Making AI Matter in HR: Why the Gap Between Hype and Reality Is Still Enormous

Every HR and Talent Acquisition conference right now seems to give roughly the same messaging – AI is transforming recruiting. AI is revolutionising HR. AI is everywhere, doing everything, and the organisations that haven’t fully embraced it are already falling behind.

I recently interviewed my friend, co-author, and podcast host Matt Alder, on the HR Means Business podcast as he has been speaking to practitioners, vendors and thought leaders about the future of talent for over a decade. His honest assessment of where we actually are is rather different from the narrative being sold.

“It’s a very mixed picture,” he told me “There are certain sectors where it’s full speed ahead – principally front-line volume hiring – but the rest of the talent space is still largely at the pilot and experimentation stage. The bulk of organisations haven’t moved beyond the most simple use cases”

Interview scheduling. Rewriting job descriptions with an LLM. Things that, as Matt points out, aren’t really AI at all in any meaningful sense.

The Jagged Frontier Problem

Matt borrowed a phrase from Professor Ethan Mollick to describe where AI actually is right now: a jagged frontier. Remarkable at some things. Surprisingly poor at others. And often dangerously confident about the things it gets wrong.

The organisations making real progress, he argues, share a common starting point – they began with the problem, and not the technology. They find out what was broken in their process first – and then worked out how AI could help fix it.

The companies that simply plugged AI tools into existing processes found that speeding up something that wasn’t working just made it worse faster.

This distinction matters enormously. And it leads directly to Matt’s framework for what AI readiness in talent acquisition actually requires: five things that need to work together rather than in isolation.

Process architecture – genuinely rethinking how recruiting works, not just automating the current version.

Decision design – being explicit about where human judgment sits in the process and why.

Team capability – understanding what skills recruiters actually need in an AI-enabled world, which involves more bottom-of-funnel relationship work and less top-of-funnel screening.

Data and measurement – moving beyond the metrics that were easy to capture to the ones that actually matter to the business.

Governance and trust – both the regulatory dimension and the equally important question of whether candidates trust the process they’re going through.

“People talk about governance all the time,” Matt observed. “Data and measurement get discussed occasionally. Capability, decision design and process architecture – hardly at all.”

The Candidate Side Nobody is Talking About

For Matt, the most underreported story in recruiting right now isn’t what employers are doing with AI – it’s what candidates are doing.

Application volumes are surging. Resumes are being auto-generated and customised at scale. And while the industry conversation frames this almost entirely in terms of cheating or gaming the system, Matt sees it differently.

“Candidates are just using the tools available to them. The CV is the wrong format for the age we’re living in – and candidate AI is exposing that.”

The real innovation in talent acquisition, he believes, is going to be driven from the candidate side, not the employer side. Candidates move faster. They adopt tools faster. And the organisations responding intelligently – moving skills assessment earlier in the process, designing experiences that are genuinely agent-resistant – are the ones that will pull ahead.

The Ownership Vacuum

Focus on this picture for a moment. Most organisations have no clear owner for AI strategy. In some it sits with technology. In others, legal or compliance. In many, nobody owns it at all – it’s just noise. In very few organisations does HR or Talent Acquisition take the lead.

The consequences of that vacuum are significant. Employees are using AI for work without telling their employers – and the regulatory and bias risks that creates are substantial. Simply banning AI use, as some organisations have tried, doesn’t work. People use it anyway, just less transparently.

“The risks of doing nothing, or of banning it, are enormous,” Matt says. “Neither of those things reflects the reality of what’s actually happening.”

What Good Leadership Looks Like Here

It comes down to two things. A clear vision – not just for the technology, but for what you actually want TA or HR to achieve, and how AI fits into that journey.

And psychological safety – creating an environment where people can talk honestly about how they’re using these tools, where pilots are allowed to fail without blame, and where the organisation learns collectively rather than hiding its experiments.

The technology is moving faster than any previous wave of change. But the fundamentals haven’t changed at all.

  • Start with the problem
  • Design the process
  • Build the capability
  • Be honest about where you are

The organisations that do those four things will look very different in 18 months time from the ones still debating whether AI is ready for them.

AI IS ready for them. The question is whether they’re ready for AI?

Check out the full podcast conversation here – https://www.hrhappyhour.net/episodes/making-ai-matter-leadership-culture-and-the-future-of-hiring/ or through the image below

AI Adoption Is Not the Goal. Better Work Is.

We know that there is no shortage of big claims about AI.

Economic growth. Productivity gains. Transformed industries. Smarter services. New opportunities. Fewer inefficiencies.

The final panel session I attended at the Institute for the Future of Work‘s conference on Making the Future Work bought many of these themes together. The headline figures were certainly eye-catching: AI could add as much as £40 billion to UK GDP by 2030, and around three quarters of companies surveyed say they are already seeing productivity improvements from adoption.

That sounds impressive. And it is.

But the conversation was not just about the scale of the opportunity – it was the repeated reminder that AI adoption is not the same thing as successful transformation.

And that distinction matters. Because right now, much of the AI story is still concentrated in relatively narrow areas. Marketing and administration are among the most common functions where AI is being used, which tells us two things. First, adoption is happening. Second, it is still patchy. The benefits are not yet flowing evenly across sectors, workplaces, or regions.

