TLL Summary Notes: 2026 Mercer Talent Trends

On 14th April, CRF and Mercer hosted an online TLL community event discussing Mercer’s latest findings from the 2026 Global Talent Trends report. Kate Bravery, Global Advisory Solutions and Insight Leader, and Maura Jarvis, Partner and UK Transformation Leader, presented key insights from research based on responses from nearly 12,000 global respondents, including HR leaders, C-suite executives, investors and employees. These notes summarise the key takeaways from the event.

The Context

• The core theme of 2026’s Global Talent Trends is driving exponential performance; organisations are under pressure to pursue growth and value creation within a more difficult environment. There is a high level of concern and anxiety across organisations, driven by increasing volatility, interconnected risks and the amplifying effect of misinformation.
• Employee thriving (defined by employee health, wealth and career) has fallen sharply globally, representing a significant business risk. Organisations need to recognise that burned-out employees will not be able to sustain any transformation they want to deliver and instead focus on creating the conditions in which people can flourish.
• There is a clearer divergence this year between the priorities of different stakeholder groups – the top three HR investment priorities are enhancing EX/EVP, redesigning talent processes around skills and rolling out new HR tech, whilst executives and investors are more focused on human-machine teaming and analytics. For HR, this is a reminder not to become siloed or overly absorbed in its own transformation agenda at the expense of the wider business conversation.

Four Talent Trends Shaping the Future of Work

Reinvent for a human advantage

• While investors and employees are generally optimistic that AI can improve work, only around a third of HR leaders and executives currently see AI primarily as a way to amplify human potential. Concerns are also emerging around trust and fairness, with 72% saying some employees have better access to AI tools and training than others. HR has so far done relatively little to address these concerns or build a more clearly human-centred approach to AI adoption.
• Progress depends on redesigning work for a human-machine environment, rather than layering AI onto existing jobs. This means focusing less on task efficiency and more on outcomes, with a shift from knowledge-based work towards more judgement- and wisdom-based work, while also helping people build the skills they will need to thrive.

Leap forward with insight

• Organisations have more workforce data than ever before, but the key question is whether they are focusing on the right signals and whether they have the culture to act on them quickly enough. While investors and the C-suite see this as a high priority, only 27% of executives say HR is effectively advising on human capital risks and opportunities.
• The case for investing in better workforce insight is stronger than it has been for years, particularly where organisations can show clear ROI. However, there is still a disconnect between the insights executives want and what HR systems currently provide, with much of the data remaining too backward-looking and insufficient to support a genuinely skills-powered approach.

Recalibrate the value exchange

• With employee thriving at its lowest level in the history of Mercer’s Global Talent Trends, work satisfaction falling and cost-of-living pressures continuing to bite, there is growing concern about disengagement and the risk of top talent leaving when the market improves. Only 34% of employees are satisfied at work and have no plans to leave, down sharply from 56% in 2024. Both parties need to look at the value proposition and ask – am I getting a fair deal?
• Improving the employee experience depends on better understanding what helps people thrive and acting on those insights quickly. There is a disconnect between what employees value, such as career progression, autonomy and being able to speak honestly, and what HR is prioritising, suggesting that organisations need to move faster to align the employment deal with changing expectations. At the same time, only 1% of employees feel comfortable sharing honest views, which raises questions about trust and the quality of employee feedback.

Unleash a new HR era

• HR needs to be seen less as a standalone function and more as an organisational capability that helps shape how work gets done. AI should not just be applied to the most obvious HR use cases such as help desks and chatbots, especially where these sit on top of poor processes and add little value.
• HR and IT can no longer operate separately if organisations want to build real AI agility. Instead, they need to work much more closely together, with HR playing a central role in shaping the operating model needed for effective human and machine collaboration.

Further Resources
CRF. 2025. Future-Ready Talent Management
Mercer. 2026. Global Talent Trends