The Marsh and Mercer People Risk 2026 report, based on responses from 4,517 HR and Risk professionals across 26 markets, serves as a data layer on top of the qualitative concerns raised at the recent What’s Not Working @ Work summit. The themes track closely, and numbers indicate a widespread alignment between what leaders have experienced and what the data shows.
At the summit, experts described a workforce that is exhausted, disengaged and increasingly disconnected from organizational goals. The Marsh data gives that observation a trajectory, with the share of employees who say they are thriving at work dropping from 66% in 2022 to 44% in 2026, erasing years of steady gains. One in four employees say they are unsatisfied at work, but don’t believe leaving is an option, while and another 12% plan to leave within six months.
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AI is human transformation
Josh Greenwald, chief people officer at Sword Health, told summit attendees that organizations are approaching AI transformation incorrectly. “This is more about human transformation,” he said. “We put too much emphasis on technology.”
According to the Marsh report, mindset barriers to AI adoption rank sixth among people risks globally, but jump to third when the view narrows to C-suite respondents alone. The most commonly cited concern, flagged by 40% of respondents, is spending on AI before equipping employees to use it.
The report echoes what Brunswick Corporation CHRO Jill Wrobel described at the summit when she said that getting tech investments to pay off requires changing how work actually works. Marsh calls it work redesign, defined as deconstructing jobs to determine which tasks can be offloaded, augmented or automated, rather than layering AI onto existing roles and processes.
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The ‘how’ is elusive
Marsh’s analysis found that inadequate leadership skills trigger or worsen more downstream risks than any other single factor in the survey, including mental health deterioration, labor shortages, unsafe working conditions and poor investment decisions.
Only 14% of organizations Marsh surveyed report having “transformative” risk maturity, where risk management is deeply embedded in strategy and culture. Those that do have integrated risk management outperform peers by an average of 15 percentage points on talent-related risk mitigation.
The summit conversation reveals that that many leaders are isolated, under-supported and operating without clear direction. Harriet Harty, former CHRO at Allstate Insurance, said that leaders know what needs to happen, but don’t have the clarity around where they need to go. “The how has never been given to them,” she said.
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