Let’s be honest, most CHRO groups out there are bad. They are expensive, filled with vendor pitches, and loaded with “fluff” resources that are outdated by the time they are published. That’s why I put together Future of Work Leaders. A CHRO group for people leaders who are moving beyond traditional HR to focus on the future of work and employee experience. No pitches, no selling, no fluff.
The community is focused on discussions, candid Q&A sessions, and sharing of resources and insights. Members include Lego, Novartis, PwC, Saks Global, and dozens of others. I’m just in the process of planning our annual in-person forum which will be at the end of March. if you want to learn more and request an invite go to Future of Work Leaders or email me directly Jacob[at]thefutureorganization[dot]com.
The first quarter of 2026 wasn’t just a collection of headlines; it was a definitive “hard reset” for the global workforce. We’ve officially hit the moment where the gap between our legacy systems and the new AI-driven reality has finally collapsed, and if you’re leading a Fortune 500 company, you can’t afford to just be an observer anymore.
This isn’t just about tech updates; it’s about a fundamental shift in how we design work, reward performance, and even how we think about the value of a human being in the loop.
I’ve pulled together the five biggest signals from Q1 that you need to be talking about at your next executive meeting if you want to rebuild your organization for relevance rather than just cutting your way there.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
The Trillion-Dollar Software Sell-off: A Workforce Design Story
We saw a staggering signal recently when roughly one trillion dollars in market value was erased from global software and services companies in a matter of days. Reuters reported that the S&P software and services index fell nearly 3% across six sessions, down 26% from its October peak. In just six days, $830 billion was wiped out.
This wasn’t about a bad earnings miss. It was a panic response to the realization that advanced AI models, specifically recent upgrades from Anthropic, can now perform entire end-to-end workflows.
When AI can handle a complex workflow from start to finish, it threatens the margins of traditional software built on “seat licenses” and “workflow lock-in”. But here is the futurist lens: this isn’t just a market story; it’s a workforce design story. AI agents are turning work into a “commodity interface” where users care about outcomes, not tools.
For CHROs, this means a massive shift in how work gets orchestrated. We are moving from people performing tasks to people supervising systems. Work is becoming a “product.” The firms that wait for clarity will be forced to react; those redesigning roles now will absorb the shock.
Citigroup and the End of the “Effort Era”
One of the clearest leadership signals came from Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, who sent a blunt memo to over 200,000 employees stating, “We are not graded on effort. We are judged on our results”. What makes this powerful is that Citi wasn’t in crisis; they were actually seeing their strongest performance since 2010: Under Fraser’s “Project Bora Bora” restructuring, revenues pushed toward $84 billion and their stock rose 67% in 2025, outperforming every other major U.S. bank.
This is a shift from “transformation” to execution. Historically, long hours and visible effort acted as a substitute for outcomes, but technology is now removing those excuses. When AI can compress cycle times and surface performance data in real time, leaders lose patience for ambiguity. The lesson for CHROs is that “empathy without standards” is no longer sustainable; results are becoming the ultimate signal of relevance.
Amazon’s Blueprint for Internal Talent Mobility
The headlines recently focused on Amazon letting go of 16,000 employees due to automation, and the immediate reaction was that “the sky is falling”. But if you actually read the blog post from their Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, Beth Galetti, you’d see a different story: those employees were given 90 days to find a new role internally.
This is a massive “internal talent mobility” story that most people missed. Instead of a simple headcount reduction, Amazon is giving people three months to leverage internal marketplaces and connections to stay with the company while their old roles are automated. If you can provide the tools for your people to re-skill and make lateral moves, you can keep your best talent even as the nature of their work changes.
Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcast & leave a review!
The Great HR Technology Operating Model Reset
In February, we saw a leading enterprise software provider, Workday, announce workforce cuts tied to AI restructuring. Their stock has been hit hard, dropping 25% to 35% from recent highs, with peers like ServiceNow and Oracle facing similar pressure.
It triggered what I call the “dangerous question” that boards are now asking: If AI is doing the work, why are we paying for seat licenses? For decades, HR tech has been sold based on the number of users or dashboards, but as AI becomes the primary interface for data, those interfaces matter less. These platforms are transitioning from “destinations” to underlying infrastructure.
For CHROs, this means your technology budget is about to face deeper scrutiny, and you need to ensure your vendors are providing a “trusted AI orchestration layer” rather than just a place for employees to log in.
Accenture and the Risk of “Corporate Theater”
The Guardian reported that Accenture is tying promotions to AI usage, tracking metrics like weekly logins for senior staff. They’ve trained 550,000 of their 780,000 employees in generative AI as part of a $1 billion annual learning spend. CEO Julie Sweet has even noted that the firm would exit employees who aren’t “getting the hang of AI.”
While removing ambiguity about AI’s importance is good, this approach carries a major risk: you might end up rewarding “AI activity” instead of AI-enabled performance. If you incentivize logins, people will just run low-value tasks through AI to show adoption, creating a new kind of “corporate theater” or “AI washing”.
CHROs now must require a “Human Judgment Receipt.” Ask your leaders: What did you verify? What did you override that the AI suggested? The future isn’t just about AI adoption; it’s about AI plus accountability.
The New Reality for People Leaders
These Q1 stories are connected by a single thread: accountability is tightening. Markets are reacting to AI’s potential before it’s even fully proven, and CEOs are demanding total transparency in performance.
For CHROs and people leaders, the time for observing is over. The technology is compressing the time between a plan and a result. The defining question for the rest of the year is simple: Are you cutting your way to relevance, or are you rebuilding your way there?
Check out the full episode at the link below to dive deeper into these signals.
Organizations around the world have lost their way. It’s time to get back to basics and focus on what really drives people and performance. This is why I’m so very excited to share that after 2 years of research and writing, my new book The 8 Laws of Employee Experience: How to Build a Future-Ready Organization is finally available. Grab a copy at 8exlaws.com
