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Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Alexander Toro Alvarez, Head of HR Business Partnering at SBK Siemens, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Alexander, for your support of this newsletter!

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PRESENTED BY Lightcast

Skills-Based Hiring Toolkit

You’re losing talent you already have. Not just to competitors, but to your own blind spots. Externally, your job postings are screening out strong candidates before you ever see them. Internally, your best people are leaving because they can’t see a path forward, and you can’t see them clearly enough to offer one.

Skills-focused hiring closes both gaps. It brings the right external candidates into view, and keeps your best internal talent from walking away by making internal mobility a real, structured option rather than an afterthought.

Download the Skills-Based Hiring Toolkit, Lightcast’s free step-by-step guide for HR leaders who want to build a talent strategy that works from the inside out.

Inside, you’ll find:

• A maturity model to assess where your organization stands today, and define exactly where you want to go

• A 12-step action plan, from initial planning through to full optimization, covering external sourcing, internal mobility, career pathways, and beyond

• Free tools built in, including a Job Posting Optimizer and Disruptive Skills Matrix you can put to work immediately

• Guidance on connecting internal skills data to external labour market intelligence so every talent decision is grounded in reality

Your next great hire might already be on your payroll or hidden beyond the resumé. This toolkit helps you find them.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• Critical Role Identification Without Action Is Just a List | Brian Heger | My one-page cheat sheet to evaluate six risk factors in your critical roles and prioritize actions accordingly.

• Future of Inclusion Lighthouses 2026 | World Economic Forum | A new 41-page report highlighting corporate inclusion practices, including Schneider Electric’s workforce planning approach that helps manage retirement risks.

• AI at Work: Strategy Matters More Than Tools | BCG | A new 29-page report with findings from BCG’s fourth annual AI at Work survey, including how AI use and time savings are rising, but translating it into value remains a struggle.

• 2026 Global Human Resources Report | The Talent Strategy Group | A new 38-page report examines the perceptions of HR professionals about various aspects of the HR function.

• Develop-in-Place: An Underutilized Tactic for Developing People and Organizational Capability at the Same Time | Brian Heger | My quick take on how develop-in-place tactics (in one’s current role) can be effective when organizations actively signal which skills matter most to their strategy.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

SUCCESSION & TALENT MANAGEMENT

Critical Role Identification Without Action Is Just a List | Brian Heger

My one-page cheat sheet to evaluate six risk factors in your critical roles and prioritize actions accordingly.

In every organization, a segment of roles (~20%) have a disproportionately large impact on strategy execution and business performance. These are often referred to as critical or pivotal roles. But simply knowing which roles are critical isn't enough. The real value comes from strategically and proactively managing talent investments in these roles. A good starting point is knowing where risks exist in critical roles and how to convert these risks into a talent advantage. My cheat sheet helps you evaluate your critical roles across six risk factors: Top Talent Risk (the best talent is not in the role), Incumbent Risk (high risk of the incumbent leaving the role in the near future), Internal Bench Risk (weak internal pipeline for backfilling this role), Development Risk (challenging to develop internal talent within a reasonable timeframe and cost), External Talent Risk (hiring externally would take considerable time and cost), and Role Change Sensitivity Risk (the requirements and skills for this role are highly susceptible to rapid shifts from AI, automation, or changing business conditions). Input your critical roles (assuming you have a process for role identification) and click a box to indicate which risks apply. Upon completion, the visual will highlight where the greatest risks exist, helping you prioritize actions. This exercise is not about filling out a template. It is about jumpstarting a thought process and discussions that lead to more informed talent decisions in the roles that have an outsized impact on business performance.

Access my cheat sheet

WORKFORCE PLANNING + INCLUSION

Future of Inclusion Lighthouses 2026 | World Economic Forum

A new 41-page report highlighting corporate inclusion practices, including Schneider Electric’s workforce planning approach that helps manage retirement risks.

An important factor in workforce planning is analyzing demographic data, including aging workforce trends and retirement projections, to understand how demographic shifts may affect the supply of available talent. These data can surface risks that are easy to overlook until they become urgent, such as the loss of critical knowledge when experienced employees retire. However, knowing retirement eligibility alone is insufficient since it does not mean an employee wants to retire or would not continue contributing in some form. Schneider Electric (SE) is one organization that has approached this topic with intention. Facing a projected shortage of 85 million skilled workers by 2030, with 20 to 25% of its workforce expected to retire within the next decade and 56% having over 30 years of tenure, SE launched its Senior Talent Program. The program uses four profiles to represent the career aspirations and needs of experienced employees age 51+: 1) Continue (remain in current role), 2) Pivot (shift to different work), 3) Accelerate (take on more responsibility), and 4) Transition (move toward retirement). Career conversation toolkits support managers and employees in using these profiles to plan unique career paths and inform workforce planning. SE’s case is in the WEF’s newly published Future of Inclusion Lighthouses 2026. I am also sharing a white paper with more on SE’s approach. For members of my private community, Talent Edge Circle, we are discussing workforce planning on 6/17 with thought leader Adam Gibson, author of Agile Workforce Planning.

Access report

AI

AI at Work: Strategy Matters More Than Tools | BCG

A new 29-page report with findings from BCG’s fourth annual AI at Work survey, including how AI use and time savings are rising, but translating it into value remains a struggle.

BCG just released the findings from its fourth annual AI at Work report, based on responses from 11,749 workers across 14 markets. One headline: 74% of frontline white-collar workers now regularly use AI, up 23 percentage points in one year, with 42% reporting a full workday or more saved per week. Time savings are even higher in functions such as marketing (60%), IT (53%), and human resources (50%). Yet, most organizations have not yet learned to convert that time into value. In fact, 66% of frontline employees who reported time savings say they receive limited or no guidance on what to do with it, and more than half are not reinvesting it into more strategic work. A few other stats I pulled from the report that might help to explain what is blocking that conversion: nearly half are spending more time directing AI than doing the work itself, with 72% saying AI has changed the skills expected of them. And 60% say the bar for what counts as good enough is rising. Add to this what BCG calls the joy paradox, where regular AI users report higher job satisfaction and greater cognitive load simultaneously, and these factors compound making it harder to translate “time savings” into true value. A good starting point for HR leaders: where is the greatest AI-driven time savings taking place in your organization, what is preventing it from being converted into value, and what is the plan for closing that gap?

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HR SENTIMENT

2026 Global Human Resources Report | The Talent Strategy Group

A new 38-page report examines the perceptions of HR professionals about various aspects of the HR function.

There is no shortage of survey reports on how HR is thinking about the priorities it will focus on for any given year. However, this recently published report by The Talent Strategy Group takes a different angle by gaining insights on the perceptions that HR professionals have about the function itself, from how engaged HR is to where the profession is stalling. While there are several insights across this 38-page report — based on a census of 500+ HR professionals across levels, functions, and geographies — one that stood out is the recommendation to make commercial fluency and interest a hiring and promotion criterion for HR roles. The report finds that HR professionals who are in the function primarily to help their organization succeed financially, and who genuinely believe in the mission of the companies they work for, are more likely to reach senior levels, and that this orientation appears to be a condition of advancement rather than something that develops once people arrive. The report draws a pointed distinction: business acumen is a skill, meaning the ability to present HR in business terms. Commercial orientation is something different: it is whether someone is fundamentally in HR because they want their company to win. One practical implication for Chief HR Officers is to audit HR hiring and promotion criteria and ask whether it screens for commercial orientation, not just business acumen. There are many other insights in the report, so you will want to be sure to dig through it. Thanks to Marc Effron and The Talent Strategy Group for bringing us these insights.

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DEVELOPMENT

Develop-in-Place: An Underutilized Tactic for Developing People and Organizational Capability at the Same Time | Brian Heger

My quick take on how develop-in-place tactics (in one’s current role) can be effective when organizations actively signal which skills matter most to their strategy.

Internal job movement—where employees transition into new roles within the same organization—is a valuable source of development and internal mobility. While an effective tactic, these moves are inherently limited in supply and must be augmented with other talent strategies. And as work increasingly gets organized beyond the boundaries of the job itself, organizations need approaches that develop people without relying solely on role changes. One underutilized approach is "develop in place," where managers and employees identify ways to use the current role to broaden development—not just for the individual, but in areas that build organizational capabilities where it matters most. This requires organizations to signal which skills matter most to their strategy, so develop-in-place opportunities reflect what the business needs, not just what feels like growth to the employee or manager. For employees, this strengthens candidacy for future opportunities; for the organization, it builds capacity to execute. Three questions to consider: What is our philosophy on employee development: to develop for performance in current role, building capabilities the organization needs, both, or something else? Have we identified the skills most critical to executing our strategy and made those visible to managers and employees? Are development plans connected to organizational capability gaps, or driven only by personal growth goals? I'll be sharing more on this, including tools to help, but wanted to put the idea out there first so you can begin to think this through for your organization.

Read post on BrianHeger.com

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

HR CREATING STAKEHOLDER VALUE

The Age of HR: Delivering Stakeholder Value Through Strategic Organizational Capability: Talent, Leadership, and Culture | Edited by Anthony Nyberg, Rebecca Kehoe, Dave Ulrich, and Patrick Wright

A new open-access 338-page ebook across 61 chapters featuring 85 global thought leaders on how HR can create stakeholder value.

This new open-access Ebook brings together 85 global thought leaders in the HR space and includes 61 chapters helping HR practitioners think more strategically about how HR creates value for employees, customers, investors, and communities. It covers everything from succession planning and workforce analytics to culture as competitive advantage, the CHRO as business leader, building organizations ready for agentic AI, and so much more. A special thanks to all contributors who helped bring this excellent resource to the field. And for those in my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle, I'm looking forward to Dave Ulrich joining us next month for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through talent, leadership, organization, and the HR function.

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JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Manhattan Associates (NASDAQ: MANH). The supply chain and omnichannel commerce software company initiated plans to cut approximately 6% of its global workforce, or roughly 260 employees, effective June 1. The reductions primarily affect research and development and customer support roles tied to legacy product lines, with the company citing operational efficiency gains and a desire to redirect investment toward key strategic priorities.

• Minnesota Star Tribune. The Minneapolis-based newspaper and media company announced plans to cut approximately 15% of its workforce, or about 65 employees, through a combination of buyouts and layoffs affecting all departments including the newsroom. The company cited the need to adapt to a digital-first business model and simultaneously disclosed that it is exploring a nonprofit foundation ownership structure.

• Uber (NYSE: UBER). The ride-hailing and delivery company cut 23% of its People and Places division, which covers human resources, recruitment, workplace facilities, and culture. The affected headcount represents less than 1% of Uber's 34,000-person global workforce; the company ruled out AI as a factor, attributing the cuts to overlapping responsibilities and organizational complexity following a recent leadership reorganization.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

Bonus: Here’s the May 2026 Challenger Report. One highlight is that AI was cited as the leading reason for U.S. job cuts for the third consecutive month in May.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• ​Yum! Brands (LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY) [NYSE: YUM] — a global restaurant company franchising and operating more than 63,000 restaurants in 155 countries and territories under KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Habit Burger & Grill — announced the retirement of Tracy Skeans, COO and Chief People & Culture Officer, after more than 25 years with the company. Skeans will remain in her current role through late 2026 before transitioning to a senior advisory position; her expected retirement is March 1, 2028. Yum! is working to fill both the Chief People & Culture Officer and Chief Scale Officer roles, into which her responsibilities will be divided. Skeans joined Yum! in 2000 as a finance analyst, rose through Pizza Hut leadership to become President of Pizza Hut International, and joined the Yum! executive team in 2016 as Chief Transformation & People Officer. 

Tracy Skeans

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

Talent Edge Circle - my private community

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

👉️ And if your a Chief HR Officer who has someone on your team who can benefit from and be a good fit with Talent Edge Circle, reply to this email, or have them apply here.  

Screenshot of discussion with Cole Napper on Data-driven HR

A few discussions coming up:

🗓️ June 17, Adam Gibson, author of Agile Workforce Planning, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on strategic workforce planning.

🗓️ July 22, Dave Ulrich, professor at the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan) and co-founder of The RBL Group, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through HR.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF MAY 2026

Did you miss the “Best of May ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #349, which includes the most popular resources from the month.

Special thanks to Draup for sponsoring the Best of May issue. Download Draup’s paper 10 Operating Principles of Skills-based Organizations.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

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👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

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👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

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👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this special Best of May issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

A shout-out to Kanika Bhatia, Talent Director at GSK, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Kanika, for your support of this newsletter!

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And immediately get 5 of my PDF cheat sheets!

PRESENTED BY Draup

Most Skilling Programs Fail Before They Scale: 10 Operating Principles of Companies That Get It Right

Most enterprises treat skilling as a training initiative. The companies pulling ahead in the AI era have done something different. They have built skilling into the operating model itself.

Draup's latest paper breaks down exactly how leading companies—such as Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, and Schneider Electric—are making this shift, drawing from 10 interlocking principles.

The paper also includes a seven-point leadership agenda showing why shared ownership across the CEO, CHRO, CTO, and business unit heads is what unlocks skilling programs that actually scale.

THIS MONTH’S CONTENT

This Best of May issue includes the 15 most popular resources from the May issues of Talent Edge Weekly. They span three sections:

• HR Impact and Chief HR Outlook. How HR creates stakeholder value, linking HR results to business outcomes, and Chief People Officer sentiment on global labor market conditions.

• Talent Practices. Performance management and assessing potential, redesigning entry-level jobs, skills-based profiles for +30 roles, AI fluency as a skill, unlocking workforce capacity, and strategic workforce planning.

• AI and the Future of Work. Factors that unlock AI's business value, AI's reshaping of corporate functions, assessing AI's near-term impact on jobs, and research on AI's impact on the future of work.

There are bonus resources, such as information about company layoffs and movement in and out of the Chief HR Officer role.

Talent Edge Circle
My Private Community for Internal HR

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

I. HR IMPACT & CHIEF HR OFFICER OUTLOOK

How HR creates stakeholder value, linking HR results to business outcomes, and Chief People Officer sentiment on global labor market conditions.

HR CREATING STAKEHOLDER VALUE

The Age of HR: Delivering Stakeholder Value Through Strategic Organizational Capability: Talent, Leadership, and Culture | Edited by Anthony Nyberg, Rebecca Kehoe, Dave Ulrich, and Patrick Wright

A new open-access 338-page ebook across 61 chapters featuring 85 global thought leaders on how HR can create stakeholder value.

The field of HR has grown immensely, not only in terms of the value it creates for stakeholders, but also in the sheer number of areas within its remit. That volume and complexity can make it challenging to connect HR's work in an integrated way, which is why frameworks that cluster the work around a few vital capability areas are so useful. This new open-access Ebook, edited by Anthony Nyberg, Rebecca Kehoe, Dave Ulrich, and Patrick Wright, does exactly that: helping HR practitioners think more strategically about how HR creates value for employees, customers, investors, and communities. Organized around four human capability domains (talent, leadership, organization, and the HR function), it brings together 85 global thought leaders in the HR space and includes 61 chapters spanning seven themes: business context, business agenda, talent, leadership and organization, culture, the HR function, and personal growth for HR leaders. It covers everything from succession planning and workforce analytics to culture as competitive advantage, the CHRO as business leader, building organizations ready for agentic AI, and so much more. A special thanks to all contributors who helped bring this excellent resource to the field. And for those in my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle, I'm looking forward to Dave Ulrich joining us in July for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through talent, leadership, organization, and the HR function.

Access Ebook

HR IMPACT

A Mid-Year Pause: Are Your HR-Related Results Driving Real Business Outcomes?

My slide that can help HR leaders and their teams reflect on mid-year accomplishments and assess whether the work underway is connected to the business outcomes that matter most.

As we enter June, HR teams may be reflecting on what they have accomplished so far this year and how those accomplishments are creating value for the organization and the stakeholders they serve. It is also a good time to reflect on the work ahead, where we are relative to achieving our objectives, and to determine any adjustments needed to set ourselves up for success in the second half. To help HR leaders and their teams pause and reflect at this point in the year, I am sharing a one-page slide I originally created for year-end to organize accomplishments by the business outcomes they enabled. While I tend to use it toward year-end, I also find it a useful ongoing tool for checking whether what we are working on is connecting to real business outcomes. I am sharing it here for those who want to reflect now, reset, and use it as a springboard for the work ahead. The slide shows an example of how HR results can be linked to five business outcomes (Revenue Growth, Profitability and Margin Improvement, Operational Efficiency, Customer Satisfaction and Experience, and Strategic Agility and Speed to Market) but you can easily adapt it to focus on the outcomes most relevant to your context. As a bonus, I am resharing my additional one-page slide, Framing Talent Initiatives in Business Context, which helps shift the narrative from "here is the HR initiative" to "here is the business problem we are solving/opportunity to unlock, why it matters, and what is at stake if we wait or do not act." Both slides are excerpts from additional resources in my private community, Talent Edge Circle.

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CHIEF HR OFFICER OUTLOOK

Chief People Officers’ Outlook Insight Report | World Economic Forum Centre for the New Economy and Society

A new 19-page report tracks Chief People Officer sentiment on global labor market conditions across three areas.

The World Economic Forum released its updated Chief People Officers' (CPO) Outlook, a report that tracks shifts in sentiment on global labor market conditions by regularly surveying short-term expectations around talent availability and job creation among CPOs. The May 2026 edition (based on a survey of more than 140 global CPOs between January and March 2026) covers three areas: 1) an appraisal of global and regional labor market sentiment, 2) current workforce strategy trends with a particular focus on AI deployment, and 3) the workforce impact of increased geopolitical and geoeconomic fragmentation. One finding is that while half of the surveyed CPOs expect talent availability in their industry to improve over the next 12 months, there is significant variation across geographic regions, with stronger talent availability expectations in East Asia, China, and Europe, and more cautious outlooks in Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America. When CPOs were asked which workforce and talent planning actions they will prioritize in the next 6–12 months in response to geoeconomic disruption, strengthening local talent pools through internal mobility and rapid redeployment capabilities ranked first, cited by 50% of respondents; this is one signal that organizations are increasingly looking at ways to redeploy internal talent more effectively rather than depending on an uncertain and uneven external labor market. With this in mind, I am resharing three of my cheat sheets designed to strengthen internal mobility. You can get all three of them in the Best of April 2026 issue of Talent Edge Weekly. See resource 9.

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II. TALENT PRACTICES

Performance management and assessing potential, redesigning entry-level jobs, skills-based profiles for +30 roles, AI fluency as a skill, unlocking workforce capacity, and strategic workforce planning.

PERFORMANCE AND POTENTIAL

The State of Performance and Potential: Where We Were, Are, and What You Should Do Now | The Talent Strategy Group

Marc Effron provides a review of performance management and assessing potential, along with specific actions to strengthen each.

Two talent practices that enable business strategy execution are performance management (PM) and organizational talent reviews (OTR). On one hand, PM ensures strategy gets translated into the right goals at the right levels and executed with accountability. On the other, OTR identifies those with the greatest potential to take on bigger or more complex roles and puts the right development in place to accelerate their readiness. A new article by Marc Effron offers a candid assessment of both. Among the various insights, two I want to highlight. First, while PM can serve many purposes (development, engagement, compensation decisions), it can only do one thing really well. When PM tries to solve multiple purposes at once, it tends to serve none of them well. Second, on assessing potential, decades of research show consistent findings about high-potentials demonstrated capabilities (e.g. cognitive ability, learning velocity), just grouped and expressed in slightly different language by different firms. As Marc notes, since the science on potential is well established, the bigger challenge for most organizations is often the execution (e.g., developing identified talent, holding managers accountable for their growth) rather than the potential model itself. For those in my private community, Talent Edge Circle, you can access two of our separate discussion replays in our resource library: one we had with with Marc on PM and one with Allan Church, Ph.D. on assessing potential. And as a bonus, here is one of my cheat sheets on talent reviews.

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PERFORMANCE AND DEVELOPMENT

9 Scenarios When Performance Traps Can Emerge Along With Sample Actions to Address | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with 9 scenarios that can undermine performance, along with tactics to identify and address each.

Recently, while backing my car out of a narrow parking space in a shopping center, I checked my mirrors and thought I had a clear view. But just as I began to move, someone walked behind my car. Fortunately, my vehicle's safety system alerted me in time. It was a reminder of how easily we can overlook something nearby, simply because we’re unaware it’s there, even when we think we’re paying attention. The same thing happens in organizations. We can miss critical issues or behaviors that are right in front of us simply because they fall outside our awareness. In the workplace, blind spots can undermine performance, relationships, and career growth if not recognized and addressed early. These scenarios can vary by context, such as being a first-time manager, being a new hire in an organization, shifting from an operational to a strategic role, or returning to a role after a career break. To help, here's my one-page cheat sheet with nine example scenarios where blind spots often emerge, early warning signs they may be present, and a sample tactic to address each. As you review it, consider asking a colleague, boss, or direct report: What's one thing you think I'm unaware of in how I work or lead that, if improved, could significantly and positively impact my own performance and that of my team? The answer may uncover a hidden opportunity to accelerate your growth, fuel team performance, and create stakeholder value.

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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND AI

Gen AI Could Fix Performance Reviews — or Make Them Even Worse | Harvard Business Review

A new article argues that most organizations are using AI to produce more polished versions of the same flawed performance reviews rather than to fix the underlying information quality problem.

AI continues to influence how organizations implement various talent practices, including performance management (PM). However, a new HBR article by Boston University professor Chris Dellarocas suggests many may be scaling the wrong application of AI in PM. While companies like Citi, JPMorgan, and BCG have deployed AI to streamline performance reviews (with some reportedly cutting review-writing time by 40%), the author argues these are writing-efficiency tools that produce faster versions of the same flawed evaluations. The better use of AI is to surface direct evidence of performance, including decisions, problems solved, collaborators influenced, and contributions to team outcomes. The article offers three suggestions for making this shift. As HR practitioners think through practical implementation and implications, a few questions to consider: Has our organization developed a clear strategy for how, if at all, AI will be used in PM? What traditional PM problems would an AI-based solution help solve? Where will AI not play a role in PM? What evidence are we using to make these decisions? What risks could emerge, and how will we mitigate them? These are just a few of many questions that will need to be considered. For those of you in my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle, you can catch the replay of our recent discussion with Dr. Anna Tavis, Clinical Professor and Chair of the Human Capital Management Department at NYU School of Professional Studies, and author of The Digital Coaching Revolution, where we discussed how organizations are using AI-enabled digital coaching to develop employees at scale.

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ENTRY-LEVEL JOBS AND AI

The Perils of Using AI to Replace Entry-Level Jobs | The American Association for Physician Leadership

Amy C. Edmondson and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic share four tactics for redesigning entry-level jobs rather than eliminating them.

A few weeks ago, I shared the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI’s 2026 AI Index Report, one of the most comprehensive annual reports on the state of AI. While there was much to unpack in the 400+ page report, one finding I highlighted was that early-career workers in AI-exposed roles, such as software development and customer support, have experienced meaningful employment declines, while mid-career and senior workers in those same roles have held steady or grown. This matters because entry-level roles help people build the tacit knowledge, judgment, and leadership capabilities that senior roles eventually require. Organizations that automate away entry-level positions without rethinking early-career talent strategies may find their leadership pipelines weakening in the years ahead. In a new article, Amy C. Edmondson and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic argue that the smarter path is to redesign entry-level jobs rather than eliminate them. They offer four tactics, including building critical thinking alongside AI use. One example they cite is banking, where junior analysts participate in “red teaming” exercises that require them to challenge AI outputs for incorrect assumptions, missing data, and logical flaws, and then defend their critique to senior colleagues. Amy and Tomas also cite research in Science showing that novices who accept AI outputs uncritically can perform worse than those who reason through problems themselves, reinforcing why building the capability to question AI outputs early matters. Do you have a strategy for redesigning your organization’s entry-level roles before the pipeline gap shows up in your leadership bench?

