Reskilling fails on accountability and approach, not intent

 

Employees expect the company to help manage their career growth. The company expects employees to own it. Both are half right, and that ambiguity, not a lack of awareness, is what's stalling reskilling in 2026.

Every CHRO already knows skills matter. Building digital and data capability and upskilling and reskilling at scale rank among the top five strategic priorities for CHROs. The challenge is building consistent systems, behaviors, and outcomes across the organization.

The data reveals no dominant approach to reskilling. While organizations agree on the importance of skills, they have yet to align on how learning should be integrated into the business.

That lack of integration may be the biggest obstacle to progress. In fact, only 5% of CHROs (and 8% of broader C-suite) say their organization has fully embedded learning into performance, trust, and business outcomes, meaning that for the vast majority, reskilling remains adjacent to the systems that drive workforce decisions, career progression, and organizational performance. As a result, learning is often treated as an activity rather than an engine of workforce transformation.

Skills are a stated priority. Follow-through is weak.

The intent is real and specific. Alongside upskilling and reskilling at scale (ranked 2026 people strategy priority #2 by CHROs and #4 by C-suite), developing human capabilities (e.g., adaptability, creativity, empathy falls to #3 for CHROs and #6 for broader C-suite. These ranked priorities sitting near the top of the CHRO agenda.

Skills, creativity, adaptability, and empathy make top six people strategy priorities

Skills are a stated priority. Follow-through is weak.

The intent is real and specific. Alongside upskilling and reskilling at scale (ranked 2026 people strategy priority #2 by CHROs and #4 by C-suite), developing human capabilities (e.g., adaptability, creativity, empathy falls to #3 for CHROs and #6 for broader C-suite. These ranked priorities sitting near the top of the CHRO agenda.

Skills, creativity, adaptability, and empathy make top six people strategy priorities

The Adecco Group, 2026 Business Leaders Research, Q3: What are your organisation's top priorities for developing the people strategy over the next 12 months?

But intent and infrastructure are different things, and the infrastructure isn't there yet, according to CHROs:

• Only 27% measure leadership accountability for developing people
• Only 21% promote continuous learning as a core part of culture and leadership
• Only 5% have learning fully embedded into performance, trust, and business outcomes
• Only 24% report balancing technical and human-skills development

Even where learning investment exists, it's usually weighted toward technical skills (e.g., digital and data literacy, AI skills) while the human capabilities CHROs say they value (adaptability, creativity, empathy) get comparatively little structured development.

Organizations align on skills priorities. Learning maturity varies widely.

Organizations show clear alignment around developing role-specific, technical, and human skills. Where they differ is in how deeply learning is embedded into the business. Most focus on skills development itself, while only a small minority have integrated learning into performance, career progression, and business outcomes.

Organizations prioritize role-specific, technical, and human-skills development

The Adecco Group, 2026 Business Leaders Research, Q18: How would you describe your organisation's approach to learning and skills development?

The data suggests broad agreement on what skills matter. The bigger gap is in execution: few organizations have built the systems needed to make learning a core business capability.

AI reskilling expectations are outpacing workforce preparation

AI is now one of the top strategic priorities for both CHROs and business leaders. Embedding AI automation ranks among the top three people-strategy priorities, while digital and data capability development and large-scale reskilling remain high on the leadership agenda. At the same time, organizations increasingly expect employees to adapt their skills and ways of working to an AI-enabled future.

That expectation is reflected in how leaders view talent demand. More than half of executives (54%) expect salaries for AI-related roles to increase over the next 12 months, the highest of any role category surveyed, signaling strong competition for AI talent and a growing premium on AI skills.

AI and sustainability roles are expected to see the strongest salary growth

The Adecco Group, 2026 Business Leaders Research, Q16: How do you expect salaries for the following roles to change over the next 12 months?

Yet while demand for AI capabilities is rising rapidly, workforce preparation is still catching up.

Many organizations expect employees to evolve alongside AI, but the learning infrastructure, support mechanisms, and career pathways needed to enable that transition remain works in progress. Building AI capability is not simply a matter of offering training. Employees need clarity on how new skills connect to future opportunities and confidence that AI will enhance, rather than diminish, their value in the organization.

Organizations are taking steps to build trust and engagement. One in ten leaders (10%) say co-designing AI use cases with employees is already fully embedded across their organization, while 20% have implemented the practice in parts of the business and a further 33% are piloting it.

Co-design is a practical approach because the challenge is not just building skills, but building confidence. Even when learning opportunities exist, participation is not guaranteed. The common assumption is that employees are resisting change. Conversations with CHROs suggest something different: employees are often trying to understand what AI means for their professional identity, future relevance, and long-term career growth.

