There is a growing tension between the work people want to do and the systems they are required to operate within. As technology accelerates, this tension is increasingly interpreted through fear about the “future of work”.
This tension is not theoretical for most people. I see it all the time from the boardroom discussions to the conference stages, from the policymaker round tables to university lectures. At every event, workshop, or leadership session, the same set of questions surface:
- What is the future of work?
- What is the role of people in a world of automation?
- Are we all going to be replaced by technology?
This brings us to a more foundational question. The question about the role of the human within work.
What is the future of the human in work?
There is a pattern behind these questions… a need to resolve uncertainty into certainty.
A desire to “figure out the future” so that we can plan around it, control it, minimize risk, avoid the unknown. But, unfortunately, the future of work is not a puzzle to be solved.
We often limit the discussion of work to a system of tasks and outputs. But,
“work” is an ongoing negotiation between human aspiration, economic structure, technological possibility, and cultural meaning.
For most of the last century, work revolved around predictability and efficiency. The industrial playbook rewarded standardization and control. Hierarchy made sense. Compliance made sense. Optimization made sense.
But we are no longer in a world where predictability is abundant. We are in a world of accelerating change. Coordination is now automated. Reporting is now automated. Management (in the classical sense) is increasingly automated.
So, from my perspective, the question: “What is the future of HR?” is already the wrong question to ask. I would rather ask: “What is the future of the human in work?” and shift the focus to a more substantial layer. Because if technology is absorbing the managerial layer, then leadership becomes the act of activating human capability.
And activation cannot be commanded. It must be designed for. Which brings us to the discussion the comment actually surfaced: Not what jobs are, but the conditions that make work worth doing.
What People Do Is Not the Same as What They Experience
When we talk about work in organizations, we usually talk about the visible part: roles, responsibilities, deliverables, processes, performance indicators. The machinery of coordination. The part that fits neatly into a report and an organizational structure.
But there is another layer underneath, and that is the one that is felt:
- Whether the work I do matters.
- Whether I have influence.
- Whether I am trusted.
- Whether my contribution changes anything.
- Whether I am becoming someone I am proud of through the work I do.
This is the work inside the work. Call it the human experience of being in a system. It’s the part we tend to ignore, because it cannot be standardized or automated. It requires leadership attention.
A recent study by Jobs for the Future (JFF), The Families and Workers Fund, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Gallup involving more than 18,000 workers across industries made this visible in a structured way (thanks to Nicolas BEHBAHANI for sharing this). The research identified five conditions that determine job quality, and with it, our ability to engage:
- Financial Well-Being: The psychological stability to think beyond survival.
- Workplace Culture & Safety: The permission to show up without guarding or defending yourself.
- Growth & Development: The sense that effort accumulates into identity, not just output.
- Agency & Voice: The ability to influence how work is done and what it means.
- Work Structure & Autonomy: The space to make decisions that matter.
When I first reviewed this research, I felt a sudden, simple clarity. These five points are not radical innovations, but the foundational requirements for human effectiveness. They represent the bare-minimum conditions for a person to contribute without spending all their energy on self-protection. Yet, I have seldom seen an organization with clarity on all five. Simplicity is often the core dilemma: the things so basic, so essential, that they are systematically ignored. And when even one is missing, human engagement doesn’t just dip, but becomes a structural impossibility.
Let’s make that concrete and look at some implications:
- If financial stability is uncertain, attention narrows to protection and short-term survival. The ability to create disappears… not because people aren’t creative, but because survival mode takes precedence over curiosity.
- If the culture punishes mistakes, people don’t stop being bold. They simply learn to stay quiet. Safety becomes more important than contribution.
- If voice has no consequence, accountability dies. Why invest emotionally in decisions you cannot influence?
- If the work is tightly controlled, autonomy erodes. Effort becomes compliance. Initiative becomes unnecessary. Ownership becomes impossible.
In my view, these reactions are rational responses to flawed system design. They are not defects of character, even if they are sometimes interpreted that way. I would argue that disengagement is, in many cases, a structural outcome rather than a personal failure. No motivational speech, team-building exercise, performance bonus, or inspirational slogan can override an environment that makes meaningful engagement impossible.