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SKILLS

Skills Profile Framework | The Burning Glass Institute 

An open-access library of 30 employer-validated skill profiles co-created by organizations such as Walmart, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Accenture.

As HR practitioners help their organizations navigate the evolving skill demands across roles, this updated open-access resource includes employer-validated skill profiles for 30 roles representing 35 million U.S. workers. It was developed through the Skills-First Working Group, consisting of practitioners from organizations such as Walmart, Microsoft, Bank of America, Accenture, and others. Roles range from Project Management Specialists and Data Scientists to Financial Analysts and Software Developers. Each profile includes: 1) top skills for the role, 2) skill definitions describing how each skill is used in that specific role, 3) market trends showing which skills are rising or declining in demand, and what skills earn a premium in the market, and 4) proficiency standards defining what basic, intermediate, and advanced mastery look like. Clicking on any individual skill within a profile reveals more detail. For example, within the HR Specialist profile, HRIS skill demand has grown 31.8% over five years, Succession Planning carries an 18.4% wage premium, and Full-Cycle Recruitment has declined 15.4%. As a bonus, I'm including the Skills-First Implementation Playbook, published in September 2025, which provides the foundation for the updated skill taxonomy. For those in my private community, Talent Edge Circle, you can check out the replay (in our private platform) of our discussion with Ravin Jesuthasan on skills-based talent practices.

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 AI FLUENCY AS A SKILL

One Year Later: Raising the AI Fluency Bar for Every Zapier Hire | Zapier

A recent article by Tracy St. Dic, Global Head of Talent at Zapier, shares the company's V2 AI Fluency Rubric, offering a framework for defining and assessing AI fluency.

In resource 8 of this issue, I shared an open-access resource of employer-validated skill profiles for 30 roles, ranging from Project Management Specialists to Data Scientists. It’s from The Burning Glass Institute and developed through the Skills-First Working Group, including practitioners from Walmart, Microsoft, and others. Each profile includes: 1) top skills for the role, 2) skill definitions describing how each skill is used in that specific role, 3) market trends showing which skills are rising or declining in demand, and what skills earn a premium in the market, and 4) proficiency standards. Building on the theme of skills, here is another practical resource that addresses one of the most pressing skill-building challenges organizations are facing right now: AI fluency. The resource is Zapier's V2 AI Fluency Rubric, recently published by Zapier's Global Head of Talent, Tracy St. Dic. It offers HR practitioners practical ideas for defining and assessing AI fluency across their workforce, mapping it across four components: 1) Mindset: how someone approaches AI as a tool for their work; 2) Strategy: how they identify opportunities to apply it; 3) Building: whether they have developed repeatable systems rather than relying on one-off prompts; and 4) Accountability: whether someone critically evaluates AI outputs and takes ownership of the results. Thirteen functional-specific examples across Engineering, HR, Finance, Marketing, and other functions are provided, making it easier to apply to different roles.

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WORKFORCE PLANNING

The Costly Cycles That Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) Gaps Create | Brian Heger

I share how SWP gaps show up in two costly ways: overhiring and premature AI-driven layoffs. I reshare an HBS tool to help assess how vulnerable specific jobs are to AI replacement versus augmentation.

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is consistently rated a top HR priority among HR practitioners. Yet it also carries one of the largest gaps between importance and capability. I recently shared BCG's and WFPMA analysis of 28 workforce practices, which found SWP ranked fourth in terms of that gap, meaning organizations know it matters but have not built the muscle to do it well. That gap shows up in predictable ways. One of the most common is overhiring, in which organizations miscalculate how many people they need, and when workforce supply outpaces demand, resort to layoffs only to begin rehiring when demand returns. I recently addressed this cycle with my post and cheat sheet featuring eight questions to evaluate whether a vacant role needs to be backfilled. Another symptom is premature AI-driven layoffs, where roles are eliminated to fund AI investments before organizations fully understand how work is changing, what can be automated versus augmented, or which human capabilities will still be needed. Without that clarity, workforce decisions risk being undone at significant cost. Gartner predicts that by 2027, half of companies that cut staff due to AI will rehire for similar functions, often under different job titles. To help bring more clarity to these decisions, I am resharing an interactive HBS Working Knowledge tool that lets you gauge how vulnerable a job is to AI replacement versus augmentation. Use the dropdown filters by job category or keyword to see where occupations land on the spectrum, a useful starting point for more informed workforce planning.

Read on brianheger.com

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UNLOCKING WORKFORCE CAPACITY

Unlocking Workforce Capacity Through Ways of Working | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with 10 diagnostic questions to help identify opportunities to unlock workforce capacity through more effective ways of working.

In a recent post, I shared my cheat sheet with eight questions to help determine whether a newly vacant role truly needs to be backfilled when the incumbent exits. The goal was to help move from reactive hiring—where newly vacated roles are often assumed to need a backfill— to being more intentional. Reactive hiring often leads to a costly overhiring cycle, where organizations miscalculate workforce needs, resort to layoffs when supply outpaces demand, then rehire when demand returns. A question I like to ask before deciding to backfill a role is: how can improved ways of working unlock trapped workforce capacity to accomplish more? Trapped capacity is time and effort spent on work that adds little value and could be eliminated, simplified, or redirected to higher-priority work. For example, a team spending 30% of its time in low-value meetings or navigating approval delays has significant capacity waiting to be unlocked. AT&T saved 3.6 million hours and over $230 million in three years by eliminating outdated processes, tools, and policies hindering effective ways of working. Shopify reclaimed 76,500+ meeting hours by cutting recurring meetings and completed 25% more projects. Where is there trapped capacity on your team and organization? My cheat sheet includes 10 diagnostic questions that can help identify opportunities to unlock workforce capacity through more effective ways of working. Consider it a topic for your next team meeting.

Access my cheat sheet

III. AI IN THE WORKPLACE

Factors that unlock AI's business value, AI's reshaping of corporate functions, assessing AI's near-term impact on jobs, and research on AI's impact on the future of work.

AI IN THE WORKPLACE

2026 Work Trend Index Annual Report: Agents, Human Agency, and The Opportunity
for Every Organization | Microsoft

A new 29-page report with insights on the factors that disproportionately unlock AI's value.

Most would agree that unlocking AI's potential to deliver organizational value requires more than deploying tools and training individuals on them. It requires building the organizational conditions that disproportionately drive AI's impact. With this as the backdrop, Microsoft's new 2026 Work Trend Index Annual Report, drawing on a survey of 20,000 AI users across 10 countries, shares several insights worth examining. To identify which factors drive AI impact, the report first defined what AI impact means: employees reporting that AI helps them be more creative, do new kinds of work, produce higher-quality output, collaborate more effectively, and improve career opportunities. It then tested 29 factors across three categories: 1) organizational environment (culture, manager support, talent practices, governance, etc.), 2) individual mindset and behavior (AI mindset, usage sophistication, etc.), and 3) demographics, using multiple analytical models that produced consistent results across factors such as job level, industry, and market. One finding: organizational factors account for more than twice the impact of individual factors (67% vs. 32%), with organizational AI culture, manager support, and talent practices emerging as the top three. The report provides tactics across each of these areas to help guide investments toward those most likely to unlock AI's value faster. Since this reflects only one angle of the full 29-page report, I encourage you to read it in its entirety for additional context.

Access report

ORGANIZATION DESIGN & OPERATING MODEL

Corporate Functions of the Future Won't Look Like Functions at All | BCG

A new article explores how AI is reshaping corporate functions with implications for operating models, workflows, and talent.

Much has been written about AI's impact on the workforce, but a new article from BCG turns the lens specifically on corporate functions (finance, HR, legal, compliance, procurement, and technology). It contrasts where most corporate functions operate today (siloed departments, manual handoffs, and AI layered onto unchanged operating models) with where they need to shift, what BCG refers to as "Functions of the Future" (FoF): leaner, more automated corporate functions designed to perform at AI speed, with integrated workflows, flatter leadership structures, and digital fluency embedded into how work gets done. Although the article offers various insights for making this shift, one I want to zoom in on is digital fluency as a talent requirement for hiring, promotion, and leadership. In an FoF model, digital fluency is treated as a baseline expectation. A few questions HR leaders can help corporate functions think through: How is digital fluency defined in our organization, and are our hiring criteria reflecting that? Are we assessing it in promotion decisions? And since succession planning is a priority for most organizations, how will the future requirements of corporate functions, including digital fluency, change succession plans for successors who were identified based on criteria that may no longer reflect the new reality? These are questions worth raising now, before talent decisions fall further behind the pace of change.

Access article

AI’S IMPACT ON JOBS

The AI Jobs Transition Framework: Mapping AI's Near-Term Impact on Jobs | OpenAI Economic Research

A recent 32-page report argues that standard AI "exposure" measures alone are not sufficient to predict near-term job disruption and introduces a four-dimension framework instead.

As organizations assess AI’s impact on jobs and work, many rely on AI exposure rankings, or the percentage of job tasks AI has the technical capability to perform, as the primary lens for assessing job disruption risk. But this new 32-page report argues that AI exposure alone is not enough to predict near-term disruption. Instead, the researchers introduce a four-dimension framework: 1) technical capability, which the report views as AI exposure, 2) human necessity, or whether regulatory, relational, or physical factors require a human to remain in the role, 3) demand elasticity, or how demand for a job might change as AI lowers its cost, and 4) observed ChatGPT usage data, or how workers in those roles are already using AI in practice. Applied across nearly all US occupations, the framework and analysis classifies jobs into four archetypes: 18% face higher short-term automation risk, 24% will reorganize as task composition shifts but workers remain necessary, 12% could grow as AI lowers costs and unlocks latent demand, and 46% are likely to see less near-term change. One takeaway is that relying on AI exposure alone can lead to inaccurate assumptions about job loss risk, since many highly exposed jobs may be redesigned or expanded rather than immediately automated. For HR practitioners, the 24% of roles likely to reorganize may be one of the most practical starting points, since these roles create more immediate opportunities for role redesign, reskilling, workforce planning, and succession planning conversations.

Access report

AI IN THE WORKPLACE

How Much Will AI Impact Tomorrow’s Workforce? New Data on the Future of Work with AI | MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy

A new synthesis from MIT IDE research scientists draws on three working papers on different aspects of the impact of AI. Links to all three papers are also provided.

As we continue to gain guidance from research-based insights on AI's impact, this synthesis from the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, based on research presented by MIT IDE Research Director Neil Thompson and colleagues at the April 2026 IDE Annual Conference, draws on three working papers, each examining a different aspect of how AI is affecting work. At a high level, the three papers explore: Paper 1: whether automation should be thought of as a spectrum rather than a binary choice (automate or do not automate); Paper 2: whether AI's workforce impact is arriving suddenly or gradually; and Paper 3: how automation affects the value of remaining human expertise. One I want to highlight further is the first paper, which frames automation not as a yes or no decision but as a spectrum across three categories: no automation, partial automation, and full automation. One added value of this research is that it introduces two factors that help determine where a given task falls on the spectrum: cost (the investment required to build and sustain the automation relative to the value it produces) and complexity (how much judgment, context, and tacit knowledge the task requires). As a bonus, I am resharing the recent AI Index report by Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, which is widely recognized as one of the most credible and comprehensive sources of AI data and insights.

Access article

JOB CUTS TRACKER

Here is my tracker, which includes announcements from a segment of organizations that have announced job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few announcements from May:

• Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO). The networking and cybersecurity company announced plans to eliminate nearly 4,000 jobs, or approximately 5% of its roughly 86,000-person global workforce, beginning May 14. The cuts came the same day Cisco posted record quarterly revenue of $15.8 billion and are aimed at shifting investment toward AI, silicon, optics, and security.

• Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU). The financial software company announced it will cut approximately 3,000 employees, or 17% of its global workforce, to reduce organizational complexity and accelerate its AI strategy, including new partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI. The cuts span all four of its consumer brands — TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp — across seven countries.

• Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META). The social media company began laying off approximately 8,000 employees — about 10% of its global workforce — on May 20, as it restructures around AI and reallocates capital toward up to $145 billion in AI infrastructure spending in 2026. An additional 7,000 employees are being transferred into newly created AI-focused teams, and 6,000 open positions have been canceled.

• PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL). The online payments company plans to cut approximately 20% of its global workforce — more than 4,500 positions — over the next two to three years as part of a broad restructuring under new CEO Enrique Lores. The plan targets at least $1.5 billion in savings and is focused on removing organizational layers and reinvesting in core technology infrastructure.

• Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN). The international banking group announced plans to eliminate approximately 7,800 positions — more than 15% of its corporate functions workforce — by 2030, as AI and automation replace back-office roles in HR, risk, and compliance. The cuts, disclosed by CEO Bill Winters at an investor day in Hong Kong on May 19, are concentrated in back-office hubs across India, Malaysia, Poland, and China.

• Wix.com (NASDAQ: WIX). The website-building platform announced plans to cut approximately 1,000 jobs, or about 20% of its workforce, in the largest round of layoffs in the company's history. CEO Avishai Abrahami cited two converging pressures: the strengthening Israeli shekel, which has increased the cost of the company's Israel-based workforce, and the need to rebuild around AI-native roles as artificial intelligence reshapes how software companies operate.

Access all announcements

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVES

In May, I tracked 72 hires, promotions, and resignations in the Chief HR Officer (CHRO) role through CHROs on the Go, my subscription-based digital platform that monitors movement in the CHRO role.

A few headlines from May:

• GSK (LONDON) [NYSE: GSK / LSE: GSK] — a global biopharma company — appointed Roanne Parry as Chief People Officer, succeeding Diana Conrad, who retired after seven years in the role. Parry joins from CSL, where she served as CHRO since January 2024. Prior to CSL, she spent more than two decades at GSK, holding multiple senior leadership roles including SVP HR – R&D, SVP HR – Global Pharma Commercial, and VP HR – Emerging Markets.

• Honeywell​ (CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA) [NASDAQ: HON] — a global industrial technology company focused on automation, the future of aviation, and energy transition — announced the elevation of​ Jennifer Reilly​ as Chief HR Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Jennifer replaces Karen Mattimore, who has been the company’s Chief HR Officer since June 2020. Reilly has been with Honeywell since 2023, most recently serving as VP of HR and Communications for Safety & Productivity Solutions.

• LendingTree, Inc. (CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA) [NASDAQ: TREE] — a leading online financial services marketplace — announced that Lisa Williams will assume the role of SVP of Human Relations and lead the HR organization, succeeding Jill Olmstead, who exits the role on May 31. Williams has been with LendingTree since 2019 and is based in Charlotte. Olmstead, who joined LendingTree in 2018, will transition into a consulting role through March 2027.

• Uber Technologies (SAN FRANCISCO) [NYSE: UBER] — a global technology platform connecting riders, drivers, couriers, and merchants — announced that Nikki Krishnamurthy has stepped down as Chief People Officer and will serve as an advisor during a transition period. Jill Hazelbaker, previously Chief Marketing Officer and SVP, Communications & Public Policy, has been appointed President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, effective immediately, assuming Krishnamurthy's former HR responsibilities as well as oversight of Uber's Safety Operations.

Join CHROs on the Go to access all detailed 72 announcements from May and +4,800 archived announcements. Monthly + annual subscriptions available.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

My Community for Internal HR practitioners

Talent Edge Circle

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

🗓️ June 17, Adam Gibson, author of Agile Workforce Planning, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on strategic workforce planning.

🗓️ July 22, Dave Ulrich, professor at the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan) and co-founder of The RBL Group, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through HR.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Bonnie Levitt, Chief HR Officer at Citadel Credit Union, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Bonnie, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY Lightcast

Skills Transformation: A New Paradigm for Your Workforce

Your workforce is changing faster than your org chart can keep up. Roles stay the same, but the skills behind them don't. And every day spent managing talent by job title means your making hiring decisions, planning budgets, and shaping careers without a clear view of what your people can actually do.

Becoming a skills-powered organisation changes that. But knowing where to start is where most transformations stall.

Download 10 Steps to Skills-Powered Transformation — the blueprint HR and L&D leaders are using to move from job-title thinking to skills-first strategy.

Inside, you'll get:

• The 10-step framework covering process, policy, people, and technology at every stage

• A SWOT analysis to pressure-test your readiness and spot the risks before they hit

• Practical actions you can take this quarter — from running a skills audit to building a skills taxonomy your business will actually use

• The tools and platforms leading organisations are deploying to make skills data work

Whether you're just exploring skills-based work or already mid-transformation, this blueprint shows you what good looks like — and how to get there without the false starts.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• The Age of HR: Delivering Stakeholder Value Through Strategic Organizational Capability: Talent, Leadership, and Culture | Edited by Anthony Nyberg, Rebecca Kehoe, Dave Ulrich, and Patrick Wright | A new open-access 338-page Ebook across 61 chapters featuring 85 global thought leaders on how HR can create stakeholder value.

• The AI Jobs Transition Framework: Mapping AI's Near-Term Impact on Jobs | OpenAI Economic Research | A recent 32-page report argues that standard AI "exposure" measures alone are not sufficient to predict near-term job disruption and introduces a four-dimension framework instead.

• Unlocking Workforce Capacity Through Ways of Working | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet with 10 diagnostic questions to help identify opportunities to unlock workforce capacity through more effective ways of working.

• Gen AI Could Fix Performance Reviews — or Make Them Even Worse | Harvard Business Review | A new article argues that most organizations are using AI to produce more polished versions of the same flawed performance reviews rather than to fix the underlying information quality problem.

• One Year Later: Raising the AI Fluency Bar for Every Zapier Hire | Zapier | A recent article by Tracy St. Dic, Global Head of Talent at Zapier, shares the company's V2 AI Fluency Rubric, offering a framework for defining and assessing AI fluency.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

My Community for Internal HR pracititoners

Talent Edge Circle

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

🗓️ June 17, Adam Gibson, author of Agile Workforce Planning, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on strategic workforce planning.

🗓️ July 22, Dave Ulrich, professor at the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan) and co-founder of The RBL Group, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through HR.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

HR CREATING STAKEHOLDER VALUE

The Age of HR: Delivering Stakeholder Value Through Strategic Organizational Capability: Talent, Leadership, and Culture | Edited by Anthony Nyberg, Rebecca Kehoe, Dave Ulrich, and Patrick Wright

A new open-access 338-page ebook across 61 chapters featuring 85 global thought leaders on how HR can create stakeholder value.

The field of HR has grown immensely, not only in terms of the value it creates for stakeholders, but also in the sheer number of areas within its remit. That volume and complexity can make it challenging to connect HR's work in an integrated way, which is why frameworks that cluster the work around a few vital capability areas are so useful. This new open-access Ebook, edited by Anthony Nyberg, Rebecca Kehoe, Dave Ulrich, and Patrick Wright, does exactly that: helping HR practitioners think more strategically about how HR creates value for employees, customers, investors, and communities. Organized around four human capability domains (talent, leadership, organization, and the HR function), it brings together 85 global thought leaders in the HR space and includes 61 chapters spanning seven themes: business context, business agenda, talent, leadership and organization, culture, the HR function, and personal growth for HR leaders. It covers everything from succession planning and workforce analytics to culture as competitive advantage, the CHRO as business leader, building organizations ready for agentic AI, and so much more. Given that succession planning is a priority for many Talent Edge Weekly readers, I want to highlight the chapter by Marcia Avedon and Anthony J. Nyberg (p. 131), which covers succession and talent reviews, calibration tactics, key talent metrics, and more. A special thanks to all contributors who helped bring this excellent resource to the field. And for those in my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle, I'm looking forward to Dave Ulrich joining us in July for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through talent, leadership, organization, and the HR function.

Access Ebook

AI’S IMPACT ON JOBS

The AI Jobs Transition Framework: Mapping AI's Near-Term Impact on Jobs | OpenAI Economic Research

A recent 32-page report argues that standard AI "exposure" measures alone are not sufficient to predict near-term job disruption and introduces a four-dimension framework instead.

As organizations assess AI’s impact on jobs and work, many rely on AI exposure rankings, or the percentage of job tasks AI has the technical capability to perform, as the primary lens for assessing job disruption risk. But this new 32-page report argues that AI exposure alone is not enough to predict near-term disruption. Instead, the researchers introduce a four-dimension framework: 1) technical capability, which the report views as AI exposure, 2) human necessity, or whether regulatory, relational, or physical factors require a human to remain in the role, 3) demand elasticity, or how demand for a job might change as AI lowers its cost, and 4) observed ChatGPT usage data, or how workers in those roles are already using AI in practice. Applied across nearly all US occupations, the framework and analysis classifies jobs into four archetypes: 18% face higher short-term automation risk, 24% will reorganize as task composition shifts but workers remain necessary, 12% could grow as AI lowers costs and unlocks latent demand, and 46% are likely to see less near-term change. One takeaway is that relying on AI exposure alone can lead to inaccurate assumptions about job loss risk, since many highly exposed jobs may be redesigned or expanded rather than immediately automated. For HR practitioners, the 24% of roles likely to reorganize may be one of the most practical starting points, since these roles create more immediate opportunities for role redesign, reskilling, workforce planning, and succession planning conversations.

Access report

UNLOCKING WORKFORCE CAPACITY

Unlocking Workforce Capacity Through Ways of Working | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with 10 diagnostic questions to help identify opportunities to unlock workforce capacity through more effective ways of working.

In a recent post, I shared my cheat sheet with eight questions to help determine whether a newly vacant role truly needs to be backfilled when the incumbent exits. The goal was to help move from reactive hiring—where newly vacated roles are often assumed to need a backfill— to being more intentional. Reactive hiring often leads to a costly overhiring cycle, where organizations miscalculate workforce needs, resort to layoffs when supply outpaces demand, then rehire when demand returns. A question I like to ask before deciding to backfill a role is: how can improved ways of working unlock trapped workforce capacity to accomplish more? Trapped capacity is time and effort spent on work that adds little value and could be eliminated, simplified, or redirected to higher-priority work. For example, a team spending 30% of its time in low-value meetings or navigating approval delays has significant capacity waiting to be unlocked. AT&T saved 3.6 million hours and over $230 million in three years by eliminating outdated processes, tools, and policies hindering effective ways of working. Shopify reclaimed 76,500+ meeting hours by cutting recurring meetings and completed 25% more projects. Where is there trapped capacity on your team and organization? My cheat sheet includes 10 diagnostic questions that can help identify opportunities to unlock workforce capacity through more effective ways of working. Consider it a topic for your next team meeting.

Access my cheat sheet

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND AI

Gen AI Could Fix Performance Reviews — or Make Them Even Worse | Harvard Business Review

A new article argues that most organizations are using AI to produce more polished versions of the same flawed performance reviews rather than to fix the underlying information quality problem.

AI continues to influence how organizations implement various talent practices, including performance management (PM). However, a new HBR article by Boston University professor Chris Dellarocas suggests many may be scaling the wrong application of AI in PM. While companies like Citi, JPMorgan, and BCG have deployed AI to streamline performance reviews (with some reportedly cutting review-writing time by 40%), the author argues these are writing-efficiency tools that produce faster versions of the same flawed evaluations. The better use of AI is to surface direct evidence of performance, including decisions, problems solved, collaborators influenced, and contributions to team outcomes. The article offers three suggestions for making this shift. As HR practitioners think through practical implementation and implications, a few questions to consider: Has our organization developed a clear strategy for how, if at all, AI will be used in PM? What traditional PM problems would an AI-based solution help solve? Where will AI not play a role in PM? What evidence are we using to make these decisions? What risks could emerge, and how will we mitigate them? These are just a few of many questions that will need to be considered. For those of you in my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle, you can catch the replay of our recent discussion with Dr. Anna Tavis, Clinical Professor and Chair of the Human Capital Management Department at NYU School of Professional Studies, and author of The Digital Coaching Revolution, where we discussed how organizations are using AI-enabled digital coaching to develop employees at scale.

