The Challenge: In the fast-moving world of an ASX-listed enterprise, staying ahead requires an evolving “people engine.” Six years ago, the Chief People Officer asked us to help shape their People Strategy. That initial collaboration grew into a multi-year partnership that transformed an entire organisation of 1,700 people across Australia.

The Solution: By serving as a strategic extension of the P&C team, we delivered enterprise-wide shifts that bridged the gap between intent and execution.

• Organisational design: We optimised spans and layers across all functions to improve decision-making and agility. 
• Talent and capability: We conducted an enterprise-wide audit of skills and potential to ensure the workforce was positioned for future growth.
• Learning: We redesigned the approach to learning and development, moving toward a high-impact model that enables continuous capability building.
• Safety and wellbeing: We assessed psychological safety and developed practical support guides, ensuring people were equipped with the tools to speak up, innovate and perform at their best. 
• Leadership at scale: We designed and delivered multi-day forums for more than 150 leaders to drive shared accountability and alignment. 

The trust built through this work enabled us to partner directly with operational teams:

• Growth and investment: We created a “playbook” for major growth initiatives, streamlining the end to end process from governance, and roles, to tools and communications required for successful execution.
• Risk and safety: We analysed how culture influenced risk management, identifying high-impact behavioural shifts and working with the safety team and frontline employees and contractors to embed lasting change. 
• Environment, sustainability and governance: We reset the operating model and behavioural expectations, ensuring the ESG team has the influence required to meet Board, shareholder and community expectations. 
• High performing teams: We facilitated targeted alignment sessions to help newly formed or critical teams establish shared direction and high-performance ways of working. 

The Impact: What began as a strategy project became a sustained evolution. By building the “muscle” of the internal P&C team, we’ve ensured that the organisation remains agile, aligned, and ready to continue evolving long after our engagement.

The Challenge: For an iconic Australian organisation, history was both a strength and a hurdle. Operating in a rapidly evolving industry with a 3,000-plus workforce spread across the country, they were battling fragmentation. For their next era of growth, they needed to stop looking backward and start aligning their purpose, culture, and operating model for the future.
The Solution: We partnered with the Executive Leadership Team to orchestrate a multi-year transformation that reached every corner of the business.

• Setting ambition: We facilitated ELT workshops, leader interviews and enterprise-wide listening sessions with more than 235 people to define a new “North Star”, moving the organisation from fragmented effort to a unified future ambition. 
• Culture shift: We identified high-impact behavioural shifts, and mapped the structural, policy and process changes required to sustain them. This roadmap, backed by clear metrics, turned desired behaviours into daily habits.
• People strategy: We reflected the organisation’s differentiators in the operating model and people strategy, protecting their competitive advantage through every stage of the design. 
• Operating model: Using a data-driven technology platform, we modelled real-time scenarios for 24 core functions. We reshaped the organisation team-by-team, integrating two distinct businesses into a single framework that reduced duplication and reliance on external contractors. 
• Align and execute: We worked in tandem with the People and Culture team to implement changes, while building their internal capability. By aligning new teams on direction, accountabilities and expectations, we equipped leaders to be effective role models

The Impact: The result was a total reset. With a unified operating model and a leadership team role-modelling a new culture, the organisation moved from a legacy mindset to a future-ready powerhouse.

Most people know Roger Martin’s WWNTBT? test, What would need to be true… for this idea/strategy/action/choice to work?

We have our own WDENTK? test. What does everyone need to know… to be able to contribute effectively to your meeting, offsite or discussion?

Levelling the Playing Field
At the start of any strategy conversation in particular you need to answer, does everyone know…

• What key conversations have been had ahead of time
• Any draft strategies that have already been formulated
• How the most senior folk in the room are feeling
• What the Board or owners expect
• The latest organisational performance data and forecasts
• How the workforce is feeling
• What customers are saying
• That they are in a safe environment where it is possible to test ideas, be wrong, question seniority and generally engage in a constructive conversation

The Danger of Assumed Knowledge
All this information is often assumed knowledge for those who have it… and a mystery for everyone else. Get everything out on the table before engaging in the substantive conversation.

And the very worst thing that can happen is that executives figure out later they are really engaged in an Easter egg hunt — someone already knows the “answer,” it’s hidden somewhere in the agenda, and they are just waiting for the group to stumble upon it.

Slowing Down to Move Faster
The old saying “slow down, to speed up” is overused — but if you haven’t slowed down enough to ensure everyone knows what they need to know, you will likely be wasting time in confused conversations and limited involvement.

Ten years ago, I joined the ABC’s Four Corners for their “Future Proof” episode to discuss what was next for the Future of Work.

