The strategies that sustained organisations through recent years will no longer be sufficient in 2026, according to a new report launched today by Top Employers Institute, a leading certification, benchmarking and advisory firm. Speed and scale, as default responses to pressure, have reached their limits. What will fuel high-performing organisations in the year ahead will be designing work, leadership and management systems with deliberate intent.
World of Work Trends 2026: The Intentional Organisation sets out a next-phase model for organisational performance that prioritises coherence over acceleration, value over volume, and clarity over complexity. The research draws on Top Employers Institute's unique dataset of 2,358 organisations globally, providing early signals of patterns now becoming visible at scale. The research identifies the following five defining trends that will determine which organisations sustain performance under pressure in 2026 and beyond.
1. Purpose in Practice
Purpose statements will no longer be enough in the year ahead. Stakeholders will demand tangible evidence that purpose shapes behaviours and outcomes. HR leaders must now embed purpose into decision-making systems, leadership expectations and scorecards that trigger early intervention. Organisations with higher revenue growth and profitability are 8% more likely to have deployed a purpose measurement scorecard. This includes 96% aligning strategy to purpose and 55% actively monitoring alignment.
2. AI with Intent
2026 marks the end of AI adoption for adoption's sake. With nearly half of AI projects scrapped between pilot and deployment and only 37% of teams reporting productivity gains, organisations can no longer afford to implement without clear governance. The 40% of Top Employers continuously evaluating how AI balances organisational needs with employee impact show what intentional deployment looks like. HR leaders entering 2026 must establish transparent frameworks for where AI is used, who remains accountable, and how fairness is protected.
3. Structured Flexibility
While 87% of organisations already have remote work policies, what will distinguish performance in 2026 will be how deliberately flexibility is structured. Organisations with low turnover are 13% more likely to have equipped leaders to manage hybrid teams effectively. HR leaders can no longer expand flexibility by default – they must design it with boundaries that protect fairness, performance and wellbeing, or watch disengagement and inconsistency undermine results.
4. Designing for Productivity
This is the year organisations must accept that productivity cannot come from working people harder. With HR budgets shrinking – just 35% planning increases versus 66% in 2022 – and burnout mentions in Glassdoor reviews up 32%, the path forward needs to be a new one. HR leaders must direct time, energy and resources to the highest-impact work, protect focus through clear boundaries, and build renewable workforce capability through redeployment and reskilling. Organisations reporting higher revenue growth are 12% more likely, and those reporting stronger customer satisfaction are 27% more likely, to use iterative planning and feedback loops to stay responsive to change. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of organisations now use these practices, reinforcing the role of deliberate organisational design in sustainable productivity.
5. The Stability Paradox
While only 17% of organisations surveyed currently prioritise job security in their Employee Value Proposition (EVP), those that do have voluntary turnover 9% lower than average. In the year ahead, as workforce shortages intensify and labour markets tighten, HR leaders must redesign stability as a platform for continuous learning and internal mobility, not just retention. The 67% prioritising career advancement recognise that competitive advantage in 2026 depends on their ability to continuously redeploy and reskill existing talent.
"2026 is where speed gives way to intentional design,” says Adrian Seligman, CEO of Top Employers Institute. “Our data shows that performance under pressure now depends on how deliberately organisations structure work, decision-making and leadership focus. That’s what turns organisational design into a true operating discipline – and where HR leaders will create the greatest value.”