Access article

 AI FLUENCY AS A SKILL

One Year Later: Raising the AI Fluency Bar for Every Zapier Hire | Zapier

A recent article by Tracy St. Dic, Global Head of Talent at Zapier, shares the company's V2 AI Fluency Rubric, offering a framework for defining and assessing AI fluency.

In last week's issue of Talent Edge Weekly, and cross-posted here on my website, I shared an open-access resource of employer-validated skill profiles for 30 roles, ranging from Project Management Specialists to Data Scientists. It’s from The Burning Glass Institute and developed through the Skills-First Working Group, including practitioners from Walmart, Microsoft, and others. Each profile includes: 1) top skills for the role, 2) skill definitions describing how each skill is used in that specific role, 3) market trends showing which skills are rising or declining in demand, and what skills earn a premium in the market, and 4) proficiency standards. Building on the theme of skills, here is another practical resource that addresses one of the most pressing skill-building challenges organizations are facing right now: AI fluency. The resource is Zapier's V2 AI Fluency Rubric, recently published by Zapier's Global Head of Talent, Tracy St. Dic. It offers HR practitioners practical ideas for defining and assessing AI fluency across their workforce, mapping it across four components: 1) Mindset: how someone approaches AI as a tool for their work; 2) Strategy: how they identify opportunities to apply it; 3) Building: whether they have developed repeatable systems rather than relying on one-off prompts; and 4) Accountability: whether someone critically evaluates AI outputs and takes ownership of the results. Thirteen functional-specific examples across Engineering, HR, Finance, Marketing, and other functions are provided, making it easier to apply to different roles.

Access article and resource

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

HR IMPACT

A Mid-Year Pause: Are Your HR-Related Results Driving Real Business Outcomes?

My slide that can help HR leaders and their teams reflect on mid-year accomplishments and assess whether the work underway is connected to the business outcomes that matter most.

Access slide

BONUS RESOURCE

TALENT REVIEW

Talent Reviews: Key Questions, HiPo Metrics, and Regrettable Loss Segments | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet consolidates three elements from my past posts on talent reviews: key discussion questions, talent segments to retain, and sample HiPo metrics.

Access cheat sheet

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU). The financial software company announced it will cut approximately 3,000 employees, or 17% of its global workforce, to reduce organizational complexity and accelerate its AI strategy, including new partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI. The cuts span all four of its consumer brands — TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp — across seven countries.

• Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META). The social media company began laying off approximately 8,000 employees — about 10% of its global workforce — on May 20, as it restructures around AI and reallocates capital toward up to $145 billion in AI infrastructure spending in 2026. An additional 7,000 employees are being transferred into newly created AI-focused teams, and 6,000 open positions have been canceled.

• Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN). The international banking group announced plans to eliminate approximately 7,800 positions — more than 15% of its corporate functions workforce — by 2030, as AI and automation replace back-office roles in HR, risk, and compliance. The cuts, disclosed by CEO Bill Winters at an investor day in Hong Kong on May 19, are concentrated in back-office hubs across India, Malaysia, Poland, and China.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• ​Honeywell​ (CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA) [NASDAQ: HON] — a global industrial technology company focused on automation, the future of aviation, and energy transition — announced the elevation of​ Jennifer Reilly​ as Chief HR Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Jennifer replaces Karen Mattimore, who has been the company’s Chief HR Officer since June 2020. Reilly has been with Honeywell since 2023, most recently serving as VP of HR and Communications for Safety & Productivity Solutions. Prior to Honeywell, she served as SVP and CHRO at MKS Instruments and held several senior HR leadership roles at Danaher Corporation.

Jennifer Reilly​

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

WANT MORE?

Talent Edge Circle - my private community

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF APRIL 2026

Did you miss the “Best of April ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #345, which includes the most popular resources from the month.

Special thanks to 365Talents for sponsoring the Best of April issue. Download 365Talents The Strategic Buyer Guide to Skills Intelligence.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Rosaliz Ufret, VP of HR Strategy at Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Rosaliz, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY Draup

6 Principles for Redesigning the Organization in the AI-Era

Most enterprises are bolting AI onto the existing org chart and calling it a transformation. It worked for a quarter or two, but now the cracks are showing.

Draup's latest paper lays out 6 principles for HR and org design leaders rebuilding for an AI-native workforce:

1. Put managers back into high-value individual contribution work

2. Rebuild entry-level roles around verification, not first drafts

3. Flatten layers that only route information

4. Add an explicit verification function before errors compound

5. Default to 2 to 5 person cells over coordination-heavy teams

6. Design for humans and agents, with named ownership for both

Inside: evidence from Bayer, Haier, Air Canada, and Klarna, plus a nine-metric framework to track the transition.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• The State of Performance and Potential: Where We Were, Are, and What You Should Do Now | The Talent Strategy Group | Marc Effron provides a review of performance management and assessing potential, along with specific actions to strengthen each.

• Skills Profile Framework | The Burning Glass Institute | An open-access library of 30 employer-validated skill profiles co-created by organizations such as Walmart, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Accenture.

• A Mid-Year Pause: Are Your HR-Related Results Driving Real Business Outcomes? | My slide that can help HR leaders and their teams reflect on mid-year accomplishments and assess whether the work underway is connected to the business outcomes that matter most.

• Corporate Functions of the Future Won't Look Like Functions at All | BCG | A new article explores how AI is reshaping corporate functions with implications for operating models, workflows, and talent.

• How Much Will AI Impact Tomorrow’s Workforce? New Data on the Future of Work with AI | MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy | A new synthesis from MIT IDE research scientists draws on three working papers on different aspects of the impact of AI. Links to all three papers are also provided.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE

 🗓️  If you’re part of my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle, this is a reminder that we will have a discussion on Thursday, May 21, on talent reviews. 

We’ll discuss how we are implementing talent reviews, what’s working well, where there are opportunities to hold talent reviews that have real business impact, and pressure-test ideas for upcoming talent reviews. See you then!

Screenshot of a previous discussion

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

PERFORMANCE AND POTENTIAL

The State of Performance and Potential: Where We Were, Are, and What You Should Do Now | The Talent Strategy Group

Marc Effron provides a review of performance management and assessing potential, along with specific actions to strengthen each.

Two talent practices that enable business strategy execution are performance management (PM) and organizational talent reviews (OTR). On one hand, PM ensures strategy gets translated into the right goals at the right levels and executed with accountability. On the other, OTR identifies those with the greatest potential to take on bigger or more complex roles and puts the right development in place to accelerate their readiness. A new article by Marc Effron offers a candid assessment of both. Among the various insights, two I want to highlight. First, while PM can serve many purposes (development, engagement, compensation decisions), it can only do one thing really well. When PM tries to solve multiple purposes at once, it tends to serve none of them well. Second, on assessing potential, decades of research show consistent findings about high-potentials demonstrated capabilities (e.g. cognitive ability, learning velocity), just grouped and expressed in slightly different language by different firms. As Marc notes, since the science on potential is well established, the bigger challenge for most organizations is often the execution (e.g., developing identified talent, holding managers accountable for their growth) rather than the potential model itself. For those in my private community, Talent Edge Circle, you can access two of our separate discussion replays in our resource library: one we had with with Marc on PM and one with Allan Church, Ph.D. on assessing potential. And as a bonus, here is one of my cheat sheets on talent reviews.

Access article

SKILLS

Skills Profile Framework | The Burning Glass Institute 

An open-access library of 30 employer-validated skill profiles co-created by organizations such as Walmart, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Accenture.

As HR practitioners help their organizations navigate the evolving skill demands across roles, this updated open-access resource includes employer-validated skill profiles for 30 roles representing 35 million U.S. workers. It was developed through the Skills-First Working Group, consisting of practitioners from organizations such as Walmart, Microsoft, Bank of America, Accenture, and others. Roles range from Project Management Specialists and Data Scientists to Financial Analysts and Software Developers. Each profile includes: 1) top skills for the role, 2) skill definitions describing how each skill is used in that specific role, 3) market trends showing which skills are rising or declining in demand, and what skills earn a premium in the market, and 4) proficiency standards defining what basic, intermediate, and advanced mastery look like. Clicking on any individual skill within a profile reveals more detail. For example, within the HR Specialist profile, HRIS skill demand has grown 31.8% over five years, Succession Planning carries an 18.4% wage premium, and Full-Cycle Recruitment has declined 15.4%. As a bonus, I'm including the Skills-First Implementation Playbook, published in September 2025, which provides the foundation for the updated skill taxonomy. For those in my private community, Talent Edge Circle, you can check out the replay (in our private platform) of our discussion with Ravin Jesuthasan on skills-based talent practices.

Access 30 profiles

HR IMPACT

A Mid-Year Pause: Are Your HR-Related Results Driving Real Business Outcomes?

My slide that can help HR leaders and their teams reflect on mid-year accomplishments and assess whether the work underway is connected to the business outcomes that matter most.

With the start of June and the midpoint of the calendar year just two weeks away, HR teams may be reflecting on what they have accomplished so far and how those accomplishments are creating value for the organization and the stakeholders they serve. It is also a good time to reflect on the work ahead, where we are relative to achieving our objectives, and to determine any adjustments needed to set ourselves up for success in the second half. To help HR leaders and their teams pause and reflect at this point in the year, I am sharing a one-page slide I originally created for year-end to organize accomplishments by the business outcomes they enabled. While I tend to use it toward year-end, I also find it a useful ongoing tool for checking whether what we are working on is connecting to real business outcomes. I am sharing it here for those who want to reflect now, reset, and use it as a springboard for the work ahead. The slide shows an example of how HR results can be linked to five business outcomes (Revenue Growth, Profitability and Margin Improvement, Operational Efficiency, Customer Satisfaction and Experience, and Strategic Agility and Speed to Market) but you can easily adapt it to focus on the outcomes most relevant to your context. As a bonus, I am resharing my additional one-page slide, Framing Talent Initiatives in Business Context, which helps shift the narrative from "here is the HR initiative" to "here is the business problem we are solving/opportunity to unlock, why it matters, and what is at stake if we wait or do not act." Both slides are excerpts from additional resources in my private community, Talent Edge Circle.

Access slide

ORGANIZATION DESIGN & OPERATING MODEL

Corporate Functions of the Future Won't Look Like Functions at All | BCG

A new article explores how AI is reshaping corporate functions with implications for operating models, workflows, and talent.

Much has been written about AI's impact on the workforce, but a new article from BCG turns the lens specifically on corporate functions (finance, HR, legal, compliance, procurement, and technology). It contrasts where most corporate functions operate today (siloed departments, manual handoffs, and AI layered onto unchanged operating models) with where they need to shift, what BCG refers to as "Functions of the Future" (FoF): leaner, more automated corporate functions designed to perform at AI speed, with integrated workflows, flatter leadership structures, and digital fluency embedded into how work gets done. Although the article offers various insights for making this shift, one I want to zoom in on is digital fluency as a talent requirement for hiring, promotion, and leadership. In an FoF model, digital fluency is treated as a baseline expectation. A few questions HR leaders can help corporate functions think through: How is digital fluency defined in our organization, and are our hiring criteria reflecting that? Are we assessing it in promotion decisions? And since succession planning is a priority for most organizations, how will the future requirements of corporate functions, including digital fluency, change succession plans for successors who were identified based on criteria that may no longer reflect the new reality? These are questions worth raising now, before talent decisions fall further behind the pace of change.

Access article

AI IN THE WORKPLACE

How Much Will AI Impact Tomorrow’s Workforce? New Data on the Future of Work with AI | MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy

A new synthesis from MIT IDE research scientists draws on three working papers on different aspects of the impact of AI. Links to all three papers are also provided.

As we continue to gain guidance from research-based insights on AI's impact, this synthesis from the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, based on research presented by MIT IDE Research Director Neil Thompson and colleagues at the April 2026 IDE Annual Conference, draws on three working papers, each examining a different aspect of how AI is affecting work. At a high level, the three papers explore: 1) whether automation should be thought of as a spectrum rather than a binary choice (automate or do not automate); 2) whether AI's workforce impact is arriving suddenly or gradually; and 3) how automation affects the value of remaining human expertise. (You can click on the numbers above to access the full research paper). One I want to highlight further is the first paper, which frames automation not as a yes or no decision but as a spectrum across three categories: no automation, partial automation, and full automation. One added value of this research is that it introduces two factors that help determine where a given task falls on the spectrum: cost (the investment required to build and sustain the automation relative to the value it produces) and complexity (how much judgment, context, and tacit knowledge the task requires). As a bonus, I am resharing the recent AI Index report by Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, which is widely recognized as one of the most credible and comprehensive sources of AI data and insights.

Access article

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

PERFORMANCE AND DEVELOPMENT

9 Scenarios When Performance Traps Can Emerge Along With Sample Actions to Address | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with 9 scenarios that can undermine performance, along with tactics to identify and address each.

Access my cheat sheet

There is more content in this issue, but you must be subscribed (or logged in if you are a subscriber) to access the rest. It is FREE to sign up, and a new issue comes out every Sunday, 6 PM EST! ⬇️ 

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO). The networking and cybersecurity company announced plans to eliminate nearly 4,000 jobs, or approximately 5% of its roughly 86,000-person global workforce, beginning May 14. The cuts came the same day Cisco posted record quarterly revenue of $15.8 billion and are aimed at shifting investment toward AI, silicon, optics, and security.

• Fidelity Investments. The financial services company is cutting approximately 800 jobs, or about 1% of its 80,000-person global workforce, as it overhauls its technology and product-delivery teams. The company said the move is intended to make room for early-career, hands-on engineering talent and streamline senior leadership, while planning to bring on roughly 3,300 new hires in 2026.

• LinkedIn. The Microsoft-owned professional networking platform is laying off approximately 5% of its global workforce, affecting around 875 of its more than 17,500 employees. Cuts span the company's Global Business Organization. Sources told Reuters the move is not driven by AI replacing workers.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• Uber Technologies (SAN FRANCISCO) [NYSE: UBER] — a global technology platform connecting riders, drivers, couriers, and merchants — announced that Nikki Krishnamurthy has stepped down as Chief People Officer and will serve as an advisor during a transition period. Jill Hazelbaker, previously Chief Marketing Officer and SVP, Communications & Public Policy, has been appointed President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, effective immediately, assuming Krishnamurthy's former HR responsibilities as well as oversight of Uber's Safety Operations.

Jill Hazelbaker

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

My Private Community

Talent Edge Circle

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

🗓️ June 17, Adam Gibson, Practice Lead for EY’s Org & Workforce Transformation Organization and author of Agile Workforce Planning, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on strategic workforce planning.

🗓️ July 22, Dave Ulrich, professor at the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan) and co-founder of The RBL Group, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through HR.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF APRIL 2026

Did you miss the “Best of April ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #345, which includes the most popular resources from the month.

Special thanks to 365Talents for sponsoring the Best of April issue. Download 365Talents The Strategic Buyer Guide to Skills Intelligence.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Christine Johnson, Director of Organizational Capability & Talent COE at Acumatica, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Christine, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY Draup

Build, Buy, Borrow, or Bot? Rethinking Enterprise Sourcing for the AI Economy

As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, one question keeps coming up: does Build–Buy–Borrow still work as a sourcing framework?

Our latest working paper argues it does not and proposes a practical alternative.

Draup's Build–Buy–Borrow–Bots framework introduces a seven-layer sourcing model that gives each component of an AI-era capability its own logic, ownership, and governance. Built on Draup's enterprise capability research, the model helps sourcing and transformation leaders:

• Identify where most AI sourcing strategies are breaking down

• Understand why agents matter more than bots and what to do about it

• Apply a consistent sourcing structure across any enterprise function

• Govern the stack without optimizing each layer in isolation

If your organization is making AI capability decisions this year, this report gives you the framework to make them well.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• The Costly Cycles That Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) Gaps Create | Brian Heger | I share how SWP gaps show up in two costly ways: overhiring and premature AI-driven layoffs. I reshare an HBS tool to help assess how vulnerable specific jobs are to AI replacement versus augmentation.

• Chief People Officers’ Outlook Insight Report | World Economic Forum Centre for the New Economy and Society | A new 19-page report tracks Chief People Officer sentiment on global labor market conditions across three areas.

• The Perils of Using AI to Replace Entry-Level Jobs | The American Association for Physician Leadership | Amy C. Edmondson and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic share four tactics for redesigning entry-level jobs rather than eliminating them.

• 9 Scenarios When Performance Traps Can Emerge Along With Sample Actions to Address | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet with 9 scenarios that can undermine performance, along with tactics to identify and address each.

• 2026 Work Trend Index Annual Report: Agents, Human Agency, and The Opportunity for Every Organization | Microsoft | A new 29-page report with insights on the factors that disproportionately unlock AI's value.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE - my private community

👉️ If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

WORKFORCE PLANNING

The Costly Cycles That Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) Gaps Create | Brian Heger

I share how SWP gaps show up in two costly ways: overhiring and premature AI-driven layoffs. I reshare an HBS tool to help assess how vulnerable specific jobs are to AI replacement versus augmentation.

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is consistently rated a top HR priority among HR practitioners. Yet it also carries one of the largest gaps between importance and capability. I recently shared BCG's and WFPMA analysis of 28 workforce practices, which found SWP ranked fourth in terms of that gap, meaning organizations know it matters but have not built the muscle to do it well. That gap shows up in predictable ways. One of the most common is overhiring, in which organizations miscalculate how many people they need, and when workforce supply outpaces demand, resort to layoffs only to begin rehiring when demand returns. I recently addressed this cycle with my post and cheat sheet featuring eight questions to evaluate whether a vacant role needs to be backfilled. Another symptom is premature AI-driven layoffs, where roles are eliminated to fund AI investments before organizations fully understand how work is changing, what can be automated versus augmented, or which human capabilities will still be needed. Without that clarity, workforce decisions risk being undone at significant cost. Gartner predicts that by 2027, half of companies that cut staff due to AI will rehire for similar functions, often under different job titles. To help bring more clarity to these decisions, I am resharing an interactive HBS Working Knowledge tool that lets you gauge how vulnerable a job is to AI replacement versus augmentation. Use the dropdown filters by job category or keyword to see where occupations land on the spectrum, a useful starting point for more informed workforce planning.

Read on brianheger.com

CHIEF HR OFFICER OUTLOOK

Chief People Officers’ Outlook Insight Report | World Economic Forum Centre for the New Economy and Society

A new 19-page report tracks Chief People Officer sentiment on global labor market conditions across three areas.

This past week, the World Economic Forum released its updated Chief People Officers' (CPO) Outlook, a report that tracks shifts in sentiment on global labor market conditions by regularly surveying short-term expectations around talent availability and job creation among CPOs. The May 2026 edition (based on a survey of more than 140 global CPOs between January and March 2026) covers three areas: 1) an appraisal of global and regional labor market sentiment, 2) current workforce strategy trends with a particular focus on AI deployment, and 3) the workforce impact of increased geopolitical and geoeconomic fragmentation. One finding is that while half of the surveyed CPOs expect talent availability in their industry to improve over the next 12 months, there is significant variation across geographic regions, with stronger talent availability expectations in East Asia, China, and Europe, and more cautious outlooks in Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America. When CPOs were asked which workforce and talent planning actions they will prioritize in the next 6–12 months in response to geoeconomic disruption, strengthening local talent pools through internal mobility and rapid redeployment capabilities ranked first, cited by 50% of respondents; this is one signal that organizations are increasingly looking at ways to redeploy internal talent more effectively rather than depending on an uncertain and uneven external labor market. With this in mind, I am resharing three of my cheat sheets designed to strengthen internal mobility. You can get all three of them in the Best of April 2026 issue of Talent Edge Weekly. See resource 9.

Access report

ENTRY-LEVEL JOBS AND AI

The Perils of Using AI to Replace Entry-Level Jobs | The American Association for Physician Leadership

Amy C. Edmondson and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic share four tactics for redesigning entry-level jobs rather than eliminating them.

A few weeks ago, I shared the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI’s 2026 AI Index Report, one of the most comprehensive annual reports on the state of AI. While there was much to unpack in the 400+ page report, one finding I highlighted was that early-career workers in AI-exposed roles, such as software development and customer support, have experienced meaningful employment declines, while mid-career and senior workers in those same roles have held steady or grown. This matters because entry-level roles help people build the tacit knowledge, judgment, and leadership capabilities that senior roles eventually require. Organizations that automate away entry-level positions without rethinking early-career talent strategies may find their leadership pipelines weakening in the years ahead. In a new article, Amy C. Edmondson and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic argue that the smarter path is to redesign entry-level jobs rather than eliminate them. They offer four tactics, including building critical thinking alongside AI use. One example they cite is banking, where junior analysts participate in “red teaming” exercises that require them to challenge AI outputs for incorrect assumptions, missing data, and logical flaws, and then defend their critique to senior colleagues. Amy and Tomas also cite research in Science showing that novices who accept AI outputs uncritically can perform worse than those who reason through problems themselves, reinforcing why building the capability to question AI outputs early matters. Do you have a strategy for redesigning your organization’s entry-level roles before the pipeline gap shows up in your leadership bench?

Read article

PERFORMANCE AND DEVELOPMENT

9 Scenarios When Performance Traps Can Emerge Along With Sample Actions to Address | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with 9 scenarios that can undermine performance, along with tactics to identify and address each.

Recently, while backing my car out of a narrow parking space in a shopping center, I checked my mirrors and thought I had a clear view. But just as I began to move, someone walked behind my car. Fortunately, my vehicle's safety system alerted me in time. It was a reminder of how easily we can overlook something nearby, simply because we’re unaware it’s there, even when we think we’re paying attention. The same thing happens in organizations. We can miss critical issues or behaviors that are right in front of us simply because they fall outside our awareness. In the workplace, blind spots can undermine performance, relationships, and career growth if not recognized and addressed early. These scenarios can vary by context, such as being a first-time manager, being a new hire in an organization, shifting from an operational to a strategic role, or returning to a role after a career break. To help, here's my one-page cheat sheet with nine example scenarios where blind spots often emerge, early warning signs they may be present, and a sample tactic to address each. As you review it, consider asking a colleague, boss, or direct report: What's one thing you think I'm unaware of in how I work or lead that, if improved, could significantly and positively impact my own performance and that of my team? The answer may uncover a hidden opportunity to accelerate your growth, fuel team performance, and create stakeholder value.

Access cheat sheet

There is more content in this issue, but you must be subscribed (or logged in if you are a subscriber) to access the rest. It is FREE to sign up, and a new issue comes out every Sunday, 6 PM EST! ⬇️ 

AI IN THE WORKPLACE

2026 Work Trend Index Annual Report: Agents, Human Agency, and The Opportunity
for Every Organization | Microsoft

A new 29-page report with insights on the factors that disproportionately unlock AI's value.

