Across the web: A collection of leading future of work research and reports from around the web

This Tony Blair Institute report explores the breakdown of Britain’s “opportunity bargain” with young people. It finds that one in ten are economically inactive rather than unemployed, with long-term sickness, driven primarily by mental health, now the dominant reason for inactivity.

This World Economic Forum report benchmarks the current state of gender parity across 145 economies. It reveals that, while gender parity has reached its highest level to date, significant gaps persist in economic participation and political empowerment.

This Deloitte survey reveals that generative AI use is widespread but still shallow, with most workers using it for familiar tasks rather than rethinking how work gets done.

This CIPD’s latest Good Work Index highlights the strong link between job quality and organisational performance and productivity.

McKinsey’s latest survey finds that, while AI is becoming embedded across organisations and is boosting productivity for most employees, many businesses are struggling to translate this into measurable financial gains, with the share of respondents reporting enterprise-level financial impact from AI use remaining unchanged from a year ago, at 37%.

The CIPD’s Summer 2026 Labour Market Outlook report reveals that UK employer confidence remains close to record lows outside of the pandemic and has shown no signs of recovery since spring 2025.

This ProAge and Ciphr report explores how organisations are responding to a workforce where people are working for longer, careers are becoming less linear, and four or five generations are working side by side. 

The OECD’s 2026 Employment Outlook report highlights the impact of geography on employment opportunities, career progression and living standards, finding substantial regional disparities in employment, unemployment and disposable incomes across OECD countries.

Drawing on insights from 8,800 business leaders and employees across four markets, Employment Hero’s latest report finds that AI-focused businesses are hiring more, not less, with 62% of AI-core firms growing their entry-level headcount over the past two years - more than double the rate of non-adaptors.

This McKinsey report finds that in an era of rapid AI disruption, competitive advantage will increasingly come from an organisation’s ability to effectively reallocate resources, test assumptions and adapt faster than competitors.

This Accenture report tracks how quickly the world’s 3,000 largest companies are building AI readiness – the essential capabilities that organisations need to extract maximum value from AI investments, including high-quality data, a skilled workforce, and focus on growth over efficiency.

This report by the World Economic Forum and PwC explores how AI is reshaping how organisations hire, develop and advance people, revealing that more than one in three young workers are employed in occupations with medium to high exposure to AI-driven task change.

O.C. Tanner’s 2026 State of Generations at Work report reveals a powerful opportunity to transform generational differences into generational synergy that fuels innovation and long-term business success.

This government report explores how AI capabilities could develop and affect security, geopolitics, the economy and society by 2030.

PwC’s 2026 AI Jobs Barometer reveals that AI is creating a two-track labour market with markedly different outcomes for workers and organisations.

This series of reports from the Department for Work and Pensions, in collaboration with Skills England, provide evidence-based guidance, real world case studies, practical principles and tools to help employers build inclusive, safe and sustainable AI workforce capability.

McKinsey’s HR Monitor report shows that the HR function stands at a turning point: from functional excellence to system-level transformation.

This 2026 Business Barometer reveals that the majority of UK organisations continue to face skills shortages and challenges despite employers increasingly benefitting from a looser recruitment market.

The Boston Consulting Group’s fourth annual AI at Work survey reveals that AI is changing jobs faster than companies are redesigning operating models to keep up.

This report from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit reveals that the UK's net zero economy has become a structurally embedded component of the national industrial base, generating over £105 billion in Gross Value Added and supporting 1.1 million jobs across the economy.

Bain & Company’s latest CEO survey finds a widening gap between where strategy is set and how it is delivered. CEOs are confident in their vision, but fewer than half believe their organisations can adapt and execute at the speed the market now requires, citing macroeconomic uncertainty, regulatory and geopolitical volatility and technological disruption as their top threats.

This IPPR report explores how AI could be deployed to augment, degrade or displace human labour and argues that the impact on workers is not inevitable but will depend on who holds power over how the technology is introduced and used in workplaces.

Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index Annual report reveals that the most consequential change underway is not simply the adoption of new AI tools, but the emergence of a new operating model.

