Product and Work.

By Luke O'Mahoney

ISSUE 113
​6 November 2026 · 8 minute read

PX Espresso < Product and Work.

Allow me to reintroduce myself 👋🏻

Forgive me reader, for I have sinned. It has been more than 7 months since my last confession. Or rather, since my last expression, in newsletter form.

Ironically the break in writing came shortly after the 2 year anniversary newsletter in which I waxed lyrical about the discipline required to write a newsletter week after week, even when motivation isn't there... Yeah. Anyways... 👀😆

I am back to writing, something I deeply love. And now that I sit here to write again, realise I have missed immensely.

I have spoken about my love of writing many times, but in the last 12 months that love has been usurped. Seduced by the allure of a younger sexier muse. You might of heard of her, she goes by the name, AI. 🤖

Honestly, after a few months of AI supported writing I felt like all my unique perspectives and creativity had disappeared. I couldn't access my own thoughts anymore. Not in a way that was recognisable. And not in the way that had previously brought me joy.

My solution was to unplug. Stop writing.

But writing is where I do my best thinking, so I am back! 🤘🏻

Which means the newsletter (and podcast) are back. 🥳

Much has changed in the last 12 months. Both in terms of my thinking and in terms of the real world work I am doing supporting the shift from HR to Product within People teams and functions. So, it is necessary for my content to reflect both.

Where this started, and what I’ve come to see differently.

When I started this newsletter - the original PX Espresso ☕️ - I was focused mostly on helping lean People teams apply product at a delivery level. I would share product discovery, design and delivery tools, frameworks and examples targeted at the intervention layer.

In plain language: how to apply product practices to design and deliver better solutions, experiences and programmes, primarily for employees as end users.

That was a good place start, but didn't go far enough.

The next step was moving beyond the solution layer up to at the strategic layer.

Helping People teams think more deeply about the types of work they are engaged in. How to make prioritised investment decisions. How to start measuring outcomes over outputs. How to connect their work to real business outcomes.

Another meaningful progression in thinking and working.

The final step has been moving up another layer from strategy, to system.

This is where I have been playing mostly in the last 12 months in close collaboration with Chris Metcalfe.

Together we have been helping not just teams, but entire People orgs redesign their operating system and logic at scale. This is not a trivial exercise, it's a tremendous undertaking, but I think one worth the effort for those most serious about making a generation defining shift away from HR as a Service to Work as a Product.

To do that well and completely, requires a full operating model transformation. Which for larger orgs is a multi-year investment. It's brave. It's pioneering. It's not without risk. But, for those that do it, for the early movers and pioneers, the blueprint will be set for the next wave of progressive People leaders to make the change for good.

The HR operating model will still be a choice, and that's fine. But, I fundamentally believe that the People orgs who shift to a product operating model will deliver significantly more value to both the business as a the commercial beneficiary and to employees as ender users.

The best products create value for customers AND for the business that produces them.

That's because the best products are an emergent response to well understood and validated user needs. This is not a controversial idea. We aren't reinventing the wheel here, we are applying the same logic to a new context. To work as a product.

Why “work” is the Product.

I have developed quite a strong opinion on this. It is a mistake to productise HR.

What I mean is that to assume that HR Services is the product assumes that the types of work, solutions, interventions, programmes that are prioritised and produced by a traditional HR function are the correct solutions to build.

This is something I have observed many times in well intended HR functions who are attempting to shift to a more product-led way of working within an unchanged system. The problem is that you just get better at producing more of the wrong things.

To be clear, well designed and usable HR services are still an improvement and I am not making a personal criticism of those who fall into that trap. I think in my ways it's an inevitable starting point for many. The real danger is staying in the productised HR mode and failing to take the next (much more difficult step) to fully transform the system.

To take that next step requires an acceptance that the totality of the experience of work is the product.

A successful work product enables the business to achieve it's priority outcomes by helping it's users make meaningful progress towards their objectives, whilst providing a low friction, meaningful, and valuable experience of work.

Once that fundamental truth is acknowledged, it becomes much easier to let go of the default solutions and services which emerge from HR best practices and functional specialisms operating in silo.

Instead, you can start thinking about what the business is trying to achieve and then identify the priority people and organisational problems to solve which help both employee users and the business make meaningful progress.

This also requires an acknowledgement that employees are not simply an input into production (a resource to be managed).

They are both a value creating asset and a value receiving customer.

A model that over indexes on employee value extraction becomes exploitative. Equally, a model that over indexes on employee satisfaction at the cost of business outcomes becomes unproductive.

A duality must exist which balances value for employee and business. This is exactly the same relationship that must exist between a business and their external customers.

A business that over indexes on maximising profit at the cost of creating customer value trades short term profit for long term sustainability. Equally, a business that over indexes on customer value at the cost of business viability will have very happy customers... until they go bust.

Our job as leaders of a People function is to build the system which enables a product of work to emerge which optimally produces meaningful value for employees and commercial success for the business.

A traditional HR model fails to do both.

Product and Work.

The Product and Work. newsletter and podcast will help progress this shift in a practical way. I will share real working examples of both team activation and system level transformation as evidence of how People teams can shift to fully functioning product operating models.

I want to help as many People leaders as possible operate at the intersection of product and work. Ultimately, to make the full shift away from HR as a Service to Work as a Product which will set the new standard and operating model for the generations which follow us into the People profession.

You are at the frontier of that shift already and I love that you are here. 💜

That's all for now. Check your inbox same time next week for more of my thoughts, learnings and practical insights for People Leaders exploring the intersection of product and work.

With love,

Luke ✌🏻 🫶🏻

What changes when we start treating work as a product? This is not about workplace policy, HR or ER. This is wider conversation about the products we build, the systems we work within and the experience of work itself. View episodes and listen 🎧

You can listen to the PX Espresso ☕️ back catalogue now - new episodes in the new Product and Work. format coming soon! 👀