Work is traditionally understood as a “job,” and workers as “jobholders.” Jobs are structured by titles, hierarchies, and qualifications. In Work without Jobs, the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau propose a radically new way of looking at work. They describe a new “work operating system” that deconstructs jobs into their component parts and reconstructs these components into more optimal combinations that reflect the skills and abilities of individual workers. In a new normal of rapidly accelerating automation, demands for organizational agility, efforts to increase diversity, and the emergence of alternative work arrangements, the old system based on jobs and jobholders is cumbersome and ungainly. Jesuthasan and Boudreau’s new system lays out a roadmap for the future of work.
Books
Research and Insights from the Center for Effective Organizations
Available Content
A Research Agenda for Employee Engagement in a Changing World of Work
This insightful Research Agenda presents the foundations of employee engagement, providing a framework for future research to serve as an evidence-based guide to practice. Offering an overview of contemporary engagement theory and research, it addresses important new directions for expanding our current understanding of the meaning, focus, development and outcomes of engagement.
Employee Surveys and Sensing: Challenges and Opportunities (Society Industrial Organizational Psych)
Professional practice in the design and execution of employee survey programs has evolved tremendously over the past decade. Advances in technology and enthusiastic new interest in talent analytics have combined to create an exciting space with a good deal of innovation along methodological lines, matched by renewed interest in the strategic role of surveys and sensing for improving organizational effectiveness.
Investing in People: Financial Impact of Human Resource Initiatives, Third Edition
The demand for organizational accountability has never been greater. The future of work, talent, and employment are changing at an unprecedented pace, and organizational decisions about how to invest in people are under increasing scrutiny. Leaders realize their decisions about human resources are crucial in an uncertain and interconnected world, yet decisions about people remain among the least systematic and evidence-based, compared to resources such as money and technology. Investing in People draws upon state-of-the art practice and research across disciplines including psychology, economics, accounting, and finance to provide HR professionals and leaders with proven guidelines for evaluating key HR initiatives.
Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work
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?
Human Resource Excellence: An Assessment of Strategies and Trends
Tracing changes in a global sample of firms across the US, Europe, and Asia, this landmark volume by Ed Lawler and John Boudreau (Stanford University Press, 2018) provides an international benchmark against which to measure a company’s HR practice.
Reinventing Talent Management: Principles and Practices for the New World of Work
In this book, preeminent organizational scholar Edward Lawler identifies a comprehensive and integrated set of talent management practices that fit today’s rapidly evolving workplace.
What Millennials Want from Work: How to Maximize Engagement in Today’s Workforce
What Millennials Want from Work (Jennifer J. Deal and Alec Levenson (McGraw-Hill Education, 2016)) explains how to design talent, engagement, and retention strategies that will successfully attract, manage, develop, and retain the young workers companies need for sustainable growth.
Built to Change
DVD featuring Edward Lawler and Christopher Worley. Based on the book Built to Change. Lawler and Worley highlight the major themes in their book with practical examples.
Becoming Agile: How the SEAM Approach to Management Builds Adaptability
Becoming Agile: How the SEAM Approach to Management Builds Adaptability illustrates the process of becoming an agile organization. Reflecting the principles presented in The Agility Factor, readers are taken on a real-world journey of transformation and change. This...
Strategic Analytics: Advancing Strategy Execution and Organizational Effectiveness
More than ever, data drives decisions in organizations–and we have more data, and more ways to analyze it, than ever. Yet strategic initiatives continue to fail as often as they did when computers ran on punch cards. Economist and research scientist Alec Levenson says we need a new approach.
Lead the Work: Navigating a World Beyond Employment
A detailed look at the evolution of employment and its far-reaching implications Lead the Work (John W. Boudreau, Ravin Jesuthasan, David Creelman (Wiley, 2015) takes an incisive look at the evolving nature of work, and how it’s affecting management and productivity at the organizational level.