If you’ve been following this series, you’ve explored the Rewired HR Ecosystem – an adaptive, AI-enabled operating model that brings together intelligence, experience, and execution to drive real business impact. If this is your first encounter with Rewired HR, here’s the short version: the traditional HR operating model is no longer fit for purpose. Businesses are moving too fast, expectations are too high, and the old ways of organising HR, which was built for stability, not speed, are holding HR back.

The Rewired HR Ecosystem is LACE’s response: a fundamentally different way of thinking about how HR creates value. 

But understanding a new model is one thing. Knowing where to start is another.

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No two starting points are the same 

There’s no universal on-ramp to Rewired HR. Some teams are building on Ulrich-based foundations – structured approaches that helped professionalise HR and scale delivery. Moving beyond that takes confidence, and the smartest move is to focus first on where change will create the most value. Others have the opportunity to leapfrog altogether into a more agile, AI-enabled way of working.

The honest truth is that org charts and role descriptions rarely tell you how an HR function actually operates. What matters is how decisions get made, how work flows across teams, and how the function responds when priorities shift.

The ten traits of the future People function

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To help HR teams cut through that ambiguity, LACE developed the ten traits of high-performing HR function. The ten traits exist for a single purpose: to describe what good looks like in practice: the capabilities, behaviours, and ways of working that allow HR functions to adapt quickly, deliver lasting value, and make change stick. We use it as a readiness framework for the Rewired HR Ecosystem; the bridge between where you are today and the model you’re building towards.

The traits describe what HR teams need to do to:

• Translate business strategy into people action
• Operate with a commercial lens and enterprise mindset
• Use data, insights, AI and technology with confidence
• Adapt and flex as priorities shift
• Deliver joined-up outcomes rather than fragmented activity

Try it for yourself: Is your operating model future ready?

Our Rewired Readiness Tool brings the ten traits to life as a practical diagnostic.

It looks past structure and role design to focus on how HR works in practice, surfacing where traits are already embedded and working well, where outcomes are inconsistent, where friction is slowing things down, and which areas, if strengthened, would make the greatest difference to overall HR performance. For many teams, working through it is as much a confidence builder as a diagnostic.

Complete the Rewired Readiness Tool to understand where to focus. At the end you’ll receive a short, personalised report and an opportunity to speak to an expert for unbiased advice on where to start.

Are you ready to rewire HR? 

This is about readiness, not perfection. The ten traits aren’t a maturity model or a scorecard – they are readiness indicators. 

The ten traits model gives HR a clear, shared picture of how the function is actually operating today, cutting through org charts, role descriptions and good intentions. It surfaces genuine strengths, exposes gaps and friction points, and highlights the behaviour that will accelerate progress toward the Rewired HR ecosystem, as well as the ones getting in the way.  

Used well, the traits prompt focused decisions about: 

• Where to invest in data, technology and AI 

• How to organise HR around experience-led value streams 

• Where to prioritise manager effectiveness and embed human-in-the-loop ways of working 
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• How to build greater commercial focus and portfolio governance into how HR operates day to day 

Rewiring HR doesn’t begin with structure diagrams. It begins with honest reflection and deliberate choices about what HR focuses on, and how it delivers value. 

That’s where change starts.