Most would agree that unlocking AI's potential to deliver organizational value requires more than deploying tools and training individuals on them. It requires building the organizational conditions that disproportionately drive AI's impact. With this as the backdrop, Microsoft's new 2026 Work Trend Index Annual Report, drawing on a survey of 20,000 AI users across 10 countries, shares several insights worth examining. To identify which factors drive AI impact, the report first defined what AI impact means: employees reporting that AI helps them be more creative, do new kinds of work, produce higher-quality output, collaborate more effectively, and improve career opportunities. It then tested 29 factors across three categories: 1) organizational environment (culture, manager support, talent practices, governance, etc.), 2) individual mindset and behavior (AI mindset, usage sophistication, etc.), and 3) demographics, using multiple analytical models that produced consistent results across factors such as job level, industry, and market. One finding: organizational factors account for more than twice the impact of individual factors (67% vs. 32%), with organizational AI culture, manager support, and talent practices emerging as the top three. The report provides tactics across each of these areas to help guide investments toward those most likely to unlock AI's value faster. Since this reflects only one angle of the full 29-page report, I encourage you to read it in its entirety for additional context.

Access report

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Role-Based vs. Pool-Based Succession Planning: A Few Ideas for Determining the Right Approach | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet that helps HR practitioners evaluate whether to use role-based succession, pool-based succession, or a combination of both based on their organization's context.

Access cheat sheet

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN). The cryptocurrency exchange is cutting approximately 700 employees, or 14% of its global workforce, citing a combination of crypto market volatility and an acceleration of AI-driven operations. The company plans to flatten its organizational structure, eliminate pure management roles, and complete the majority of the reductions in Q2 2026, with estimated severance costs of $50–$60 million.

• Freshworks (NASDAQ: FRSH). The customer service and IT support software company is laying off approximately 500 employees, or roughly 11% of its global workforce, citing the rapid adoption of AI in engineering and product development. CEO Dennis Woodside told Reuters that more than half of the company's code is now written by AI, and said savings from reducing management layers and consolidating sales teams will be redirected toward its Employee Experience business.

• PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL). The online payments company plans to cut approximately 20% of its global workforce — more than 4,500 positions — over the next two to three years as part of a broad restructuring under new CEO Enrique Lores. The plan targets at least $1.5 billion in savings and is focused on removing organizational layers and reinvesting in core technology infrastructure.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, 12 new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• GSK (LONDON) [NYSE: GSK / LSE: GSK] — a global biopharma company — appointed Roanne Parry as Chief People Officer, succeeding Diana Conrad, who retired after seven years in the role. Parry joins from CSL, where she served as Chief Human Resources Officer since January 2024. Prior to CSL, she spent more than two decades at GSK, holding multiple senior leadership roles including SVP HR – R&D, SVP HR – Global Pharma Commercial, and VP HR – Emerging Markets. As CPO, she also joins GSK's Executive Committee. 

Roanne Parry

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

My Private Community

Talent Edge Circle

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

🗓️ June 17, Adam Gibson, Practice Lead for EY’s Org & Workforce Transformation Organization and author of Agile Workforce Planning, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on strategic workforce planning.

🗓️ July 22, Dave Ulrich, professor at the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan) and co-founder of The RBL Group, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through HR.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF APRIL 2026

Did you miss the “Best of April ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #345, which includes the most popular resources from the month.

Special thanks to 365Talents for sponsoring the Best of April issue. Download 365Talents The Strategic Buyer Guide to Skills Intelligence.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this special Best of April issue of Talent Edge Weekly! 

First, a shout-out to Erin Hanley Bostick, Head of Talent Management at Par Pacific Holdings, Inc., for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Erin, for your support of this newsletter!

Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Subscribe here for free!  

PRESENTED BY 365Talents 
^{_{A Docebo Company}}

The Strategic Buyer Guide to Skills Intelligence

Every HR tech stack promises skills. But not every platform delivers actual intelligence — the kind that maps capabilities in real time, surfaces hidden potential, and connects workforce decisions to business priorities.

The Strategic Buyer Guide to Skills Intelligence helps you cut through the noise: 9 core capabilities to evaluate, high-impact use cases, and ready-to-use templates so you can compare platforms with confidence.

P.S. - Want to see 365Talents’ AI-powered skills intelligence platform in action? Book a demo

My Private Community

Talent Edge Circle

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

🗓️ May 6, Anna Tavis, thought leader and Department Chair, Human Capital Management at New York University, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on how organizations are scaling digital and AI-enabled coaching.

🗓️ June 17, Adam Gibson, Practice Lead for EY’s Org & Workforce Transformation Organization and author of Agile Workforce Planning, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on strategic workforce planning.

🗓️ July 22, Dave Ulrich, professor at the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan) and co-founder of The RBL Group, will join Talent Edge Circle for a discussion on creating stakeholder value through HR.

THIS MONTH’S CONTENT

This special Best of April issue includes the 16 most popular resources from the April issues of Talent Edge Weekly. They span two main areas:

1. Talent Practices. Focuses on specific talent practices including many of my cheat sheets, covering performance management, determining whether to backfill vacant roles, evaluating AI-based tools in hiring, advancing talent initiatives, skills-based practices, critical roles, succession planning, internal mobility, and engagement and retention.

2. AI in the Workplace. Covers how AI is transforming organizations and reshaping jobs, examining what separates successful enterprise AI deployments from failures, AI's impact on early-career roles, how AI is influencing employee engagement and the global workplace, and redesigning work in an AI era.

👉️ This abridged version has quick links to each of the resources.

If you prefer to read my full issue, including my commentary, 20+ bonus resources, job cuts, Chief HR Officer appointments, and more, click below.

THIS MONTH’S EDGE

Below are quick links to the 16 resources. Again, you can get the full issue here, which includes much more.

I. TALENT PRACTICES

Focuses on specific talent practices including many of my cheat sheets, covering performance management, determining whether to backfill vacant roles, evaluating AI-based tools in hiring, advancing talent initiatives, skills-based practices, critical roles, succession planning, internal mobility, and engagement and retention.

• The Year Is Moving Fast: Three Cheat Sheets to Strengthen Performance and Goal Execution Through Year-End | Brian Heger | I share three of my cheat sheets to help leaders prevent goal creep, address ways of working that may undermine execution, and realign resources to drive results.

• 8 Questions for Determining if a Vacant Position Should Be Backfilled | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet with questions to help leaders decide whether to backfill vacant roles, reducing the costly cycle of hiring, layoffs, and rehiring.

• How to Evaluate Artificial Intelligence (AI) Based Employment Tools from Vendors | CHRO Association and SIOP Foundation | A new guide offering HR practitioners questions to evaluate AI-based employment tools from vendors, covering everything from validity and legal defensibility to data privacy.

• Moving Talent Initiatives Forward: A Business Case and Implementation Plan for Action | Brian Heger | I share two of my slides using workforce planning as an example to show how pairing a clear business case with a practical phased implementation plan can help move talent work into action.

• Rethinking Skills-Based Talent Models: 4 Paths to Business Value | Deloitte Insights | A new article based on an analysis of 87 organizations and more than 28 skills strategies shows why skills-based talent practices create the most value when anchored in specific business outcomes.

• Are Your Most Critical Roles Occupied by Your Top Talent? | Brian Heger | A few of my slides to help leaders evaluate whether their organization’s top talent is occupying its most critical roles.

• Role-Based vs. Pool-Based Succession Planning: A Few Ideas for Determining the Right Approach | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet that helps HR practitioners evaluate whether to use role-based succession, pool-based succession, or a combination of both based on their organization's context.

• Succession Planning: Taking Action Based on Scenario Type | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet with with eight succession scenarios, each requiring distinct talent actions to keep plans current, relevant, and actionable.

• Three Tools to Strengthen Internal Mobility in Your Organization | Brian Heger | I share three of my internal mobility cheat sheets to help HR practitioners identify IM gaps, measure progress, and remove barriers.

• Are You Overburdening Your Most Engaged Employees? | Harvard Business Review | A new HBR article draws on research published in Organization Science to show how managers often overload their most motivated employees, quietly hurting retention.

II. AI IN THE WORKPLACE

Covers how AI is transforming organizations and reshaping jobs, examining what separates successful enterprise AI deployments from failures, AI's impact on early-career roles, how AI is influencing employee engagement and the global workplace, and redesigning work in an AI era.

• The Enterprise AI Playbook: Lessons from 51 Successful Deployments | Stanford Digital Economy Lab at Stanford University | A new 116-page report that draws insights from enterprise AI deployments to identify what separates success from failure.

• AI Will Reshape More Jobs Than It Replaces | BCG Henderson Institute | A new 21-page report examining how AI will reshape jobs using a 6-category framework, with implications for talent strategy.

• The AI Transformation Manifesto: 12 Themes Driving Growth | QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey | A new article distills 12 themes that separate companies that are transforming their business with tech and AI from those that are not, drawing from hundreds of large-scale transformations.

• 2026 AI Index Report | Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI | A new 400+ page report that provides the most comprehensive annual AI state-of-the-field report. I hone in on one finding related to early-career roles.

• State of the Global Workplace 2026: The Human Side of the AI Revolution | Gallup | Gallup’s new 2026 edition of its annual global workplace report offers insights on various aspects of employee sentiment and engagement.

• Work Redesign: Reinvent for a Human Advantage | Mercer | A 20-page paper focused on how work redesign in an AI era should start not with the technology, but with one question: what work actually needs to be done?

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Ana Reynolds Murillo, Director of Global Talent Acquisition, Employer Branding, & Succession Planning at Yara International, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Ana, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY TechWolf

What if AI doesn't cause a jobs crisis, but a worker shortage?

That was the line from Sven Smit (Senior Partner & Co-Chair, McKinsey Global Institute) that flipped our mental model in our recent podcast interview with him and MGI Partner Anu Madgavkar.

In an 8.5x larger global economy, even with 80% automation, the math points to a people shortage, not a surplus. 

Three takeaways for HR leaders planning the next five years:

• Tasks, not titles, are the unit of analysis. McKinsey: "Businesses succeed or fail based on workflows." TechWolf's Work Intelligence Index decomposes 50,000 tasks across 1,500 companies, so HR can see where AI automates, augments, or stays human-led.

• The fastest learner wins. Five-year workforce plans are the wrong instrument. You need continuous learning metrics on capability, coverage, & improvement, which is exactly what TechWolf's AI delivers from the systems you already have.

• Harden up, don't soften up. When the environment gets smarter, you don't survive by specializing in what AI isn't. You harden up. As skills shift between humans and agents, you need a live picture of who has what, where the gaps are, and which roles to redesign first.

The CHRO question Sven left us with: What are you doing, right now, not to learn AI, but to get equipped to lead through it?

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• Role-Based vs. Pool-Based Succession Planning: A Few Ideas for Determining the Right Approach | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet that helps HR practitioners evaluate whether to use role-based succession, pool-based succession, or a combination of both based on their organization's context.

• How Leaders Can Close the AI Readiness Gap | The Conference Board | A new 28-minute podcast explores how CHROs can assess and accelerate AI maturity. AI fluency as a leadership expectation that influences succession and promotion decisions is also discussed.

• 8 Questions for Determining if a Vacant Position Should Be Backfilled | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet with questions to help leaders decide whether to backfill vacant roles, reducing the costly cycle of hiring, layoffs, and rehiring.

• Rethinking Skills-Based Talent Models: 4 Paths to Business Value | Deloitte Insights | A new article based on an analysis of 87 organizations and more than 28 skills strategies shows why skills-based talent practices create the most value when anchored in specific business outcomes.

• Beyond Tomorrow: Four Scenarios for the World of 2050 | BCG Henderson Institute | A new 48-page report presents four plausible scenarios for the world through 2050, two with direct workforce planning implications.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE

👉️ If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Role-Based vs. Pool-Based Succession Planning: A Few Ideas for Determining the Right Approach | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet that helps HR practitioners evaluate whether to use role-based succession, pool-based succession, or a combination of both based on their organization's context.

One design decision many practitioners consider when implementing succession planning is whether to plan by specific role or talent pool. With role-based succession, you identify people as successors for a specific role. With pool-based succession, you develop people around shared capabilities that apply across multiple roles. Neither approach is automatically better; it depends on what your organization needs and how it operates. In many cases, the answer is both. Consider a retail organization with hundreds of store General Manager roles. For broader store operations, a pool-based approach may make more sense, since managing a separate plan for each similar role may not be realistic. However, for flagship locations with larger P&L responsibility, brand visibility, or strategic importance, a role-specific plan may be more appropriate. To help practitioners think through this decision, I’ve created a one-page cheat sheet to stimulate ideas. Since succession planning is as much art as science, the cheat sheet serves as a starting point, not a prescribed formula, to spark discussions that help determine the mix of approaches that best enables effective planning within your specific business context. These are the type of topics we discuss in my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle.  

Access cheat sheet

AI IN THE WORKPLACE

How Leaders Can Close the AI Readiness Gap | The Conference Board

A new 28-minute podcast explores how CHROs can assess and accelerate AI maturity. AI fluency as a leadership expectation that influences succession and promotion decisions is also discussed.

A new episode of The Conference Board’s C-Suite Perspectives podcast draws on findings from its 2026 Reimagined Workplace study, the seventh annual edition of the series, based on surveys of 271 human capital leaders and 333 U.S. workers. While there are several insights from this 28-minute discussion, one finding to highlight is that, using a five-stage AI maturity model, 60% of organizations remain at the two lowest levels of maturity, where experimentation is underway but still limited. Only 11% reported more advanced AI integration at Levels 4 and 5. The researchers found that as AI maturity increases, organizations are more likely to use AI fluency, such as understanding AI capabilities, AI risks and governance, and use cases that can create business value, in promotion and succession decisions. One implication is that as AI becomes more embedded in an organization’s operations and strategic priorities, AI fluency will increasingly become a leadership expectation. Within this context, one question HR and talent leaders can help their organization begin answering: Have we defined what AI fluency means for our organization, and are those expectations clearly communicated to employees before we begin factoring them into hiring, promotion, and succession decisions? The answers to questions like this can inform key aspects of talent strategy and practices in an AI-enabled workplace.

Access podcast

TALENT ACQUISITION

8 Questions for Determining if a Vacant Position Should Be Backfilled | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with questions to help leaders decide whether to backfill vacant roles, reducing the costly cycle of hiring, layoffs, and rehiring.

As I've tracked thousands of layoffs over the past few years through my layoff tracker, over-hiring has consistently been among the most cited reasons organizations give for workforce reductions, resulting in costly cycles of hiring, layoffs, and rehiring. While better workforce planning can help minimize over-hiring, an equally important and often overlooked practice is to be more intentional about whether vacant roles need to be backfilled. Rather than automatically backfilling, HR and talent acquisition practitioners have an opportunity to help hiring managers reimagine how work is delivered and whether a backfill is the best talent choice, especially at a time when shifts in how work gets done are outpacing most organizations' ability to respond. To help facilitate these discussions, here is my one-page cheat sheet with eight sample questions designed to spark deeper evaluation and better hiring choices. A few examples: Is this role likely to remain needed in two years, adding a future-oriented perspective to what can otherwise be a reactive decision? Would technology such as AI or process redesign significantly change how this work is done, assessing the risk of role obsolescence before committing to a hire? As a bonus, I am resharing my my cheat sheet to help leaders identify opportunities for delivering work through short-term projects in an internal talent marketplace, tapping into existing workforce capacity while creating growth and development opportunities.

Access my cheat sheet

SKILLS-BASED TALENT PRACTICES

Rethinking Skills-Based Talent Models: 4 Paths to Business Value | Deloitte Insights

A new article based on an analysis of 87 organizations and more than 28 skills strategies shows why skills-based talent practices create the most value when anchored in specific business outcomes.

As HR leaders and their teams continue moving toward skills-based talent practices, this new Deloitte Insights article offers a useful reset on what actually creates value. Based on an analysis of 87 organizations using more than 28 skills strategies, the research finds that organizations creating measurable value from skills-based approaches start by defining a specific business outcome rather than by building a comprehensive skills infrastructure. Four common outcomes include becoming an employer of choice, improving productivity, building agility, and driving innovation. Once the outcome is identified, organizations can apply a targeted set of skills practices to support it, since different practices disproportionately influence specific outcomes. For example, organizations pursuing the employer-of-choice outcome prioritize internal talent marketplaces and self-reported skills, those focused on agility invest in validated assessments and skill-to-job mapping, and those aiming for innovation lean into skills-based workforce planning. These insights can help HR teams anchor skills-based practices in the business outcomes they are intended to influence. With that as the backdrop, I am resharing my one-page cheat sheet, Framing Talent Initiatives Within the Business Context, which can help anchor any talent or HR initiative in the business problem or opportunity it is meant to address.

Access article

SCENARIO PLANNING

Beyond Tomorrow: Four Scenarios for the World of 2050 | BCG Henderson Institute

A new 48-page report presents four plausible scenarios for the world through 2050, two with direct workforce planning implications.

I've written several posts and shared many tools on scenario planning as a critical tool for envisioning possible business futures and informing talent strategies. Building on those resources, a new 48-page BCG Henderson Institute report, drawn from more than 100 megatrends and a century of historical data, presents four distinct, plausible scenarios for the world through 2050. Two are especially relevant for workforce planning: AI Abundance (AI and robotics reshape work and leisure, driving exceptional labor productivity growth and a 25% reduction in average working hours) and Battling Blocs (geopolitical fragmentation compresses global talent mobility and cross-border labor flows). In the AI Abundance scenario specifically, average annual working hours fall from 2,100 to 1,600 — a 25% decline driven by task automation. The report notes this shift produces a fundamentally different relationship between work and identity, as employees maintain high quality of life while working significantly fewer hours. Beyond the specific scenarios, I am sharing this report as a broader example of scenario planning and how the outputs can inform strategic planning. Appendix 1 shows a three-step process to get the most out of scenarios and can be useful for those responsible for or involved in strategic business and talent planning for their organizations. As a bonus, I’m resharing my cheat sheet, Using Scenario Planning to Inform Workforce Planning.

Access BCG report

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Succession Planning: Taking Action Based on Scenario Type | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with with eight succession scenarios, each requiring distinct talent actions to keep plans current, relevant, and actionable.

Access my cheat sheet

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META). The social media and technology company plans to cut approximately 8,000 employees — roughly 10% of its global workforce — in the first of what is expected to be multiple rounds of layoffs in 2026. The cuts are tied to a massive reallocation toward AI infrastructure, with the company's 2026 capital expenditure guidance running as high as $135 billion.

• Nike (NYSE: NKE). The sportswear company announced approximately 1,400 layoffs concentrated in its global operations division, with the majority in technology, affecting employees across North America, Asia, and Europe. The cuts represent less than 2% of Nike's total global workforce and are part of the company's "Win Now" turnaround strategy, which includes consolidating technology operations into two primary hubs as well as integrating its materials supply chain into its footwear and apparel teams.

• Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX). The coffee chain cut an undisclosed number of jobs in its technology organization, with program managers, product managers, and other tech roles among those affected. The reductions were driven by new CTO Anand Varadarajan, who joined from Amazon in January, and are part of a broader restructuring under CEO Brian Niccol's ongoing turnaround effort; the company told staff it was making structural changes to sharpen focus and move faster on its highest priorities.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• XBP Global (IRVING, TEXAS) [NASDAQ: XBP] — a multinational technology and services company — announced the appointment of Acquelia Colaco as Chief HR Officer. Colaco most recently served as Head of Colleague Experience at Tesco Business Solutions. Prior to Tesco, she held senior HR roles at Infosys spanning more than six years. In her new role, Colaco will lead the global people's agenda across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, with a mandate to align talent, leadership, and culture with the company's AI-first transformation strategy across its approximately 10,600 employees in 20 countries. 

 Acquelia Colaco 

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF MARCH 2026

Did you miss the “Best of March ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #340, which includes the most popular resources from the month. Thank you to Noota for sponsoring this issue. If your recruiting team is bogged down in operational work, losing valuable time to hire the best talent, get a free trial of Noota’s AI agent for recruiting teams.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

PRESENTED BY

Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Tania Philipp, Chief People Officer at Lakefront Biotherapeutics NV, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Tania, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY Talent Edge Circle

My private community for internal HR practitioners

If you’re part of my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle, we have two upcoming discussions:

• April 22, Kyle Forrest, U.S. Future of HR Practice Leader at Deloitte, will join us for a strategic discussion on agentic AI and its implications for HR.

• May 6, Anna Tavis, thought leader and Department Chair, Human Capital Management at New York University, will join us for a discussion on how organizations are scaling digital and AI-enabled coaching.

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on topics tied to your most critical talent priorities, learn more about Talent Edge Circle.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• 2026 AI Index Report | Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI | A new 400+ page report that provides the most comprehensive annual AI state-of-the-field report. I hone in on one finding related to early-career roles.

• State of the Global Workplace 2026: The Human Side of the AI Revolution | Gallup | Gallup’s new 2026 edition of its annual global workplace report offers insights on various aspects of employee sentiment and engagement.

• Work Redesign: Reinvent for a Human Advantage | Mercer | A 20-page paper focused on how work redesign in an AI era should start not with the technology, but with one question: what work actually needs to be done?

• Are Your Most Critical Roles Occupied by Your Top Talent? | Brian Heger | A few of my slides to help leaders evaluate whether their organization’s top talent is occupying its most critical roles.

• Succession Planning: Taking Action Based on Scenario Type | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet with with eight succession scenarios, each requiring distinct talent actions to keep plans current, relevant, and actionable.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

AI IN THE WORKPLACE

2026 AI Index Report | Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI

A new 400+ page report that provides the most comprehensive annual AI state-of-the-field report. I hone in on one finding related to early-career roles.

As HR practitioners navigate the many implications of AI for the workplace and the future of work, this newly released report by Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI provides one of the most comprehensive independent reviews of AI's trajectory available. While there is much to unpack in this 400+ page report, one topic I want to expand on is AI's impact on early-career employment and what this means for future leadership pipelines. One finding is that early-career workers in AI-exposed roles such as software development and customer support have experienced meaningful employment declines, while mid-career and senior workers in those same roles have held steady or grown. This is an important finding, given that entry-level roles help people build tacit knowledge, judgment, and the leadership capability that senior roles eventually require. Organizations that automate away entry-level positions without rethinking early-career talent strategies are likely to find their leadership pipelines weakening in the years to come. A few weeks back, I pointed out how IBM is taking a different approach, announcing plans to triple its U.S. entry-level hiring in 2026 and redesign junior roles around judgment, oversight, and customer engagement rather than routine tasks that AI now handles. Reflection: How is AI changing early-career roles in your organization? Do you have a strategy for redefining them before the pipeline gap shows up in your leadership bench?

Access report

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE AND AI

State of the Global Workplace 2026: The Human Side of the AI Revolution | Gallup

Gallup’s new 2026 edition of its annual global workplace report offers insights on various aspects of employee sentiment and engagement.

With employee experience being a central focus for many organizations and leaders, the newly released 2026 edition of Gallup’s annual State of the Global Workplace report offers useful insights into employee sentiment. While there are several insights throughout the 251-page report, one notable finding is that manager disengagement is the primary driver behind the 20% drop in employee engagement from its 2023 peak. Manager engagement has declined at nearly three times the rate of employee engagement over the past three years, a shift from the past when managers typically reported higher engagement than individual contributors, whose engagement has remained relatively flat. A second key finding is that managers are also the strongest predictor of AI adoption success in the workplace, even more than technical integration. Employees whose managers actively support AI use are 8.7 times more likely to say their work has been transformed by AI. For HR and talent leaders, one implication is that rebuilding manager engagement is not a separate initiative from driving AI impact, but rather part of the same initiative. Said differently, there are implications for how organizations design AI change management and enablement programs. The report also includes additional insights, including regional breakdowns showing how workplace sentiment varies across geographies.

Access report

WORK REDESIGN

Work Redesign: Reinvent for a Human Advantage | Mercer

A 20-page paper focused on how work redesign in an AI era should start not with the technology, but with one question: what work actually needs to be done?