This Accenture report reveals how frontier AI capabilities, particularly the emergence of agentic AI, present a step-change opportunity to unlock frontline productivity and growth in the UK.

This KPMG report finds that 81% of executives say boards and owners have increased expectations for their organisations’ ability to adapt to disruption, but many leaders struggle to translate that ambition into action.

Stanford University HAI’s 2026 AI Index reports reveals that as AI continues to advance rapidly, governance frameworks, evaluation methods, education systems and the data infrastructure needed to track its impact are struggling to match the pace of the technology itself.

This report from Boston Consulting Group presents four scenarios for how the world may look in 2050 to help leaders identify early warning signs and tactical moves that will build resilience and secure advantage in the face of uncertainty.

Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report reveals that employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020 and costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity.

This Accenture report reveals that AI’s enterprise-level financial impact is backloaded, as organisations confront decades of data debt, brittle systems, undocumented processes and outdated skills.

This Accenture report explores how the use of AI has shifted from simple augmentation, where AI supports a task, to co-intelligence where AI can interpret intent, reason through options, coordinate steps and execute bounded work across functions at machine speed.

This BCG report, drawing on insights from more than 7,000 HR and business leaders, examines the biggest people management priorities for HR leaders today. It highlights that for CHROs, AI creates tremendous new opportunities – along with greater pressure to deliver results.

This WTW report reveals the APAC salary landscape enters 2026 in a state of stable yet significant transition. While median salary increases held steady at 4.9%, there is a narrowing gap between the market median and upper quartile signalling that differences across industries and companies are beginning to compress and reflecting more disciplined and converging salary increase strategies.

This Accenture report reveals the real value from AI emerges only when people and technology advance together. Based on a survey of 1,320 C-suite executives and 4,560 employees across 20 industries and 12 countries, the research identifies an elite group – just 18% of organisations – called “Talent Reinventors” that are taking a distinctively integrated approach to talent and delivering measurable value.

This white paper from the WEF, in collaboration with Accenture, examines how leading organisations are embedding AI across customer experience, operations, R&D, strategic and workforce planning.

This Anthropic report presents a new framework for understanding AI’s labour market impacts, and tests it against early data, finding limited evidence that AI has affected employment to date.

This ILO research brief reveals that the impacts of generative AI on the world of work are not gender-neutral, finding that female-dominated occupations are almost twice as likely to be exposed to Gen AI as male-dominated ones.

Deloitte’s 2026 survey reveals the two most important drivers of success for business leaders are accelerating how people and resources are orchestrated to perform work and increasing their organisation’s and workforce’s ability to adapt to change and speed.

PwC’s annual Women in Work index examines trends in female participation, employment and progression across 33 OECD countries.

The CIPD’s latest Labour Market Outlook finds that employer confidence remains subdued, with hiring intentions at historically low levels outside the pandemic.

New research by the Institute for the Future of Work’s Nuffield-funded Pissarides Review, in partnership with Digit, underscores the central importance of investing in institutional structures such as HR policies and worker voice to ensure new technologies such as AI reduce barriers to mobility and raise pay – especially for those on the lowest wages.

This Upwork report explores how AI skills are reshaping existing roles, finding a trend towards job recomposition rather than mass replacement.

Deloitte’s 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise report find that while wider workforce access, early productivity gains and growing confidence in AI are accelerating adoption, a gap remains between experimentation and true enterprise transformation. 

This report by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Accenture, presents MINDS – Meaningful, Intelligent, Novel, Deployable Solutions – alongside a series of insights to guide organisations in their journey towards building resilient strategies for the future and scaling up impactful AI adoption. 

Insights from the KPMG Q4 AI Pulse Survey reveal business leader priorities that will drive agents into the enterprise in 2026, led by continued investment in technology and critical foundations, from the workforce and cybersecurity.

Edelman’s 2026 Trust Barometer explores how economic uncertainty, unmitigated fears and pessimism are driving an insular trust mindset, finding that 70% of people globally are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who has different values, information sources, approaches to societal problems or backgrounds to them.

