In this episode of Work Matters, Thomas Bertels speaks with Sergio Caredda about why AI is forcing organizations to confront a much deeper issue: no one really owns work design. HR owns roles and skills. IT owns systems and platforms. Operations owns processes. Strategy owns intent. But as AI begins to reshape tasks, decisions, capabilities, accountability, and governance, organizations need a more integrated way to design work.
Sergio argues that AI adoption is not just a technology implementation or a change management exercise. It requires operating model redesign, decision governance, and a clearer “grammar” of work. Organizations need to understand what work is, how decisions are made, where human judgment is required, and who is accountable when algorithms or agents start making decisions that affect customers, employees, and business outcomes.
The conversation also explores why traditional responses — a new C-suite role, a center of excellence, or a project office — are not enough. Work design is a transversal problem - it cuts across HR, IT, operations, strategy, and management. The answer is not another box on the org chart, but a persistent design authority with real mandate, governance, and measurement.
Ultimately, this episode is about AI, but it is also about something more fundamental: organizations cannot redesign work with tools alone. They need to understand the work itself.
In this episode, we discuss:
• Why AI predictions often confuse jobs with tasks
• Why treating AI as an IT implementation misses the bigger design problem
• Why capability does not have a clear institutional home in most organizations
• Why HR owns skills, but not necessarily enterprise capabilities
• Why organizational design may need a basic grammar of work
• What a persistent design authority for work could look like
• Why leaders need to use AI themselves to understand its implications
• How organizations can start by auditing their most important value chains
• Why work design is becoming urgent, not just important
Key themes:
Work design, operating model redesign, organizational design, decision rights, algorithmic accountability, capabilities, HR transformation, future of work, AI adoption, management, governance
Memorable idea:
AI is not just changing tasks. It is exposing the fact that most organizations do not have a clear owner for how work is designed, governed, and measured.
Guest Bio:
Sergio works at the intersection of organization design, HR, work design, and AI-enabled transformation. A senior HR leader with more than 25 years of international experience, he helps organizations translate strategy into operating models where human work creates value through the integrated disciplines of organization design, capability building, talent development, and technology adoption.
He currently serves as Interim CHRO at Campari Group, where he leads one of the more mature HR AI adoption programs in European FMCG, with more than 40 active AI use cases and a close partnership with the CIO on AI capability building. This work has been recognized by SAP with a European Innovation Award.
Sergio is known for building high-performing HR teams that operate as true business partners, and for his ability to connect business strategy, people strategy, operating model, and technology into one coherent system. His perspective is that AI transformation cannot be treated as a technology rollout alone. It requires an end-to-end view of work, organization, leadership, and capability — which is where senior HR leadership can make a distinctive contribution.
He writes regularly on organization design, leadership, and the future of work at sergiocaredda.eu, and is currently writing The Intentional Work Trilogy on organization design. Sergio previously joined Work Matters to discuss the intentional organization.
Connect with Sergio:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiocaredda/
Website: https://sergiocaredda.eu
Substack: https://newsletter.sergiocaredda.eu
00:00 AI Job Loss Hype
01:10 Tasks Versus Jobs
02:57 AI As General Tech
06:19 Who Owns Work Design
09:21 Accountability And Governance
14:49 Persistent Design Authority
16:43 Campari’s Digital Twin Experiment
24:40 No Quick Wins Mindset
27:26 Work Design and Managers
31:49 Employees and Job Fear
36:36 Rethinking Change Management
42:20 CEO 90 Day Playbook
45:42 Value Chains and Human Glue