This is important because when people talk about AI as a national productivity solution, it is easy to assume that adoption will somehow spread naturally and that value will automatically follow. In reality, the barriers are much more familiar: regulation, access to data, access to finance, organisational inertia, and the simple difficulty of changing how work gets done.

In other words, the challenge is not just technological. It is operational, structural, and human.

That came through clearly in some of the examples shared. One of the most interesting was healthcare. AI tools are being used in the NHS to support diagnostics, including lung cancer detection, while ambient voice technologies are helping reduce admin by capturing clinical notes in the background. Yet the point made was not that AI is replacing clinicians. In fact, in some cases it is increasing demand for skilled professionals, because better detection and faster insight generate more need for expert interpretation and treatment.

That is a useful corrective to some of the loud narratives around job displacement.

The message here was not that AI is removing work wholesale, but that it is reshaping work. It changes the mix of tasks, the pace of workflows, and the kinds of expertise that become more valuable. It can take friction out of the system, but it can also expose where systems, processes, or skills are not ready.

Which brings us to workforce transformation.

The UK’s ambition to up-skill 10 million workers by 2030 through the AI Skills Boost programme is a significant one, and the fact that more than 1 million courses have already been delivered shows that this is moving beyond just rhetoric. But the conversations also made clear that skills cannot be treated as a side issue. If AI changes work, then skills policy, workforce planning, and management capability have to move with it.

And that means thinking about inclusion as well as scale.

The Women in Tech Task Force was highlighted as an important example of this. If AI is going to shape the future economy, then the people designing, deploying, and governing it need to reflect society more broadly. Otherwise, we risk reproducing old inequalities inside new systems.

The same is true geographically. AI adoption could easily become another force that strengthens existing regional divides if investment, infrastructure, and innovation remain concentrated in the same places. That is why local examples matter.

They show that AI can be embedded in communities in ways that are practical, grounded, and relevant to local needs, rather than being treated as something that only happens in major tech hubs or policy circles. Which is a real takeaway.

The success of AI should not be measured only by how widely it is adopted, or how many tools are introduced, or even how much productivity improves in a narrow sense. It should also be measured by whether it helps people do better work, whether it opens up opportunity more broadly, and whether the gains are being shared fairly.

The clear message was that AI adoption is not the goal. Better work is.

And if we keep that in mind, then workforce transformation becomes about much more than technology. It becomes about designing systems, skills, leadership, and local ecosystems that allow AI to improve working lives rather than simply accelerate them.

Why Intergenerational Conversations at Work Matter More Than Ever

We are now managing five generations in the same workplace simultaneously. People are working longer. Change is moving faster. And the gap between how different generations experience that change is wider than most organisations are willing to admit.

I recently spoke with Danielle Farage – content creator, public speaker, my co-host on From X to Z, and one of the most thoughtful voices on Gen Z and generational dynamics at work – on the HR Means Business podcast. And what struck me most wasn’t the differences we unpacked. It was how often the real issue turned out to be something else entirely: not values, not work ethic, not even expectations. It was interpretation.

The tensions that Danielle sees in organisations today isn’t explosive conflict. It’s quiet friction. Misread signals. Assumptions that harden into conclusions before anyone has asked a single question. The thumbs-up emoji – passive aggressive to one generation, entirely neutral to another – sounds trivial. But it’s a perfect miniature of what’s happening at scale.

We talked about job mobility, and the narrative that Gen Z are disloyal job-hoppers. The data tells a more complicated story. This pattern accelerated with millennials in the 2010s, driven not by restlessness but by rational calculation: better pay, new skills, different leadership – all available faster by moving than by staying. Today, with skills-first hiring becoming the norm and AI reshaping what expertise means, broad experience makes more career sense than deep loyalty to a single employer. The incentive structures that once rewarded staying with an employer have largely disappeared. Blaming the generation for responding rationally to a changed environment isn’t a diagnosis. It’s a deflection.

What’s more interesting – and more useful – is what different generations actually want when you look past the surface. Dig into the values of Boomers and Gen Z, and the overlap is striking. Respect. Investment in development. Meaningful work. A sense of mattering. These aren’t generational preferences. They’re human ones. The difference is in how they’re expressed, and how they’re interpreted when the expression doesn’t match expectations.

Danielle frames the shift that unlocks better intergenerational dynamics as moving from assumption to curiosity. Instead of “why are they like this?” the better question is “what context is driving this behaviour?” That reframe – small as it may sound to HR leaders – reduces defensiveness, increases alignment, and opens up conversations that actually go somewhere. Her practical framework is built around three questions:

Have you connected?

Have you clarified?

Have you tried to co-create solutions?

Three C’s that apply regardless of industry, size, or sector.

The leadership thread running through all of this matters. The generational challenge in most organisations isn’t really a generational challenge. It’s a leadership capability challenge. The best leaders Danielle has encountered don’t manage generations differently – they explain the why, they make space for questions, and they treat the “why are we doing it this way?” from a junior employee as a prompt for reflection rather than a challenge to authority. That wasn’t always comfortable for organisations built on hierarchy and deference. It’s now table stakes.

