Why Moderna Merged Its Tech and HR Departments—And Why That’s Not the Transformation You Think It Is
When Moderna announced the merger of its human resources and technology departments, many interpreted the move as the future of organizational design—AI-powered, cross-functional, agile. The appointment of a Chief People and Digital Technology Officer seemed to signal something profound: the dismantling of silos in favor of unified, intelligent design.
But behind the headlines, a more unsettling truth lingers.
Merging HR and tech may appear forward-thinking, but unless it is accompanied by a fundamental redesign of how power, trust, and accountability are distributed within the organization, it risks doing little more than accelerating legacy inefficiencies. This is not transformation. It is optimization of a model already showing signs of strategic irrelevance.
This article challenges the prevailing assumption that integration alone is innovation. It interrogates the limitations of the Ulrich model, explores the risks of AI-enhanced compliance, and introduces a new lens through which HR must be viewed—not as a service provider or support function, but as an indispensable architect of systems, culture, and power.
The Integration Illusion
Moderna’s move was framed as disruptive. Internally, generative AI tools are being deployed across tasks once handled by people—from employee inquiries to clinical dose assignments. Thousands of ChatGPT agents now supplement—or in some cases replace—human labor within HR and digital functions. On the surface, it feels like a necessary leap into the next era of organizational productivity.
But the question no one is asking is this: What happens when you automate a function that was never designed to hold strategic power in the first place?
Integration, in this case, risks becoming a distraction from a more pressing problem. The deeper challenge lies in how HR has been positioned historically—not as a driver of strategy, but as a guardian of process. If HR’s role remains reactive, and its authority remains constrained, integrating it with a more technologically mature function does not elevate it. It subsumes it.
This is not a convergence of equals. It is a quiet absorption.
And unless leaders are willing to confront that reality, AI will become a tool for scaling dysfunction rather than redesigning it.
Legacy Architecture, Structural Limits
To understand how we arrived here, it is essential to examine the intellectual architecture underpinning most modern HR departments. For decades, the dominant model—popularized by Dave Ulrich—restructured HR into business partners, centers of excellence, and shared services. It was celebrated for aligning HR with the business and reducing inefficiencies.
But that structure came at a cost.
Rather than consolidating HR’s influence, the model fragmented it. It redistributed responsibilities across units, encouraged distance from frontline realities, and taught HR professionals to act as internal consultants rather than system leaders. The role of HR became supportive, not authoritative. Tactical, not transformational.
What was framed as alignment became deferral. What was labeled strategic was, in practice, administrative.
The deeper risk of the Ulrich model was not that it weakened HR’s capability—but that it disguised this weakness in structure. HR was invited into conversations, but rarely permitted to shape them. It gained access to the table, but not control of the agenda.
And in that environment, the appearance of strategic relevance masked a dangerous erosion of actual influence.
The False Promise of AI
Technology is not neutral. It codifies values. It scales whatever assumptions we embed into it—whether visionary or outdated.
When HR is digitally transformed without redesigning its foundational role, what results is not a future-ready people function, but a more efficient compliance engine. Automated responses. Scalable enforcement. Self-service workflows that resolve tasks, but rarely rebuild trust.
This is not innovation. It is substitution.
The introduction of AI into HR does not automatically produce strategic capability. In most cases, it speeds up decisions HR was already making with limited context, or automates interactions that once required human discernment.
The promise of AI should be to liberate HR from transactional work so it can lead systemic change. But if HR’s authority to lead remains unacknowledged, AI becomes another mechanism of marginalization—disguised as progress.
The uncomfortable truth is that trust cannot be automated. Culture cannot be delegated to a chatbot. And the systems that drive performance cannot be rebuilt by departments that still lack permission to question the business’s underlying design.
Toward a Redefinition of HR
If HR is to evolve beyond its current constraints, it must abandon its alignment mindset. It must move from being a responsive partner to a proactive architect. It must be accountable not for servicing the business, but for shaping it.
This requires a structural reorientation.
HR must be given design authority over the systems that govern work. It must operate with budgetary autonomy and strategic ownership, not just executional responsibility. It must be accountable for retention, trust, and performance risk—not simply compliance and communication.
True transformation begins not with integration, but with confrontation: a willingness to name the limitations of legacy structures, and a commitment to replace them with frameworks that position HR as a central force in enterprise leadership.
This does not mean discarding technology. It means using technology as leverage—not as a replacement for courage, insight, or power.
The Risk of Doing Nothing
There is a growing temptation in many executive circles to equate modernization with digitization. But faster systems built on outdated logic do not drive competitive advantage. They create frictionless mediocrity.
Organizations that fail to challenge HR’s inherited role will find themselves with high-functioning people operations that cannot influence behavior, shift culture, or respond to crises of trust. Their dashboards will improve. Their attrition will not.
The fallout will be subtle. Fewer direct conflicts, but more quiet exits. Engagement surveys that measure sentiment, but miss despair. Cultures that look inclusive in policy—but feel performative in practice.
What Moderna’s move signals, more than anything, is a turning point.
Not because the model is flawless. But because it exposes the need for something far more radical than integration. It exposes the need for a redefinition of HR itself.
Final Reflection
The future of HR will not be built on platforms. It will be built on power.
Until we are willing to confront the structural limitations that have kept HR in a posture of service, we will continue to confuse acceleration with transformation.
AI will not save HR.
Only a new mandate will.
And that mandate begins by rejecting the assumption that HR’s role is to respond to strategy—
and asserting, unapologetically, that HR’s role is to design it.
About Seattle Consulting Group
At Seattle Consulting Group, we don’t just talk about redesigning HR—we do it.
We work with executive teams, HR leaders, and boards to dismantle legacy systems that no longer serve modern organizations. From structural audits to enterprise-wide transformation, we deliver the frameworks, insight, and operational courage required to rebuild HR as a true center of power—capable of leading through complexity, mitigating culture risk, and driving meaningful change at scale.
If your organization is navigating digital transformation, workforce restructuring, or strategic HR realignment, we invite you to begin a deeper conversation.
This is your opportunity to move beyond optimization and into structural reinvention.
Learn more at www.seattleconsultinggrp.com
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