This report by the World Economic Forum explores how AI advancement and talent trends, and their potential trajectories until 2030, could transform the future of jobs.

This LinkedIn report reveals a labour market showing signs of growth, fuelled by the more than 1.3 million jobs globally that have emerged due to new technology and broader workforce shifts.

This World Economic Forum report analyses global risks to support decision-makers in balancing current crises and longer-term priorities. It reveals that geoeconomic confrontation has emerged as the top global risk in 2026, with economic risks showing the sharpest rises among all categories in the short-term. 

The International Labour Organisation’s 2026 Employment and Social Trends report examines the state of global labour markets, highlighting stable headline employment alongside stalled progress in job quality and widening inequalities. 

PwC’s latest Global CEO Survey reveals that chief executives are significantly less confident about the short-term growth outlook for their companies and more worried about a range of threats, including macroeconomic volatility, cyber risk and geopolitical conflict, yet are at the same time pressing ahead with multiyear strategies to reinvent their businesses.

This Time article explores the profound implications of rising life expectancy and an ageing population, arguing that the traditional three-stage life of education, work and retirement is now obsolete.

This Gartner report reveals the nine future of work trends that chief human resources officers (CHROs) will need to address in 2026 and beyond to ensure their organisation achieves its desired talent and business outcomes. It finds that CEOs are setting bold growth targets fuelled by the promise of AI, yet only one in 50 AI initiatives delivers transformative value. 

This IBM report reveals how the most advanced enterprises across the Asia-Pacific region are shifting from experimental AI pilots to AI-powered business model reinvention.

This paper by KPMG examines the emergence of new organisational roles and capabilities required to integrate AI agents as digital teammates, so that C-suite executives, CHROs and transformation leaders can effectively orchestrate human-digital collaboration. It reveals that by proactively creating and evolving new positions – ranging from AI architects and trainers to governance and ethics leaders – organisations can unlock the full value of digital teammates while enabling and empowering human talent to excel in strategic, creative and oversight functions. Success will depend on clear planning, continuous adaptation, and a commitment to responsible innovation – ensuring resilience, agility, and a sustainable competitive edge in an AI-drive future.

This World Economic Forum report explores how the powerful interplay between geopolitical shifts and rapid technological change is reshaping the global economic landscape. It presents four distinct futures for 2030 that emerge from different trajectories of geopolitical stability and technology adoption and offers a structured lens to understand how forces such as AI commercialisation, supply chain reconfiguration, regulatory fragmentation and rising volatility may influence growth, labour markets, trade and business competitiveness. The report concludes with a set of strategy considerations to help businesses prepare today for any scenario.

The World Economic Forum’s New Economy Skills series provides guidance on the skills that should be prioritised to ensure business and economies have the talent to deliver on innovation, resilience and growth priorities.

PwC’s Youth Employment Index tracks how countries employ and train young people, with this year’s focus on rising economic inactivity and the impact of widespread AI adoption in the workplace. It finds that the UK has dropped to 27th out of 38 OECD countries, reflecting a combination of rising youth unemployment - now at its highest level since 2020 - and higher levels of economic inactivity. A growing share of young people in the UK are inactive, driven by a larger pool of students and three-times as many inactive due to long-term sickness than in 2005, with mental health conditions identified as a key driver. The data does suggest that AI is unlikely to be the driving force behind the rise in youth unemployment, but early signs are emerging in AI-intensive sectors. With 1 in 8 people now classified as NEET, the report estimates reducing regional disparities in youth employment could boost GDP by around £13-26 billion. And for businesses, the challenge is shifting: it’s less about filling vacancies, and more about identifying and developing the talent needed to meet the demands of a changing workplace.

This Microsoft report explores how AI is shaping work, with the fifth annual edition focussing on “collective productivity”, namely how teams, organisations and communities can get better together.