As organizations invest in AI, they must think carefully about how work should be structured, which tasks are best handled by humans, which by technology, which through a combination of both, and how jobs and workflows may need to change. This Mercer paper (a chapter from its 2026 Global Talent Trends report) makes the case that rather than asking how AI and tech can be applied to existing jobs and processes, leaders should start with a more fundamental question: what work actually needs to be done? Mercer then outlines a four-part process: 1) deconstruct work into tasks, 2) redeploy those tasks across people, AI, and automation, 3) reconstruct work into more agile structures, and 4) quantify the impact. One case study illustrates this approach: a global financial services company redesigned a high-impact customer process, with 68 tasks automated, 17 shifted from senior managers to junior employees supported by generative AI, 29 analytical tasks moved to a global capability center, and 14 senior-level tasks being augmented with AI. The distinction matters: when you start with AI or technology, you optimize existing work; when you start with the work itself, you reimagine it. If you're part of Talent Edge Circle, my private community for HR practitioners, you can access our replay and discussion notes from our conversation with Ravin Jesuthasan — futurist and Global Transformation Leader at Mercer and co-author of The Skills-Powered Organization, where we dove deeper into this topic.

Access paper

TALENT IN CRITICAL ROLES

Are Your Most Critical Roles Occupied by Your Top Talent? | Brian Heger

A few of my slides to help leaders evaluate whether their organization’s top talent is occupying its most critical roles.

I have shared many of my resources to help leaders identify their most critical roles. But identification alone isn't enough. Critical role identification matters to the extent that it informs talent decisions that advance organizational performance. And one of those decisions is ensuring that top talent is deployed in your most critical roles. The rationale is that, since these roles disproportionately impact business outcomes, deploying top talent in them can provide a performance advantage. To help determine if your critical roles are filled by top talent, here are a few of my slides excerpted from my private community, Talent Edge Circle. Each slide highlights one area with a primary question, why it matters, probing questions to dive deeper, and indicators to consider. One example is the internal benchmarking factor, which asks: Could someone inside the organization realistically perform this role significantly better in the near future? Why it matters: helps determine if higher-potential talent exists internally and whether the incumbent is the best fit. Probing questions: Are we keeping this person in the role due to familiarity rather than capability? Indicators to watch out for: internal employees in similar roles are outperforming the incumbent, and high-potential talent is being underutilized. Use this resource as a starting point and modify it to reflect your organization's context as you work to ensure your best talent is in your highest-impact roles.

Access my slides

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Succession Planning: Taking Action Based on Scenario Type | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with with eight succession scenarios, each requiring distinct talent actions to keep plans current, relevant, and actionable.

One challenge with succession planning is that after initial successors are identified, different situations often emerge that require adjustments to the original plan. Without ongoing attention, succession plans risk becoming little more than “names on a page” that don’t reflect current reality. What’s needed instead is continuous succession management, where successors are actively developed, reassessed, and supported as circumstances evolve. Here’s my one-page cheat sheet that helps you think through eight succession scenarios that may exist in an organization at any given time. Each scenario is unique and may call for different talent actions informed by the right questions. For a Ready-Now Successor in Waiting (fully ready, but there is a low likelihood the incumbent will vacate the role in the near future), a question to consider is: What is the retention risk if advancement remains delayed? If it is high, what can be done to reduce it? For Declining Successor Readiness (readiness has plateaued or regressed due to performance, engagement, or context changes), ask: What factors contributed to the decline—skill gaps, motivation, or external shifts? Is the role still the right fit, or should we redirect the successor to another opportunity? Questions like this can help prompt ongoing actions rather than waiting until formal succession planning cycles to address them. As a bonus, here is another one of my succession cheat sheets, including information on metrics, trigger events for reassessing succession plans, and more.

Access my cheat sheet

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

AI DEPLOYMENT

The Enterprise AI Playbook: Lessons from 51 Successful Deployments | Stanford Digital Economy Lab

A new 116-page report that draws insights from enterprise AI deployments to identify what separates success from failure.

Access playbook

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The U.K. national broadcaster plans to eliminate between 1,800 and 2,000 jobs, or roughly 10% of its 21,500-person workforce, to save £500 million over the next two years. The cuts are attributed to inflation, declining license fee income, and commercial pressures. A voluntary reduction will be offered first, with the bulk of the reductions targeted for the fiscal year beginning April 2027.

• Snap (NYSE: SNAP). The social media company that owns Snapchat is laying off approximately 1,000 employees, or 16% of its global workforce, as it pivots toward profitable growth. CEO Evan Spiegel cited rapid advances in AI that are enabling smaller teams to do more, with the cuts expected to reduce the company's annualized cost base by more than $500 million by the second half of 2026.

• UKG. The HR and workforce management software company is eliminating approximately 950 positions, or 6% of its global workforce, as part of what the company calls its "ongoing transformation." The cuts were communicated on April 15, with around 600 employees leaving immediately and roughly 350 asked to stay on for a transition period. South Florida offices in Sunrise and Weston were among the most heavily affected locations. 

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• The Coca-Cola Company (ATLANTA, GEORGIA) [NYSE: KO] — a global total beverage company — announced that Tapaswee Chandele will become Global Chief People Officer, effective May 1, 2026, succeeding Lisa Chang, who is stepping down after a seven-year tenure. Chang will remain with the company through the end of 2026 as a senior advisor and will serve on the board of The Coca-Cola Foundation. Chandele, a 25-year Coca-Cola veteran, most recently served as SVP Chief of Staff to President and CFO John Murphy, a role she held since May 2025. Prior to that, from 2019 to 2025, she served as SVP of Global Talent, Development, and HR System Partnerships. She will report to CEO Henrique Braun. 

Tapaswee Chandele 

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF MARCH 2026

Did you miss the “Best of March ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #340, which includes the most popular resources from the month. Thank you to Noota for sponsoring this issue. If your recruiting team is bogged down in operational work, losing valuable time to hire the best talent, get a free trial of Noota’s AI agent for recruiting teams.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Jim Viola, Chief People Officer at Family Entertainment Group, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Jim, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY Vemo

Want to start workforce planning? Build the muscles first.

Many organizations know they need strategic workforce planning—but it’s not always clear where to begin. That’s why we created a practical, muscle-building guide to help you get started.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to: 

• Identify the workforce roles that shape planning decisions

• Build a practical starting point for ongoing workforce planning

• Map out potential talent strategies

• Define an investment strategy for core roles in your organization

You don’t need a perfect model to start workforce planning. You need to start building the muscle—learning how to assess your organization, understand the capabilities required for performance, and identify where gaps may emerge.

Download the guide and start building your workforce planning muscles today.

P.S. - Want to see how Vemo’s workforce planning platform supports this work? Book a demo

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• The Enterprise AI Playbook: Lessons from 51 Successful Deployments | Stanford Digital Economy Lab at Stanford University | A new 116-page report that draws insights from enterprise AI deployments to identify what separates success from failure.

• The AI Transformation Manifesto: 12 Themes Driving Growth | QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey | A new article distills 12 themes that separate companies that are transforming their business with tech and AI from those that are not, drawing from hundreds of large-scale transformations.

• Three Tools to Strengthen Internal Mobility in Your Organization | Brian Heger | I share three of my internal mobility cheat sheets to help HR practitioners identify IM gaps, measure progress, and remove barriers.

• Are You Overburdening Your Most Engaged Employees? | Harvard Business Review | A new HBR article draws on research published in Organization Science to show how managers often overload their most motivated employees, quietly hurting retention.

• Top 5 Corporate Governance Priorities for 2026, With Succession Planning Being Number One | Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | A new report identifies CEO succession and leadership pipeline strength as the top board governance priority for 2026 and shares why.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE - Succession Planning

👉️ If you’re part of Talent Edge Circle — my private community for internal HR practitioners — a quick reminder that we have our succession planning discussion this Wednesday 4/15. 

It’s an opportunity to discuss how we’re approaching succession in our organizations, get feedback, and ask questions so we can make faster progress on our succession planning priorities. See you on Wednesday!

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

AI DEPLOYMENT

The Enterprise AI Playbook: Lessons from 51 Successful Deployments | Stanford Digital Economy Lab at Stanford University

A new 116-page report that draws insights from enterprise AI deployments to identify what separates success from failure.

There are many reports and papers on how AI will impact work. But one type of resource that I find especially helpful is hearing from organizations that have deployed AI at scale, the lessons they learned, and guidance for others considering similar efforts. With that as the backdrop, this new 116-page playbook from Stanford's Digital Economy Lab shares practical insights from 51 AI deployments. While there are too many insights to summarize here, one common theme is that an AI deployment’s success or failure was not about the technology, but rather the organization’s readiness, its processes, and its willingness to iterate. One recruiting case study on page 25 illustrates how an AI-enabled recruiting effort failed because leaders assumed AI would fix broken processes. However, the second effort succeeded because the CEO took direct ownership, the process was fixed before applying AI, and the effort stayed focused on the business problem the organization was trying to solve. The results included an 83% improvement in candidate intake efficiency and a 75% improvement in candidate conversion. The playbook also includes cases in customer support, sales, supply chain, clinical care, and more. To reinforce the value of starting with the business problem or opportunity in any HR-supported effort, I am resharing my one-page cheat sheet on the topic.

Access playbook

AI TRANSFORMATION

The AI Transformation Manifesto: 12 Themes Driving Growth | QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey

A new article distills 12 themes that separate companies that are transforming their business with tech and AI from those that are not, drawing from hundreds of large-scale transformations.

As HR practitioners help leaders think through what increases the likelihood of AI transformations succeeding, this new McKinsey article outlines 12 themes separating organizations innovating with AI from those running experiments that never scale. For each theme, it includes a diagnostic question leaders can use to evaluate their efforts. Three themes include: Theme 1: Enduring capabilities over one-off solutions. This helps leaders assess whether they are building repeatable capabilities rather than isolated wins. Diagnostic question: Are you building enduring capabilities for the journey, or merely delivering one-off solutions? Theme 3: If the value you’re creating doesn’t move the business, you’re getting it wrong. This helps leaders assess whether AI efforts are tied to business impact or just incremental gains. Diagnostic question: Will our business transformation plan result in game-changing value, or will the wins be incremental? Theme 9: Design for adoption and build for scale. This helps leaders consider whether the organization can embed and scale AI beyond isolated efforts. Diagnostic question: Can your organization repeatedly adopt and scale AI, or is it still relying on isolated heroics? Together, these themes and diagnostic questions can help HR practitioners guide leaders on where AI investments are most likely to create long-term business value.

Access article

INTERNAL MOBILITY

Three Tools to Strengthen Internal Mobility in Your Organization | Brian Heger

I share three of my internal mobility cheat sheets to help HR practitioners identify IM gaps, measure progress, and remove barriers.

Internal mobility (IM) is rising on the talent agenda as organizations prioritize developing and deploying talent from within. LinkedIn's 2025 LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report finds that even among organizations without mature career development and IM programs, 48% say IM is a higher priority this year. Yet despite this renewed focus, many organizations struggle to move from IM intent to IM execution. To help bridge this gap, here are three of my resources that address different and complementary aspects of IM. The first is my IM Diagnostic, a one-page tool with 20 statements across 10 key areas, such as transparency, manager support, and policy design, to help identify where your organization's IM efforts may be falling short. The second is my IM Metrics cheat sheet, which includes nine example metrics with definitions, rationale, and sample practices to help measure the impact of IM investments. The third is my Barriers to IM cheat sheet, which examines specific policies and non-tech factors, such as restrictive tenure rules and manager resistance, that can hinder talent movement even when organizations have the right intentions. If internal mobility is a focus of yours, this is one of the topics we dive deeper into in my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle.

Access my 3 cheat sheets

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Are You Overburdening Your Most Engaged Employees? | Harvard Business Review

A new HBR article draws on research published in Organization Science to show how managers often overload their most motivated employees, quietly hurting retention.

I recently shared my post and one-page cheat sheet on goal creep, when new goals are added mid-cycle without recalibrating current priorities or resources. The core point was that when new work is added without adjusting current priorities or available capacity, teams can end up with competing demands that put all objectives at risk. A new Harvard Business Review article from Cornell and Northeastern researchers adds another reason this matters. Drawing from their study just published in Organization Science, the authors highlight how managers often give additional work to employees they see as highly motivated, assuming those employees will welcome it and be less likely to burn out. But that assumption can be wrong. Over time, consistently giving extra work to the most motivated employees can reduce job satisfaction and increase the risk of turnover. My challenge is for both managers and employees to be more intentional: managers about what they assign, and employees about what they agree to take on. Whether the issue is goal creep or workload distribution, my one-page cheat sheet includes six questions to help teams decide whether new work should be taken on, what needs to shift to make room for it, and how it will be resourced.

Read HBR article

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Top 5 Corporate Governance Priorities for 2026, With Succession Planning Being Number One | Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

A new report identifies CEO succession and leadership pipeline strength as the top board governance priority for 2026 and shares why.

With succession planning a top priority among Talent Edge Weekly readers, I wanted to share this new report published on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and developed by The Conference Board in partnership with Heidrick & Struggles. It identifies CEO succession and leadership pipeline strength as the top board governance priority for 2026. A few stats: more than 11% of S&P 500 CEOs are in the 65–69 age bracket, up from just over 7% in 2017, while the 55 to 59 age group, long seen as a prime succession pool, has dropped from 36% in 2018 to 25% in 2025. In addition, 61% of CEOs and directors expect succession planning to carry more influence on company valuation over the next five years, driven by investor scrutiny of leadership pipeline depth and the signaling value of proactive leadership transitions that demonstrate strategic intent. As a reflection, what narrative are you telling your board about the state of succession planning within your organization? Is it proactive and data-informed or reactive and anecdotal? And does it connect pipeline strength directly to business strategy and long-term value? To spark some of your thinking, I am resharing CEO Succession: 10 Pitfalls Boards Must Avoid and the CHRO Practices That Help by the Center for Executive Succession and the CHRO Association.

Read report

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

EVALUATING AI-BASED EMPLOYMENT TOOLS

How to Evaluate Artificial Intelligence (AI) Based Employment Tools from Vendors | CHRO Association and SIOP Foundation

A new guide offering HR practitioners questions to evaluate AI-based employment tools from vendors, covering everything from validity and legal defensibility to data privacy.

Access guide

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• CAE (TSX: CAE). The Montreal-based flight simulator maker and aviation training company is laying off approximately 280 employees, or about 2% of its global workforce, as it braces for reduced spending by commercial airline customers. Nearly two-thirds of the cuts are concentrated in Quebec.

• Disney (NYSE: DIS). The media and entertainment giant is planning to lay off up to 1,000 employees, primarily in its marketing department. The cuts follow a consolidation of Disney's marketing operations across film, TV, streaming, and experiences under a single leadership structure, with layoffs expected to begin the week of April 14.

• GoPro (NASDAQ: GPRO). The action camera maker plans to lay off approximately 145 employees, or 23% of its global workforce, as part of a restructuring to reduce operating costs and improve profitability. The layoffs are set to begin in the second quarter of 2026 and are expected to largely wrap up by year-end.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• Comcast (PHILADELPHIA, PA) [NASDAQ: CMCSA] — a global media and technology company — announced the promotion of Vicki Williams to the newly created role of Chief Human Resources Officer, overseeing HR teams and strategy across the company's entire media and cable portfolio, including NBCUniversal and its Connectivity & Platforms business. Williams, who has served as NBCU's head of HR for the past eight years, joined the company in 2011 as SVP of Compensation, Benefits and HR Information Systems.

Vicki Williams

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF MARCH 2026

Did you miss the “Best of March ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #340, which includes the most popular resources from the month. Thank you to Noota for sponsoring this issue. If your recruiting team is bogged down in operational work, losing valuable time to hire the best talent, get a free trial of Noota’s AI agent for recruiting teams.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Bill Agostini, Sr. Director, Talent Management & OD at Veolia North America, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Bill, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY Lightcast

Your Workforce Strategy Isn’t Broken. It’s Based on a Fiction

Most workforce strategies still assume talent is predictable: pipelines can be built, roles evolve gradually, and supply will meet demand with enough planning. That logic no longer holds. Clinging to it is quickly becoming a liability.

Three forces are colliding to dismantle those assumptions.

1. Talent pools are being redrawn by geopolitics.

2. AI is rapidly redefining what “qualified” means.

3. And demographic shifts are tightening supply in ways traditional planning cannot absorb.

These are not trends to monitor. They are structural constraints that compound each other.

The implication is stark. Workforce planning, as most organizations practice it, is no longer forward looking. It is a rearview mirror. The risk is not being unprepared for the future. It is confidently investing in a model that cannot adapt to it.

The organizations pulling ahead are not refining old approaches. They are abandoning core assumptions about how talent works.

Download Lightcast’s Fault Lines report to see what they are doing differently and why it matters now.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• The Year Is Moving Fast: Three Cheat Sheets to Strengthen Performance and Goal Execution Through Year-End | Brian Heger | I share three of my cheat sheets to help leaders prevent goal creep, address ways of working that may undermine execution, and realign resources to drive results.

• Chief People Officer Pathways Report | EtonBridge Partners | A new 28-page report analyzing nearly 15,000 global CPO appointments between 2023 and 2025 highlights how the pathway to the top HR role is shifting.

• Moving Talent Initiatives Forward: A Business Case and Implementation Plan for Action | Brian Heger | I share two of my slides using workforce planning as an example to show how pairing a clear business case with a practical phased implementation plan can help move talent work into action.

• How to Evaluate Artificial Intelligence (AI) Based Employment Tools from Vendors | CHRO Association and SIOP Foundation | A new guide offering HR practitioners questions to evaluate AI-based employment tools from vendors, covering everything from validity and legal defensibility to data privacy.

• AI Will Reshape More Jobs Than It Replaces | BCG Henderson Institute | A new 21-page report examining how AI will reshape jobs using a 6-category framework, with implications for talent strategy.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE

👉️ If you’re a member of Talent Edge Circle — my private community for internal HR practitioners —I’m looking forward to having Dave Ulrich join us for an upcoming practical discussion on creating stakeholder value in HR. Learn more about Talent Edge Circle.

Dave Ulrich

I also highly recommend checking out Dave’s, along with his colleagues’, Global HR Leadership Experience (GHRLE)—a 100-day immersive program designed to develop the next generation of HR leaders with insights from world-class CHROs, global HR association leaders, and leading scholars. The Spring 2026 cohort begins April 27 at the Darla Moore School of Business, with in-person sessions through May 5 and virtual engagement continuing through June 2026. Learn more about GHRLE.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

The Year Is Moving Fast: Three Cheat Sheets to Strengthen Performance and Goal Execution Through Year-End | Brian Heger

I share three of my cheat sheets to help leaders prevent goal creep, address ways of working that may undermine execution, and realign resources to drive results.

We are now into the first week of April, and roughly one-quarter of the year has already passed. Even with the year already well underway, there is still time to influence and accelerate critical organizational goals and priorities for the rest of the year. To do that, however, organizations need to be intentional about how they prioritize, support, and execute those goals. Without that discipline, what may feel like an ample window to deliver results can narrow quickly as the year progresses. To support that execution, I am resharing three of my one-page cheat sheets. The first provides six questions leaders can use to critically evaluate whether new goals or requests should be prioritized and what trade-offs may be needed to prevent goal creep. The second helps teams identify ways of working that might get in the way of goal execution, such as slow decisions, unclear ownership, or too many approval layers. The third helps leaders evaluate where projects, budget, and talent may need to shift so that the most important priorities are properly resourced. Simple tools like these can help managers and leaders make faster, better decisions in real time and use performance management as an enabler of business strategy execution and organizational performance.

Access on brianheger.com

CHIEF HR OFFICER

Chief People Officer Pathways Report | EtonBridge Partners

A new 28-page report analyzing nearly 15,000 global CPO appointments between 2023 and 2025 highlights how the pathway to the top HR role is shifting.

Since 2021, I have tracked and reported on thousands of hires, promotions, and exits in the Chief HR Officer (CHRO) and Chief People Officer (CPO) roles through CHROs on the Go, my subscription-based platform tracking movement in and out of the top HR leadership role. Over that time, one pattern worth watching is how the mix of internal and external appointments shifts from year to year, and what that may signal about HR leadership pipeline strength at any given time. A new 28-page report from EtonBridge Partners puts data behind that trend. Analyzing nearly 15,000 global CHRO and CPO appointments between 2023 and 2025, the report shows that external appointments rose from 52% in 2023 to 71% in 2025, reversing a multi-year trend toward internal promotion. First-time CPO appointments are also rising, especially in private equity-backed environments, where nearly 40% of appointments now occur. For current CHROs, the data raises useful questions: Who are you actively developing for the top HR role? Are they getting the business exposure needed to be credible candidates? And if the role opened unexpectedly, would you truly appoint one of them? Why or why not? If any of these answers are unclear, that should be a signal to take a harder look at the strength of your succession pipeline. For one of the easiest ways to stay current on CHRO and CPO movement, join CHROs on the Go.

Access report

HR IMPACT

Moving Talent Initiatives Forward: A Business Case and Implementation Plan for Action | Brian Heger

I share two of my slides using workforce planning as an example to show how pairing a clear business case with a practical phased implementation plan can help move talent work into action.

I recently shared the 2026 Creating People Advantage report by BCG and WFPMA , which assessed 28 people and talent practices ranging from workforce planning and succession planning to performance management. Drawing on input from more than 7,000 HR and business leaders, the report examined the gap between future importance and current capability across those practices. Workforce planning ranked #4 among the largest gaps. One reason I believe gaps like this persist across HR is that it can be easy to delay action while waiting for the perfect plan, perfect data, perfect technology, or perfect conditions before getting started. When that happens, the gap is likely to widen and opportunities to accelerate business strategy execution and create stakeholder value through HR may be missed. One way to break that pattern is to pair a clear one-page business case with a second one-pager showing a practical phased implementation plan. I am sharing both using workforce planning as the example. Regardless of the talent work or initiative you are trying to move forward, use these resources to organize your thinking, identify next steps, and build momentum toward action. These are the types of practical topics and tactics we discuss in Talent Edge Circle, my private community for internal HR practitioners.

Access slides

AI IN HR

How to Evaluate Artificial Intelligence (AI) Based Employment Tools from Vendors | CHRO Association and SIOP Foundation

A new guide offering HR practitioners questions to evaluate AI-based employment tools from vendors, covering everything from validity and legal defensibility to data privacy.

As more AI-based employment tools enter the market, one challenge many HR practitioners face is knowing how to properly evaluate what vendors are actually selling. A new guide from the SIOP Foundation (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) and the CHRO Association addresses this directly. The guide makes clear that these purchasing decisions deserve rigorous and ongoing evaluation, not a one-time review. The guide provides 13 questions that move organizations beyond vendor claims and peer benchmarking toward a more rigorous assessment of AI-enabled employment tools. One example: the guide asks how the tool was developed and whether the validation sample reflects actual job contexts, not convenience samples pulled from paid online survey panels with no connection to real hiring situations, which is a specific red flag the guide calls out. While the questions are primarily focused on employee selection, they can also be applied more broadly when AI is being considered for other areas of HR. Whether you are evaluating AI-based platforms you are considering for purchase or auditing the ones you currently have in place, these questions provide a practical level of rigor that helps make better investment decisions that tap the benefits of these tools while mitigating the risks.

Access guide

AI AND SKILLS

AI Will Reshape More Jobs Than It Replaces | BCG Henderson Institute

A new 21-page report examining how AI will reshape jobs using a 6-category framework, with implications for talent strategy.