And then there’s AI, which is accelerating everything. Entry-level roles are being cut. Scope is expanding for those who remain. Trust is eroding under waves of RTO mandates and technology being implemented without explanation. But inside that challenge is also an opportunity. Digital fluency and fresh-eye thinking from younger workers, combined with the strategic judgment and contextual experience of older ones, is a genuinely powerful combination – provided organisations create conditions for it.

Danielle said something that stayed with me – what if we took the time AI is saving us and invested some of it back into intergenerational conversation? Into the meetings where a Boomer and a Gen Z-er sit in a room together, talk about a real problem, and find they actually need each other?

The future of work won’t be built by one generation winning. It will be built by generations understanding each other well enough to build something better together.

That’s not a soft aspiration. It’s a competitive advantage most organisations are leaving on the table.

Check out our full podcast chat here – https://www.hrhappyhour.net/episodes/why-intergenerational-conversations-matter-at-work/ – or through the image below and let me know about the intergenerational conversations you’re having in the workplace…

What Economic Shocks and AI Are Really Doing to the European Labour Market

If the European labour market feels confusing right now – that’s because it is. On the surface, the signals seem contradictory – hiring is slowing and budgets are tightening – but at the same time, skills shortages persist, competition for talent remains intense in certain areas, and AI is beginning to reshape roles in real time.

In a recent episode of the HR Means Business podcast, I spoke with Julius Probst, PhD – Senior Economist at Appcast, Inc and Director of Research of Recruitonomics – to try and unpack what’s really happening beneath the headlines – and what HR leaders need to do next.

A slowdown – but not a collapse

Julius was clear from the outset: this is not a structural breakdown of the labour market. However what we are seeing is a cyclical slowdown, driven by external shocks – most notably rising oil prices linked to geopolitical tensions. The impact is familiar: higher inflation, sustained interest rates, reduced consumer spending, and slower job creation.

In the UK, for example, this could push GDP growth down to around 0.5%, bringing the economy close to stagnation. Unemployment has already edged up to 5.2%, and workers have far less freedom to move roles than they did just two years ago.

For employers, that translates into fewer vacancies, more applicants, and reduced wage pressure – at least at headline level.

However this is only part of the story.

The rise of a three-tier labour market

I think one of the most important insights from our conversation is that averages are misleading.

Right now, three very different labour markets are operating simultaneously:

The first is AI talent, where demand is accelerating rapidly. Organisations are competing hard for individuals with the skills to build, implement, or work alongside AI systems.

The second is skilled trades — engineering, construction, and technical manual roles — where shortages remain acute. Brexit has intensified these gaps, and wages are rising accordingly.

The third is routine white-collar work, which is where the pressure is most visible. Administrative, customer service, and back-office roles are increasingly being automated, and hiring has slowed significantly.

In some cases, this is creating an unexpected reversal: skilled tradespeople can now earn more – and enjoy greater security – than graduates entering routine office roles.

AI is already changing the shape of work

AI is often seen as a future trend – but it’s not as it is already showing up in the data.

One of the clearest signals is the decline in graduate hiring. Organisations are using AI to reduce the need for entry-level roles, particularly in areas involving repeatable or process-driven tasks.

Julius was careful not to be alarmist however, as he compared AI to previous general-purpose technologies – from electricity to the railways – which disrupted existing jobs but ultimately created new industries and opportunities.

The reality is that the transition is uneven. Right now, younger workers are bearing the brunt. The people who most need to develop AI-related skills are finding it harder to access the workplace where those skills can be built.

A more cautious workforce

Candidate behaviour is shifting as jobseekers become more cautious – and less willing to move roles in an uncertain market – whilst at the same time, competition for jobs is intensifying, particularly in white-collar roles.

AI is adding another layer of complexity because job candidates can now submit large volumes of applications quickly, which increases noise and makes it harder for recruiters to identify the talent they need.

What should HR leaders do now?

Julius’s advice for HR leaders was pragmatic – and grounded in reality:

First, accept that volatility is the new normal. Economic shocks are no longer rare events. Workforce planning needs to be more dynamic, more responsive, and more frequent.

Second, don’t abandon early-career hiring entirely. Demographic trends are indicating that large numbers of experienced workers will retire in the next three to five years. Organisations that stop building their pipeline now risk a significant talent gap later.

Third, think sectors, not generialist. The impact of economic shocks will vary widely. Hospitality, transport, and energy-intensive sectors will face far greater pressure than technology or financial services.

And finally, treat flexibility as a strategy, not a perk. Hybrid working, for example, isn’t just about employee preference – it enables organisations to access talent beyond expensive urban centres, helping to reduce salary pressures, and improve retention.

Reading the signals

What stood out most from our conversation is that this isn’t a chaotic labour market – but it is a complex one.

The signals are there. But they’re uneven, nuanced, and often contradictory. The organisations that succeed will be those that move beyond headline numbers, understand the specific dynamics in their sector, and make deliberate, forward-looking decisions.

Because the labour market isn’t breaking – it’s evolving.

And the question is whether we’re paying close enough attention.