This is why so many organizations feel like they are “pushing” for engagement instead of nurturing it. You cannot activate people in conditions that suppress activation. You cannot ask for ownership where there is no room to act. You cannot demand accountability without voice.
This brings us to the core of the matter: Job quality is not an HR metric. Job quality is a leadership design question.
Leadership Begins Where Control Ends
If the five conditions of job quality form the groundwork of meaningful work, then leadership is what happens on top of that foundation as activation.
I define leadership as the situational, context-aware human art of activating people toward a common goal.
There are three important truths embedded in that definition:
- Leadership is situational: What unlocks one team in one moment may constrain another team… not applying frameworks by default.
- Leadership is context-aware:It requires reading the broader environment and anticipating future events.
- Leadership is an art of activation: Enable progress. Voluntary, intentional, aligned.
Leadership so good that it makes contribution irresistible
Activation is not something leaders do to people. Activation is something people do when the conditions support it. Hence, leadership is, to a degree, about designing conditions.
Environments either make contribution possible… or they don’t. Cultures either permit voice… or they don’t. Work structures either enable autonomy… or they don’t.
You can’t activate someone who is protecting themselves. You can’t activate someone who feels replaceable. You can’t activate someone whose voice stops at the conference room door.
The willingness to contribute is always present in people. The ability to express that willingness depends on the conditions. Those conditions are created (or eroded) by leadership choices. And this is where many organizations misunderstand the problem. Activation doesn’t come from initiatives or pressure. Activation comes from leadership that gives permission, trust, recognition, and voice.
When someone takes initiative, offers a new idea, challenges an assumption, or steps forward to lead, it is not because they were told to. It is because something in the environment said: “You are allowed to matter here!”.
HR Must Move From Administration to Architecture
If leadership is the art of activating people, then HR becomes the system that makes that activation scalable. And this is where organizations routinely get stuck.
They treat job quality as a benefits function. They treat culture as an engagement initiative. They treat development as a training program. They treat voice as a feedback mechanism. They treat autonomy as an exception.
HR becomes the administration of human presence, not the design of human contribution. This is why, when pressure increases (market shifts, margin compression, strategic pivots) the same pattern repeats:
Development is paused. Autonomy is reduced. Decision rights collapse upward. Safety narrows. Voice quiets. Structure tightens…. and organizations wonder why initiative disappears.
Because the conditions for activation were treated as advantages, not foundations. To move forward, we have to change the strategic role of HR as the architect of human realization inside the organization. Away from a service function. Away from a support function. Away from an internal policy department.
This reframes the core mandate from “Human Resources” as a cost to be managed to what the leading business philosopher Anders Indset has termed “Human Realization”, a capacity to be unlocked.
If resources are meant to be managed, HR remains administrative. If humans are meant to be realized, HR becomes strategic.
This reframes the core mandate from “How do we hire, retain, and deploy people efficiently?” to “How do we design the conditions where people can think, contribute, and grow so that performance becomes a natural outcome?”.
Organizations perform better when people understand why they are doing what they are doing. Organizations adapt faster when people are allowed to exercise judgment. Organizations innovate more when dissent is safe. Organizations retain talent when effort leads to identity.
The strategic task becomes: Design work where contribution is possible. HR must become the owner of the system that ensures it, supported by good leadership practice throughout the organization. However, giving HR this strategic task is not an invitation to outsource the responsibility from leadership to HR.
In simple terms: HR designs the operating environment. Leadership activates within it. The organization aligns (naturally) around contribution rather than compliance.
Work Worth Caring About
Redefining Human Resources as Human Realization is not a “rebranding”. It is a decision about how the organization creates value.
If people are resources, the goal is optimization. If people are sources of potential, the goal is activation through conditions. And the outcome is not “happiness at work.” The outcome is: Better decisions. Faster adaptation. Higher levels of ownership. More resilience under pressure. Work that compounds into capability
We are past the point where efficiency can differentiate organizations. Technology has absorbed that responsibility. What remains, what is now decisive, is our ability to design work in a way that allows people to contribute fully.
HR architects. Leadership activates. Organizational design either enables contribution… or it doesn’t. The question is not whether people care about work. The question is whether our systems allow their care to matter.