McKinsey and LeanIn.Org’s latest Women in Workplace report reveals that only half of companies are prioritising women’s career advancement, part of a several-year trend in declining commitment to gender diversity and for the first time, there is a notable ambition gap: women are less interested in being promoted than men. It highlights that when women receive the same career support that men do, this gap in ambition to advance falls away, yet women at both ends of the pipeline are still held back by less sponsorship and manager advocacy. As AI continues to transform the workforce, the report emphasises that leaders must ensure that all employees, including women, have equal access to support, encouragement and the tools needed to thrive in a rapidly evolving environment. By addressing bias in AI systems and intentionally investing in inclusive leadership, fairness and connection, companies can unlock the full potential of their people and the technology they adopt.

This OECD report explores how countries can build the 21st-century skills needed to sustain growth and social progress.

The World Economic Forum’s New Economy Skills series provides guidance on the skills that should be prioritised to ensure business and economies have the talent to deliver on innovation, resilience and growth priorities. This first report of the series focusses on human-centric skills – the capabilities that allow individuals, organisations and societies to adapt to change and lead transformation. Once dismissed as “soft” attributes, human-centric skills – creativity, innovation and adaptability – have become a hard currency of the labour market. Employers increasingly recognise that while technology may support efficiency, human-centric skills drive innovation, collaboration and long-term productivity. Drawing on data from the education industry, workforce technology providers and expert consultations, the white paper analyses their global supply and demand, proposes a framework for assessing, developing and credentialing human skills and highlights frontier practices from around the world.

This brief by Bain & Company discusses a growing jobs mismatch that is leaving many young people without decent pay and opportunities for advancement, despite employers facing record talent shortages. It finds that degrees alone aren’t delivering - nearly half of college graduates earn less than a living wage, while skills-based learning experiences boost earnings for all. The brief draws on research and case study examples to underscore the importance of a robust, career-connected learning model that blends academic rigour with practical, real-world preparation.

This McKinsey report explores how work is shifting to a partnership between people, agents and robots – all powered by AI. While technologies could theoretically automate over half of current US work hours, it stresses this is not a forecast of job losses. Instead, roles and workflows will evolve, with an estimated 70% of today’s skills remaining applicable to both automatable and non-automatable work. With AI handling more common tasks, people will apply their skills in new contexts. The report introduces a new Skill Change Index highlighting which skills will be most and least exposed to automation in the next five years. It emphasises that the most effective leaders will engage directly with AI rather than delegating, invest in the human skills that matter most, and balance gains with responsibility, safety and trust. The outcomes for firms, workers, and communities will ultimately depend on how organisations and institutions work together to prepare people for the jobs of the future.

This report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies explores how health among those in their late 50s and early 60s has changed over time and how these trends are associated with wealth and employment. It examines the trends in health in the run-up to state pension age to understand how much of a constraint health may play in terms of increasing labour force participation. 

This report by BCG and MIT Sloan Management Review finds that agentic AI is rapidly moving into the enterprise mainstream, with 35% of companies already using it and 44% planning to adopt it. It highlights how agentic AI’s dual nature – blending qualities of tool and human – mean it does not fit traditional management frameworks, creating strategic tensions between scalability and adaptability, investment versus employment, supervision versus autonomy and process retrofitting versus process reimagining. To unlock its full value, the report suggests that organisations need to fundamentally redesign workflows, governance, roles and investment approaches. Flexibility and clear value objectives will be key.

This report by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with McKinsey, finds that 37% of businesses consider higher energy and commodity costs as barriers to competitive green business models, while more than half worry about affordability for consumers – suggesting that without economic feasibility and social alignment, climate ambition may falter. The report explores how to align climate action with positive socioeconomic outcomes and presents a framework for integrating socioeconomic factors into corporate transition plans. It identifies six archetypes of national transition pathways, reflecting diverse challenges and opportunities across economies. 

This World Economic Forum report highlights how investing in labour health and climate adaption across an organisation’s value chain can advance both business and public health outcomes. It calls for a shift in corporate strategy and risk assessment, embedding health alongside environmental and financial metrics. While momentum has been building, there is a need to progress from innovative pilots to coordinated, scaled investments, which will be possible only through joint collaborative leadership across companies, industries, governments and civil society.