You can listen to our full podcast chat here – https://www.hrhappyhour.net/episodes/what-ai-and-economic-shocks-mean-for-work-in-europe/ – or through the image below

The Squeezed Middle: Why Organisations Must Rethink the Role of Middle Management

For years, we’ve talked about visionary leaders at the top and empowered teams at the frontline. But in between sits a group that quietly determines whether strategy succeeds or fails: middle managers.

In his forthcoming book The Squeezed Middle, Gary Cookson describes middle managers as the organisational “value zone” – the place where strategy becomes reality, where culture is lived rather than declared, and where change either gains traction or stalls completely. And yet, paradoxically, this group is often the least defined, least supported and most misunderstood in organisations.

Gary was a guest on my podcast recently and we talked about why this is.

The Most Important Role Nobody Clearly Defines

One of the key insights from Gary’s research is that middle management is remarkably ill-defined. It is rarely seen as a destination role; more often it’s treated as a stepping stone. Job descriptions focus on functional responsibilities – HR, finance, marketing, operations – but say little about the real work middle managers do every day.

And that real work can be largely invisible:

  • It’s the emotional labour of calming anxieties during uncertainty
  • It’s the quiet de-escalation of team conflict before it erupts
  • It’s translating high-level strategy into practical next steps
  • It’s absorbing pressure from above so it doesn’t destabilise teams below

None of this appears in performance dashboards. Yet without it, organisations would quickly feel the strain. That’s why we only tend to notice the value of middle management when it’s removed – usually during a de-layering exercise or restructure – and suddenly the organisation struggles to connect vision with delivery.

The Emotional Reality of Being “In the Middle”

Gary’s research went beyond leadership theory and looked at the lived experience of being in the middle.

Middle managers often carry significant responsibility with limited control. They are expected to deliver outcomes, manage relationships, sustain performance and support wellbeing – often operating in environments characterised by uncertainty, hybrid working and technological disruption.

They sit between senior ambition and frontline reality. They must know when to align, when to translate, and when to push back. That balancing act requires judgement, emotional intelligence and courage – which are qualities rarely taught in traditional management training:

We prepare people to become managers for the first time We develop executives for senior leadership.

But there is often a developmental gap in the middle – precisely where organisational performance can be at its most fragile.

Sense-Making in an Uncertain World

Perhaps the most important skill that Gary’s research highlights is sense-making.

In a world of AI adoption, hybrid and flexible working, economic volatility and shifting employee expectations, meaning is not automatically obvious. Middle managers are uniquely positioned to interpret signals, provide context and create psychological safety.

Using AI as an example, senior leaders may define a direction of travel, but it is usually middle managers who will:

  • Translate that into practical implications for their teams
  • Create safe guardrails for experimentation
  • Acknowledge and absorb emotional concerns
  • Prevent panic while encouraging curiosity

They are holding the space between uncertainty and action, and in hybrid environments – where informal cues and corridor conversations are reduced – that relational work becomes even more deliberate. Middle managers must read emotional signals through screens, design micro-cultures for dispersed teams, and ensure connection without proximity.

As Gary says in his book, this is complex relational work – and it deserves recognition.

Why We Keep Underestimating Them

There is a persistent narrative in some organisations that middle management is a bureaucratic overhead. Gary’s research challenges this directly:

  • Middle managers are not blockers. They are translators
  • They are not average. They are connective tissue
  • They are not surplus cost. They are organisational pressure valves

The irony is that when we fail to support them properly, we inadvertently create the very inefficiencies we then blame them for.

Organisations that want agility, resilience and healthy performance cultures cannot ignore the layer where work actually flows.

So What Needs to Change?

Gary suggests two shifts – one cultural, one practical.

First, a mindset shift. Senior leaders must stop viewing middle managers as an administrative overhead and start recognising the complexity and value of their relational role.

Secondly, a structural shift that defines the role properly:

  • Writing job descriptions that reflect lived reality
  • Recognising emotional and relational labour as core work
  • Building development pathways focused on judgement, influence and sense-making
  • Selecting people for middle management based on capability and mindset – not simply tenure or technical expertise

Not everyone should be a manager. And not everyone who wants the title should necessarily have it. We need to move beyond the outdated belief that management is the automatic next rung on a ladder.

The Cultural Multiplier Effect

One of the most compelling ideas from our conversation was that middle managers are cultural multipliers.

They design the micro-cultures of teams, creating the tempo the rhythms, the rituals and the norms that shape everyday experience. In hybrid contexts, this becomes even more important because culture is no longer absorbed passively, so must be deliberately created.

Middle managers determine whether change programmes embed or evaporate, whether strategy inspires or confuses, and whether AI becomes a threat or an opportunity.

If transformation efforts fail, the root cause is often not flawed strategy – but insufficient support for the middle layer responsible for implementation.

A Moment for Reassessment

In a time of accelerating change, organisations cannot afford to overlook the middle.

We are often talking about the need to re-humanise work, about psychological safety, and about employee experience and sustainable performance. Much of that ambition rests squarely on the shoulders of middle managers.

If we want organisations to function better – to translate ambition into action, and culture into lived reality – we must start by redefining and reinvesting in the squeezed middle.

Because when the middle works, the whole organisation works.

And when it doesn’t, no amount of vision at the top can compensate.

