2026 Workplace Forecast Reveals 5 HR Blind Spots

The Human Resource Consortium (TheHRC) today released its comprehensive “2026 Workplace Forecast,” identifying five critical HR blind spots that threaten to stunt organizational growth in the year ahead. The research reveals that organizations are systematically overlooking fundamental areas of human capital management that will become increasingly critical as businesses rush to elevate employee experience and engagement, resilience, and a culture of service in addition to increasing performance including AI needs assessment, design and implementation.

Founded in 1995, TheHRC’s experts have been assessing, innovating, and developing leadership and HR for three decades. TheHRC was the first HR & OD consultancy in the eastern U.S. to introduce concepts and practices of comprehensive, aligned and integrated HR & OD. Their specialized expertise was proven by scientific research published in David Ulrich’s “Victory Through Organization” (McGraw-Hill, 2017), which documented The HRC’s integrated systems approach as delivering approximately 400% organizational improvement in performance and value.

Employee Engagement Crisis Threatens Talent, Performance, Change Management, and AI Implementation Success

The first blind spot centers on organizational culture, specifically employee engagement and resilience levels. The HRC’s research reveals that the average U.S. organization operates with only 29-30% employee engagement, while “good” engagement ranges from 50-65%. Yet, Fortune’s “100 Best Companies” achieve engagement scores in the high 80s to mid-90s.

“Today, the average organization has 70% of their employees who are not engaged or actively disengaged and not performing to the degree they might,” said Regan Traub, founder of The Human Resource Consortium. “That 70% is comprised of 19% who are actively disengaged and 51-52% who are disengaged. Think about it, only 29-30% are moving an organization forward.” The associated organizational costs are considerable.

This engagement deficit becomes critical as most organizations are challenged to recruit and retain top talent to elevate performance while strategizing, planning and/or implementing how to leverage AI for efficiency gains. The HRC’s forecast indicates that organizations with engagement scores below 50% will struggle with AI implementation, requiring initial organizational strengthening that will slow their competitive positioning.

Leadership MisAlignment Creates Cascading Performance Issues

The second blind spot involves leadership alignment challenges. The HRC continues to learn from CEOs that leaders have been operating in survival mode for two decades, from “do more with less” mandates through COVID pivots, remote and hybrid work shifts now edging to onsite, and now AI implementation pressures accompanied with questionable job security.

This relentless cycle has caused many leaders to lose focus on critical trust-building behaviors. TheHRC identifies five essential leadership capabilities which require attention to re-engage their workforce:

Building executive alignment on strategy and culture while consistently modeling organizational values;
Ensuring people aligned with the organizational strategy and culture are in the organization, in right roles, and supported with appropriate resources (ref: Jim Collins’ “Good to Great”);
Developing emotional and social intelligence including humility, listening, and conflict management skills
Cascading responsible decision-making into the organization through empowerment and ‘agency’ to engage employees; and
Strengthening change management teams with resilience and behavioral change expertise.

“Leaders’ focus needs balance between the human dynamics of an organization, which create the organization’s most sustainable competitive edge, and metric-driven thought,” Traub explained. “As Kawel LauBach of our team aptly states, ‘it’s the people who move the numbers.'”

HR Performance Misalignment Undermines Organizational Effectiveness

The third blind spot addresses HR performance, focusing on the degree to which HR frameworks are in alignment and integrated to make it easier for leaders to lead and employees to perform successfully. The HRC’s methodology analyzes strategy as well as culture, employee and customer experience statements as context. Its experts then assess HR frameworks, employee engagement survey results and external data source results like Glassdoor, in addition to facilitating leader, employee, and HR focus group results to validate and enrich findings for robust insights and roadmap to optimize performance.

The vast majority of HR functions continue operating in silos despite Ulrich’s widely read 2017 evidence from 1,395 global business units that integrated approaches deliver 4X organizational performance and value. TheHRC has additionally proven in its work with Wawa that aligned and integrated approaches in HR can reduce culture shift timelines from a best practice of 10 years to less than four years, enabling their significant expansion.

Change Management Efficacy Shortcomings Threaten AI Adoption

The fourth blind spot involves change management efficacy, critical as organizations move to merge/divest, restructure, streamline process, elevate customer experience, increase supply chain reliability and reduce costs, develop greater resilience, effect a culture shift, or implement AI technologies.

Traditional change management was rooted in process change rather than behavioral change, yet both are essential for change success such as AI implementation.
McKinsey’s 2015 and 2017 research studies on change management success demonstrated that change management success rates spike from 30% to 80% when adept HR expertise is engaged in change efforts. Some in HR have been developing this capability.
However, current change teams may lack the resilience and ability to effect AI-driven change in the midst of heightened organizational change fatigue, low employee engagement, and job security concerns.

“Executives and HR will need to create and communicate change management strategies and stories that engage their workforce to support change management teams. Greater focus on the human dynamics in change is needed,” Traub noted. “Organizations rushing to leverage AI will require exceptional change management expertise and finesse from the top of the organization. And, unless an organization has employee engagement and resilience strength, AI change management is more likely to falter. Reflection upon prior IT offshoring challenges may provide meaningful insight.”

High-Value Retained Search Evolution Demands Strategic Rethinking

The fifth blind spot addresses how high-value retained search approaches are evolving. Fundamentally, retained search success is based in human strengths of relationship development, interpersonal assessment, and organizational assessment.

Organizations using outdated talent acquisition practices may find themselves at a disadvantage in speed and technologically advanced visibility to secure the leadership and specialized talent necessary, especially for AI-driven transformation search needs.

Outbound human talent mining may be augmented by careful, unbiased, AI utilization. Adept, appropriate prompts will be crucial.

Organizational Imperative for Leaders and HR

The interconnected nature of these blind spots means organizations cannot address them in isolation. TheHRC’s Forecast emphasizes that organizational culture, leadership capabilities, HR function effectiveness, change management, and talent acquisition must be approached as interconnected elements rather than separate functions.

Urgent Action Required for 2026 Competitiveness

The timing of these insights proves critical as organizations prepare for 2026. Organizations with solid engagement levels will be positioned to succeed faster through change, leading to greater performance, fiscal results, market share, and AI implementation. Organizations lagging in engagement must focus on organizational strengthening before or within change management initiatives.

“Given that it takes time to build employees’ trust, time is of the essence,” Traub emphasized. “Organizational leaders would be prudent to quickly align and develop leaders and managers to rapidly elevate engagement before implementing major change, including technological change.”

The Human Resource Consortium’s 2026 Workplace Forecast is provided to stimulate effective executive thought for strategic planning and execution. With three decades of executive and HR advisory success in small, mid-cap, and F500 organizations, TheHRC is regarded as a trusted, forward-thinking authority. This Forecast introduces proactive insights rather than reactive solutions, offering strategic guidance to organizations seeking to address these critical blind spots before they impact performance.

About The Human Resource Consortium LLC
Founded in 1995, The Human Resource Consortium LLC specializes in aligned and integrated HR systems approaches that deliver measurable organizational performance improvements. Based on scientific research and nearly three decades of exceptional success, The HRC guides organizations to transform their human capital management through strategic, evidence-based solutions by partnering with clients to develop solutions and transfer their knowledge and expertise to their clients for greater return on investment and sustainable improvement.