Editorial
Across organizations, performance expectations are rising while employee engagement and wellbeing continue to decline. Most organizations assume this is an unavoidable tension: focus on results and people burn out; focus on people and performance slips.
That tension isn't inevitable. It's a sign of poor work design.
When organizations want change, they reach for org design or bolt-on solutions. Big restructures, new policies, wellness programs, productivity tools. These changes reshape the container or sit outside the work entirely, but a few at the top choose them, missing what frontline teams actually need. Once implemented, these solutions are nearly impossible to reverse.
Work design is different. It's what happens inside the container: the structure, flow and clarity that shape how work actually gets done and how people experience doing it. How teams communicate, decide, collaborate and handle daily friction. How value gets delivered, growth happens and the rhythm of work supports focus and recovery.
When work is designed around how people actually think and collaborate, performance doesn't come at the expense of how people feel. It fuels and fortifies the human experience. Capability builds through delivery. Teams stay connected around shared problems rather than shared calendars. And people walk away from their days with energy instead of exhaustion.
Work Design Isn't a Top-Down Initiative
Most transformation efforts flow from the top. But the people closest to the work are the most likely to see the opportunities to improve it.
The teams actually doing the work know where the leverage is. They see that when you build learning into how decisions get made, those decisions get smarter, which builds confidence, which means people take on harder problems, which forces even more learning. They see that when collaboration is structured around solving real problems, it builds relationships that make the next collaboration faster and better. They know that when the work itself stretches people's thinking, engagement doesn't come from perks or programs. It comes from getting genuinely better at something that matters.
Work design can be shaped at every level. It doesn't require permission. It requires a team willing to look critically at how work actually flows, what's creating friction, and what could turn the work itself into an engine that builds momentum rather than burning it.
Four Interdependent Pillars
The teams that excel at this strengthen four core dynamics, each of which reinforces the others.
Deliver: Clear the Path to Greater Impact
When you remove friction from work, something powerful happens. Teams move faster, see further and understand the bigger picture because of clearer handoffs. Fewer approval bottlenecks mean energy goes toward solving problems, not navigating bureaucracy. And when people can focus on the work that actually matters, they deliver outcomes that matter more.
The momentum feeds itself. Better delivery builds confidence. Confidence leads to bolder thinking. Bolder thinking produces work that energizes both the organization and the people doing it. The path becomes clearer because the destination becomes more compelling.
Develop: Grow Skills That Fuel the Future
The best learning doesn't happen in training rooms. It happens when people stretch into challenges that matter, experiment with approaches that could change everything and teach others what they discover. When development is built into delivery, people get better at their jobs and get better at jobs that don't exist yet.
This transforms both the work and the worker. People whose work helps them grow bring fresh thinking to old problems. They spot opportunities others miss. They stay engaged not because of perks, but because they're becoming who they want to be, while building what the organization needs to become.
Connect: Build Networks That Amplify Thinking
Real collaboration isn't about getting everyone in the room. It's about getting the right thinking into the work. When people trust each other enough to share half-formed ideas, challenge assumptions and flag risks early, solutions get more robust. When networks are built around shared problems rather than shared reporting lines, the best insights surface naturally.
This creates communities where the work and relationships get stronger. Better collaboration produces better outcomes, which builds more trust, which enables even deeper collaboration. People feel safe to think out loud, which makes everyone's thinking sharper.
Thrive: Create Rhythms That Sustain Excellence
Sustainable pace isn't about moving slowly. It's about moving deliberately. When teams protect space for recovery, they think more clearly. When they sequence change thoughtfully, they build on wins instead of burning through them. When they signal what actually matters, people stop reacting to everything and start responding to what counts.
The capacity this builds compounds over time. Teams that aren't constantly in crisis mode can take on bigger challenges. People who aren't exhausted bring more creativity to their work. And organizations that value sustainable excellence attract people who want to do their best work, not just survive their jobs.
Example of Work Design in Practice
A sales team was struggling to hit its targets. The dashboard details showed leadership call targets were way down. Prepared for a talent overhaul, a brief conversation with some sales reps revealed the real issue was the dashboard itself. It was still tracking phone metrics when customers were begging to be reached via text. A simple change to the metric changed the performance metric while also enhancing the customer experience.
A leadership team invested in a big communication training. But manager behavior didn't change. A few conversations revealed that critical updates weren't reaching managers who owned execution. Tweaks to their internal channels moved the right information into the right hands. And suddenly a new communication capability was unlocked.
How to Start
Leaders who get this right start with three simple questions:
- What unnecessary thing slows the team down?
- What would help people get better at the work while they do it?
- What small change could they try this week?
The answers won't come from best practices or frameworks. They'll come from the people who see the friction every day. Maybe it's a handoff that creates confusion. Maybe it's a meeting that could be a conversation. Maybe it's a skill someone wants to build that would help the project.
The best leaders pick one thing, try it and see what happens. The goal isn't to get it perfect. It's to get better at getting better.
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Work design isn't about installing the right system. It's about building the habit of noticing what's not working and having the confidence to change it. Leaders who do this well start small, start now and start with what their team actually needs, not what someone else says they should need.
Editor's Note: Read more about work design that reflects how people really work:
- 5 Steps to a Deep-Work Friendly Organization — Deep work has value in today’s cutthroat attention economy.
- The New Playbook for Employee Experience — Organizations that treat engagement as an outcome of good design, not a program to fix, will build meaningful employee connections.
- Want to Design a Better Workplace? Go to the Mall — What can digital workplace and employee experience designers learn from shopping malls? A surprising amount.
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