Does Your Work Feel Meaningless? How AI Job Redesign Sparks Motivation

Everybody is trying to figure out how to utilize AI best to deal with too many meetings, too many tools, and too many people who are quietly quitting. If your job feels harder than it should, the problem may be baked into the work itself. A lot of the structure around modern jobs was designed before today’s technology and expectations existed. Now, with AI entering the scene, smart companies are starting to take a closer look. Not just at how to use the newest tool, but whether the work even makes sense anymore. Some organizations like TI People found that they can determine where friction builds up and use job redesign to reduce stress, increase motivation, and bring back a sense of progress.

Why AI Job Redesign Is Key To Improving Motivation

I remember interviewing Ken Fisher of Fisher Investments, who told me that what matters less in interviews is what people say they can do, and more about what they will actually do. But that also raises a bigger question: should some of that work even be done at all? The same goes for AI. Instead of asking what AI can do, it might be more useful to ask what AI should be doing. Forward-thinking leaders are stepping back to assess the flow of tasks inside their organizations. They are asking where time is being wasted, what is causing delays or confusion, and which tasks actually drive progress versus those that simply fill up the calendar.

Instead of trying to automate everything, they are identifying friction points first. That includes where employees are duplicating effort, bouncing between systems, or filling out reports that lead to nowhere. In my own experience teaching online, I’m constantly shifting one score from one software platform to another. It’s tedious, and it adds no value to the learning process. That kind of repetitive work is everywhere. Across different industries, people are spending hours doing things that look productive but serve no real purpose. Maybe organizations didn’t have many options in the past. But now, smart companies can begin layering in AI tools to improve speed, accuracy, or personalization. This approach gives people their time and energy back.

What AI-Powered Job Redesign Looks Like In Practice

At a recent HRNxt event, I was impressed by a presentation from Volker Jacobs, founder and CEO of TI People. He shared how his organization, in collaboration with The HR Congress, took a bold approach to rethink how work gets done. Instead of focusing on job titles or big-picture roles, they zoomed in on tasks, what people actually do day to day, and examined whether those tasks still made sense in today’s environment.

Their approach created a fictional company called Alpha to explore how AI might affect daily tasks in HR. What made it powerful was that it used real input from fifteen large organizations across Europe. These companies shared detailed job descriptions, demographics, software platforms, industry context, and even staffing costs.

All of that data was combined with a knowledge base co-created by over 150 contributors, including academics, HR professionals, AI tools, and business leaders. The goal was to map where friction was happening and test small changes to how tasks were done. The simulation pointed to wasted time in places like slow approval processes, unclear ownership of reports, and repetitive handoffs. By redesigning just a few of those tasks, companies saw a boost in clarity, energy, and employee motivation, before AI was even applied.

They found that fixing tasks first freed up more time and reduced more frustration than simply layering AI onto broken processes. Some companies started with hackathons or sprints to identify what work no longer made sense. Others formed small model teams to pilot changes and scale what worked. The key takeaway was that motivation improved when people felt their time was being used better.

Why Meaningless Work Still Dominates Modern Jobs Requiring Job Redesign

When employees say they are burned out, it is often not the number of hours. It is the lack of impact. Gallup has consistently found that disengagement rises when people feel their work does not matter. That is especially true when processes are broken, when it takes six approvals to move forward, or when feedback gets lost in long email chains. My own research around curiosity has shown that when people do not understand the purpose behind their work, they stop asking questions. That leads to even more stagnation and quiet quitting.

The bigger problem often is not resistance to AI, but the buildup of meaningless tasks that block progress and wear people down.

How To Handle Job Redesign So Work Benefits Everyone, Not Just HR

You have probably lived it. Waiting for access to a tool that should have been granted last week. Copying and pasting data from one platform to another. Sitting in meetings that could have been solved with a two-sentence Slack message. These are annoying, add up to hours lost every week, and they are part of what makes modern work feel overwhelming.

That is why efforts to redesign work need to be inclusive. HR might lead the process, but the insights should come from every level. When companies used models like Alpha, they found that even small tweaks, like rethinking how one report gets created or who owns a certain approval, could make a difference fast. The point is not to overhaul the whole system, but to find the tasks that are doing more harm than good.

What You Can Do Now To Rethink Job Redesign

You do not need a new platform to start fixing this. You need curiosity and a willingness to listen. Ask your team what slows them down. Where are they repeating work? What parts of the process feel confusing, pointless, or draining? Start collecting those stories and treat them as data. Then look at how work is actually getting done, not how it is supposed to get done on paper. Map it out. Where are the bottlenecks? Who is in too many meetings? Who is constantly jumping between systems? These are signs of friction. Once you spot them, you can test small changes by creating a pilot project and forming a model team. Then you can try a quick job redesign before committing to a full transformation.