The HR and work trends that will matter in 2026

Hi. So, we're recording this at the end of uh 2025 and so it feels like the right time to think about what's going to be happening for HR people next year

in 2026. And to do this, I am delighted

in 2026. And to do this, I am delighted to be joined by my co-founder at Disruptive HR, Karen Moran. Hi, Karen.

Hi Lucy.

>> And I think your cat, Buster, might be making an appearance at some point.

>> Staring at me. [laughter]

>> Well, it's that time of year. We're We

can't chuck them out, can we? We can't

chuck our pets out. Um, so let's get into it. You know, when we're talking to

into it. You know, when we're talking to HR teams at the moment, Karen, there seems to be a bit of a Well, no, not a bit of a a quite a strong sense of

unease. It's not panic. Exactly. It's

unease. It's not panic. Exactly. It's

more that feeling of, you know, we know things have shifted, but the way we're still expected to do HR hasn't quite caught up. you know, careers feel

caught up. you know, careers feel different, performance feels harder, leaders are stretched, AI is everywhere,

and and HR's kind of right in the middle >> trying to make sense of it all with systems and practices that were probably designed for a much more stable world.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and I don't want to kick off with a negative, but what do you think the biggest risk to HR is at the moment? I

think it's um yeah, again, we don't want to be sort of too doom and gloom about it, but I think that it isn't that HR people don't know it's

all changing. They can see it, but I

all changing. They can see it, but I think we're still kind of trying to solve all of these new problems with the old ways of doing things, you know, and

I think we need that real shift now.

>> Yeah. those kind of old tools, old processes, old practices, and >> you know, you and I have have kind of worried for years that they never really delivered, but they certainly don't seem

to be delivering now, do they? So,

>> this episode is all about four trends that we think [clears throat] >> HR really can't ignore as we head into

2026. And these are not big shiny

2026. And these are not big shiny predictions, are they? they're they're

more kind of patterns that we're seeing everywhere um backed up by data but also some real innovative organizational practice that we're seeing.

>> Um and so let's kind of kick off with the first trend which is >> about work and careers fitting real lives.

>> Um you know one of the phrases we've heard a lot for example in 2025 is job hugging. You know like job job hugging

hugging. You know like job job hugging always gets uh talked about as if it's a motivational problem as if people have suddenly become disengaged. You know it

was used to be called quiet quitting and it's now got a new set of buzzwords job hugging.

>> But when you look properly that's not what's going on is it?

>> No I I think the the job hugging and why it's slightly different to the quiet quitting is that it is about risk. I

think people are staying put, not necessarily because they're sort of loving their jobs, but they [clears throat] just feel leaving is

just too risky. You know, we've got >> higher living costs everywhere, housing feeling out of reach to a lot of our young people. The job market feels very

young people. The job market feels very unpredictable. And I think we've seen a

unpredictable. And I think we've seen a lot of organizations who have struggled in the last few years. and they keep talking about, you know, loyalty and family and values and then they kind of

obviously have no choice but to make big redundancies overnight. So, I think

redundancies overnight. So, I think staying put for a lot of people is, you know, well, I would move, but it just feels a bit safer to stay. That

security.

>> Yeah. And I and I think it's it's it's bigger than just the I'm going to go I'm not going to go and get another job. It's also a lot of people could push for the next role

within their existing company, the bigger job, the promotion, >> but they're choosing not to because I think, you know, we recognize that that step up often comes with longer hours,

possibly less flexibility, and definitely more stress. And for many people, that tradeoff doesn't feel worth it anymore, doesn't it? And it's not

about being lazy. It's that people kind of want more of a life. Yeah, per

perhaps we always wanted it, but we were too scared to ask. [laughter]

>> Yeah.

>> And I think that's where the flexibility now really matters. And we've got to stop thinking about flexibility being a perk. You know, it's that that if we

perk. You know, it's that that if we think about the return to office mandates we've seen with our clients over the last year. And I think that really does signal a kind of a moment

because not that people hate going to offices, some people do, but it's that blanket rule that we don't trust you when we had so much trust during the

pandemic. And I think people are kind of

pandemic. And I think people are kind of revoling against that.

>> Yeah, I think they are. And and for you know, the HR people we speak to, they're kind of quite desparing, aren't they?

>> Yeah. you know, they're they're saying, you know, my CEO just doesn't get it. He

or she, usually a he >> is, you know, is absolutely adamant that everyone's got to come back into the office. And um and it's, you know,

office. And um and it's, you know, partly trust, partly ego, you know, they don't like to not be able to see everybody. and um and that kind of you

everybody. and um and that kind of you know Zoom is a very more democratic medium isn't it than someone having the corner office and I do really sense that

despair from HR where they recognize this tension between a CEO that's saying you know everybody's got to be back in the office and recognizing that people

are really wanting that flexibility and and we're also >> seeing that those kind of different choices that people want to make around their life and their work in in this

rise of the the side hustle. Another bit

of jargon. Um for those of you that aren't familiar with side hustles, this is where uh people uh have got a project or maybe a little business on the side

or maybe it's that they're doing a charity role or but that sense of I've got something else. Yeah.