PwC’s latest Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey reveals that compared to infrequent gen AI users, daily users are more likely to have seen tangible benefits to productivity, job security, and salaries. They are also more likely to be optimistic about the impacts of AI across these and every other benchmark surveyed. However, the survey also finds that while organisations are investing in upskilling efforts to contend with new and emerging technologies, such efforts are uneven and more can be done to help workers develop skills and thrive amidst a challenging economy. The research emphasises that leaders should try to co-create the future with their people and highlights six key actions that help them get started.

This report by Mercer reveals that two-thirds of executives (68%) expect business disruption from geopolitical tensions – but at companies focused on people risks and talent agility, leaders are more likely to deem their firms resilient to shocks. The data suggests that rather than viewing uncertainty as a threat to manage, leading organisations are embracing disruption as a catalyst for workforce transformation. The strategic guide outlines how organisations can thrive by empowering local decision-making, maintaining adaptable talent pipelines and redesigning work for employee wellbeing.

EY’s Work Reimagined 2025 study finds AI use is widespread (88% of employees), yet only 28% of organisations have positioned employees to achieve its transformative business impact. Despite heavy investment, most report limited ROI, reflecting an “AI productivity paradox.” The research identifies five differentiators among leaders: having the right approach to recruiting and retaining talent; driving AI adoption at scale; building continuous learning into daily operations; reshaping culture and workplace norms; and aligning rewards with new behaviours and outcomes. Crucially, technology without robust talent foundations can depress productivity by over 40%. The report underscores the need to build Talent Advantage through talent health, learning culture and strategic rewards to amplify AI adoption excellence.

The CIPD’s latest Labour Market Outlook report finds that 17% of employers report the use of AI will reduce staff numbers within their organisation over the next 12 months, with a quarter expecting the reduction to be greater than 10%. Clerical, junior managerial, professional and administrator roles were found to be the roles at greatest risk of reduction. As we transition to a more AI-driven economy, the report recommends that employers look to the type of jobs and skills they have in their workforces to help understand areas where AI is likely to lead to job displacement and consider training and redeployment opportunities for affected staff.

McKinsey’s latest Global Survey on the state of AI reveals a landscape defined by both wider use – including growing proliferation of agentic AI – and stubborn growing pains, with the transition from pilots to scaled impact remaining a work in progress at most organisations. It shows that while many companies may be capturing value in some parts of the organisation, they’re not yet realising enterprise-wide financial impact. The report proposes a path forward based on the experiences of the highest-performing companies. These organisations stand out for thinking beyond incremental efficiency gains: they treat AI as a catalyst to transform their organisations, redesigning workflows and accelerating innovation. It explores how, as AI tools improve and companies’ capabilities mature, the opportunity to embed AI more fully into the enterprise offers organisations new ways to capture value and create competitive advantage.  

This Accenture report reveals that 61% of organisations are now more likely to seek sovereign technology solutions, as geopolitical risks rise and the economic value associated with AI is becoming abundantly clear. Companies that intend to exploit emerging opportunities created by sovereign AI are moving fast and boldly. The research reveals four key imperatives that set these leaders apart: (1) Make sovereignty a CEO-led priority to align AI strategy with enterprise resilience, growth and geopolitical realities; (2) Reframe sovereignty as a source of value creation, not just risk mitigation or compliance; (3) Build hybrid ecosystems that combine local trust with global innovation and scale; and (4) Architect AI ensuring flexibility across infrastructure, data and models.

This paper by the Oxford Martin School introduces the concept of “agentic inequality” – the potential disparities in power, opportunity, and outcomes stemming from differential access to, and capabilities of, AI agents. It considers the dual potential of this technology, exploring how agents could both exacerbate existing divides and, under the right conditions, serve as a powerful equalising force.

This paper explores how AI-enabled technologies are shaping pay in the UK. Based on nationally representative employer data and a survey of 6,000 workers, it finds that lower skilled workers see the biggest pay gains from AI—particularly when they interact with AI in their roles. The research also shows that involving employees in pay decisions helps spread AI-related benefits more fairly, boosting pay for lower qualified workers. Overall, the impact on pay is positive, but the authors call for stronger workplace voice mechanisms to ensure a more equitable distribution of gains as AI use grows.