This new 21-page BCG Henderson Institute report shares insights from an analysis of approximately 165 million U.S. jobs, finding that 50% to 55% will be substantially changed by AI over the next two to three years. Rather than predicting broad job losses, the report organizes roles into six categories, including Divergent Roles (12%), where AI takes on more structured work while senior roles grow and junior roles shrink; Substituted Roles (12%), where AI handles more core work directly and fewer people are needed; and Rebalanced Roles (14%), where work shifts toward higher-value activities. For HR practitioners, these findings can help think through implications across several areas of talent strategy. In workforce planning, this can help identify where role redesign, redeployment, succession depth, and headcount shifts may be needed. In talent acquisition, it can help leaders adjust hiring plans and protect early-career pathways that build future talent pipelines. In talent development, it highlights where ongoing reskilling and upskilling may be most urgent as work changes within roles. These are just a few of the implications. I encourage you to read the full report, review each of the six role categories, and consider what they may mean for talent strategy and the underlying HR and talent practices that enable it.

Access report

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

FUTURE OF WORK

2026 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends | Deloitte Insights

A 79-page report explores issues shaping the future of work, workforce, and workplace.

Access report

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Electrolux Group (OTCMKTS: ELUXY). The Swedish home appliance manufacturer announced it will close its factory in Santiago, Chile, affecting approximately 400 employees. The decision follows a cost competitiveness review of the facility, with the closure effective at the end of April 2026; Electrolux will continue serving the Chilean market through products sourced from other factories and external partners.

• Fujitsu (OTCMKTS: FJTSY). The IT services company announced a voluntary redundancy program targeting approximately 270 jobs in the UK — nearly 10% of its UK workforce — as part of a broader strategic transformation. The cuts come as Fujitsu continues to lose public and private sector business in the UK. Involuntary reductions may follow if voluntary targets are not met.

• Oracle (NYSE: ORCL). The enterprise software and cloud company began laying off an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 employees globally — roughly 18% of its workforce — as it redirects capital toward AI data center expansion. Employees in the US, India, Canada, and Mexico received termination notices via email on March 31.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• Intel (SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA) [NASDAQ: INTC]— a global semiconductor company that designs and manufactures advanced semiconductors—announced the appointment of Aparna Bawa as EVP and Chief Legal & People Officer, effective May 2026. Bawa joins from Zoom, where she served as Chief Operating Officer, overseeing operational, legal, and people functions during a period of rapid growth and global scale. In her new role, she will lead Intel's global legal, ethics, compliance, people, and culture organizations, reporting directly to CEO Lip-Bu Tan. 

Aparna Bawa 

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF MARCH 2026

Did you miss the “Best of March ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #340, which includes the most popular resources from the month. Thank you to Noota for sponsoring this issue. If your recruiting team is bogged down in operational work, losing valuable time to hire the best talent, get a free trial of Noota’s AI agent for recruiting teams.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Ana Reynolds Murillo, Director of Global Talent Acquisition, Employer Branding, & Succession Planning at Yara International, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Ana, for your support of this newsletter!

Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Subscribe here for free!  

PRESENTED BY Noota

Is your recruiting team bogged down in operational work, losing valuable time to hire the best talent?

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• Time-consuming sourcing: Hours lost searching LinkedIn, job boards, and resume databases

• Manual screening: Qualification calls, overloaded calendars, and inconsistent processes

• Messy ATS workflows: Double data entry, missing information, and broken pipelines

• Poor alignment: Unclear briefs with hiring managers and delayed feedback

Noota is an AI agent platform that helps recruiting teams reduce busywork so they can make better, faster hiring decisions. It’s trusted by 200,000 users and more than 5,000 enterprise teams worldwide.

To see what’s possible, start a free trial of Noota today.

Prefer a closer look first? Book a 30-minute demo

THIS MONTH’S CONTENT

This special Best of March issue includes the 15 most popular resources from the March issues of Talent Edge Weekly. They span three areas:

1. Chief HR Officer Priorities & HR Strategy

2. Talent Practices 

3. AI & the Labor Market

Below are quick links to each of the 15 resources, but if you want my full, detailed issue, including my commentary, 20+ bonus resources, job cuts, Chief HR Officer appointments, and more, you can click the button below.

THIS MONTH’S EDGE

Below are quick links to the 15 resources. Again, you can get the full issue here, which includes much more.

I. CHRO Priorities & HR Strategy 

Explores reports and insights shaping the HR agenda in 2026, including the future of work, top CHRO priorities, AI within the HR function, the evolving role of first-time Chief HR Officers, and whether traditional organizational functions are still fit for purpose.

• Four Power Moves for the CHRO | BCG and WFPMA | A new 32-page report that examines 28 people and talent practices, identifies top CHRO priorities, and outlines four strategic moves for driving greater business value.

• 2026 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends | Deloitte Insights | A new 79-page report explores issues shaping the future of work, workforce, and workplace. I expand on the volume of change workers are experiencing.

• 2026 CHRO Survey Key Findings | CHRO Association | A new 16-page annual survey of CHROs taps into their priorities and concerns for 2026, including AI within the HR function.

• First-Time Chief People Officer Guide: 2026 Update | Heidrick & Struggles | Highlights eight enablers of success for first-time Chief HR Officers. I build on one: being a commercial business leader first and an HR leader second.

• Have Organizational Functions Outlived Their Function? | Deloitte | Examines whether traditional corporate function structures are still fit for purpose and offers a framework for evaluating whether design decisions should be organized around strategic outcomes.

👉️  Read the full Best of March issue 

II. Talent Practices

Highlights practical resources and ideas to help strengthen talent decisions and talent-management practices, including proactive talent decisions, preventing goal creep, succession planning, overlooked sources of talent such as caregivers, and what it takes to make skills-based hiring work.

• 9 Examples of Talent Decisions Leaders Can Make Proactively | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet with nine examples of proactive talent decisions to help leaders build talent management as an ongoing capability.

• Performance Management: 6 Questions for Preventing Goal Creep Year Round | Brian Heger | My one-page cheat sheet helps organizations address goal creep by evaluating newly added goals through explicit discussions about capacity, priorities, and trade-offs.

• Succession Planning Diagnostic | Brian Heger | My one-page diagnostic helps practitioners assess 10 sample areas to identify opportunities to improve their succession planning practices.

• Why Businesses Should Value Caregivers Now | MIT Sloan Management Review | Explores the case for viewing caregivers who have taken time away from work to care for others as a valuable source of talent.

• Credential Fluency: The Hiring Advantage in the Race for Skills | Burning Glass Institute and OneTen | A new 31-page report shows why removing degree requirements alone isn't enough to make skills-based hiring work and what organizations must do instead.

• Anchoring Degrees, Accelerating Skills: Policies Towards A Stackable, SkillsFirst Ecosystem | World Governments Summit 2026 with PwC | A 40-page report on moving beyond degree-only talent credentials toward skills-based hiring. I share my cheat sheet to help evaluate those decisions.

👉️  Read the full Best of March issue 

III. AI & the Labor Market 

Examines how AI and broader labor-market shifts are influencing work and workforce decisions, including where AI adoption still lags behind theoretical capability, what remains uncertain about AI’s labor-market effects, how to track labor-market trends, and how organizations are redesigning workflows to capture AI’s potential.

• Research on AI and the Labor Market Is Still in the First Inning | The Brookings Institution | A new analysis argues that many questions about AI’s workforce implications remain unresolved, helping distinguish signals from evidence.

• Labor Market Impacts of AI: A New Measure and Early Evidence | Anthropic | A new 17-page report compares AI’s theoretical capability potential with real-world usage data, showing where adoption still lags.

• Tracking the Labor Market and Jobs | The Brookings Institution and The Hamilton Project | A tool that helps users explore employment, labor force participation, and unemployment trends by demographic group, which is useful for workforce planning.

• Organizational Transformation in the Age of AI: How Organizations Maximize AI's Potential | World Economic Forum | A new 43-page report on how leading organizations are using AI to redesign core workflows, including workforce planning, rather than simply automating isolated tasks.

👉️  Read the full Best of March issue 

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE

If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.  

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this new issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Bridget Penney, Chief People Officer at Applied Systems, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Bridget, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY Draup

Talent Intelligence ROI: A Guide for Measuring Enterprise Value

Talent Intelligence is central to workforce strategy, hiring, and organizational strategy. Yet most enterprises still can't quantify its financial impact in terms CFOs and business leaders understand.

Draup's Talent Intelligence ROI Framework closes that gap by isolating the measurable economic lift across cost, risk, and revenue.

The framework allows organizations to:

• Quantify the exact revenue captured or vacancy cost avoided for every day shaved off Time-to-Fill

• Eliminate $10K–$60K+ in agency fees per hire through smarter sourcing and expanded talent pools

• Put a dollar figure on location strategy, role redesign, and succession planning decisions

• Walk into any CFO conversation with a clear scorecard across Cost Reduction, Risk Reduction, and Revenue Uplift

If your organization is ready to treat Talent Intelligence as a financial discipline — not just a talent initiative—download the guide to see what's possible.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• Four Power Moves for the CHRO | BCG and WFPMA | A new 32-page report that examines 28 people and talent practices, identifies top CHRO priorities, and outlines four strategic moves for driving greater business value.

• 2026 CHRO Survey Key Findings | CHRO Association | A new 16-page annual survey of CHROs taps into their priorities and concerns for 2026, including AI within the HR function.

• Credential Fluency: The Hiring Advantage in the Race for Skills | Burning Glass Institute and OneTen | A new 31-page report shows why removing degree requirements alone isn't enough to make skills-based hiring work and what organizations must do instead.

• Tracking the Labor Market and Jobs | The Brookings Institution and The Hamilton Project | A tool that helps users explore employment, labor force participation, and unemployment trends by demographic group, which is useful for workforce planning.

• Organizational Transformation in the Age of AI: How Organizations Maximize AI's Potential | World Economic Forum | A new 43-page report on how leading organizations are using AI to redesign core workflows, including workforce planning, rather than simply automating isolated tasks.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform.

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE

👉️ If you’re a member of Talent Edge Circle — my private community for internal HR practitioners — a quick reminder that we have our Hot Seat discussion this Wednesday 3/25. 

This is your opportunity to bring a decision you are weighing, a challenge where you are feeling stuck, or an idea you want to pressure-test, and get real-time feedback from me and your fellow internal HR practitioners to help you gain clarity on some immediate, practical next steps.

Interested in being considered for Talent Edge Circle? Learn more here.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

HR PRIORITIES AND WORKFORCE PLANNING

Four Power Moves for the CHRO | BCG and WFPMA

A new 32-page report that examines 28 people and talent practices, identifies top CHRO priorities, and outlines four strategic moves for driving greater business value.

BCG and the World Federation of People Management Association (WFPMA) just released the 2026 edition of their Creating People Advantage report, the latest in a series spanning two decades. Drawing on responses from more than 7,000 HR and business leaders, the report assesses 28 people and talent practices. One of the most revealing visuals is Exhibit 3 on page 8, which maps those practices by current capability and future importance to show where the biggest gaps exist. Strategic workforce planning (SWP) ranks #4 this year among the topics with the largest gap between future importance and current capability, and its importance has risen from #5 to #2 since 2023. Given that SWP shows up year after year as a critical priority with limited capability, at some point we need to ask: when will we begin closing the SWP capability gap in meaningful ways, and what will it take? One place to start is by clarifying the business cost of not prioritizing SWP. To help teams do that, I’m resharing my one-page template that connects a business problem or opportunity to a talent solution such as SWP, while clarifying the cost of inaction and the data that supports the case. Talent Edge Circle members can also access a diagnostic tool in our resource library to assess how well their talent and HR initiatives connect to the business problems they solve and the stakeholder value they create.

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HR PRIORITIES AND AI

2026 CHRO Survey Key Findings | CHRO Association

A new 16-page annual survey of CHROs taps into their priorities and concerns for 2026, including AI within the HR function.

This past week, the CHRO Association, in partnership with the Darla Moore School of Business, released its annual survey of approximately 150 CHROs on their priorities and concerns for 2026. While the 16-page report covers several topics, one key headline is that 91% of CHROs cite AI and workplace digitization as their most immediate concern. One reason behind that concern is that while productivity and efficiency gains are often cited as top reasons for AI-related investments, nearly half (47%) of CHROs report their organizations have not yet established clear productivity measures to measure return on investment. The report also notes that AI investments in HR are concentrated in a few areas, such as talent acquisition and recruiting automation and HR service delivery and self-service, raising an important question: where else might HR teams be overlooking opportunities to create business value? This creates an opportunity for HR teams to take a more intentional approach to identifying where AI can create the greatest business value, rather than focusing only on a narrow set of familiar use cases. To support that, I’m resharing my one-page editable worksheet that helps teams identify which AI-enabled HR use cases are most likely to generate stakeholder value by working through the business need, solution, expected outcomes, ROI, risks, and next steps.

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SKILLS-BASED HIRING & CREDENTIALS

Credential Fluency: The Hiring Advantage in the Race for Skills | Burning Glass Institute and OneTen

A new 31-page report shows why removing degree requirements alone isn't enough to make skills-based hiring work and what organizations must do instead.

In February 2024, I shared a Harvard Business School and Burning Glass Institute report, Skills-Based Hiring: The Long Road from Pronouncements to Practice. Based on 11,300 roles at large firms, it found that removing degree requirements produced only a 3.5 percentage point increase in hiring workers without a bachelor’s degree. A new study from the Burning Glass Institute and OneTen, analyzing more than 1,000 major U.S. employers, reinforces that pattern. Removing degree requirements alone produced only a 2 percentage point increase in non-degreed hires. But firms in the top 10% of “credential fluency” were 11 percentage points more likely to hire credentialed workers. What makes the difference: mapping credentials to roles, embedding them in applicant tracking systems, training hiring managers to assess them, and signaling them in job postings and recruiting materials. For example, Infosys names AWS Architect certifications in postings, while HubSpot does the same for Inbound Marketing certifications. The report also surfaces a tech paradox: tech firms rarely list credential requirements, yet are most likely to hire credentialed workers. Overall, skills-based hiring requires more than removing degree requirements. It demands embedding a range of operational practices into how organizations actually hire, of which credential fluency is one practical example. To support that effort, here is one of my cheat sheets: 9 Questions for Evaluating if Degrees Are Required for a Role.

Read report

There is more content in this issue, but you must be subscribed (or logged in if you are a subscriber) to access the rest. It is FREE to sign up, and a new issue comes out every Sunday, 6 PM EST! ⬇️ 

LABOR MARKET TOOL

Tracking the Labor Market and Jobs | Brookings Institution and The Hamilton Project

A tool that helps users explore employment, labor force participation, and unemployment trends by demographic group, which is useful for workforce planning.

Many HR practitioners track headline job numbers without access to disaggregated demographic data on employment and labor force participation. While headline data is a useful starting point, segmenting it can help HR practitioners bring more granular supply-side analysis into workforce planning. This open-access interactive labor market tracker from The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, updated February 25, 2026, helps do that. The tool allows users to explore employment, labor force participation, and unemployment trends by sex, age, race and ethnicity, nativity, education, disability status, and parental status, enabling a more nuanced view of workforce supply than standard Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases typically provide. The latest update also reflects significant revisions to January 2026 population estimates after the Census Bureau incorporated updated migration data, reducing measured labor force and employment levels and lowering the labor force participation rate. That serves as an important reminder that even official labor market data is subject to meaningful revision and that workforce plans built on point-in-time assumptions may carry more uncertainty than many planning processes acknowledge. For HR practitioners tracking labor supply in specific talent pools, this is an open-access resource worth bookmarking.

Access tracker

AI & WORKFORCE PLANNING

Organizational Transformation in the Age of AI: How Organizations Maximize AI's Potential | World Economic Forum

A new 43-page report on how leading organizations are using AI to redesign core workflows, including workforce planning, rather than simply automating isolated tasks.

The World Economic Forum just released a new 43-page white paper on how organizations are using AI to redesign core workflows, not just automate isolated tasks. One section that stood out to me is Focus 4 on predictive, AI-powered strategic planning, which describes a shift from relying on one fixed plan to continuously comparing options and reallocating resources as conditions change. A case study on Canada Goose makes that tangible: the company used an AI scenario planning system to accelerate financial planning, rerun scenarios more quickly, reduce planning cycle time by 60%, and improve revenue forecast accuracy by 4%. The report then extends this same logic into workforce planning in Focus 5, where planning becomes less about static headcount plans and more about continuously sensing capability gaps, evaluating scenarios, and reallocating talent as needs shift. That is one reason I’m resharing my one-page cheat sheet with questions and tips to help HR teams think through how talent and work needs may shift under different business scenarios. Even directional planning is better than none at all, and thinking through this ahead of time can make the difference between responding effectively to changing business conditions and falling short of key business targets. In other words, do not wait until you have everything figured out—the technology, the process, or the perfect data—to get started.

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MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

TALENT MANAGEMENT

9 Examples of Talent Decisions Leaders Can Make Proactively | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with nine examples of proactive talent decisions to help leaders build talent management as an ongoing capability.

Organizational talent processes and practices, such as talent reviews and performance management, are critical enablers of organizational performance. Yet a common pitfall is treating them as areas of focus only at a few select times of the year rather than as opportunities for ongoing, proactive talent decisions. My cheat sheet includes nine examples that can help leaders and managers accelerate talent decisions at any moment.

Access my cheat sheet

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

Partial view of my job cuts tracker on brianheger.com

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Bentley Motors. The British luxury automaker is cutting up to 275 positions, approximately 6% of its roughly 4,600-person workforce, in a restructuring of office and non-manufacturing roles at its Crewe, UK factory. The cuts come as the Volkswagen-owned brand grapples with a 42% decline in 2025 operating profit, falling sales in China, weak electric vehicle demand, and the impact of US tariffs.

• Bicycle Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BCYC). The UK-based clinical-stage biotech is laying off approximately 30% of its roughly 288-person workforce, about 86 roles, after regulators expressed doubt that ongoing trial results would support accelerated approval of its lead drug candidate. The cuts are designed to halve annual operating costs and extend the company's cash runway to 2030.

• Gemini Space Station (NASDAQ: GEMI). The cryptocurrency exchange confirmed in a March 19 shareholder letter that workforce reductions since January have reached approximately 30%, deeper than the 25% cut announced in February, bringing total headcount to roughly 445 employees. The company cited AI adoption as a contributing factor and is simultaneously exiting several international markets to refocus on the US.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVE OF THE WEEK

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my digital platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. 

This week’s highlight is:

• Parsons Corporation (CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA) [NYSE: PSN] — a leading disruptive technology provider in the national security and global infrastructure markets — announced the promotion of Soo Lagasse to Chief HR Officer, effective April 1, 2026. Lagasse, who currently serves as SVP of Global Talent Acquisition and Mobility at Parsons, succeeds Susan Balaguer, who will retire this spring. Lagasse joined Parsons in 2021, bringing three decades of experience from across the government contracting industry, including roles at CACI, Raytheon Technologies, and Engility.

Soo Lagasse

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go. It’s the easiest way to stay informed about movement in and out of the Chief HR role.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF FEBRUARY 2026

Did you miss the “Best of February ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #336, which includes the most popular resources from the month. Thanks to TechWolf for sponsoring this issue. Download their paper, The CHRO’s mandate has changed: Time to lead the AI revolution.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Luis De Rojas Dierssen, Global Employment Counsel & Full-Stack HR at Typeform, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Luis, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY TechWolf

Why the CHRO is the New Architect of the AI Era

Boards are no longer asking if AI matters. They are asking which business units will feel the impact first and what it means for next quarter’s financials. Here is the operating reality:

• Most enterprises are making billion-dollar AI infrastructure investments with limited insight into the human side of the equation.

• They can tell you how many GPU clusters they are provisioning, but they cannot tell you which roles are most exposed to disruption or where the biggest productivity gains will come from.

At TechWolf, we believe the AI revolution is a people transformation, not just a technology deployment.

Read our latest Vision Paper to learn about three moves high-performing HR functions are making to lead this revolution.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• 9 Examples of Talent Decisions Leaders Can Make Proactively | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet with nine examples of proactive talent decisions to help leaders build talent management as an ongoing capability.

• Research on AI and the Labor Market Is Still in the First Inning | The Brookings Institution | A new analysis argues that many questions about AI’s workforce implications remain unresolved, helping distinguish signals from evidence.

• Have Organizational Functions Outlived Their Function? | Deloitte Insights | Examines whether traditional corporate function structures are still fit for purpose and offers a framework for evaluating whether design decisions should be organized around strategic outcomes.

• Succession Planning Diagnostic | Brian Heger | My one-page diagnostic helps practitioners assess 10 sample areas to identify opportunities to improve their succession planning practices.

• Why Businesses Should Value Caregivers Now | MIT Sloan Management Review | Explores the case for viewing caregivers who have taken time away from work to care for others as a valuable source of talent.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform (subscription-based), where I track hires, promotions, and exits in the Chief HR Officer role.

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE

👉️ If you’re an internal HR practitioner who wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics tied to your most critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.

Screenshot of recent discussion on data-driven HR w/ Cole Napper

Brian

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

TALENT MANAGEMENT

9 Examples of Talent Decisions Leaders Can Make Proactively | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with nine examples of proactive talent decisions to help leaders build talent management as an ongoing capability.

Organizational talent processes and practices, such as talent reviews and performance management, are critical enablers of organizational performance. Yet a common pitfall is treating them as areas of focus only at a few select times of the year rather than as opportunities for ongoing, proactive talent decisions. When we rely too heavily on formal processes to make important talent decisions, two things happen: 1) we fail to build the organizational muscle to make better, faster talent decisions in the daily flow of work, and 2) we miss or delay opportunities to drive organizational performance through more intentional talent management. My cheat sheet includes nine examples that can help leaders and managers accelerate talent decisions at any moment. Talent Upgrade in a Critical Role, for example, asks whether a critical role is filled by the person best suited to drive business impact and what the next step is if a change is needed. Formal talent processes serve an important purpose, but leaders should also use the daily flow of work to create more opportunities to drive organizational performance through talent management.

Access my cheat sheet

AI’S IMPACT

Research on AI and the Labor Market Is Still in the First Inning | The Brookings Institution

A new analysis argues that many questions about AI’s workforce implications remain unresolved, helping distinguish signals from evidence.

In this new Brookings Hamilton Project analysis report, economist Jed Kolko argues that the biggest questions about AI and the labor market remain unanswered for three reasons: 1) early findings on labor demand are inconclusive in part because there are now numerous AI exposure and usage measures being used in AI research, and they do not fully agree on which occupations are most affected; 2) current findings are weak signals about the future given how recently LLMs entered widespread use; and 3) labor demand is only one slice of a much bigger picture that also includes productivity, labor supply, and transition dynamics, meaning how smooth or disruptive the workforce transition may be along the way. One caution for practitioners is Kolko's warning about "streetlamp bias," or the tendency to focus on what is easiest to measure rather than where the most important effects may actually be emerging. For HR leaders, the implication is to build workforce strategies that are grounded in the available evidence, flexible enough to adapt as the research matures, and be clear with stakeholders about what is known versus what remains uncertain. You can get more recent reports on the impact of AI on jobs, work, and the labor market here on my website. 

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ORGANIZATION DESIGN

Have Organizational Functions Outlived Their Function? | Deloitte Insights

Examines whether traditional corporate function structures are still fit for purpose and offers a framework for evaluating whether design decisions should be organized around strategic outcomes.

