Work, reimagined: How Mercer is helping organizations stay ahead 

Talent is in short supply. And skills? They’re evolving just as quickly as the jobs that depend on them with companies seeing serious gaps emerge. For organizations trying to stay ahead, the pressure is real — but so is the opportunity.

At Mercer, we believe the future of work doesn’t just happen. It’s designed. Thoughtfully. Strategically. And always with people at the center. Mercer’s innovative approach to work design is a proactive strategy that empowers organizations to align their workforce with their business strategies and transformational initiatives.

Mercer Work Design is a different kind of solution. Rather than starting with org charts or legacy roles, we use an AI-enabled process that starts with fully understanding the work itself — what gets done, how it gets done and how it is adding value.

From there, we use a combination of workforce expertise, advanced analytics and our AI-powered platform, to help organizations redesign work in ways that unlock value: for the business, for employees and for the technology that supports them. This high-value, high-impact initiative allows businesses to rethink roles, redefine skills and ultimately reshape their workforce to meet future demands. 

As automation and intelligent systems take on routine tasks, the demand for higher-level cognitive skills, creativity, and emotional intelligence is increasing. Organizations must prepare for this shift by investing in reskilling and upskilling their workforce, while proactively aligning their workforce to the work rather than traditional job roles.

By taking a data-driven approach that breaks down roles into tasks and looks at where time and talent are truly being spent, Mercer helps uncover hidden inefficiencies, skill mismatches and opportunities for automation or upskilling. The result is a clearer picture of what’s working, what’s not and what needs to change.

One leading beverage company in North America was facing high attrition, physical burnout and a frontline workforce that felt stuck and unmotivated. Mercer stepped in to deconstruct the role — partnering with the company to redesign its frontline retail work, examining every task, technology and skill requirement and making it more accessible for diverse groups of talent.

What we found went beyond exhaustion: 

• Legacy systems were slowing people down 
• Career paths were unclear 
• The work itself wasn’t sustainable 
• Highly manual work, using outdated or low-level technology for multiple workflows, was exacerbating burnout 
• Poorly defined career progression in these roles was eroding employee motivation 

By redefining roles and responsibilities, the company was able to streamline operations, reduce costs and enhance productivity. This included identifying several opportunities for work augmentation by using the latest AI and robotics— dramatically improving work processes. The introduction of a new “career effectiveness lead” to champion career pathing ensured that talent has access to the right opportunities aligned with their skills, supporting their growth within the larger organization.

In another case, a global financial services firm needed to rethink how work was being done across key business units. They were navigating digital transformation — but with outdated workflows, critical skill gaps and high attrition, especially among early-career talent and in their loans and fund accounting functions, their workforce couldn’t keep up effectively across their global hubs.

Mercer helped them get to the root of the problem.

By breaking down work across job levels, we uncovered a common pattern: a talent shortage and skill gaps at junior levels were causing intended tasks to shift to senior levels, resulting in unproductive work, inefficiency and misalignment of roles with the business strategy. Using our work design framework, we deconstructed work and mapped where tasks were misaligned, identified automation and augmentation opportunities, and highlighted where skills needed to shift.

The payoff was immediate:

Work will never stop evolving. That’s why design can’t be a one-time fix — it has to be embedded as part of an organization’s DNA.

With Mercer’s AI-enabled Work Design solution, companies are able to rethink and reshape work to meet the moment — and whatever comes next. By aligning people, process and technology, they’re building more resilient workforces and stronger paths to productivity, agility and growth.