In this report, the Work Foundation examines two key reforms in the Employment Rights Bill, day one rights and minimum guaranteed hours. The findings indicate the Bill has the potential to significantly improve access to secure work in the UK but also highlight the need for strong legislative design, robust enforcement and wider sectoral reform to fully realise its benefits.

This white paper by the World Economic Forum explores how AI, robotics, energy and network technologies are reshaping seven major job sectors that comprise the world’s largest workforces: agriculture, manufacturing, construction, retail and wholesale trade, transport and logistics, business and management, and healthcare. It highlights both the opportunities for productivity and inclusion and the risks of disruption, emphasising that outcomes depend on how economies, industries and policy-makers enable technological adoption and workforce readiness. The report concludes with a call for coordinated action among employers, governments and technology developers to ensure these advances lead to higher-quality, more inclusive employment – and a future of work that benefits both people and productivity.

Cisco’s latest AI Readiness Index finds that a small group of companies surveyed, the “Pacesetters”, outperform their peers across every measure of AI value. The data shows these companies are four times more likely to have finalised their AI use cases and three time more likely to track and measure the impact of their AI investments. The report also introduces the concept AI Infrastructure Debt – the modern evolution of technical and digital debt that has held back previous transformation efforts. It highlights that while Pacesetters aren’t immune to AI Infrastructure Debt, with strong governance, financial foresight and cross-functional coordination, they have the resilience to help address it before it compounds into costlier risks. With 82% of organisations feeling the urgency to deliver a return on AI, the report outlines how these ‘Pacesetters’ are adopting a realistic approach to AI readiness resulting in gains in profitability, productivity and innovation.

This paper by the Social Market Foundation discusses the challenges in assessing the impacts of the regulation of AI. It identifies a range of different concerns that might give rise to AI regulation and sets out approaches that can inform its design as well as principles for a robust regulatory framework.

The Centre for Ageing Better’s 2025 State of Ageing report reveals millions more people are living well into their seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond, in good health and working for longer. However, it also draws attention to disparities in resources, opportunities and outcomes that exist between different geographic areas, showing enormous variation in how people across England experience later life. The research reveals that poor health and caring responsibilities – both of which have the greatest impact on people from more deprived areas – make it harder to work a full and uninterrupted career. Health problems were found to be the main reason people leave the workforce, despite nearly half a million people aged 50 to 65 who have left work due to health reasons would return if the right support were in place. The report calls on the government and others to address the lack of political focus that has resulted in a chronic underinvestment in helping people age well in order to properly value and benefit from the contributions of older people in society. 

This report by Boston Consulting Group reveals the performance gap between AI leaders and laggards is widening fast, with agentic AI emerging as a powerful force shaping future-built companies.

ADP’s 2025 People at Work report captures the views of nearly 38,000 workers across 34 markets, showing more employees around the world report feeling engaged at work, continuing a post-pandemic trend. Workers want more skills and the chance to advance, with 19% saying that lack of opportunity is the biggest obstacle to career progression and 45% citing opportunities for career advancement as their top reason to stay with their current employer. AI in the workplace — friend or foe? While 1 in 10 workers feared AI would replace their job, 17% strongly believed AI would positively impact their job in the next year. However, surveillance and stress in the workplace persist, with 32% feeling constantly watched even as stress levels hit a new low of 7%.

This report by the Tony Blair Institute examines public attitudes towards AI in the UK, finding that 38% of Britons see AI as an economic risk while 20% see it as an opportunity. The research shows a clear correlation between people’s confidence in using AI and their attitudes towards the technology: of those that are confident in their AI skills, 66% expect AI to help with parts of their job while leaving their core responsibilities intact. In contrast, only 45% of people with lower confidence in their skills view AI as a supportive tool. It also highlights how public attitudes vary across professional and demographic groups, revealing that confidence is higher among workers in tech and professional services sectors, but lower in health care and education. Women are more likely than men to view AI as a risk and prefer a more cautious approach to adopting AI. The paper concludes by identifying policy implications and recommendations to build justified trust in AI and accelerate adoption of technologies that improve social outcomes.