What looks like resistance is often a threat to professional identity

Low participation in reskilling initiatives is often interpreted as employee reluctance. The CHRO interviews tell a more specific story: employees aren't resisting learning, they're protecting an identity built over years of expertise.

Quentin SaLay, Chief Global People Officer at FreeWheel, recalls the shift from traditional networking to software-defined networking in the mid-2010s. As demand grew for software development skills, many experienced network engineers were encouraged to learn Python and APIs. Despite access to training, including university partnerships, adoption was uneven.

The challenge was a risk to their professional identity. Many engineers had spent years becoming experts in network infrastructure and saw themselves as the guardians of systems reliability. Reskilling meant moving from expert to beginner, a transition that can feel less like professional development and more like a loss of status.

The outcome was stark. The engineers who embraced new skills moved into emerging opportunities. Those who did not, found themselves increasingly disconnected from the future needs of the business.

The lesson is that reskilling challenges are often less technical than personal. Employees need confidence that new skills will create future opportunities rather than diminish hard-earned expertise. Coaching and mentoring can help bridge that gap by connecting skill development to career growth, while managers create the psychological safety and visibility needed to make that transition feel worthwhile.

But helping employees navigate that transition requires clear ownership. And that's the next challenge.

Nobody owns the outcome

Accountability is a common failure point, not because organizations lack interest, but because responsibility is often diffused across employees, managers, and HR.

On the Talk Talent To Me podcast, host Rob Stevenson posed a common question: Who ultimately owns skills development: managers or HR?

For Kevin Bohan, CHRO at ProDriven Global Brands, the answer starts with managers. "The manager owns the discussion, but it is HR that's there to help guide and create those conditions," said Bohan.

Managers are closest to employees' day-to-day work, career aspirations, and growth opportunities. They are responsible for coaching, feedback, and development conversations. HR's role is different but equally important: providing the tools, insights, data, and processes that help managers develop talent effectively and ensure employees' voices are heard.

The challenge is that this shared responsibility often lacks clear accountability. With only 27% of organizations formally measuring leadership accountability for developing people, there is little visibility into whether development conversations are actually happening or producing results. Managers may assume employees will drive their own growth. Employees may assume their managers are actively guiding their development. Without clear expectations and measurement, those assumptions can persist unchallenged.

Organizations that make progress on reskilling are not necessarily investing more in learning. They're creating accountability for talent development and ensuring managers are equipped, expected, and evaluated on their ability to build capability within their teams.

What this means for CHROs

The skilling solution is in closing the two structural gaps this data points to: clear accountability for people-development outcomes (not just for offering programs), and addressing identity risk directly rather than treating reskilling as a purely logistical rollout. Organizations that embed learning into performance and trust frameworks are treating skills development as infrastructure. Everyone else is still treating it as an optional program sitting next to the real business.

Frequently asked questions

Why do reskilling programs fail even when employees have access to them? Primarily due to accountability gaps (only 27% of organizations measure leadership accountability for developing people) and identity risk. Employees resist not because they lack motivation, but because reskilling can feel like reverting from expert to beginner.

Who is responsible for employee upskilling, the company or the employee? Data shows a mismatch in expectations: most employees assume their manager or company owns their development, while CHROs say the true accountability sits with the employee. Only 27% of organizations formally measure this accountability, leaving the ambiguity unresolved.

How many organizations have fully embedded learning into their culture? Just 5% have learning fully embedded into performance, trust, and business outcomes. Only 21% promote continuous learning as a core part of culture and leadership.

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Next in this series

Execution challenge #5 — Transformation moves at the speed of trust, on why every gap in this series converges on the same root cause.

About the research:

In the Minds of CHROs: 2026 Execution Gap is based in The Adecco Group, 2026 Business Leaders Research

2,000 C-suite executives (500 Chief Executive Officers, 500 Chief Human Resources Officers, 500 Chief Technology Officers, 250 Chief Operating Officers, 250 Chief Financial Officers)

13 countries (100 Canada, 300 US, 100 Belgium, 150 France, 150 Germany, 100 Italy, 100 Netherlands, 150 Spain, 100 Sweden, 100 Switzerland, 150 UK, 250 Australia, 250 Japan)

Industries (350 Aerospace and Defense; 350 Automotive and Transport, Logistics, Mobility and Manufacturing; 350 Healthcare, Life Sciences and Pharma; 350 Energy, Clean Technology and Utilities; 300 Technology; 300 FMCG, E-commerce, Retail and Consumer Goods and Supply Chain)