When Athalie Williams and her CEO were planning a major workforce transformation, they faced a dilemma familiar to many leaders: how to prepare a large, complex workforce for a business model that was still taking shape.
The organisation was shifting from legacy operations to a digitally enabled future, while modernising infrastructure and customer platforms. The implications were significant: tens of thousands of roles would be impacted over the decade, requiring both reductions and reskilling at scale.
“We chose transparency,” Williams recalls. “Not just with our people, but with our social partners and key stakeholders. We laid out the scale of change and invited them into the logic behind it.” That decision reflects a broader philosophy she’s honed over three decades of leading transformation across multiple sectors: clarity, context, and shared accountability.
Transparency as a Strategic Lever
Rather than managing change behind closed doors, Williams and her executive colleagues walked stakeholder groups through detailed projections, where changes would occur, how timelines would unfold, and what it meant for different parts of the workforce.
“No stakeholder is going to welcome disruption,” she notes. “But when you treat people as capable of understanding complexity, you shift the dynamic. You move from resistance to engagement.”
This approach wasn’t just about industrial relations. It was about equipping employees to make informed decisions about their careers, their development, and their future. “Early communication doesn’t eliminate uncertainty,” Williams says, “but it gives people a frame to work within. That’s what builds adaptability.”
Thinking Beyond the Organisation
Williams’ approach consistently extends beyond the boundaries of employment. Drawing on experience in industries where companies operate within fixed communities, she applies the same lens to workforce transitions.
“Organisations have a social obligation to consider the ripple effects of change,” she says. “That includes helping people prepare for roles that may exist outside the organisation.”
Her teams have experimented with forward-looking support: giving employees visibility 18 to 24 months ahead of potential role changes, and offering pathways to reskill or reposition. “It’s not about predicting every outcome,” she explains. “It’s about creating options early enough for people to act.”
From Fragmentation to Coherence
In a previous executive role, Williams led the consolidation of dozens of disparate capability models into a single enterprise-wide framework. The goal wasn’t just simplification, it was strategic alignment.
“We had to define the capabilities that would drive the business forward,” she says. “Not just catalogue what we had but identify what we needed, and build pathways to get there.”
One area of concern was digital fluency. “We saw a widening gap between current skills and future requirements,” Williams notes. Her team responded with targeted learning programmes designed to raise baseline capability across all levels, not just technical teams.
AI and the Leadership Divide
As generative AI reshapes work, Williams sees a growing divergence in leadership response.
“Some leaders are leaning in, I see them personally experimenting, learning, bringing their teams along. Others are stepping back, paralysed by risk and uncertainty.”
She believes this divide will shape future competitiveness. “The organisations that acknowledge the risks but still move are the ones that will emerge as leaders. It’s not about having all the answers, it’s about building the muscle to adapt.”
Leadership in Complexity
Williams is candid about the increasing demands placed on leaders. “We’re asking them to manage geopolitical uncertainty, economic volatility, and technological disruption, all while creating stability for their teams.”
Her answer is what she calls “human-centred leadership”; a blend of ambition and empathy. “High performance and care aren’t opposites,” she says. “The best leaders hold people to account and support them deeply. That’s what builds trust.”
Workforce Planning as a System Challenge
Williams views workforce transformation not as a standalone HR initiative, but as a system-wide challenge; one that requires alignment across leadership, technology, and work design.
“When you follow the thread of a problem through an organisation, leadership is usually at the core,” she observes. “But solving it often requires going beyond leadership behaviours to redesign how work itself is structured and delivered.”
In one instance, her team re-engineered physical tools and introduced robotics to expand role accessibility. The objective wasn’t just inclusion, it was adaptability. “We weren’t chasing metrics,” she explains. “We were building systems that could flex with the workforce, not against it.”
What Works in Practice
Williams offers four principles for organisations navigating workforce transformation:
- Start with business clarity: “Workforce solutions must be anchored in business outcomes. Otherwise, they drift.”
- Redesign the work, not just the roles: “It’s not about recruitment alone. It’s about job design, career pathways, and development.”
- Accelerate when needed: “Gradual change isn’t always safer. Sometimes speed creates clarity.”
- Build leadership capability for change: “Treat transformation as a core leadership skill, not a side project.”
Rethinking the Talent Model
As Williams shifts from executive roles to board and advisory work, she sees a need to rethink how organisations access talent. She envisions cross-company marketplaces powered by AI, matching skills and capabilities across boundaries.
“Traditional hiring models can’t keep pace with change,” she says. “We need platforms that focus on real-world experience and transferable capability, not proxies like job titles or education.”
The Human Thread
Despite the pace of change, Williams insists the human element remains central.
“Organisations hire brilliant people, and then forget to bring them along,” she says. “The challenge isn’t capability. It’s engagement and connection.”
Her approach returns to a core insight: “People want to contribute. They want to do good work. The job of leadership is to create the clarity and conditions that let them do that.”
As organisations confront an increasingly uncertain future, Williams believes this clarity, anchored in purpose, strategy, and trust, will be the defining factor in workforce success.