The future of organisation design and enterprise models is polymorphic

From a New HR Operating Model to Polymorphic Organisations

The Fourth Industrial Revolution never promised us flying cars. What it did promise - and somewhat deliver - is digital automation and a radical shift in how we design businesses, operating models, skills, and work itself. Automating, augmenting technology, transformation and agility is everywhere.

And yet, we find ourselves in a climate of caution, contraction, and uncertainty. Problems are no longer linear or episodic; they’re constant, overlapping, and systemic. Chaos and complexity are now our baseline.

The good news? The answers are already "lying around". What’s required is not only bold, visionary leadership but a complete reimagining of HR and the People function. Not as a responder to turbulence, but as the catalyst of evolution. That demands two decisive shifts:

A new HR Operating Model to finally free HR from its 1990s legacy.

A radical redesign of the enterprise itself, so organisations can flex, morph, and thrive in perpetual change.

At Charity IT Leaders Conference 2025, Perry Timms — returning keynote speaker, and author of the new book The HR Operating Model — will unveil his latest work: HR 3.0 and the emerging concept of the Polymorphic Organisation. Together, they signal the beginning of the end for 20th-century orthodoxy and the dawn of an era where business, and the People Experience of work are adaptive, digitised, and shape-shifting.