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Will HR and IT functions merge to reshape the role of the profession?

Steve Bridger

It's a bit of a provocative question, but not a hypothetical one.

In May, the huge biotech company Moderna merged its technology and HR departments under one executive, creating the new role of Chief People and Digital Technology Officer. This move reflected a broader push within the organisation to redesign work around human-AI collaboration (including the deployment of over 3,000 custom GPT agents to assist in - for example - performance management and benefits queries). We have discussed how the use of AI in recruiting is already rapidly accelerating that integration. AI in the workplace 

Is this a new trend - a fad that will blow over - or something that more organisations may adopt in the near future? 

This was another topic of discussion in this week's HR People Pod.

As the guests commented - this isn't about sticking two functions together to create a Frankenstein department - and HR will not be fixing employee laptops anytime soon - but the tywo functions already work closely - innovating, creating dashboards, etc. 

In few years ago a friend (who will remain nameless) rather harshly referred to the "cold hands of HR and IT". Can the two functions really merge together in err, warm embrace?

Parents

  • Peter’s point about HR being an equal governance partner resonates with me. I’ve long believed in wirearchy: work drawing on connected expertise, trust and shared responsibility across organisational boundaries. Jon Husband’s concept gives us a useful way to discuss that alongside formal reporting lines.

    AI makes the question more immediate. A task might involve a colleague in another team, a specialist and an agent. Who can delegate it, whose judgement determines whether it is good enough, and who carries the checking and recovery burden?

    These are questions we’re exploring through Agent Control’s experimental Digital Labour Exchange: defining a task’s purpose, budget, permissions, acceptance criteria and accountable owner as it moves between capabilities. That is an experiment in organising and verifying work, not evidence that an AI worker is equivalent to an employee.

    For HR, I think the opportunity is to help shape those rules before the technology fixes them by default. That includes recognising contributions across teams, protecting opportunities to learn, and deciding what happens to any capacity released.

    A network still needs boundaries and a way to challenge decisions. Otherwise we risk replacing a visible hierarchy with invisible power.

    Could workforce planning describe both the hierarchy of responsibility and the network through which work actually gets done?

Reply

  • Peter’s point about HR being an equal governance partner resonates with me. I’ve long believed in wirearchy: work drawing on connected expertise, trust and shared responsibility across organisational boundaries. Jon Husband’s concept gives us a useful way to discuss that alongside formal reporting lines.

    AI makes the question more immediate. A task might involve a colleague in another team, a specialist and an agent. Who can delegate it, whose judgement determines whether it is good enough, and who carries the checking and recovery burden?

    These are questions we’re exploring through Agent Control’s experimental Digital Labour Exchange: defining a task’s purpose, budget, permissions, acceptance criteria and accountable owner as it moves between capabilities. That is an experiment in organising and verifying work, not evidence that an AI worker is equivalent to an employee.

    For HR, I think the opportunity is to help shape those rules before the technology fixes them by default. That includes recognising contributions across teams, protecting opportunities to learn, and deciding what happens to any capacity released.

    A network still needs boundaries and a way to challenge decisions. Otherwise we risk replacing a visible hierarchy with invisible power.

    Could workforce planning describe both the hierarchy of responsibility and the network through which work actually gets done?

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