As organizations rethink how work gets organized in response to AI, faster business cycles, and growing pressure for cross-functional execution, this Deloitte Insights article raises an important question: are traditional corporate functions such as HR, finance, IT, legal, and procurement still fit for purpose? Its core argument is that these functions were designed for specialization and efficiency, but many are no longer set up to support the speed, agility, and coordination that today's business priorities require, and Deloitte's survey of 9,000+ leaders found only 7% are making great progress here. One framework in the article separates work that helps "run the business" from work that helps "grow the business." Run-the-business work covers repeatable, transaction-heavy activities suited for standardization, automation, and shared delivery models. Grow-the-business work (as shown in the post image) centers on strategic scenarios such as AI deployment, M&A, and market expansion, where success depends on aligning expertise around a shared outcome and is better suited for cross-functional teams organized around those outcomes. The distinction matters for design: not all functional work should be reorganized the same way, and clarity on which category a given activity falls into can help leaders make more deliberate decisions about structure, accountability, and where to invest in capability.

Read article

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Succession Planning Diagnostic | Brian Heger

My one-page diagnostic helps practitioners assess 10 sample areas to identify opportunities to improve their succession planning practices.

Succession planning (SP) continues to be a top priority for many organizations, and it is one of the topics Talent Edge Weekly readers most often ask me to cover. But in many cases, organizations do not struggle because they lack interest in SP. They struggle because they have not clearly identified where their SP practices need to improve to drive greater impact. Against that backdrop, I’m sharing my one-page diagnostic to help organizations identify opportunities to strengthen their SP. It covers 10 sample areas and, while not exhaustive, offers a practical starting point for assessing where the process may need more attention. Practitioners can review each statement and select one of three rating categories, including Needs Attention for areas with significant opportunity for improvement. For example, one area is Business Strategy Alignment: “Our succession planning process is aligned with the organization’s long-term strategic goals and regularly reviewed to adapt to changing business needs.” Once completed, the diagnostic provides a visual snapshot of results through color-coded boxes based on the selected ratings, which can help identify priorities for follow-up action. These 10 areas are intended as starting points, so adapt and modify them as needed for your organization.

Access my cheat sheet

There is more content in this issue, but you must be subscribed (or logged in if you are a subscriber) to access the rest. It is FREE to sign up, and a new issue comes out every Sunday, 6 PM EST! ⬇️ 

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

FUTURE OF WORK

2026 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends | Deloitte Insights

A new 79-page report explores issues shaping the future of work, workforce, and workplace. I expand on the volume of change workers are experiencing.

Access report

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

Partial view of my job cuts tracker on brianheger.com

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Atlassian (NASDAQ: TEAM). The software company plans to lay off around 10% of its workforce, or 1,600 employees, to push into AI and enterprise sales. The majority of impacted employees are in North America, amounting to 40%, followed by 30% in Australia and 16% in India.

• Evotec (NASDAQ: EVO). The drug discovery and development company is laying off up to 800 employees, about one-sixth of its global workforce, in a restructuring that also includes the shutdown of four facilities and other moves intended to cut costs, accelerate company growth, and speed up operations. The layoffs will occur across all its 14 locations in Europe and the U.S.

• Volkswagen (OTCMKTS: VWAPY). Europe’s largest carmaker plans to cut up to 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 as its profits dropped to their lowest level since 2016. Post-tax profits have fallen by around 44% in 2025. The cuts will take place across its core brand, Audi, Porsche, and software unit Cariad.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVEMENT

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my subscription platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. This week’s highlight is:

• ScanSource, Inc. (GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA) [NASDAQ: SCSC]— announced in its Form 8-K that Alexandre Conde, SVP and Chief People Officer since 2022, will transition to SVP, Strategy, effective March 16, 2026, and that Michael Webb has been hired as SVP and Chief HR Officer, also effective March 16, 2026. Webb joins from Rogers Corporation, where he served as SVP, Chief Human Resources Officer since April 2023.

Michael Webb 

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF FEBRUARY 2026

Did you miss the “Best of February ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #336, which includes the most popular resources from the month. Thanks to TechWolf for sponsoring this issue. Download their paper, The CHRO’s mandate has changed: Time to lead the AI revolution.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Ana Carolina Costa, Senior Manager, Business Human Resources at Abbott, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Ana, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY 365Talents 
^{_{A Docebo Company}}

2026 Skills Impact Report

2026 marks a turning point for skills, job readiness, and workforce strategy. The question isn’t whether skills will disrupt how organizations plan their workforce, but whether leaders are ready.

Roles are evolving faster than job frameworks, skills are expiring sooner than expected, and static HR models are struggling to keep up.

The 2026 Skills Impact Report cuts through the noise with a clear roadmap for tackling what’s ahead and fully harnessing the power of skills.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• 2026 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends | Deloitte Insights | A new 79-page report explores issues shaping the future of work, workforce, and workplace. I expand on the volume of change workers are experiencing.

• Labor Market Impacts of AI: A New Measure and Early Evidence | Anthropic | A new 17-page report compares AI’s theoretical capability potential with real-world usage data, showing where adoption still lags.

• Performance Management: 6 Questions for Preventing Goal Creep Year Round | Brian Heger | My one-page cheat sheet helps organizations address goal creep by evaluating newly added goals through explicit discussions about capacity, priorities, and trade-offs.

• First-Time Chief People Officer Guide: 2026 Update | Heidrick & Struggles | Highlights eight enablers of success for first-time Chief HR Officers. I build on one: being a commercial business leader first and an HR leader second.

• Anchoring Degrees, Accelerating Skills: Policies Towards A Stackable, SkillsFirst Ecosystem | World Governments Summit 2026 with PwC | A 40-page report on moving beyond degree-only talent credentials toward skills-based hiring. I share my cheat sheet to help evaluate those decisions.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform (subscription-based), where I track hires, promotions, and exits in the Chief HR Officer role.

TALENT EDGE CIRCLE

👉️ If you’re an internal HR practitioner that wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics related to your critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.

Screenshot of recent discussion on performance management w/ Marc Effron

Brian

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

FUTURE OF WORK

2026 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends | Deloitte Insights

A new 79-page report explores issues shaping the future of work, workforce, and workplace. I expand on the volume of change workers are experiencing.

This past week, Deloitte released its 2026 Global Human Capital Trends report, a 79-page resource that explores the forces reshaping work, the workforce, and the workplace. One chapter beginning on page 55 puts numbers behind something many HR practitioners already feel: workers are being asked to absorb a relentless volume of change, but most organizations are still not equipped to help employees adapt at that pace. Deloitte found that one-third of workers experienced 15 major changes in the past year alone, with that level of change taking a toll on well-being and workload. Yet only 27% of respondents believe their organizations manage change effectively. Deloitte recommends moving beyond traditional change management and formal training by building adaptation into daily work. As I’ve pointed out before, many changes are introduced simultaneously not because leaders intend to overload the organization, but because they often lack visibility into the cumulative change load and sufficient coordination across initiatives. That is why I am resharing my cheat sheet to help leaders review current and proposed changes, their timing, and their impact across groups. It serves as a starting point for better aligning the pace of change with employees’ capacity to adapt, helping improve the success of change efforts while preserving employee well-being.

Access report

AI’S IMPACT ON WORK

Labor Market Impacts of AI: A New Measure and Early Evidence | Anthropic

A new 17-page report compares AI’s theoretical capability potential with real-world usage data, showing where adoption still lags.

HR practitioners continue to tap into data and insights to help their organizations understand and prepare for AI’s impact on jobs and work. With this in mind, I recently shared two useful resources: 1) The Brookings Institution analysis pairing AI exposure with an “adaptive capacity” index to show where worker resilience is high or vulnerability is concentrated; and 2) HBS Working Knowledge research on how AI is shifting job demand, including an interactive tool showing which occupations are more likely to be enhanced versus eliminated. This past week, a new 17-page report from Anthropic was also widely shared. Using a new metric, “observed exposure,” it compares theoretical AI capability with real-world usage data and finds that, in most sectors, actual adoption remains only a fraction of what AI is theoretically capable of doing. One implication I draw for workforce planning and related areas is that organizations should not treat AI’s potential capability as the same thing as immediate workforce impact. Instead, leaders should distinguish between roles/jobs/work with high theoretical but low actual adoption, high actual adoption, and low exposure. Those distinctions matter because they lead to different conclusions, prioritization, and actions. Relying only on theoretical exposure could prematurely lead to workforce reductions or restructuring. A better use of this data is to identify where role redesign, reskilling, and shifts in productivity expectations are most likely to emerge first so efforts can be prioritized more thoughtfully.

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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Performance Management: 6 Questions for Preventing Goal Creep Year Round | Brian Heger

My one-page cheat sheet helps organizations address goal creep by evaluating newly added goals through explicit discussions about capacity, priorities, and trade-offs.

Performance goals and objectives for the year are already well underway. Even with goals set and resourced at the start of the cycle, it often doesn’t take long before new goals are added to an existing plan. If these additions aren’t managed intentionally, they can introduce competing priorities that outpace capacity, putting both original and new objectives at risk. This is often referred to as goal creep, when goals expand without recalibrating priorities and resources. To help teams address this, here’s my new one-page cheat sheet to evaluate any new goal and clarify what will change to make room for it. It starts with a simple premise: when a new goal is added, one of two things should happen. Either resources are added to support it, or an existing goal is deprioritized to make room. The tool also includes six questions to guide the discussion, such as: What specifically changed in the business priorities that justifies adding this goal now? What are we willing to deprioritize to make room? What is the minimum viable version of this new goal we can commit to this cycle? This tool isn’t meant to be rigid. It’s a strategic exercise to stay intentional about what work is taken on, protect critical business priorities, and strengthen company performance, which is a core aim of performance management.

Access report

There is more content in this issue, but you must be subscribed (or logged in if you are a subscriber) to access the rest. It is FREE to sign up, and a new issue comes out every Sunday, 6 PM EST! ⬇️ 

SKILLS-BASED TALENT PRACTICES

Anchoring Degrees, Accelerating Skills: Policies Towards A Stackable, SkillsFirst Ecosystem | World Governments Summit 2026 with PwC

A 40-page report on moving beyond degree-only talent credentials toward skills-based hiring. I share my cheat sheet to help evaluate those decisions.

With more organizations seeking to evolve talent practices around skills, this new paper from the World Governments Summit, produced with PwC, offers ideas for moving beyond degree-only talent signals toward a more skills-focused approach where people build and prove skills over time through smaller credentials that build on each other. One idea in the report is to treat degrees as one signal, not the signal, while increasingly embracing skills-based hiring that prioritizes candidates’ skills over traditional credentials. This connects to a question I’ve raised several times: as more firms remove degree requirements from job postings, are they truly hiring more candidates without degrees? Research from Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute shows that simply dropping degree requirements has limited impact unless organizations also redesign role requirements, candidate evaluation, and hiring practices. One way to do this is to stress-test degree requirements against specific roles and lines of work. To support this effort, I’m resharing my one‑page cheat sheet with nine skills-based hiring questions to help make these decisions more intentional.

Read report

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

FUTURE OF WORK

The State of Organizations 2026 | McKinsey

A new 74-page report outlines nine shifts reshaping organizations; I expand on one focused on improving productivity and performance through better ways of working.

Read report

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

Partial view of my job cuts tracker on brianheger.com

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF). The financial services organization is cutting more jobs at Discover’s Chicago-area headquarters. Roughly 1,075 workers are expected to be impacted, with cuts taking place in May and June 2026. 

• Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS). The investment bank and financial services company is laying off roughly 2,500 employees, which account for 3% of its workforce. The cuts are taking place in the investment bank group and will not impact the firm's financial advisors. 

• Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL). The cloud tech company is planning to cut thousands of jobs as it manages costs associated with its $50 billion growing AI data center buildout. The reductions, which might start this month, target roles likely to be automated by AI and follow a hiring freeze in its cloud division.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVEMENT

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my subscription platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. This week’s highlight is:

• Fulton Financial Corporation (LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA) [NASDAQ: FULT]— a $32 billion financial holding company—announced that Chief HR Officer Bernadette Taylor will retire from Fulton on June 5, 2026, and that Karen Grafje, currently EVP, Director of Total Rewards and HR Solutions, will be promoted to CHRO. Karen joined Fulton in January 2023.

Karen Grafje

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF FEBRUARY 2026

Did you miss the “Best of February ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #336, which includes the most popular resources from the month. Thanks to TechWolf for sponsoring this issue. Download their paper, The CHRO’s mandate has changed: Time to lead the AI revolution.

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Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

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Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

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SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this special Best of February issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

A shout-out to Melissa Carducci, Director HR Business Partner at Coupa, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Melissa, for your support of this newsletter!

🗞️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Subscribe now and immediately get 5 of my PDF cheat sheets!

PRESENTED BY TechWolf

Why the CHRO is the New Architect of the AI Era

Boards are no longer asking if AI matters. They are asking which business units will feel the impact first and what it means for next quarter’s financials. Here is the operating reality:

• Most enterprises are making billion-dollar AI infrastructure investments with limited insight into the human side of the equation.

• They can tell you how many GPU clusters they are provisioning, but they cannot tell you which roles are most exposed to disruption or where the biggest productivity gains will come from.

At TechWolf, we believe the AI revolution is a people transformation, not just a technology deployment.

Read our latest Vision Paper to learn about three moves high-performing HR functions are making to lead this revolution.

THIS MONTH’S CONTENT

This Best of February issue includes the 14 most popular resources from the February issues of Talent Edge Weekly. They span three sections:

• AI & Future of Work. Examines how AI and broader workforce trends are reshaping jobs and work—from which occupations are most at risk of elimination versus enhancement, to where worker vulnerability is concentrated, to how AI is intensifying rather than reducing workloads.

• Talent Strategy & Practices. Helps practitioners act on talent priorities, including performance management, M&A-talent integration, succession, tapping into overlooked talent segments, and internal mobility.

• HR Leadership & the CHRO Agenda. Addresses the evolving strategic role of the Chief HR Officer in an AI-driven enterprise, examines business leader priorities for 2026 and their implications for HR, and offers a practical framework for building the business case for new HR teams.

There are bonus resources, such as information about company layoffs and movement in and out of the Chief HR Officer role.

I. AI & FUTURE OF WORK

Examines how AI and broader workforce trends are reshaping jobs and work—from which occupations are most at risk of elimination versus enhancement, to where worker vulnerability is concentrated, to how AI is intensifying rather than reducing workloads.

FUTURE OF WORK

The State of Organizations 2026 | McKinsey

A 74-page report outlines nine shifts reshaping organizations; I expand on one focused on improving productivity and performance through better ways of working.

In this 74-page report based on input from 10,000+ executives across 15 countries and 16 industries, McKinsey highlights nine shifts reshaping organizations. These shifts are driven by three forces: 1) AI and technology acceleration, 2) Economic and geopolitical disruption, and 3) Evolving employee expectations and work models. While there are several insights throughout the report, the section I want to zoom in on is “From Structure to Flow: Reaching the Next Productivity Frontier” (p. 35). The chapter title is shorthand for this: familiar productivity plays (restructuring, delayering, downsizing, cost cuts) are hitting diminishing returns, so the bigger upside is improving how work moves across the enterprise by redesigning workflows, reducing handoffs and duplication, cutting unnecessary meetings, clarifying decision rights, and streamlining decision points and approvals. The opportunity is big: two-thirds of leaders say their organizations are overly complex and inefficient, and nearly 40% say redefining process flows is the biggest unlock over the next 1 to 2 years. This isn’t “just automate more.” It’s about simplifying workflows and decision routines first, then automate where opportunities exist. This point is reinforced through several posts I’ve made and tools I’ve created that underscore one key point: capacity is often trapped in ineffective ways of working. If this resonates, check out my earlier post and cheat sheet with 10 diagnostic questions to help leaders unlock capacity through improved ways of working.

Read report

AI AND WORK TRENDS

9 Trends Shaping Work in 2026 and Beyond | Harvard Business Review

An article by the HR team at Gartner outlines nine AI-era workforce risks for 2026. I expand on one related to performance and ways of working.

Much of the conversation about AI in the workplace has focused on investment and upside potential. Yet organizations must also address the second-order risks of AI adoption, meaning the unintended consequences that emerge in execution, culture, and the employee experience as AI use scales. A new HBR article from Gartner’s HR practice highlights nine AI-era trends that reveal where AI can create risk in the workforce, including premature AI-driven layoffs that lead to costly rehiring, low-quality output that fuels “workslop” as employees are pushed to deliver more with less time for quality checks, and rising distrust in hiring as automation expands. One area that stood out to me is the warning that AI can create operating conditions that drive unrealistic performance pressures, quietly eroding results. While this is framed as an AI issue, the broader lesson applies to any ways of working that enable—or hinder—an organization’s ability to achieve its goals. With that in mind, I’m resharing my editable one-page cheat sheet that helps leaders and teams identify which current work practices may hinder goal achievement. It’s anchored in one question: “If we fast-forward to year-end and fell short of this objective, which ways of working would we say got in our own way?” From there, teams can pinpoint two to three actions to turn risk into a performance advantage.

Read article

AI AND JOBS

Measuring US Workers’ Capacity to Adapt to AI-Driven Job Displacement | The Brookings Institution

A new analysis pairs AI exposure with an “adaptive capacity” index to identify where worker resilience is high and where vulnerability is concentrated, which is useful for workforce planning.

When evaluating AI’s impact on jobs, much of the analysis starts with “Which roles have the most tasks AI can do?” and then jumps to who will be displaced. That’s one part of the narrative, but it’s incomplete. That’s because exposure measures show which jobs have tasks AI can replace or augment, but they don’t tell us who has the resources and options to transition if job loss occurs. This report adds the missing dimension: adaptive capacity, an index of how well workers could weather displacement, based on four factors: 1) Net liquid wealth (financial buffer) savings to absorb shocks; 2) Skill transferability (mobility potential) how portable skills are, weighted to growing roles; 3) Local labor market density (option availability) nearby employers and roles; 4) Age profile (transition friction) older workforces face higher costs and lower reemployment odds. This challenges the view that “the most AI-exposed roles will automatically experience the greatest harm.” A few themes from the analysis: Resilience: 26.5M of 37.1M in the top exposure quartile have above-median adaptive capacity; Vulnerability: 6.1M workers (4.2%) sit in the high exposure/low adaptive capacity zone, largely clerical/administrative roles and disproportionately women (~86%); Geography: these vulnerable roles are more common in smaller metros and college towns. This broader lens helps talent and workforce leaders see where transitions are most likely to be hardest, so they can better prioritize mobility pathways, transferable-skill building, and targeted support.

Read report

AI AND JOBS

Enhance or Eliminate? How AI Will Likely Change These Jobs | HBS Working Knowledge

Shares research on how AI is shifting job demand, and provides an interactive tool that lets you quickly see which occupations are more likely to be enhanced vs. eliminated by AI based on how exposed their core tasks are.

As AI continues to reshape how work gets done and by whom, this HBS Working Knowledge piece shares insights on where it is already shifting job demand, including which roles employers are posting for and the skills they now expect. Using U.S. job-posting data from 2019 through March 2025, the research team used ChatGPT to categorize 19,000+ job tasks across 900+ occupations and created an “augmentation score” based on each occupation’s mix of AI-exposed vs. unexposed tasks. The analysis finds that postings fell 13% for occupations dominated by structured, repetitive tasks after ChatGPT’s November 2022 launch, while postings rose 20% for jobs requiring more analytical, technical, or creative work. The main reason I’m sharing this article is that it includes an interactive tool that lets you quickly gauge how vulnerable a job is to AI replacement vs. augmentation. Use the dropdown filters to search by job category or keyword, then click to see where specific occupations land on the augmentation vs. automation spectrum without having to sift through dense tables. The tool provides insights that are useful for workforce planning and talent strategy.

Read article

AI IN THE WORKPLACE

AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It | Harvard Business Review

Shares study findings on how AI can speed work and expand task scope; authors caution that this benefit can come at a risk, such as burnout.

A new HBR article argues that AI does not reduce work and often intensifies it. The authors share findings from an eight-month study at a U.S.-based tech company with about 200 employees (a small sample, so not broadly generalizable, but still a data point to consider). Over the eight-month study, researchers observed employees in person two days a week, tracked internal work activity channels, and conducted 40+ interviews across engineering, product, design, research, and operations. AI use was not mandated, though the company provided enterprise subscriptions. The result: AI users worked faster, took on a broader range of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often by choice. The upside was that work moved faster and felt easier to push forward. However, workload creep can look like productivity at first, and then gradually become the new baseline for speed and responsiveness. Over time, that intensity can contribute to burnout, cognitive strain, and decision fatigue, which can weaken judgment and decision quality. The authors suggest clear team norms for when to use AI, when to stop, and how to preserve recovery (for example, brief “decision pauses” before high-impact choices). For organizations already building strategies to reduce AI risk, such as privacy, bias, IP exposure, security, and compliance, this article offers a useful prompt to expand those efforts to include the human risks of AI-enabled work, including burnout and decision fatigue.

Read article

II. TALENT STRATEGY & PRACTICES

Helps practitioners act on talent priorities, including performance management, M&A-talent integration, succession, tapping into overlooked talent segments, and internal mobility.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

2026 Performance Management Report | The Talent Strategy Group

Zac Upchurch shares findings from a new global survey on how companies design, manage, and execute performance management today.

A few weeks ago, Marc Effron, thought leader and President of The Talent Strategy Group (TSG), joined my private community for internal HR practitioners, The Talent Edge Circle, for a 90-minute discussion on enabling business strategy execution through performance management (PM). One point he led with that too many teams miss: clarify the purpose of PM before designing or redesigning it. PM can support multiple outcomes (development, engagement, pay decisions), but it usually does one thing well (and maybe a second “kind of well”). According to Marc, the primary purpose should be increasing performance, which is what CEOs care about. When PM tries to serve too many outcomes, it often underdelivers on all of them. While there are many other insights from that discussion that I can’t do justice to in this short post, I’m glad to point you to TSG’s 2026 Performance Management Report, authored by Zac Upchurch (Partner/COO). Based on 250+ organizations, it shows how companies design, manage, and execute PM today, from goals to feedback to evaluation. If PM is on your 2026 agenda, this report is a great reference point, not as a set of best practices, but as a way to spark ideas about potential design choices that support your PM purpose. And of you’re an internal HR practitioner and want access to deeper, private discussions that help you advance your talent priorities faster and with more impact, alongside other practitioners and with me in The Talent Edge Circle—apply here.

Read report

There are 10+ more resources in this issue, but you must be subscribed (or logged in if you are a subscriber) to access the rest. It is FREE to sign up, and a new issue comes out every Sunday, 6 PM EST! ⬇️ 

HR-SUPPORTED M&A

Unlocking Merger Value Through Operating Model Design | McKinsey

Outlines 5 priorities that help avoid common integration pitfalls—each requiring consideration of key talent components, plus a companion 166-page 2026 M&A Trends report with practical tactics.

Many organizations use Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) as a core lever in their growth strategy and broader business plans. But translating what looks like a strong deal on paper into real value requires thoughtful decisions about how the combined company will actually run—especially the operating model (structure, processes, talent, and behaviors). This McKinsey article argues that integration is a rare window to reset the operating model to match the deal rationale, and it highlights five priorities that separate value capture from value dilution: 1) Quickly define end-state and interim operating models (so planning and continuity stay on track), 2) Use the integration to selectively transform the organization (so the deal rationale becomes operating reality), 3) Announce leaders quickly (to lock accountability and reduce uncertainty), 4) Build an operating model that enables the aspired culture (so decision rights and governance reinforce the culture you want), and 5) Manage change so employees can do their jobs at every stage (so productivity and customer experience don’t suffer during transition). As a deeper-dive supplement, McKinsey’s 166-page 2026 M&A Trends report (which this article draws from) includes additional tactics and practices across the deal cycle, including M&A communications. The image in this post highlights one illustration from the report: a minute-by-minute plan for announcement-day communications.

