SPOTLIGHT: Designing Work Without Jobs With Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau

Drawing on their professional and academic experience, Ravin
Jesuthasan and John Boudreau argue the current work “operating
system” is increasingly unable to meet the needs of employees and
employers. They join the Talent Angle to discuss their new book,
Work Without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work
Operating System, and the opportunities for HR to shape a new
vision for the future of work. Jesuthasan and Boudreau propose a
new work “operating system” based on deconstructed work and
deconstructed talent that would ultimately lead to a more
human-centric approach to work.  In their new vision for the
future of work, they emphasize the importance of developing
capabilities that will enable organizations to redesign and
reinvent work and the employee experience.



Ravin Jesuthasan is the global leader of Mercer’s
Transformation Services business.  He has led multiple
research efforts on the global workforce, the emerging digital
economy, the rise of artificial intelligence and the
transformation of work. Ravin has led numerous research
projects for the World Economic Forum including many of its
ground-breaking studies on the transformation of work and the
global workforce. He is a regular participant and presenter at
the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos and is a
member of the forum’s Steering Committee on Work and
Employment. He is the author of the books Transformative HR
(Wiley, 2012), Lead The Work: Navigating a World Beyond
Employment (Wiley 2015), Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach to
Applying Automation to Work (HBR Press, 2018) and the Wall
Street Journal bestseller; Work Without Jobs: How to Reboot
Your Organization’s Work Operating System (MIT Press, 2022).




Dr. John Boudreau is recognized worldwide as a leading
evidence-based visionary on the future of work and
organization. Dr. Boudreau is Professor Emeritus of Management
and Organization and a Senior Research Scientist with the
Center for Effective Organizations, at the Marshall School of
Business, University of Southern California. For 40 years, he
has conducted breakthrough research on the bridge between work,
superior human capital, leadership and sustainable competitive
advantage.  His research addresses the future of work and
the global HR profession, work automation, HR measurement and
analytics, decision-based HR, executive mobility, HR
information systems and organizational staffing and
development.  Dr. Boudreau helped to establish and then
directed the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS)
at Cornell University, where he was a professor for more than
20 years




Peter Aykens is chief of research in Gartner’s human resources
practice. He is responsible for defining research coverage
within the practice and building and leading research teams
that address clients’ key initiatives. In prior roles at the
firm, he spent over 25 years leading research teams focused on
banking and financial services strategy, producing numerous
studies that addressed business strategy, channels, marketing,
customer experience and product issues in financial services.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Olaf
College; a master’s degree in international politics from the
University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (now known as
Aberystwyth University); and a master’s degree and a doctorate
in political science from Brown University.