Build a Workforce That Thrives in the Era of Automation and AI

Today’s workforce challenge isn’t just about filling open roles — it’s about rethinking who does the work, how it gets done, and what capabilities your business needs to stay competitive and grow.

Between record-low unemployment, rapid advancements in automation and AI, and shifting employee expectations, business leaders are under pressure to evolve fast. This challenge now extends far beyond HR. Talent strategy impacts every corner of the business, from operational agility to financial performance to technology enablement.

Here’s how to make workforce strategy a competitive advantage across your organization.

Operations: Build a Culture That Attracts and Develops Talent

In the race for talent, culture is your edge — and your risk. Workplace culture is often a top reason employees leave (or stay). According to a Gallup study, last year employee engagement in the U.S. dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade.

To build a high-performing workforce, operational leaders must focus on creating an environment where top talent can thrive. That means:

• Empowering managers to lead with clarity and empathy
• Providing growth paths that support skill development
• Regularly engaging employees to understand roadblocks and opportunities

Culture doesn’t just happen, it’s built through consistent leadership, clear values, and an employee experience that matches your brand promise.

One operational strategy we recommend is clarifying the responsibilities and structure of roles. When you streamline and centralize your roles, collaboration improves, productivity increases, and the workforce becomes easier to scale, especially during growth or transition periods.

Vendor partnerships are also critical. In many cases, operational bottlenecks are created by trying to solve everything in-house. Viewing vendors as trusted extensions of your team helps you meet demand faster, save costs, and reduce burnout.

Finance: Balance Headcount, Automation, and Outsourcing

For CFOs and Controllers, workforce planning is a balancing act. You’re constantly weighing how to invest in people while managing costs, productivity, and business needs.

Automating repeatable tasks like report generation or vendor invoice processing frees up time for strategic work, delivering a higher headcount ROI. Similarly, outsourcing functions like project management or specialized IT roles can provide faster results without long-term cost commitments.

The smartest workforce strategies consider salary costs, opportunity costs, productivity gains, and scalability.

Consider this: You can improve project execution and reduce implementation delays by outsourcing project management to an experienced advisory firm. This will allow your internal leaders to focus on business and financial strategy without adding a permanent headcount.

Another common opportunity? Cross-functional committees, such as automation or process improvement groups, often don’t include financial representation. Including finance in these conversations early can lead to more informed ROI calculations, better vendor decisions, and budget alignment from day one.

Technology: Develop a Workforce Skilled in AI and Automation

Technology leaders face a dual focus: support current operations while preparing for a future that includes AI, automation, and new digital tools — and it requires a different kind of workforce.

But many organizations are under-resourced. Key roles like Business Systems Analysts or Data Engineers are either missing or overloaded. In one assessment, we found that 100% of interviewees expressed concern about overreliance on a single senior data engineer, a major risk to continuity and scalability.

You don’t need to build a tech dream team overnight, but you do need a plan to scale skills and spread responsibilities.

Start by identifying gaps:

• Do you have the right project management support for upcoming initiatives?
• Are your analysts empowered to support more than one application?
• Is your IT team included in your automation strategy?

Then, consider how to augment your team:

• Upskill existing employees in areas like data analytics and automation
• Leverage vendor partners for high-skill needs or overflow work
• Shift IT leadership from firefighting to strategy by offloading tactical work

It is equally important to build consistent processes and governance. For instance, clearly defining a role like a Business Systems Analyst’s responsibilities and establishing a dotted-line connection to IT can improve collaboration and ensure your workforce aligns with your technology goals.

Industry Impact

Every sector is feeling workforce pressure — but the right solutions vary by industry. Healthcare demands resilience and care continuity. Construction needs workforce scalability and real-time coordination.

Manufacturing relies on automation and operational efficiency. While the principles of strong workforce strategy are universal, the execution must be industry-specific to succeed.

Construction: Balancing Cost and Capability with Strategic Outsourcing

A commercial construction firm facing margin pressure and staffing shortages in project controls could outsource cost tracking and billing functions. This shift would give project managers more time to focus on field execution, improved invoice accuracy, and help the CFO gain better real-time financial insights. By reallocating finance resources strategically, you can preserve agility without expanding headcount.

Manufacturing: Closing Skill Gaps Through Tech-Forward Workforce Strategy

A mid-sized manufacturer struggling with siloed systems and staff shortages upskilled internal talent in data automation and partnered with a vendor to build dashboards for supply chain forecasting. This reduced reliance on overextended IT team members and improved decision-making speed. By aligning tech capabilities with talent strategy, they avoided hiring delays and accelerated operational improvements.

Healthcare: Strengthening Culture to Reduce Turnover

With rising labor costs and burnout risk, a rural hospital network restructured its finance team by outsourcing revenue cycle analytics and automating claims validation. This freed internal staff to focus on strategic planning and compliance — helping leadership reduce operating costs without affecting care quality. Strategic workforce allocation helped finance become a driver of sustainability.

Build the Workforce Capabilities of Tomorrow — Today

While there’s no single solution to solving workforce challenges, the organizations we see succeeding in today's landscape are those that stop treating talent strategy as an HR-only issue.

Whether it's improving culture, balancing cost and capacity, or upskilling for the future, today's workforce planning must be cross-functional and laser-focused on business outcomes.

If you're ready to create a workforce strategy that drives performance, we can help. Our advisors can help you get a holistic view of your talent needs, uncover hidden opportunities, and align workforce planning with your long-term business goals.