>> Other than the job that I do used to be, you know, 8:30 to 5:30 or whenever it was. So, it's that people aren't just

was. So, it's that people aren't just staying in their jobs, but they're quietly building something alongside them. And this isn't because they've

them. And this isn't because they've checked out, but because it kind of feels sensible not to put all of their security, income, and even their

identity into one role.

>> Yeah. And and I think we see a lot of organizations kind of really reacting badly. You know, it's almost like they

badly. You know, it's almost like they see it as, you know, a loyalty issue.

Yeah. Um, but you know, I think work doesn't feel as secure as it once did. I

think people have more passions than perhaps they did in terms of hobbies or being able to make money from hobbies that maybe they didn't weren't able to do once. And I like [clears throat]

do once. And I like [clears throat] there's um um Shopify have taken a much more grownup view. So, they're kind of saying, "Yep, you can have your side projects as long as there's no conflict

of interest and the day job still gets done, then we're going to support you."

And they saw also saw it in another way of you know if people if our people are you know passionate about something they're learning they're experimenting that's not actually a threat that's a

capability for us that we can benefit from.

>> Yeah. And back to where we started with sort of seeing you know these old tools to engage people in the workplace.

actually what about embracing what is their passion and saying how can we channel some of this back into the organization. I think Warner Music did

organization. I think Warner Music did this as well, didn't they? they saw a lot of uh people that were leaving maybe to set up their own label or doing DJing

and because they couldn't they felt they couldn't accommodate it within their day job at Warner Music and then Warner Music said actually this is crazy why

don't we allow for greater flexibility retain these great people but also the fact that they're out there finding new music they're engaged in the music industry in ways that perhaps we

couldn't be as a corporate This is a huge benefit to us.

>> Um, and I think sometimes we kind of blame Gen Z, don't we, for for a lot of the they get blamed for everything.

>> A lazy lot.

>> Yeah.

>> Lot.

>> Oh, we've heard so much of this and and clearly whilst there are some challenges, uh, there are different expectations. you know, we're also

expectations. you know, we're also seeing issues around increased mental health um amongst younger people that, you know, we struggle sometimes as you

know, our generation to to get. Um, but

I did a um a kind of LinkedIn little poll recently and it got so many responses and I was just genuinely wanting to understand do we do we think

Gen Z is a is a problem uh for our generation you know the people who are perhaps in managerial senior roles and I was really fascinated because what came

back was that yes there are some challenges but they're not this huge problem that we actually make out um you

know that every generation gets accused of being entitled. What's different is the context, economic uncertainty,

constant change and seeing, you know, loyalty is not always rewarded. You

know, you talked about, oh, we're your family and then you get get rid of people overnight. Well, families don't

people overnight. Well, families don't do that when things get tough, do they?

We might want to get rid of the odd family member when things get tough, but that's not how it work. That's not how it that's not how it works. So, I think

this the kind of Gen Z expectations kind of make sense in that new economic context, the the context of uncertainty

and seeing perhaps the loyalty of their parents not being rewarded and then thinking, well, shouldn't it be two-way?

>> Yeah. Well, and we're all going to have to work a lot longer. So, this is a big deal, isn't it?

>> And I think the the I think the organizations that are responding in a better way are kind of giving sort of listening to those people and saying, "Right, how can we make things better

for you?" You know, not necessarily it's

for you?" You know, not necessarily it's always going to be up the promotion ladder. So, we've got organizations like

ladder. So, we've got organizations like Unilver. They've got their internal AI

Unilver. They've got their internal AI talent marketplace. So people can go on

talent marketplace. So people can go on short-term gigs or projects or do little sideways moves um rather than forcing that promotion. And HSBC have kind of

that promotion. And HSBC have kind of really shifted to instead of that linear career path, it's about career experiences. So progression for them is

experiences. So progression for them is framed around, you know, getting AI skills or exposure and it's not all about job titles, which obviously some

people might feel means that they get more work out of people without having to give them more money, but you know, we, you know, it's still of benefit if you want it.

>> Yeah. And I think HR's role here isn't to ensure that everyone gets the promise of a big long career. It's about

honesty. It's about designing careers that reflect real lives, giving people options. You know, some people want to

options. You know, some people want to grow fast, some people want stability, some people want greater flexibility.

All of them are valid and ensuring that our career development options um can cater for all of those.

>> Yeah.