Thomson Reuters’ latest Future of Professionals report reveals insights on the people-related barriers and skill gaps that must be addressed to allow professional service organisations to unlock sustainable innovation and competitive advantage. The research highlights a new divide among organisations, with those that have visible AI strategies being twice as likely to experience revenue growth as a direct or indirect result of AI adoption compared to those with more informal or ad-hoc adoption approaches. The report emphasises that by creating a strategy to drive AI adoption and redeploy productivity gains, organisations will achieve sustained innovation, operational excellence, and revenue growth while empowering professionals to stay productive and relevant. It provides several recommended actions for organisations that wish to future-proof their AI-enabled operations.  

This Accenture report finds that while sustainability was once primarily a brand and reputational concern, CEOs now recognise it is critical to integrate sustainability into core strategy and operations for resilience and growth. The research finds that 85% of respondents believe that the business case for sustainability is stronger today than five years ago and 97% remain committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This shift in executive mindset is happening as CEOs face geopolitical shifts, economic and profitability pressures and regulatory and reporting complexities. The report outlines five key actions CEOs can take to drive momentum, build trust and align public and private sectors for systemic impact which reflect a pragmatic approach to embedding sustainability into business strategy and operations.

This report by the O.C. Tanner Institute examines the main stressors fuelling workplace disengagement and combines employee sentiment with actionable insights to arm organisations with strategies to reconnect employees and build high-performance teams. Based on data gathered from more than 38,000 employees, leaders, HR practitioners and executives across 23 countries, the report highlights several key trends: employees are lacking inspiration, they demand transparency at all levels, and high-performing cultures can only exist sustainably with equally high support. It breaks down how organisations can spark inspiration among teams, harness hope to empower employees, and foster inclusivity and transparency to build high-performing cultures where employees thrive.

This report by the CIPD, in partnership with Simplyhealth, reveals a record rise in sickness absence, with UK employees averaging 9.4 days per year – the highest in more than 15 years. Mental ill health remains the leading cause of both short- and long-term absence. Encouragingly, more employers are developing standalone wellbeing strategies and there is a growing recognition that investment delivers measurable returns, including improved health and wellbeing (54%), increased employee engagement and reduced sickness absence (both at 39%), and enhanced performance (38%). The report emphasises that HR is uniquely positioned to champion a preventative approach to health and remove barriers to healthcare access and sets out key recommendations to help employers develop and maintain supportive, productive workplaces.

Randstad’s latest report considers the strategic shift employers need to make to attract and retain Gen Z talent. The research shows that despite rising talent scarcity, there is a steady decline in entry-level roles across sectors, with young workers facing higher competition, technological change and uncertain growth paths. To guide both employers and young professionals, the report distils its findings into four key phases to redefine career paths for Gen Z talent.

This white paper by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group, explores how advances in industrial robotics are redefining automation and unlocking new opportunities for resilience and growth. It makes clear that scaling intelligent robotics demands more than just cutting-edge technology; it requires a future-ready automation strategy that incorporates both technical and organisational foundations. This includes workforce transformation through reskilling and upskilling to enable human-machine collaboration and preparing workers for emerging roles such as robot supervisors, AI trainers and system optimisers. 

This World Economic Forum report reveals that 42% of CPOs forecast no change in current uncertain labour market conditions over the next year, reflecting short-term caution amid long-term transformation opportunities. It highlights how human-centred AI integration, agile talent strategies and empowered leadership can help organisations navigate disruption, improve talent pipelines and position the people function at the forefront of global workforce transformation.

This KPMG paper highlights that, as companies grapple with the practical implications of AI’s rapid advance – regulatory, strategic, operational, reputational and organisational – the geopolitical forces shaping its evolution provide an important backdrop for boardroom conversations. It emphasises that corporate leaders must not only understand and plan for the potential impact of AI on their businesses, but also the broader evolution of the policy landscape and geopolitical landscape of AI.

