Organizations that can see work can more effectively redesign it and measure results.  This capability separates resilient enterprises from reactive ones, resulting in productivity improvement, AI value realization, execution reliability, cost discipline, and long-term resilience.

 

---

 

“Workforce intelligence: The new buzzword shaping HR technology narratives,” reads the headline on a recent Everest Group blog post from Everest VP Sharath Hari N. 

 

Sharath states in his timely, thorough and insightful article, “As AI changes the nature of work, HR and business leaders need better visibility into how roles are evolving and what that means for reskilling, redeployment, and workforce planning.”   

 

At Sapience Workforce Intelligence, we couldn’t agree more with Sharath’s proposition and see a concurrent “better visibility needed” theme across all the conversations we have with enterprise executives every day.  Specifically, these leaders consistently tell us they face a convergence of challenges now elevating total workforce performance to a CEO and Board-level priority.  These five challenges include:

 

1. Productivity pressure without visibility into how work is actually done.
2. AI changing work faster than current systems can measure or manage.
3. Operational leadership has become a critical execution constraint.
4. Workforce cost optimization increasingly requires precision rather than blunt reductions.
5. Workforce resilience now requires continuous adaptation rather than episodic reorganization.

 

The single thread through running through all these challenges is that although productivity, AI adoption, execution capacity, cost optimization, and resilience are often treated as separate management challenges, they share a common root cause: the invisibility of work at scale.

 

Why Workforce Disruption Is Happening Now

Modern enterprise work is task-based, collaborative, and continuously evolving. AI accelerates this dynamic by redistributing effort within roles rather than eliminating jobs outright. In this environment, organizations that rely on headcount, static role definitions, and periodic planning cycles are structurally disadvantaged.

 

The High Costs of Invisibility of Work

For CEOs and Boards, the implications are material. Organizations without objective workforce intelligence face heightened risk of misallocating capital, failing to realize returns on AI investment, overloading management layers, and responding to change through disruptive workforce actions that undermine execution. Conversely, enterprises that can continuously measure and manage how work is performed are better positioned to deliver sustainable productivity, defend margins, and maintain execution continuity.

 

Workforce Visibility Blind Spots Create Operational Risks

• Higher risk of misallocating capital and AI investment
• AI-created capacity is lost without task-level measurement
• Increased execution risk due to manager overload
• Execution shortcomings jeopardize valuation and margin durability

 

The most resilient and high-performing enterprises distinguish themselves not by the frequency of transformation programs or reorganizations, but by their ability to observe, understand, and adapt how work is performed on an ongoing basis.

 

Three Imperatives for Today’s Enterprise Workforce Planning

1. Shift from headcount planning to work planning
2. Move from episodic reviews to continuous insight
3. Manage productivity, AI, and cost as an operating discipline

 

This capability—continuous workforce intelligence—emerges as the foundational requirement underlying productivity improvement, AI value realization, execution reliability, cost discipline, and long-term resilience.

 

Visibility Into Work Now A Planning Requisite

As he concludes his post, Sharath states, “Workforce intelligence may be the term in fashion today, but its growing use reflects real changes in enterprise needs. As work continues to evolve due to AI, automation, and new operating models, organizations will need clearer and more connected views of their workforce.” 

 

Sharath, we agree again!  Sapience sits at the intersection of workforce intelligence, AI value realization, and financial performance.  Workforce intelligence is validated not only by industry and technology analysts, but by investor and academic researchers who link productivity, execution quality, and AI outcomes directly to enterprise value. 

 

Sapience Delivers the Intelligence Layer for Understanding the Workforce

• The challenges leaders face all stem from the same root cause: invisible work
• Sapience provides objective, continuous visibility into how work actually gets done
• Insights from Sapience connect productivity, AI value, execution capacity, and cost to real work — not proxies
• This enables leaders to capture AI-created capacity, reduce execution risk, and make defensible decisions
• Workforce intelligence becomes part of an ongoing operating discipline, not a once-a-year analysis

 

If you’d like to read more on the future of workforce intelligence, Sapience explored this topic with Everest Group and Sharath Hari at our Workforce Intelligence Summit last fall.  A complimentary copy of their research report, FROM VISIBILITY TO VALUE: Harnessing Workforce Data to Drive Productivity, Efficiency, and AI-Readiness, is available here: https://sapienceanalytics.com/everest-group-download/.