You can listen to my full conversation with Gary Cookson here: https://www.hrhappyhour.net/episodes/the-hidden-power-of-middle-management/ – or through the image below – and let me know the role middle management plays in your organisation.

The Future of Work Isn’t About AI – It’s About How We Redesign Work Around People

There’s a familiar pattern playing out across organisations.

Leaders are investing heavily in AI. The technology is advancing rapidly. The possibilities seem endless. And yet… the results aren’t quite matching the ambition.

That was one of the clearest messages from my recent conversation with Kyle Forrest from Deloitte, discussing their 2026 Human Capital Trends Report. While 78% of executives expect to increase AI spending, many organisations are still struggling to translate that investment into meaningful business and human outcomes.

The issue isn’t the technology. It’s how we’re using it.

Too many organisations are still taking a “tech-first” approach – layering AI into existing workflows, automating tasks, and chasing efficiency gains. But as Kyle highlighted, this approach is falling short. The real shift isn’t about humans plus machines. It’s about humans multiplied by machines – redesigning work so that both can operate together to create exponential value.

And that requires something far more complex than a new tool. It requires rethinking how work actually gets done.

The Adaptability Gap

One of the most striking insights from the report is the growing gap between awareness and action.

Around 85% of leaders say adaptability is critical to future success. Yet only a small minority believe their organisations are truly delivering it.

At the same time, employees are experiencing unprecedented levels of change. A decade ago, workers might have dealt with two major organisational changes a year. But today, that number has risen to as many as fifteen.

The impact is predictable: reduced wellbeing, lower engagement, and a lack of clarity about roles and expectations.

The problem is that most organisations are still treating change as something episodic – a programme to be managed, rather than a constant state to be designed for. As Kyle put it, the future isn’t about managing change. It’s about embedding adaptability into the day-to-day flow of work.

The Hidden Risk: Culture Debt

Alongside technical progress, there’s a quieter issue emerging – what Deloitte calls “culture debt.”

Just as technical debt builds up when systems aren’t maintained, culture debt accumulates when organisations neglect the human impact of transformation.

AI is a perfect example. Many employees don’t fully understand why their organisation is investing in AI, how it will affect their role, or what it means for their future careers. If AI creates more productivity, what happens next? More work? More reward? Fewer roles?

When those questions go unanswered, trust erodes. And once trust is lost, it’s far harder – and more costly – to rebuild.

Faster Decisions, Lower Confidence

There’s also a growing tension around decision-making.

Leaders are increasingly using AI to analyse data and inform decisions, often at speed. But with that speed comes a new challenge: accountability. If an AI-supported decision goes wrong, who is responsible?

In many organisations, there is still no clear answer. And that uncertainty creates risk – not just operationally, but culturally. If employees don’t trust how decisions are being made, engagement and confidence begin to decline.

This isn’t a problem HR can solve alone. It requires a co-ordinated, C-suite-level response, with clear frameworks around risk, responsibility, and governance.

Designing Work – Not Just Automating It

Perhaps the most important takeaway from our conversation is this:

AI should not be used simply to make existing work more efficient. It should be used to redesign work entirely.

That means rethinking roles, workflows, and team structures. It means moving away from rigid functional silos – HR, Finance, IT – towards more fluid, cross-functional ways of working. And it means giving people the space and tools to experiment, learn, and adapt.

Some organisations are already beginning to do this well – creating “digital playgrounds” where employees can explore new tools safely, or using AI coaching to help managers communicate and lead more effectively.

These approaches share a common thread: they put people at the centre of transformation, not at the receiving end of it.

The Future Is Still Human

For all the talk of automation, one message came through clearly:

The future of work is not about replacing humans.

It’s about amplifying what humans do best.

AI can process data, identify patterns, and generate outputs. But it cannot replicate human judgment, creativity, or accountability. It cannot make the intuitive leaps that drive innovation. And it cannot take responsibility when things go wrong.

That remains firmly in human hands.

The Real Opportunity

If 2024 was the year of experimentation, and 2025 the year of pilots, then 2026 may well be the year where we start to see real impact at scale. But only for those organisations that get the balance right.

Those that continue to focus purely on technology will struggle to realise value. Those that invest equally in people – in redesigning work, building trust, and enabling adaptability – will be the ones that move ahead.

Because the future of work isn’t being defined by AI alone.

It’s being defined by how we choose to use it.

You can listen to my full podcast conversation with Kyle here: https://www.hrhappyhour.net/episodes/ai-trust-and-the-human-role-in-the-future-workplace/

or through the image below

What Gen Z Is Teaching the Rest of Us About Work – And Why Leaders Should Listen

There’s a quiet revolution happening in workplaces. It’s not being driven by consultants, strategy decks, or leadership off-sites. It’s being driven by the youngest generation in the room – and the most progressive leaders are beginning to pay close attention.

In a recent episode of the #FromXtoZ podcast, Danielle Farage and I explored what happens when generations stop talking past each other and start genuinely trying to learn from one another, and we talked around some important truths about where work is heading.

The Learning Goes Both Ways

We’ve long talked about mentoring as something that flows in one direction: from experience to youth. But leaders across industries are increasingly discovering that Gen Z employees are reshaping how they think about work – not by demanding things, but by modelling different behaviours.

