beyond the AI hype: how CHROs can drive necessary change in 2026.
Throughout 2025, I had the wonderful opportunity to host dinners with hundreds of CHROs to learn the challenges, opportunities and successes they face as they lead the talent strategies at their organizations. I’ve also had a select group of Fortune 500 CHROs, from organizations such as Coca Cola, ServiceNow, IBM, Mastercard and Walmart on the Radical Innovators Podcast.
At our most recent dinner in December, CHROs from some of the world’s biggest companies came together to discuss their priorities for 2026. Collectively, the CHROs in attendance represent more than 2.4 million employees, so the decisions they make and the strategies they embrace will have a far-ranging impact on many lives. And with companies around the world facing similar challenges (how to deal with AI, shrinking talent pools and much more), the topics addressed, concerns they have and their priorities for the new year are likely shared by many, if not all, people leaders.
But rather than being uncertain about the future and what it means for their talent, I was struck by the clarity they have about how they can adapt. They’re not sitting around waiting to see what will happen, but rather leading the charge to ensure their companies stay ahead of such rapid transformation. They fully understand that to keep up, they need to re-engineer what ideas like work, roles and leadership mean in this changing environment, and implement the strategies that can deliver.
It was also interesting to see how so much of what they said aligns with the predictions laid out by Randstad CEO Sander van ’t Noordende in his annual predictions article in Forbes, as well as the findings from Randstad’s 2026 Workmonitor survey of employees and employers.
As Sander says, “The year ahead will reward leaders who act with clarity and purpose — those who pair technology with humanity, create equitable pathways into work and adapt their talent strategies to where skills truly are.”
From discussing how businesses can embrace AI without mass job displacement, to changing skills needs and redefining entry-level work, it’s clear that the CHROs I met with are well prepared for what lies ahead. The following are five of the key takeaways from our latest dinner that show just what they are doing to adapt for whatever 2026 may bring.
1. redesign work first, then talk tools
Instead of fretting about AI, CHROs are leading the charge on getting their teams to work alongside it. Several leaders reinforced the same winning approach, which starts with the work and looking at how it can be redesigned.
Start by breaking tasks and roles down and identifying where AI can remove the drudgery — the menial, time-consuming tasks that get in the way of true collaboration and value creation. This will allow you to rebuild roles and workflows around what humans do best and can’t be replaced by AI: judgement, relationships, creativity and quality. One attendee described it as conducting an “x-ray;” you take a deep look to understand current work and skills, compare what you find to how roles are trending externally and then refresh your approach continuously rather than wait for the perfect answers.
This aligns with how Sander says businesses should focus on leveraging AI for productivity creation rather than cost reduction. He suggests how AI can automate the low-value tasks that contribute to inefficiency and job dissatisfaction, enabling companies to use AI to extend the impact of the team. The important thing is that companies must take a flexible and adaptable approach to see what works and continually adjust. And just as important is to start now.
2. middle management is the make-or-break layer
Another thing that was clear from the CHROs at our dinner is that when it comes to adapting to AI, or any other major change, it will be impossible to scale if it remains a senior-leader message. Instead, employees need clarity from their direct managers. With strong communications from their direct managers — the people they work with and get direction and feedback from on a daily basis — they will better understand what matters and why. This is especially important around things like how performance is assessed, what “good” job performance looks like, and how they can better adapt and ensure they remain valuable in an ever-changing world.
Data from Randstad’s 2026 Workmonitor research, based on insights from more than 26,000 workers and over 1,200 employers, backs up the unique value of the manager. It finds that 63% of workers feel more connected to their manager than their company as a whole, while 72% say they have a strong relationship with their manager, up 8 points from last year. This suggests that managers are the key to stability and a crucial asset in driving effective change management.
So it’s more critical than ever for leaders to ensure that their people managers are empowered to support their teams. During our dinner, CHROs shared the importance of manager toolkits, reframing “human skills” as power skills and using peer showcases to create pull, not push. Such strategies will help to strengthen the bonds between managers and talent, which in turn will increase trust among employees that the company wants them to succeed.
3. entry-level work is being redefined, not eliminated
While much has been made about AI taking over for entry-level roles, the CHROs at our dinner disagreed with this assessment. They pushed back strongly on the idea that entry-level roles are disappearing, asserting that, just like all other kinds of work, they’re evolving. Between apprenticeships, community college partnerships, military transitions and earn-and-learn pathways tied to real business needs, demand for the newest entrants to the workforce is still strong.
The mismatch lies in the fact that in some fields like automation, in which demand for skilled talent is growing fastest, opportunities for early-career talent are narrowing. Moreover, with Gen Z talent having a median tenure at just 1.1 years, they’re not staying in their jobs long enough to develop and grow within their roles and companies. This leads more companies to rely on their experienced workers, which in turn can cause a shortage in new talent with the skills and know-how to replace those older workers when they leave the workforce.
How can CHROs address this catch-22? As Sander suggests, talent leaders should strive to redesign early-career work, reopen more entry-level opportunities and accelerate internal development to ensure the newest entrants to the workforce receive the training and growth needed to become the next generation of skilled talent.
4. well-being and psychological safety are not side topics
As leaders and employees adapt to a changing world, actively supporting employees’ health and wellness should be a priority. Without a strong focus on well-being and psychological safety, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the necessary level of agility at a time of unprecedented change.
The CHROs in attendance were all fully aligned that AI transformation is essentially change transformation, and well-being is a prerequisite for adaptability. And while companies should rightfully focus on helping their teams adapt to the reality of using AI in their work lives, employee well-being encompasses so much more.
The 2026 Workmonitor research reveals key findings into how employees feel at work, showing significant room for improvement in making them feel safe and that they belong. For instance, 47% of workers say they would quit a job if they feel they don’t belong there. And although the number of respondents who say they hide aspects of their personality at work has declined from 62% in 2025, a majority (56%) still feel this way.
To ensure employees feel safe and that they can be their true selves, employers should aim to foster a socially accepting environment. This involves refocusing retention strategies on building and maintaining trust, creating more opportunities for collaboration (across jobs and generations) and further nurturing the role of managers to help create a safe space for their teams.
The topic of making employees feel safe is one that comes up repeatedly on the Radical Innovators Podcast. In fact, it is a prominent part of my discussions with the CHROs of Booking Holdings and Ally — both episodes will be launching soon.
5. the narrative matters more than most leaders think
Given the Workmonitor data shows that employees are more likely to feel connected to their managers than their companies, transparency is more important than ever. That’s particularly true when communicating about major changes. Credibility can suffer when leaders attribute every change to AI or announce that there will be downsizing “because of AI,” especially when this happens before they truly understand work redesign.
Instead, the crucial strategy emerging from our dinner conversation is to focus on transparency without creating more fear or giving talent more reason to be distrustful of their employers. The right approach to communicating any change — whether related to AI or not — is to keep conversations focused on what employees can control; this includes new workflows, new skills, new career pathways they can pursue to further their growth and development, achieve their professional goals and increase the value they bring to their employers.
a road map for 2026
The one thing that was clear from our dinner is that, despite the growing use of AI, people will remain the backbone of your company. As such, for the year ahead, CHROs should focus on empowering the human connections in their businesses. This means ensuring all people managers have the tools and training to lead, support and build trust within their teams. But it will also entail providing talent at all levels with the guidance on how to navigate the future — from upskilling themselves to remain essential to building a workplace that fosters trust and connectivity.
When prioritized with the re-evaluation of work and the skills needed to do it, and an eye toward transparency, CHROs can drive the necessary changes to ensure a thriving, human-centric future of work throughout 2026 and beyond.