Read article

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Succession Planning in Private Equity: A Strategic Imperative for GPs and LPs | Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Covers how succession planning in private equity has shifted from a founder-retirement “nice-to-have” to a governance and fundraising imperative.

Succession planning (SP) remains one of the most requested topics for Talent Edge Weekly readers. While I’ve shared several resources on SP, I continue to get more requests about SP in private equity (PE). Against this backdrop, this new article argues that SP in PE has moved from a “nice-to-have” founder-retirement exercise to a core governance and fundraising imperative. As private equity has scaled rapidly to over $15.5T in assets and become more complex, limited partners (LPs)—the investors who commit capital to PE funds—are looking for evidence that leadership continuity is built into how the firm runs, including who makes decisions, how economics are shared, how governance works, and how transitions are communicated. The reason: when continuity depends on a few individuals, LPs may rethink how much capital to commit next time. The authors also note that only about 6% of PE firm leaders change over a five-year period versus turnover above 50% over comparable time horizons for public company CEOs. The authors offer a few tips for strengthening succession in PE (e.g., formalize governance, communicate transparently with LPs, etc). They also include a risk matrix that helps assess continuity across four factors and identify where succession risk may be highest and what actions may reduce it.

Read article

TALENT ACQUISITION

Hidden Talent: Examples of Untapped Talent Segments | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet includes eight examples of untapped talent segments and the red flags that suggest you may be overlooking them in your hiring practices.

Talent acquisition teams are constantly seeking ways to identify new sources of talent. One underutilized strategy is tapping into ‘hidden workers,’ individuals with valuable skills who are often overlooked due to gaps in hiring practices, policies, or technology. Coined by researchers from Harvard Business School in their report Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent, the term includes talent segments ranging from caregivers to people with disabilities. While many worker segments can be categorized as hidden workers, my infographic highlights eight examples, each with a brief description. In addition to the descriptions, I include a “red flag” for each segment—signs that your hiring process might be excluding these candidates. For instance, the long-term unemployed (individuals out of work for an extended period) may be filtered out by algorithms that screen for employment gaps. Another group is career changers—professionals transitioning between industries or roles, who may be overlooked when hiring processes overemphasize industry-specific experience rather than transferable skills. This infographic can serve as a starting point to help organizations identify and address gaps in their talent acquisition strategies, enabling them to unlock opportunities to tap into overlooked talent pools and gain a talent advantage.

Access my cheat sheet

INTERNAL MOBILITY

Spotting Policy and Guideline Friction in Internal Mobility | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet highlights nine policies and guidelines that can slow internal moves, paired with questions to pressure test whether each is warranted.

Internal mobility remains a top priority for many organizations. According to LinkedIn’s Workforce Learning Report 2025, more than 48% of organizations are making internal mobility a higher priority this year. Yet, several factors can unintentionally limit internal mobility. These range from managers who hesitate to share top talent across the organization to the lack of enabling technologies, such as internal talent marketplaces, that make movement easier. Another common barrier involves the policies and practices that govern when employees can apply for, interview for, or move into internal roles or opportunities. To help you evaluate these areas—formal or informal—I created a one-pager with nine dimensions to consider. The cheat sheet includes brief questions to identify whether each practice exists in your organization and whether it is warranted or creating unnecessary friction that slows internal talent movement. For example, one area is level requirements for upward moves, where employees may only apply for roles one level above their current position when pursuing a promotion. Questions include: Why is the limit in place? When should exceptions apply for high-potential talent or scarce skills? Does the rule slow development, succession, or filling critical roles? Use this as a discussion tool to decide what to keep, refine, or eliminate.

Access my cheat sheet

III. HR LEADERSHIP & CHRO AGENDA

Addresses the evolving strategic role of the Chief HR Officer in an AI-driven enterprise, examines business leader priorities for 2026 and their implications for HR, and offers a practical framework for building the business case for new HR teams

AI AND CHIEF HR OFFICER

The Reinvention of the CHRO in an AI-Driven Enterprise | BCG

A new article supplemented by a 35-page slide deck that frames the CHRO as a key driver of AI-enabled work redesign across the organization, starting with HR.

This article, supported by a 35-page slide deck, positions the Chief HR Officer (CHRO) as a central driver of AI-enabled work redesign across the enterprise, beginning with the HR function. While these resources offer many insights, one point to reinforce is the 10/20/70 rule (10% algorithms, 20% technology and data infrastructure, 70% meaningful transformation of people, organization, and processes). The takeaway is that outcomes are mainly driven by how work is designed, governed, and executed. For example, here’s what that might look like in strategic workforce planning: the “10” involves using AI to accelerate scenario modeling, synthesize internal and external signals, and draft role and skill implications; the “20” focuses on dependable job and skills data, sound demand assumptions, integration with finance planning, and clear data access and documentation; and the “70” is the real unlock, aligning leaders on decision rights and cadence, defining triggers that prompt updates, building capability to interpret scenarios and make trade-offs, and translating insights into actions such as build, buy, borrow, automate, or redesign work, with clear ownership and outcome measures. The article also identifies five CHRO priorities for the next 12 months, including refreshing a skills-based strategic workforce plan for each function to assess AI’s impact on roles, skills, and activities, and to redesign 2030 labor models. Be sure to review the slide deck, which includes useful illustrations you can adapt for your own purposes.

Read article

PODCAST: 2026 TALENT OUTLOOK

Why Skills, Not Head Count, Matter Most to HR in 2026 | The Conference Board

A 30-minute podcast exploring insights from the C-Suite Outlook survey for 2026 and their implications for human capital, including workforce planning.

In this recent 30-minute C-Suite Perspectives podcast conversation, Steve Odland and Diana Scott unpack The Conference Board’s C-Suite Outlook for 2026 survey and its implications for human capital—labor markets, skills, AI and productivity, and organizational transformation. As I listened to the episode, two points laddered up to the theme of workforce planning. First, regional labor dynamics continue to be a critical planning variable: North America and Europe face aging populations and tighter immigration pipelines; parts of Asia-Pacific are seeing skills gaps as AI and digital adoption accelerates; and in Japan, 36% of CEOs cite the aging population as a major concern. That variation makes it even more critical that workforce plans include location-specific assumptions and scenarios. Second, AI complicates workforce planning because it reshapes workflows and coordination, not just skill requirements. Said differently: it changes who does what, when, and how work moves from one person (or system) to the next. For example, in a contact center, the “before” role is handling routine questions and basic triage; the “after” role shifts reps toward exceptions, de-escalation, and complex problem-solving as AI handles repeatable work. The implication: plans can’t only focus on headcount and broad skill categories; they must anticipate role, task, and handoff changes and the pace of redeployment and upskilling. To help think through aspects of scenario planning in the context of workforce planning, I am resharing my one-page cheat sheet on the topic.

Access episode

HR EFFECTIVENESS

A One-Page Cheat Sheet for Building the Business Case for New HR Teams | Brian Heger

My one-pager to help HR leaders think through nine areas for creating a business case for building or expanding HR teams.

Many Talent Edge Weekly readers have shared with me that they’re creating new HR functions, expanding their teams, or building new ones. A key part of these efforts is developing a compelling business case. While business cases can vary in complexity, I’m sharing my one-page cheat sheet with guiding questions to help HR leaders and their teams think through the core components of their case. Whether you’re proposing an expanded talent management team or building the function from scratch, this nine-section resource covers everything from defining the business rationale to articulating ROI and mapping implementation timelines. It also includes a prompt, “What happens if we don’t act?,” to ensure your business case reflects the risks of not moving forward with the approval, helping decision-makers make informed choices. The cheat sheet helps turn what can feel like an overwhelming process into a clear, actionable plan. Feel free to use it if you believe it can accelerate your efforts.

Access my one-pager

JOB CUTS TRACKER

Here is my tracker, which includes announcements from a segment of organizations that have announced job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

A few announcements from February:

• A.P. Moller-Maersk (OTCMKTS: AMKBY). The shipping giant announced plans to cut 15% of its 6,000 corporate positions this year. The organization seeks to soften the impact of deteriorating freight rates.

• Block Inc. (NYSE:SQ). The Fintech company co-founded by Jack Dorsey and which runs Square and the Cash App announced that it would be laying off 4,000 of its 10,000 employees because of gains in AI productivity.

• eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY). The e-commerce company is laying off around 800 jobs, or 6% of its workforce spread globally. The cuts are a response to operating model needs, areas of duplication, and alignment to future priorities.

• Heineken (OTCMKTS: HEINY). The world’s second-largest brewer is planning to lay off up to 7% of its workforce, as it looks to boost efficiency through productivity savings from AI, following weak beer sales last year.

• LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: LPLA). The financial-advice firm is laying off about 300 employees—roughly 3% of its workforce—in an effort to streamline operations. The company is still hiring in priority areas.

Access all announcements

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVES

In February, I tracked 71 hires, promotions, and resignations in the Chief HR Officer (CHRO) role through CHROs on the Go, my subscription-based digital platform that monitors movement in the CHRO role.

A few headlines from February:

• Baxter International (NYSE: BAX)—a global medical products company—announced the appointment of Cindy Carlisle as EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer. Most recently, Carlisle served as CHRO at Foot Locker.

• Fossil Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: FOSL)—a leader in lifestyle accessories—has appointed Shannon Freeze as Chief People and Communications Officer. Freeze joins from Texas Instruments, where she most recently served as Global Benefits, People Operations & Systems Leader.

• The LEGO Group—the company behind the LEGO® brand—announced that Danielle Van Den Broek, currently SVP, Talent, will become EVP and Chief People Officer effective April 1, 2026. She succeeds Loren Shuster, who will transition to Group People Advisor to the CEO,  working on selected strategic activities outside of the LEGO Group.

• MGP Ingredients, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGPI)—a U.S. supplier of premium distilled spirits and a producer of specialty wheat proteins and starches—announced that Chief Human Resources Officer Erika Lapish’s employment concluded on February 20, 2026. Lapish joined MGP in May 2021 and served as CHRO during her full tenure with the company.

• OpenAI—an AI research and deployment company—announced the appointment of Arvind KC as Chief People Officer. KC joins OpenAI from Roblox, where he has served as the company’s Chief People and Systems Officer since July 2023.

Join CHROs on the Go to access all detailed 71 announcements from February and +4,500 archived announcements. Monthly + annual subscriptions available.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

🗣️ WANT MORE?

Want access to all my curated resources?
👉️ Visit my website, brianheger.com

Are you an internal HR practitioner?
👉️ Apply for my private, paid community, Talent Edge Circle

Are you a provider of HR-related services?
👉️ Become a sponsor of Talent Edge Weekly

Want to know who’s moving in and out of the CHRO role?
👉️ Join my CHROS on the Go subscription

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Lauren Long, VP Talent Management at JM Family Enterprises, Inc., for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Lauren, for your support of this newsletter!

👉️ Not subscribed to Talent Edge Weekly? Sign up now and get 5 of my PDFs.

PRESENTED BY 365Talents 
^{_{A Docebo Company}}

2026 Skills Impact Report

2026 marks a turning point for skills, job readiness, and workforce strategy. The question isn’t whether skills will disrupt how organizations plan their workforce, but whether leaders are ready.

Roles are evolving faster than job frameworks, skills are expiring sooner than expected, and static HR models are struggling to keep up.

The 2026 Skills Impact Report cuts through the noise with a clear roadmap for tackling what’s ahead and fully harnessing the power of skills.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• The State of Organizations 2026 | McKinsey | A new 74-page report outlines nine shifts reshaping organizations; I expand on one focused on improving productivity and performance through better ways of working.

• Succession Planning in Private Equity: A Strategic Imperative for GPs and LPs | Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance | A new article on how succession planning in PE has shifted from a founder-retirement “nice-to-have” to a governance and fundraising imperative.

• Internal Mobility Diagnostic | Brian Heger | My one-page diagnostic with 20 statements across 10 key areas to help identify opportunities for enhancing internal mobility within organizations.

• Measuring US Workers’ Capacity to Adapt to AI-Driven Job Displacement | The Brookings Institution | A new analysis pairs AI exposure with an “adaptive capacity” index to identify where worker resilience is high and where vulnerability is concentrated, which is useful for workforce planning.

• When Every Company Can Use the Same AI Models, Context Becomes a Competitive Advantage | Harvard Business Review | A new article argues that as AI models become widely accessible, organizations will differentiate by “context,” offering four actions leaders can take.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform (subscription-based), where I track hires, promotions, and exits in the Chief HR Officer role.

👉️ And if you’re an internal HR practitioner that wants to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners on talent topics related to your critical priorities, learn about my private community, Talent Edge Circle.

Brian

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

FUTURE OF WORK

The State of Organizations 2026 | McKinsey

A new 74-page report outlines nine shifts reshaping organizations; I expand on one focused on improving productivity and performance through better ways of working.

In this new 74-page report based on input from 10,000+ executives across 15 countries and 16 industries, McKinsey highlights nine shifts reshaping organizations. These shifts are driven by three forces: 1) AI and technology acceleration, 2) Economic and geopolitical disruption, and 3) Evolving employee expectations and work models. While there are several insights throughout the report, the section I want to zoom in on is “From Structure to Flow: Reaching the Next Productivity Frontier” (p. 35). The chapter title is shorthand for this: familiar productivity plays (restructuring, delayering, downsizing, cost cuts) are hitting diminishing returns, so the bigger upside is improving how work moves across the enterprise by redesigning workflows, reducing handoffs and duplication, cutting unnecessary meetings, clarifying decision rights, and streamlining decision points and approvals. The opportunity is big: two-thirds of leaders say their organizations are overly complex and inefficient, and nearly 40% say redefining process flows is the biggest unlock over the next 1 to 2 years. This isn’t “just automate more.” It’s about simplifying workflows and decision routines first, then automate where opportunities exist. This point is reinforced through several posts I’ve made and tools I’ve created that underscore one key point: capacity is often trapped in ineffective ways of working. If this resonates, check out my earlier post and cheat sheet with 10 diagnostic questions to help leaders unlock capacity through improved ways of working.

Read report

SUCCESSION PLANNING

Succession Planning in Private Equity: A Strategic Imperative for GPs and LPs | Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

A new article on how succession planning in PE has shifted from a founder-retirement “nice-to-have” to a governance and fundraising imperative.

Succession planning (SP) remains one of the most requested topics for Talent Edge Weekly readers. While I’ve shared several resources on SP, I continue to get more requests about SP in private equity (PE). Against this backdrop, this new article argues that SP in PE has moved from a “nice-to-have” founder-retirement exercise to a core governance and fundraising imperative. As private equity has scaled rapidly to over $15.5T in assets and become more complex, limited partners (LPs)—the investors who commit capital to PE funds—are looking for evidence that leadership continuity is built into how the firm runs, including who makes decisions, how economics are shared, how governance works, and how transitions are communicated. The reason: when continuity depends on a few individuals, LPs may rethink how much capital to commit next time. The authors also note that only about 6% of PE firm leaders change over a five-year period versus turnover above 50% over comparable time horizons for public company CEOs. The authors offer a few tips for strengthening succession in PE (e.g., formalize governance, communicate transparently with LPs, etc). They also include a practical risk matrix that helps assess continuity across four factors and identify where succession risk may be highest and what actions may reduce it.

Read article

There is more content in this issue, but you must be subscribed (or logged in if you are a subscriber) to access the rest. It is FREE to sign up, and a new issue comes out every Sunday, 6 PM EST! ⬇️ 

AI, JOBS, AND WORKFORCE PLANNING

Measuring US Workers’ Capacity to Adapt to AI-Driven Job Displacement | The Brookings Institution

A new analysis pairs AI exposure with an “adaptive capacity” index to identify where worker resilience is high and where vulnerability is concentrated, which is useful for workforce planning.

When evaluating AI’s impact on jobs, much of the analysis starts with “Which roles have the most tasks AI can do?” and then jumps to who will be displaced. That’s one part of the narrative, but it’s incomplete. That’s because exposure measures show which jobs have tasks AI can replace or augment, but they don’t tell us who has the resources and options to transition if job loss occurs. This report adds the missing dimension: adaptive capacity, an index of how well workers could weather displacement, based on four factors: 1) Net liquid wealth (financial buffer) savings to absorb shocks; 2) Skill transferability (mobility potential) how portable skills are, weighted to growing roles; 3) Local labor market density (option availability) nearby employers and roles; 4) Age profile (transition friction) older workforces face higher costs and lower reemployment odds. This challenges the view that “the most AI-exposed roles will automatically experience the greatest harm.” A few themes from the analysis: Resilience: 26.5M of 37.1M in the top exposure quartile have above-median adaptive capacity; Vulnerability: 6.1M workers (4.2%) sit in the high exposure/low adaptive capacity zone, largely clerical/administrative roles and disproportionately women (~86%); Geography: these vulnerable roles are more common in smaller metros and college towns. This broader lens helps talent and workforce leaders see where transitions are most likely to be hardest, so they can better prioritize mobility pathways, transferable-skill building, and targeted support.

Read report

AI & COMPETITIVE EDGE

When Every Company Can Use the Same AI Models, Context Becomes a Competitive Advantage | Harvard Business Review

A new article argues that as AI models become widely accessible, organizations will differentiate by “context,” offering four actions leaders can take.

As access to AI models and tools becomes widespread, the differentiator won’t be the model or platform, it will be an organization’s context: the real way work gets done through repeatable judgment calls, coordination patterns, escalation triggers, and trade-offs. That’s the authors’ core argument in this new article. They define context as “demonstrated execution - the workflows teams actually follow across systems, the signals they respond to, the order in which roles get involved, the exceptions that trigger action, and the judgment calls that repeat across real work.” Because AI models are general by design, they can flatten nuance and standardize behavior unless they’re grounded in this operating logic. The authors show how context calibrates decisions in the moment: the same subtle cues can warrant escalation in a speed-oriented culture but be routine noise in a risk-first one. Their recommendation is “context engineering”, building an enterprise context layer that captures how work unfolds and delivers the right context to AI at the moment of decision. They suggest four moves for doing so. One takeaway: don’t just deploy AI, spend the time building the context capability that turns the technical power of AI into differentiated competitive advantage. Bonus read: Why AI Adoption Stalls, According to Industry Data, which also addresses some of the contextual factors related to AI.

Read article

MOST POPULAR FROM LAST WEEK

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

2026 Performance Management Report | The Talent Strategy Group

Zac Upchurch shares findings from a new global survey on how companies design, manage, and execute performance management today.

A few weeks ago, Marc Effron, thought leader and President of The Talent Strategy Group (TSG), joined my private community for internal HR practitioners, The Talent Edge Circle, for a 90-minute discussion on enabling business strategy execution through performance management (PM). One point he led with that too many teams miss: clarify the purpose of PM before designing or redesigning it. PM can support multiple outcomes (development, engagement, pay decisions), but it usually does one thing well (and maybe a second “kind of well”). The primary purpose should be increasing performance, which is what CEOs care about. When PM tries to serve too many outcomes, it often fails at all of them. While there are many other insights from that discussion that I can’t do justice to in this short post, I’m glad to point you to TSG’s 2026 Performance Management Report, authored by Zac Upchurch (Partner/COO). Based on 250+ organizations, it shows how companies design, manage, and execute PM today, from goals to feedback to evaluation. If PM is on your 2026 agenda, this report is a great reference point, not as a set of best practices, but as a way to spark ideas about potential design choices that support your PM purpose. If you’re an internal HR practitioner and want access to deeper, private discussions that help you advance your talent priorities faster and with more impact, alongside other practitioners and with me in The Talent Edge Circle—apply here.

Read report

JOB CUTS AND LAYOFF TRACKER

Check out my tracker of announcements from a segment of organizations that have conducted job cuts and layoffs since the start of 2023.

Partial view of my job cuts tracker on brianheger.com

A few job cuts announced this past week:

• LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: LPLA). The financial-advice firm disclosed that it was laying off about 300 employees—roughly 3% of its ~10,100-person workforce—after a firm-wide review to streamline operations; the company said it is still hiring in priority areas with more than 300 open roles.

• Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ). The telecommunications giant disclosed that it was laying off 1,319 employees in New Jersey as part of a broader 13,000-person reduction announced in November. 

• Whirlpool Corp. (NYSE: WHR). The appliance manufacturer announced layoffs of just under 350 workers at its Amana, Iowa, plant—over a quarter of the facility’s roughly 1,500 employees—as part of a multi-year modernization plan aimed at transforming operations and diversifying production, with additional reductions possible in the second quarter.

Click here to access my tracker, which includes all announcements.

CHIEF HR OFFICER MOVEMENT

This past week, several new CHRO announcements were posted on CHROs on the Go, my subscription platform tracking movement in and out of the CHRO role. This week’s highlight is:

• MGP Ingredients, Inc. (ATCHISON, KANSAS) (NASDAQ: MGPI)—a U.S. supplier of premium distilled spirits and a producer of specialty wheat proteins and starches—announced leadership changes following a board-approved reorganization. The company stated that Chief Human Resources Officer Erika Lapish employment will conclude on February 20, 2026. Lapish joined MGP in May 2021 and served as CHRO during her full tenure with the company.

Erika Lapish 

 🔑 To access all detailed CHRO announcements from this past week and over 4,500 archived announcements, join CHROs on the Go.

If you are already a subscriber to CHROs on the Go, log in here.

FROM ME ON LINKEDIN

THE BEST OF JANUARY 2026

Did you miss the “Best of January ” issue of Talent Edge Weekly? If so, check out issue #332, which includes the most popular resources from the month. Thanks to 365Talents (A Docebo Company) for sponsoring this issue. Download their 2026 Skills Impact Report.

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Want access to all my curated resources?
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SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Zoe Winsey-Thomas, Head of Talent Management for Production & Operations, Gas & Low Carbon Energy, Technology & Functions at bp, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Zoe, for your support of this newsletter!

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PRESENTED BY TechWolf

Why the CHRO is the New Architect of the AI Era

Boards are no longer asking if AI matters. They are asking which business units will feel the impact first and what it means for next quarter’s financials. Here is the operating reality:

• Most enterprises are making billion-dollar AI infrastructure investments with limited insight into the human side of the equation.

• They can tell you how many GPU clusters they are provisioning, but they cannot tell you which roles are most exposed to disruption or where the biggest productivity gains will come from.

At TechWolf, we believe the AI revolution is a people transformation, not just a technology deployment.

Read our latest Vision Paper to learn about three moves high-performing HR functions are making to lead this revolution.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

• 2026 Performance Management Report | The Talent Strategy Group | Zac Upchurch shares findings from a new global survey on how companies design, manage, and execute performance management today.

• Unlocking Merger Value Through Operating Model Design | McKinsey | A new article outlines 5 priorities that help avoid the common integration pitfalls, plus a companion 166-page 2026 M&A Trends report with practical tactics.

• Hidden Talent: Examples of Untapped Talent Segments | Brian Heger | My cheat sheet includes eight examples of untapped talent segments and the red flags that suggest you may be overlooking them in your hiring practices.

• Why Skills, Not Head Count, Matter Most to HR in 2026 | The Conference Board | A 30-minute podcast exploring insights from the C-Suite Outlook for 2026 and their implications for human capital, including workforce planning.

• AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It | Harvard Business Review | Shares study findings on how AI can speed work and expand task scope; authors caution that this benefit can come at a risk, such as burnout.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform (subscription-based), where I track hires, promotions, and exits in the Chief HR Officer role.