what’s in the way, the patterns were just as clear. It’s not budget. It’s not exec buy-in. It’s complexity. It’s fractured systems. It’s teams trying to redesign work while still running it on old frameworks. 

Skills initiatives stall because they’re built on top of broken structures.

Job Architecture Is an Octopus

One person called it that during the session and I loved it. It’s not wrong!

It reaches into everything - skills, pay, learning, hiring, performance - yet rarely works in sync with the business. Most orgs have added layers, tools, and spreadsheets. But they haven’t stepped back to ask the real question: 

…does this reflect how work actually happens?

Task First. Then Skill. Then Structure.

The real shift underway isn’t philosophical. It’s operational. If you map tasks first, the skills follow. When you understand the work, you can design structure that works. 

But most orgs do this backwards. They start with job titles, guess at skills, and lose track of the actual work.

Work moves. It flows across projects, tools, teams. It doesn’t sit in fixed boxes anymore. If your system can’t track that, it’s not a system. It’s friction.

Design the Work. Don’t Just Describe It.

This is where real value shows up. Not in HR documents, but in execution. In resourcing. In mobility. In cost decisions. In every change your org needs to make.

Don’t wait for the perfect blueprint. 

Start with what’s true now. What’s useful. What’s moving.

Use the Pressure

Someone said “patience is key.” I disagree. 

Pressure is better. It forces action. It forces focus.

The opportunity is here. Most orgs know the old way doesn’t work. The smart ones are already building something better.

—-

We’ll meet again on November 5 at Google HQ in NYC for another in-person event and I’ll recap my findings then. 

Until then, stay with the work. Stay sharp. Don’t wait for permission to fix what’s broken.

Siobhan 💜