>> Um okay, let's have a look at a second trend now. Um, and it's about teams and

trend now. Um, and it's about teams and and this one kind of feels obvious, but I think we agree, don't we, that we still often get it wrong um, in

organizations and HR. You know, we know that most work gets done in teams and yet many organizations still obsess over individual performance, you know,

individual ratings, individual objectives.

And that mismatch causes a lot of the frustration we see. You know, the evidence is really clear. Gallup's

research, for example, shows that team engagement is one of the strongest predictors of performance. And there was some research by Atlassian that shows

that even very capable people struggle in unhealthy teams. And yet there we are still asking leaders to judge individuals once a year instead of

fixing how the team actually works.

>> Yeah, I think it's it's fascinating, isn't it? And I think that maybe one of

isn't it? And I think that maybe one of the mistakes that we've made is that we've not actually been as clear as we could have been about what is it that we expect leaders to do, the leaders role

in a team. Um, and so we're seeing organizations now kind of realizing this. So we've got Microsoft, you know,

this. So we've got Microsoft, you know, they've moved away from the kind of individual performance rating. For them,

it's all about team team goals, team learning, team contribution. And the

role of the leader is to is to create that kind of the clarity about where we're going, what we need to deliver, how do we remove all the barriers that are getting in the way, not that kind of

ranking of individuals.

and um it's I think it's ING they've kind of organized more around kind of agile squads so they have like shared accountability for their um outcomes and

the performance conversations focus on what's working in the team and what's not just you know you know how an individual looks on paper.

>> Yeah. And we know that you know even great leaders can't control performance.

What they can do is to create the conditions for great performance. And of

course that means being clear on team priorities about what matters most right now about tradeoffs and what good looks like for the team.

>> Yeah. And probably tackling poor performance in that as well. There's

nothing that will drag a team down more >> than poor performance being ignored. And

we've seen this kind of move towards things like health checks. So again,

it's less about HR kind of designing things from the center, but more about giving managers tools that they can use themselves. So at Lassian, as an

themselves. So at Lassian, as an example, use these kind of team health checks where the team regularly sort of pause and say, "How are we doing? What's

getting in the way? What's one or two things that we could do differently next week to improve?" And it's much more around less about measurement, more around what are we actually going to do

differently? Um and I think our again

differently? Um and I think our again our role in HR is to give useful data to leaders. You know we don't really do

leaders. You know we don't really do that enough. You know it could be pulse

that enough. You know it could be pulse feedback that comes from their team that's ideally owned by the leaders.

It's it's simple ways to understand like personas about how different people work best in a team. And um I've seen that Vodafone are a great example here.

They're using AI to help managers with um flagging things like where a team's particularly overloaded or where work's getting stuck so that managers can

quickly kind of step in and and sort it out. So, um I think they're they're the

out. So, um I think they're they're the sorts of things that get teams working better.

>> Yeah. And it's a very different role for HR, isn't it? you know, instead of managing the performance management process and ensuring that every individual's got an objective or a set of objectives and then they've got a

rating and the paperwork's been done, >> it's about creating tools and insight for leaders to really understand how they can get the best from their team.

Um, and that's quite a different role for us, isn't it?

>> It is. Yeah. Scary, but we can do it.

>> Yeah. and and and you mentioned AI and of course you know we it's more now you have to mention AI if you're doing a podcast about trends for HR and but I

think we want to kind of take a little bit of a a different look at it because obviously we know AI is here it's been here for a while and you know the real shift perhaps isn't the technology

itself it's the pace of it and AI is changing how work gets done faster than most HR systems can adapt. So, you know, we're moving from jobs to work. We're

moving from fixed role to fluid tasks and skills. And Josh Buren argues that,

and skills. And Josh Buren argues that, you know, organizations need to stop designing around jobs and start designing around work tasks and skills

because AI is reshaping parts of role faster than the job structures can keep up. Yeah.

up. Yeah.

>> Um, McKenzie's also done some great research here and it shows that it's not whole jobs that are disappearing, but large chunks of work within roles are

changing, which kind of puts huge pressure on how organizations and HR plan, reskill, and deploy people.

>> Yeah. I mean, I don't think we've ever been any good at workforce planning anyway. Even when things were stable, we

anyway. Even when things were stable, we still struggled with it because it's almost impossible, isn't it? But I think that's where the traditional approaches just start to crack in terms of

workforce planning. And so we can see

workforce planning. And so we can see organizations like IBM, they break work down now into tasks and skills and then AI is used to decide right what should

be automated, where do we need to reskill, where do we need to move that person to a different role.

[clears throat] And I think the risk for us in HR isn't is if we're not in the room when those decisions are made.