Leaving on time. Taking a proper lunch break. Treating well-being as non-negotiable. To some, this sounds like entitlement, though to the more thoughtful observer it should look like a healthier relationship with work – and as one agency founder we quoted in the conversation said, ‘it’s “infectious” in the best possible way’. When younger employees model boundaries, it gives everyone else permission to do the same.

Why the Relationship With Work Has Changed

For previous generations, the logic of work was simple: put in the hours, climb the ladder, earn enough to buy a home, build a life. That contract has broken down. Home ownership for younger workers is increasingly out of reach without family help, and the traditional rungs of the corporate ladder – becoming a manager by 30, holding that title for 30 years – no longer carry the same meaning or reward.

Without those milestones, what fills that gap? Fulfilment. Connection. Purpose. A sense of being part of something larger than a job description. Gen Z isn’t lazy – they’re redirecting their energy toward the parts of work that still feel meaningful, and they’re asking organisations to meet them there.

The Accountability Gap

There are many aspects to consider. Danielle shared an example of Gen Z employees making a decision – like taking an unplanned day off because a pet was unwell – that tends to frustrate managers and colleagues. Her point, though, was more nuanced: the issue often isn’t the decision itself, but a gap in understanding its impact.

When you start your career remotely, you miss out on the social cues that teach you how your absence lands with a team. You don’t see the eye rolls, feel the tension, or absorb the unspoken norms. Good leadership means closing that gap through honest conversation – not judgment, but clarity about impact and expectation.

Mental Health: Progress, But Not Enough

One data point we talked about came from Deloitte’s Gen Z & Millennial survey, that only 52% of Gen Z workers feel comfortable speaking openly with their manager about mental health challenges, with 27% worrying that managers would be judgmental and possibly discriminate.

This matters. Gen Z is often characterised as the generation that ‘talks about mental health’ – but the reality is that many still feel unsafe doing so at work. The cultural shift we’ve seen is real but incomplete, and it’s a reminder that psychological safety can’t be assumed just because a company has a wellness policy.

What Intergenerational Harmony Actually Looks Like

Intergenerational harmony isn’t about one generation deferring to another. It’s about recognising that a workforce spanning three or four generations holds a remarkable breadth of knowledge, experience, and perspectives – and that unlocking that requires genuine listening on all sides. Just like the mutual respect that Danielle and I have for each other’s viewpoints in our regular podcasts, managers and leaders need to create an environment where ideas, experiences and perspectives can be shared and discussed without fear of judgment.

This is how we believe organisations should approach managing and maximising the impact of intergenerational workforces. Gen Z brings entrepreneurial energy, comfort with change, and a fresh lens on what makes work worth doing. More experienced colleagues bring context, resilience, and hard-won wisdom about how organisations actually function. Neither is sufficient on its own.

The Takeaways for Leaders

The organisations that will thrive are the ones that resist the temptation to dismiss generational differences as a problem to manage, and instead treat them as a source of competitive advantage. That means creating the conditions for honest, respectful dialogue across generations – and being willing, as a leader, to be the student as well as the teacher.

Because when a younger colleague shows you that you can do excellent work and still leave on time – and you let that land – everyone benefits.

You can listen to the full podcast conversation here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ldqXRYaGLWxox68LA10qS?si=5e58da69280d4ec7

or through the image below

Why Capability, Not Age, Should Define the Future of Work

For decades now, many organisations have treated career progression as a straight line – climb the ladder, reach the top, then step aside for the next generation. But as working lives now stretch well into our 70s – and even 80s –  that model no longer fits the modern reality. By 2033, almost a third of over-70s are expected to still be working. The challenge for businesses isn’t how to manage an ageing workforce – it’s how to unlock capability across every age.

The End of the Career Clock

Korn Ferry’s recent Workforce research revealed a clear mismatch between how long people are working and how often they’re allowed to learn. Nearly half of baby boomers and more than a third of Generation X said that they had been excluded from opportunities to learn new skills or technology. That gap risks becoming one of the biggest talent blind spots of our time, particularly with the rapid growth of AI agents in our workplaces.

As Michael Kienle, global VP of talent acquisition at L’Oréal, put it: “Talent management stops at your very last day in the company. It’s not a question of age, it’s about skills and competencies.”

That shift in mindset – from chronology to capability – should be redefining how leading organisations think about work, growth, and opportunity.

Skills Don’t Expire – They Evolve

Too often, mid- and late-career employees are treated as “finished products.” But as Zoe Cunningham from technology consultancy Softwire argued, “experience isn’t a ceiling – it’s an asset”. Her team has seen how younger engineers teach new coding frameworks, while seasoned professionals teach client management and problem-solving.

“That’s what a healthy culture looks like,” she said. “Skills don’t expire, but they do need updating. The mindset of curiosity is what keeps people relevant.”

This idea — lifelong, bidirectional learning — is what will keep organisations innovative as they grow older. It replaces one-way knowledge transfer with collaboration and mutual growth.

The Skills-First Revolution

Mastercard has fully embraced this approach. Its Unlocked platform acts as an internal marketplace where employees post their skills and interests, then match with mentors, projects, or learning opportunities.