I said a bunch of stuff so, a decade later, how do my predictions stand up?

Benchmarking the Evolution of AI
“The future of computing is not just [computers] doing things we have told them to do better and faster, but actually coming up with new ways of doing things we wouldn’t have thought of.”

I was extrapolating this conclusion from (at the time, recent) advances in Chess and Go computer gameplay, but I’m giving myself a solid 9/10 for almost predicting the coming of generative and agentic AI.

The Great Job Shift: Survival and Creation
“Many of today’s jobs will disappear, […] but we believe there will be more of tomorrow’s jobs to replace them.”

As it stands, I reckon this is an 8/10 — unemployment is running in Australia at around 4% (lower than 2016, at nearly 6%) whilst many new jobs have been created (in AI, data analytics and cloud, cybersecurity etc.) and the mix of jobs has changed significantly in the past ten years.

Social Upheaval and the Waiting Game
“I think we have to expect some degree of social upheaval as the world of work significantly changes over the next ten years.”

This is a 4/10. There has indeed been tremendous global social upheaval, but little of it driven by changes to work and more of it driven by a pandemic, armed conflict, and global politics. I think the next 5 years might see more social upheaval driven by changes to organisation structures and jobs from gen AI, but I may have gone too early with this one.

You can find the original show on YouTube — I reckon it’s aged ok given the amount of change we’ve experienced.

If you want to know what I think about the next ten years — get in touch.

Listen to the full interview here: https://www.rrr.org.au/shared/broadcast-episode/37352/875000/2356000

Recently, Fifth Frame hosted a panel discussion on Reimagining Productivity in a Changing Workforce in partnership with Peoplecorp HR Recruitment Specialists.

A big thank you to our incredible panellists, Georgie Dent, Emma Hogan and Jeremy Thorpe for their perspectives on all things people, policy and performance in relation to productivity.

The Strategic Foundations of Productivity

1. Maximising productivity requires a long-term focus.
True gains move beyond short-term market pressures and reporting obligations to look at sustainable growth.

2. Purpose drives efficiency.
Connecting employees to a compelling organisational purpose and a clear, actionable strategy drives better decision-making, reducing wasted effort and lifting productivity.

Navigating the AI Transformation

3. AI will change the nature of work.
From how we structure work to deliver value, to how we learn and lead in a way that uses empathy, creativity and good judgement, this transformation is still in its early days.

4. Data and readiness are non-negotiable.
Quality organisational data and human readiness are key to the success of AI integrations in organisations.

Sustainability and the Human Element

5. Burnout is not a productivity strategy.
Intense workloads and high productivity are unsustainable in the long-term, and require an immediate debrief to take the learnings onboard.

Aligning Your Organisation for Success
Productivity is a nuanced and complex challenge with no simple solution. At Fifth Frame, we believe that sustainable organisational productivity begins with a strong foundation: a clear purpose and strategy, supported by the right culture and operating model. Only then can you effectively align your organisation to drive productivity.

In December, the Productivity Commission will unveil its final inquiries into five priority areas aimed at boosting Australian productivity. One of these inquiries focuses on harnessing data and digital technology, specifically “Enabling AI’s productivity potential.

The Implementation Gap
Despite the hype surrounding AI, it’s concerning that 95% of Gen AI implementations are failing.

At Fifth Frame, we believe that sustained productivity through AI can only be achieved by thinking through how jobs will change, how talent pipelines will evolve, and the job architecture required to support the transition.

Strategic Pillars for AI Integration
Key considerations include:

• Categorising roles based on AI impact to inform decision-making
• Planning new talent pipelines to maintain a diamond organisational structure
• Designing parallel human and AI job architectures to support the transition

Whether you’re just starting or deep into your AI journey, we offer key concepts to guide how you think about maximising productivity in an AI-augmented operating model.

In December, the Productivity Commission will unveil its final inquiries into five priority areas aimed at boosting Australian productivity. One of these inquiries focuses on harnessing data and digital technology, specifically “Enabling AI’s productivity potential.”

The Readiness Gap
Despite the hype surrounding AI, it’s concerning that 95% of Gen AI implementations are failing, largely due to a lack of human readiness.

At Fifth Frame, we believe that sustained productivity through AI can only be achieved by placing people at the centre of the entire process.

Designing for the Human Element
Key considerations include:

• Designing roles that promote and enhance employee engagement.
• Safeguarding the essential ‘human glue’ in task design.

Building a People-First Foundation
Setting your people up for success is the foundational element for driving genuine productivity within your operating model. Regardless of where you are on your AI journey, consider these concepts to help shape a people-first approach.