HR will not create meaningful capacity if it keeps every existing process and layers technology on top.

HR accumulated processes for understandable reasons. Each planning cycle, form, review, approval, and meeting once answered a need. Over time, some hardened into ritual or splintered across systems and teams.

Technology can expose and accelerate that work, but it cannot determine whether it still deserves to exist. A faster version of low-value work is still low-value work. Recent M1 member conversations therefore return to a more fundamental question: before improving a process, should HR still be doing it at all?

A 30 day stop doing review

A CHRO does not need a complete target operating model to begin. One focused review can establish the discipline.

1. Choose the work  Identify the recurring HR activities with the greatest time, cost, delay, or user friction. Use process data where available and practitioner evidence where it is not.
2. ‍Classify it  Place each activity in one of three groups: retire, automate, or elevate. Split mixed activities into tasks rather than forcing a whole role into one category.
3. ‍Name the decision owner  Assign one leader who can remove steps across HR boundaries and work with finance, technology, legal, and the business.
4. ‍Set a capacity destination  Decide where released time will go before implementation. Examples might include manager advice, workforce redesign, employee relations, or higher-quality talent decisions.
5. ‍Measure the new work  Track cycle time and cost, then add quality, exception rates, employee effort, and evidence that capacity moved to the intended work.

Start with the work

Starting with the work remains the necessary foundation for this review. Before leaders decide what to retire, automate, or elevate, they need a clear view of the tasks, decisions, handoffs, and capabilities that make up the work.

At the recent M1 Boston meeting, members described separating roles into tasks and capabilities, then testing where technology could assist, automate, or leave the work substantially human. That level of analysis matters because AI often changes portions of work across many jobs while creating new coordination and judgment demands.

The task-level view also improves the conversation with business leaders. It replaces abstract debate about skills or headcount with concrete questions: What work is being done? Which decisions does it support? What happens when the task is delayed, duplicated, or removed? Where do errors become material?

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Retire work that no longer changes a decision

One member at the Boston meeting described an organization discontinuing a global strategic workforce planning exercise after concluding that it absorbed thousands of hours without sufficient value. The organization later returned to a more local, adaptive approach built with finance and tied to actual workforce redesign. At the Dallas meeting, another member described reducing the reach of traditional succession planning after a process had grown to roughly 175 meetings a year. The organization kept attention on critical roles and senior succession while removing the universal requirement below that level.

These examples show the standard that HR should apply. A recurring activity earns its place by improving a decision, reducing a material risk, or producing an outcome someone uses. Historical importance and broad participation are not enough.

For every major HR process, ask:

• Which decision becomes better because this work exists?
• Who uses the output, and what do they do differently?
• What would we lose if we paused the activity for one cycle?
• Could a narrower version protect the value at a fraction of the effort?

Automate stable work and redesign the whole workflow

The most credible automation opportunities raised in the meetings were specific: scheduling, meeting preparation and summaries, document translation, information retrieval, routine case handling, benefits data management, renewal tracking, and other structured administration. These activities consume attention while following repeatable patterns.

Tool access alone did not produce the benefit. At the Boston meeting, members noted that teams may generate meeting summaries without reading or acting on them. A member in the virtual CHRO meeting described strong individual experimentation but much less progress on team workflows. At the London Total Rewards meeting, a benefits example required sustained work to create validated, structured data before automation could improve visibility, simplify providers, or support decisions.  

The unit of change is the end-to-end workflow. HR needs to remove duplicate steps, clarify the source of truth, define the exceptions, and specify when a person must intervene. Adoption matters, but the real test is whether the work gets done faster, with less effort, and with better decisions.

Elevate the work where people carry the value

As repeatable work moves to systems, the remaining human work becomes more demanding. At the Boston meeting, members emphasized systems thinking, commercial understanding, curiosity, and the ability to judge where technology belongs. They also protected the relational work that earns trust: helping a leader interpret an ambiguous situation, navigating an exception, hearing what an employee has not yet said clearly, and taking responsibility for a consequential decision.

Managers deserve particular attention. In the virtual CHRO meeting, one member challenged the impulse to keep cutting management layers when managers may be the closest remaining source of trust during rapid change. At the Munich meeting, a member described markedly different results from the same AI tools among experienced and less experienced engineers. The example cautions against assuming that access creates capability. Expertise, context, and supervision still shape the result.

HR should name this elevated work before it claims an efficiency gain. Otherwise, saved hours remain invisible, fill with new administration, or become a headcount target without a clear view of what capability the business still needs.

The decision to stop is part of the design

Meaningful HR transformation should leave the function focused on fewer, higher-value activities. Technology can carry clear, repeatable work, while HR strengthens the judgment and capabilities required when context, trust, and accountability shape the outcome.

The decision to stop belongs in the design process itself. Before approving a new tool or adding another step, ask: If we were designing this work today, would we create it this way? If the answer is no, put that work at the top of the redesign list.