Lucrecia Borgonovo, the company’s Chief Talent & Organisational Effectiveness Officer, explained: “We’re taking a more skills-first approach versus focusing on traditional parameters like degrees or years of experience. That helps democratise access to opportunities.”

By making skills, not seniority, the foundation for advancement, Mastercard is showing how capability-led cultures attract, retain, and empower people of all generations.

Redefining Career Paths for Longer Lives

At L’Oréal, this thinking extends into practical programs like L’Oréal for All Generations, which pairs reverse mentoring in AI and digital skills with senior-to-junior coaching. The company has also created pre-retirement seminars and flexible role transitions to help people redefine what “later career” looks like.

Michael Kienle called this the “dual-edged sword” of longevity – people are working longer, but organisations must ensure that doesn’t block younger talent. The answer lies in fluid career pathways, where people can move sideways, up, or even reinvent themselves entirely.

It’s Never Too Late to Start Again

Perhaps the most inspiring examples featured in the research are people like Kim Aitchison Kim Aitchison, who re-entered the workforce in her late fifties after nearly 30 years away. With support from the Career Returners programme, she joined the Bank of England, relearned digital tools, and now mentors younger colleagues.

“A young colleague teaches me technology, and I help her with confidence in meetings. It’s mutually beneficial,” she says.

Her story captures the essence of the new work era: age isn’t an obstacle — it’s experience waiting to be applied in new ways.

The Bottom Line

As technology evolves and people live longer, capability is becoming the new currency of work. The companies that thrive won’t be those that chase youth, but those that cultivate curiosity, learning, and flexibility across every life stage.

All HR and Talent leaders should take onboard the words of L’Oréal’s Michael Kienle: “It’s not about how old you are. It’s about how ready you are to keep growing.”

The Career Ladder Is Finished. Here’s What Gen Z Are Building Instead

For decades, career success had a shape everyone recognised. You started at entry level, you climbed, and you measured your progress in titles, pay rises, the size of your team and the size of your office. It was linear, hierarchical, and – for the generations who grew up with it – deeply motivating. Status was the incentive, and the ladder was the route.

That model is collapsing. In a recent #FromXtoZ podcast chat myself and Danielle Farage talked about some of the findings from a Deloitte survey of nearly 23,000 young workers across 44 countries.

Gen Z and Millennials aren’t mourning the loss of the career ladder. They’re building something entirely different in its place.

From Ladder to Web

The Deloitte research is striking not just for its scale but for the clarity of its findings. When asked about their career goals, only 6% of Gen Z respondents cited reaching a leadership role. Let that sit for a moment. The entire architecture of the traditional workplace – the management tiers, the promotions, the performance reviews oriented around “progression” – has been built on the assumption that people wanted to move up. For most of Gen Z, that assumption is simply wrong.

What they want instead is harder to map on an organisational chart but no less purposeful: a web of experiences that weaves together skills development, wellbeing, financial security, and meaningful impact.

Success, for this generation, isn’t a destination at the top of a structure. It’s a living, evolving combination of things that matter – and that combination looks different for every person.

This isn’t aimlessness. It’s a rational response to the world they’ve inherited.

The Incentive Has Changed

Previous generations climbed because climbing worked. A promotion meant more money, more status, a bigger car, a better postcode. The rewards were tangible and socially legible. You knew you’d arrived because other people could see it.

For Gen Z, many of those rewards have either diminished or disappeared entirely. Housing markets have made the traditional milestones of adulthood feel remote for many young workers. Corporate loyalty has eroded in both directions – companies have spent decades demonstrating that employees are expendable, and Gen Z has noticed.

Why sacrifice your wellbeing climbing up a ladder when there’s no guarantee the rungs won’t be pulled out from under you?

Into that vacuum has come a different kind of motivation. This is a generation that grew up knowing that careers in purpose-driven organisations, with values-led work, are not just idealistic fantasies – they are real, viable options. The awareness of what’s possible has fundamentally reshaped what people are willing to work towards.

Learning as a Lifestyle, Not an Event

One of the most revealing findings from the Deloitte research concerns how Gen Z approaches learning. 70% say they develop skills on a weekly basis, and 67% invest time outside of work to keep pace with their field. This is not a generation waiting to be trained. It’s a generation that has internalised the reality of working in a world where the skills required today may be obsolete in eighteen months.

Context matters here. Gen Z is entering the workforce knowing they are likely to have around thirteen different careers across their lifetime. They are also the first generation to build their careers during a genuine AI revolution, with two thirds worried that automation will eliminate jobs and 61% concerned it will close off traditional entry-level pathways. The anxiety is real. But so is the response: learn constantly, broaden relentlessly, and never assume that what you know today is enough for tomorrow.

Alongside technical and digital skills, the research is clear that soft skills are considered essential by this generation. 85% identify communication, empathy, leadership and networking as must-haves – a recognition that in a world where AI handles more and more of the tactical work, distinctly human capabilities become more – not less – valuable.

The Management Gap Nobody Is Talking About

While most of the discussion around Gen Z at work focuses on what young people want, the Deloitte research also finds something equally important on the other side of the relationship: managers are failing the people who report to them – not out of indifference, but because the system won’t let them do otherwise.