This report by IBM reveals that while many executives are in the early stages of using AI for workforce planning and analysis, a significant shift is coming – by 2027, most HR professionals will be augmenting their employees with advanced AI tools, with some even experimenting with fully autonomous automation. The research shows that HR leaders are prioritising touchless automation in key areas like recruitment, talent acquisition, and employee self-service with the goal of streamlining operations, boosting efficiency and creating better employee experience. It concludes with five key recommendations for how CHROs can quickly embrace these opportunities and achieve the expected surges in agentic AI productivity, workflow efficiencies and personalised communications.

The CIPD's latest Labour Market Outlook report reveals that employer confidence and hiring intentions remain at record lows outside the pandemic. National Insurance changes and higher minimum wage thresholds are driving up employment costs - particularly for lower-paying sectors and those hiring young people and part-time staff, despite exemptions for under-21s. It also highlights the impact of immigration rule changes on mid- and lower-skilled roles, and urges employers to invest in youth employment, review workforce plans, and strengthen inclusive recruitment strategies to navigate ongoing challenges.

This paper by KPMG suggests that, as employees embrace generative AI to boost productivity and bypass outdated systems, unsanctioned or unauthorised use is increasingly becoming the norm, with 44% of employees reporting they use AI in ways that violate company policies. While this introduces real risks, it also reflects a workforce that is eager to innovate. The paper explores how organisations can move beyond reactive controls and adopt a proactive strategy that reduces risk, builds trust and transforms “shadow AI” into a powerful engine for innovation and growth.

This BCG article explores how the rapid advancement of AI is creating a unique opportunity to reimagine work and elevate the employee experience. At the same time, these technologies require radical employee centricity – (re)designing so that employees are supported, motivated, and empowered to do work they enjoy – to drive workforce adoption and new ways of working.  

This report by Microsoft explores how generative AI is being used in the workplace, finding that the most common work activities people seek AI assistance for involve gathering information and writing. The analysis shows that knowledge-based roles, office support, and sales jobs are most likely to benefit from AI. The report also examines which tasks AI performs most successfully, how its impact varies by wage and education level, and how actual workplace use compares to earlier predictions about AI’s effect on different occupations.

This Cisco report, based on a global survey of employers and employees from a range of industries across 21 markets, reveals a clear, global trend toward increased in-office work, with the percentage of respondents with hybrid work arrangements decreasing from 62% in 2022 to 45% in 2025. As the pendulum swings toward more time in the office, leaders also face critical challenges with communicating changes and the need to manage and balance the various expectation gaps that exist. The findings show that hybrid work arrangements continue to remain an effective tool in the war for talent acquisition and retention and that leaders need to more actively involve employees in decision-making processes regarding any changes as well as justifying the business case. The report also emphasises that hybrid work arrangements are now a cornerstone of the modern workplace, with both employers and employees recognising collaboration technology as crucial for enabling engagement and flexibility. As a result, investments in this area are increasing although a significant opportunity remains to improve employee experience.

This report by Mitie takes a deep dive into the role of the workplace in making organisations more productivity and profitable. It finds that over half of non-remote workers say the workplace is a cause of unproductive time and this costs employers an estimated £485.2m in lost employee hours every week, and potentially £71.4b in unrealised GDP each year. The report reveals the secrets to high performing workplaces and encourages leaders can take decisive action to transform the workplace into a driver of performance, retention and growth.

This CIPD report explores the current state of flexible and hybrid working practices in the UK more than a year on from the implementation of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023. Amid global uncertainties, economic headwinds and a raft of employment law changes that employers must grapple with, the report examines both employer and employee perspectives to see how trends in flexible and hybrid working are shaping and impacting performance, employee engagement and wellbeing among other important organisational outcomes.

This report from the Institute for the Future of Work tracks trends in access to good work across local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales, analysing six dimensions of good work: employment, economic activity, the share of professional jobs, deroutinisation of occupations, satisfactory working hours, and pay. It reveals that the nature and extent of regional disparities in access to Good Work have widened, in spite of an overall improvement in scores over the decade.