Is now the time to finally evolve how HR is structured?
- George Avery
- Aug 27
- 9 min read
Updated: Sep 2
Will the advances in AI and the adoption of the agentic workforce finally be the reason we update the structure of HR to help organizations in this next digital revolution?
Executive Summary
Within the HR profession we have been hearing about the next phase of HR for a while (think decades). Many of the well-known HR thought leaders that are popular on the speaking circuit have been talking about HR 2.0 (or 3.0) for a while now.
And the main tangible result from this is we saw areas like Analytics, Employee Experience & Equity (to name a few) become more prevalent than they were in the years prior. But otherwise, the structure of most HR organizations today very much resembles the structure from 5, 10 or even 20 years ago.
While many of the elements of our personal lives have evolved to include aspects of emerging technology, along with the products and services most business is providing, the Human Resources function is under unprecedented pressure to evolve.
Given the accelerating adoption of AI-driven service delivery models—capable of automating 40–70% of Tier 1 HR inquiries and reducing resolution times by up to 60%—and the ease of enterprise deployment, HR leaders now face a rare inflection point: modernize the function or risk obsolescence.
1. Legacy HR Org Structures
While there is more information more readily available than any time prior on the models being implemented, an overwhelming percentage of organizations structure their HR functions in a very similar way. There are a few main differences around how centralized (or decentralized) the various parts of the function operate, the location of where some of the resources sit, and the level of services being provided across the different levels of the organization. But a large number of them resemble very similar structures. They are essentially structured around:
Role | Description |
HR COE/SME areas | These are the specialized areas of HR that you have put domain experts in to guide key elements of the function. These include, but are not limited to areas, like Talent (Development, Acquisition & Learning), Benefits and Compensation. |
HR Systems & Compliance areas | We are combining these foundational elements as they often have interplay between the specific focus areas and the fact they are most often run through some accompanying technology solution. Payroll is one that immediately comes to mind but can include areas like Employee Relations, HRMS and HR Analytics/Reporting. |
HR Business Partners | What we used to refer to as “generalists” that would partner with a business to help them holistically while often collaborating and leveraging across their COE/SME and Systems/Compliance colleagues for a respective business segment. In this model, knowledge managers play a hidden but vital role, ensuring policy and program accuracy, curating content, and enabling both human and AI channels to respond with consistent guidance—often reducing policy-related escalations by 30% and increasing first-contact resolution rates by 20–35%. |
Again, there can be differences in how centralized the function operates, or where some of the key resources sit as part of a location strategy. But this is the way the function has been structured for many years and continues to be structured by HR leaders today.
2. New roles that can be the drivers of HR Organizational Structure change
The advancements of AI and the emergence of an Agentic Workforce is one the biggest opportunities for the HR function since the explosion of the internet. With this, organizations will be able to take advantage of these advancements to fundamentally change and improve many aspects of how HR helps employees, managers and leaders. Let’s first think about some new roles that can be created by this and should be considered for immediate implementation, regardless of size or industry.
Agentic HR Manager
This is a hybrid IT/HR systems role that requires deep business and/or HR domain knowledge, combining responsibilities that typically span the CHRO and CIO. An initial and widely useful solution is for HR to deploy an AI solution(s) or agent(s) to handle the majority of questions coming from employees and managers. These solutions can be customized to the specific organization based on their unique policies and programs. A new mindset will be needed to determine how the workflows will happen when agents are part of the function. This role is not just technical—it orchestrates AI agents and curated content from knowledge managers to ensure responses are policy-aligned and context-specific. In early pilots, this orchestration has cut average handling time by 45% while freeing HRBPs to focus on higher-value strategic initiatives.
HR Data & Insights SME
The name might not be new but with the amount of data readily available we need to see progress from reporting on this data to organizations making decisions based on the plethora of insights they have in their systems. We are seeing some more progressive organizations already put this into operation, but this is ready for mass adoption in a new way. The main benefits of this will be more for managers as decisions can be made more holistically and equitably across larger segment of an organization. This position moves beyond reporting to deliver embedded, AI-powered recommendations directly into manager workflows in tools like Workday, SuccessFactors, or MS Teams—cutting time-to-decision in talent and compensation matters by 25–40% and improving equity in decisions as evidenced by measurable HR scorecard gains.
HR Content Leader
Organizations have been slow to realize the way people consume information in their daily lives is now so totally different than the way they consume information within their jobs. Again, many of the methods being used are already antiquated, besides being non-effective. We need to reimagine how content is created and delivered to people for maximum impact. The HR Content Leader leverages adaptive content delivery—matching format, timing, and channel to each audience segment to maximize engagement and retention. Adaptive campaigns in HR contexts have been shown to improve training completion rates by 35% and policy adoption rates by 20% compared to static communications.
Let’s do a deeper dive on each of these roles.
3. Agentic HR Manager
We are seeing that as even basic AI solutions are adopted within HR, a segment of the work previously done by people can now be done by AI Agents. So, we need to start thinking about these as complimentary aspects of an HR workforce. This role will need a more than base level understanding of agentic workflows along with depth in various HR domains. From this, holistic HR teams can be assembled and work assigned to where it’s best solutioned.