The data shows that managers currently spend around 40% of their time firefighting and only 13% on developing their people. This is a structural failure with generational consequences. Gen Z is the cohort most openly hungry for mentorship, guidance, and the kind of hands-on development that comes from working alongside someone who will bring you into the room, explain the dynamics, and help you navigate the complexity. That “second row” learning – sitting in on a client meeting, being invited into a senior conversation not because you’re needed but because you’ll grow from it – is increasingly rare, and its absence is felt.

What This Means for Organisations

The companies that will thrive with Gen Z talent are those willing to retire the ladder as their primary organisational metaphor. That means rethinking how progression is defined and communicated, building genuine flexibility into career pathways, and investing in managers who have the time and skills to actually develop people rather than simply manage output.

It also means taking seriously the values that young workers are looking for. Purpose is not a soft extra that Gen Z want alongside their salary – for many, it is the primary reason they choose one employer over another, and the first thing that erodes when the day-to-day reality of a job fails to live up to its promise.

The Career Ladder had a good run. But the Career Web is already being built, whether organisations choose to support it or not.

You can check my full podcast chat with Danielle here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/26Bau1QR1cnMQIBUfQNWS8?si=cbce79a111e345f9 or through the image below:

Workplace Absence Isn’t Laziness – It’s a Mirror of a Changing Workplace

Workplace absence is one of those topics that quickly becomes emotionally charged. Leaders worry about productivity. Employees worry about being judged. And somewhere in the middle sits a collection of generational stereotypes that rarely stand up to scrutiny.

In a recent episode of our From X to Z podcast, Danielle Farage and I explored the generational dynamics behind workplace absence. What emerged wasn’t a story about laziness or entitlement. It was a story about context, life stages, and a workplace that hasn’t quite caught up with the reality of modern lives.

So let’s start with the data. Research from edays found that Gen Z actually take the fewest average sick days per year (2.7), while Boomers take the most (6.1). Gen X and Millennials fall somewhere in between.

That finding alone flips the common narrative. Gen Z are often criticised for taking “too many mental health days”, yet statistically they are absent less frequently than older colleagues.

So what’s really going on?

First, life stage matters. Boomers are more likely to experience age-related or musculoskeletal issues. Gen X are often part of the “sandwich generation”, balancing careers with caregiving for both children and ageing parents. Millennials report financial stress and mental health pressures. Gen Z cite anxiety, stress and headaches as key drivers of unproductive days.

These are not moral failings. They are human realities.

Second, visibility of mental health has changed. Older generations didn’t avoid stress or emotional difficulty; they simply dealt with it differently. Mental health wasn’t openly discussed. Taking a “mental health day” would have been viewed as weakness. Today, younger employees are more likely to name what they’re feeling and expect some degree of understanding.

This shift can create tension. Some older leaders interpret openness as fragility. Some younger employees interpret scepticism as hostility. The result? Reduced psychological safety.

And that’s where the real risk lies.

When people don’t feel safe explaining why they need time off, they are more likely to hide the truth. A mental health day becomes a “migraine.” A miscarriage becomes “back online as normal.” Personal struggle becomes silence.

Absence management then turns into suspicion management.

The irony is that many organisations are still applying one-size-fits-all absence policies designed for a nine-to-five, office-based era. But the workplace has fundamentally changed.

Hybrid and remote work mean absence is no longer binary. Someone with a cold might work from home. Someone caring for a parent might adjust their hours. The line between “off sick” and “working differently” is increasingly blurred.

At the same time, younger generations are contributing in ways that often go unrecognised. Informal tech support. Digital fluency. Social media expertise. Helping senior leaders navigate platforms and presentations. This invisible labour can create resentment, especially if absence policies are rigid while expectations of contribution remain flexible.

There is also a deeper dynamic at play. Many older leaders grew up in more autocratic workplaces. Power flowed downwards. Attendance equalled commitment. Showing up despite illness was rewarded as loyalty. That mindset does not automatically translate into today’s more fluid, digitally enabled environment.

But this isn’t about one generation being right and another wrong. It’s about understanding context.

Workplace absence today reflects:

  • Physical health realities
  • Mental health awareness
  • Caregiving responsibilities
  • Financial pressures
  • Hybrid working norms
  • Shifting expectations of empathy

The danger lies in oversimplifying it.

If leaders default to stereotypes like “Gen Z are soft” or “Boomers are hypocritical” then they create exactly the disengagement they fear.

If they lean into curiosity instead, asking “What’s driving this?” or “How can we support?” then they create trust.

Kindness is free, as Danielle rightly put it. But it’s also strategic.

Managing absence in 2026 and beyond requires subtlety. It requires HR and leaders to move from policing attendance to understanding wellbeing signals. It requires recognising that absence data is not just an operational metric, but a cultural barometer.

The question isn’t “How do we stop people taking time off?”

It’s “What does this pattern tell us about our people – and what do they need?”

Because ultimately, absence isn’t about weakness. It’s about humanity.

And organisations that understand that will build cultures where people don’t just show up – they stay.

Check out the full podcast conversation here –https://www.purpleacornnetwork.com/podcasts/from-x-to-z – or through the image below