>> Oh, I totally agree with that. You know,

I think if we see AI as a kind of an IT roll out, then it becomes someone else's agenda, doesn't it? It becomes the tech team that are managing it and you know,

and it becomes treat treated then as a as an efficiency and it becomes more about cost cutting. But when AI is um

seen as a work design issue by us in HR, then we become central to that conversation.

>> Absolutely. And I think our kind of you know our understanding of how human beings behave, feel motivated. That's

where we start to add the value working with leaders to say what is the work that really matters? What is the work that humans could stop doing? But where

does it matter that we have people with good judgment, with creativity, with, you know, emotional intelligence?

Where's that going to add value? You

know, and I think they're not the technology questions. They're the kind

technology questions. They're the kind of the people questions.

>> Yeah. And uh and we're al already seeing some organizations and HR teams, you know, approach these in very very different ways, aren't we?

>> Yeah. And I think we've got like um Accenture um AI has helped them decide what should be automated, where should we be reskilling and workforce planning

becomes about workflow, not necessarily job titles. And back to the Vodafone

job titles. And back to the Vodafone example, they're sort of the HR team are supporting managers with little prompts and insights. So it's not about it's to

and insights. So it's not about it's to give them better judgment rather than kind of controlling things.

>> Yeah. So I think what we're kind of trying to say here is that if we don't step into this space, if we in HR don't step into this space, decisions about

work and people will still get made.

>> They just won't be made by the people experts, right? Um

experts, right? Um so final trend then is about um kind of pulling all of this together. I suppose

you know HR shifting from managing people to designing better work. Um you

know for years our role's been about managing people through systems, policies, frameworks, annual cycles all built for stability and certainty and

trying to provide guarantees. But that

world's just gone, right? You know work is now fast. It's messy. It's constantly

changing. Teams reform, roles shift, AI removes chunks of work, and often the biggest barrier to performance isn't people, it's how the work is designed.

[clears throat] >> So, designing better work means us in HR stopping sort of asking the question,

how do we manage people and starting to ask about what how the work is being set up and what's getting in the way. Yeah,

it's just it it's so common sense, but we seem to really struggle with it, don't we? But um if we think about

don't we? But um if we think about organizations like HubSpot, you know, we always talk about their kind of three-word uh policy of use good judgment, you know, that's the idea.

They design for trust first, not compliance. And um at Netflix the same

compliance. And um at Netflix the same fewer rules more context clearer expectations that kind of respon personal responsibility but your trust

as an adult to kind of get things done to act challenge. Um I think that's those sorts of organizations that we know are doing very well. Um they've

kind of they've they've just got the secret. That's what they're doing.

secret. That's what they're doing.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And I think what they've all got in common, these organizations, is that they didn't start by changing HR processes. They started by redesigning

processes. They started by redesigning how the work actually gets done. And so

I think, you know, say it's a simple question. It's obviously a complex

question. It's obviously a complex question, but I think the big question for us in HR going into 2026 is are we spending our time trying to manage

people or designing work that works? And

that's quite a a fundamental question I think that that HR professionals need to well hopefully want to get their heads around and want to be at central to

because as you say otherwise it's going to happen elsewhere. Um so if we had to sum up the four trends uh be about work

and careers no longer fitting neatly into people's lives and so people are starting to be more pragmatic. It's not

that they're being disloyal. They are

staying put. They're protecting their flexibility and they're building meaning elsewhere when organizations don't offer that movement or that trust. Um, second

trend is that great work doesn't happen because of brilliant individuals. It

happens in well-led teams. So performance improves when leaders create clarity and trust and the right conditions not when HR asks them to rate

people once a year.

>> Yeah. And trend three, AI is of course already reshaping work. And I think the real risk for us in in the in the department in HR is that if work gets

redesigned quietly and we keep hiring, developing and managing people against jobs that actually either don't exist now or will no longer exist in the

future. And then our final trend is our

future. And then our final trend is our role in HR shifting in a great place.

less managing people through process, more designing work that actually works for real human beings and the business demands.

>> So, first of all, we want to wish you a very very happy 2026.

Uh it's set to be a challenging but hopefully really exciting one. Um and

also we're going to be taking a bit of a break from our podcasts. Um life has become incredibly busy and uh we just need to take a little bit of a break

from it, but you can still continue to get uh lots of stuff from disruptive HR.

If you like our thinking and you like what we do, if you go to our website disruptivehr.com, then you can go to the insights and you can get plenty of of materials there.

But if you're interested in diving into this topic in a lot more detail and indeed all of the other topics that we've talked about over over the last few years and the ones that we're going

to be talking about in the future, then you can join the disruptive HR club where you get huge amounts of learning

and resources and tools and you can join us on that for just £49 a month and you can cancel at any time. Details of how to join the club are in the show notes.

So, I think that's it. So, just happy new year everybody and here's to a great one.

>> Bye.

>> Hi. I hope you found this useful. If

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