Agentic workflows and workforces can already currently handle a significant amount of the questions and requests that come into the HR function. Across most policies and program documents, these AI solutions can help employees and managers get to answers quickly using natural conversation prompts. This Agentic HR Manager role will need to be scanning for the areas where the agents can best handle most tier 1 or 2 queries immediately. Then additionally aligning the team members to new or higher value chain activities given their bandwidth will be freed up from their agentic colleagues.
This can be highly transformation for many organizations. For many years a lot of large enterprises have used arbitrage to set up various employee service centers usually in geographic locations that offer some amount of labor cost advantage. These are often complex aspects of the function to manage in which time differences, local skill availability, turnover, and language requirements are needed to be balanced. The agentic workforce eliminates these from the list of items that need to be managed. There is a near term vision that states this renders these off/near shore center concepts outdated as these agentic solutions are deployed. Additionally, the flexibility of many of these subscription-like financial models offers also makes the agentic workforce better from a pure cost standpoint in many situations.
So the Agentic HR Manager could be a key role where the intersection of many areas come together. HR Functions will need to invest in building these talents given the impact this could have across multiple dimensions.
4. HR Data & Insights SME
Many HR functions already have a role(s) that is focused on consolidating the vast amounts of data across multiple sources that organizations have access to. Currently the role spends a majority of their time on dashboard creation or other general reporting responsibilities.
As these AI solutions free people up, while also providing additional insights into the needs of the organization, a role focused on taking the data available will need to move up the value chain. Some organizations feel comfortable bringing in external consultants to sift through anonymized data and provide suggestions on potential actions across many different people-related areas. But with the tools this is a role that likely needs to be in house.
There are immediately applications to take data across areas like Talent Acquisition, Compensation and across different areas of Talent Development. Today many decisions in these key areas are left up to respective individual managers. To avoid issues in these individual decisions significant training needs to be done to make sure the manager population is operating effectively. But this role could at a minimum give a considerable head start given the massive amounts of data available. Admittedly this is more of a culture or mindset shift than a skill one, as the skills needed for this are already readily available.
5. HR Content Leader
The way we all consume information in our personal lives has dramatically changed in the past 5 years. The delivery systems, length and production have all evolved. At the same time the way, the way organizations push information out is done very differently. Some of this is done by necessity (security is a main driver of this). HR Functions especially often handle their communications on policies or program training in a very specific way.
Most businesses have realized that to market their messages or build brand awareness need to be created and delivered with the end user in mind. But most HR messages don’t seem to be created with this same intent. In fact, most of the “HR Communication” roles that are posted have main responsibilities around drafting emails, creating internal presentations and maybe maintenance of an internal landing page or SharePoint sites where information is stored.
As HR Functions will be deploying these new technology solutions that they expect employees to adopt, the accompanied messages need to be evolved as well. To be clear, this is not just about “social”, but more of a current view at the intersection of education, learning and marketing. So, a new profile will need to lead this area that takes the most effective methods of the past and combines that with the way people want to receive content today.
6. Get Started
When evaluating these AI HR solutions in terms of what they unlock for the organization and the HR function, organizations can initiate several steps to enable success:
Conduct a 90-day pilot with AI knowledge assistants in two HR domains; articulate mechanisms to measure
>40%+ reduction in HR inquiry volume to Tier 2,
>25% improvement in employee satisfaction scores for HR services,
>20% reduction in HRBP workload on transactional matters.
Leverage change management associated with these new AI solutions (both internal to the HR Function as well as across the entire employee population).
Prioritize adaptability: Build structures that can evolve as business needs and this area of technology continues to change. Align structure, processes, technology, and culture for sustained transformation.
Invest in talent: Equip HR professionals with the skills and tools required as their current roles evolve in addition to the new roles that will become more prominent. Ensure every change enhances support, engagement, and satisfaction for employees.
These AI and Agentic solutions bring tremendous value no matter what size organization looks at implementation. For large enterprises that have already built out HR functions, these AI solutions will create opportunities to uplevel part of the function to help this evolution. For small to medium size organizations, the technology can be easily implemented, quickly scaled and offers pricing at levels that make it more feasible when resources are scarce. The HR Functions that adopt these solutions today as part of their standard work will be in the best position as this area continues to change.
HR leaders who embed agentic workflows into their standard operating model today will set the benchmark for employee experience and operational agility in the decade ahead—capturing potential savings of $1.5M–$3M annually in mid-sized enterprises through efficiency gains and reduced turnover. But to do so the HR Organizational Models that operate today will need to be updated and evolved.
At Vistry, we help organizations move beyond HR 2.0 into the future of HR leadership. Our AI-powered assistants like Eva provide instant support, multilingual accessibility, and actionable insights, enabling HR teams to operate with agility and impact. Whether it’s enhancing employee experience, improving policy clarity, or unlocking workforce data, Vistry equips you with the tools to lead confidently in the era of HR 3.0.