2026 has arrived, carried in on the steady, high-frequency hum of a thousand autonomous agents and new buzzwords. We’re moving beyond the decade of disorientation into a phygital reality, where the boundary between our physical personhood and our digital personas has all but dissolved. The office is no longer a destination for a desk but a culture hub designed for serendipitous connection. AI investment continues to surge, but productivity growth remains stubbornly uneven.
We asked four of our senior workplace and culture consultants across Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia to help make sense of the gaps.
#1 Prediction | AI Everywhere, Clarity TBC
“Leadership through AI integration will continue to be at the forefront this year,” predicts Evelyn Kwek, Managing Director at Great Place To Work ASEAN and ANZ.
“The role of AI will get more developed and entrenched and the majority of the workforce will still be trying to make sense of the role AI plays in their workflow and how to work alongside AI tools and agents. There will be continued ambiguities, confusion and exploration as the ways of working evolve.”
The MIT study on generative AI that showed a 95 per cent failure rate for enterprise projects, with most in‑house efforts never making it past the pilot stage, became one of the most anxiously discussed business stories of 2025. With new tools arriving faster than practical ways to use them, it looks like 2026 will be the year businesses must stop confusing AI exposure with adoption.
“There’s an AI arms race amongst organizations to reap returns on investment and demonstrate value to the market,” Kwek adds. “Building trust and creating psychological safety, amidst the rush for speed and a very troubled and noisy world will be essential.”
Rhea Gaddi, Senior Consultant at Great Place to Work ASEAN and ANZ, speaks to the cultural line this draws. “I predict that companies who can normalize AI as a collaborative partner, not a threat, and thoughtfully retrain human workers, will thrive in 2026.”
Research shows companies retraining workers and strengthening human capital, rather than replacing it, see the biggest productivity and financial gains. Where AI arrives silently, or only as a cost-cutting signal, fear fills the gap in that vacuum.
Principal Consultant Helen Lim-Yang predicts, “In workplace where AI is embedded in everyday decisions, leaders have a really important role in protecting human dignity. Acknowledging concerns openly and creating space for employees to question and co-shape how technology is used.”
“My 2026 resolution is to go slow to go fast. In the pressures of running the business and being efficient, I sometimes make decisions very quickly and instinctively, albeit guided by data. I would like to be more intentional to pause, to listen, to understand what’s noise and distraction, and then make data-guided decisions. This year I want to lead from a place of values and principles”
– Evelyn Kwek, Managing Director, Great Place To Work ASEAN & ANZ
#2 Prediction | Job Hugging, Talent Jams And The Cost Of Generational Friction
Fortune’s 2025 analysis of job hugging uncovered thousands of workers clinging to roles despite deep dissatisfaction, as labour markets cool, quit rates fall and average tenure stretches far beyond previous generations. This epidemic of job hugging creates talent jams that block progression and invite a creeping stagnation to set in. Fear‑driven commitment quietly drains productivity, according to global engagement data, with links to massive losses in output and innovation.
Transparency appears to be the antidote. When leaders openly discuss business performance, workforce planning and future skills, people make better decisions and staying becomes an informed choice rather than a defensive reflex.
There is also a generational layer to this load, Rhea Gaddi says. “2026 will also need to address the generational friction issue. Workforces in general are dominated by Millennials and Gen Z, yet Gen X and older cohorts are not retiring.” Left unresolved this friction compounds, roles stay occupied longer and progression stalls.
Gaddi believes that only by building peer-to-peer integration and “leveraging the innovation from the younger generations and strengthen with the experience and wisdom of the older talents,” can leaders create a break in this generational friction.
#3 Prediction | Leading Through An Empathy Recession
“The workplace conversation for 2026 will be about the empathy recession,” says Rebecca Moulynox, General Manager, Great Place To Work Australia and New Zealand. “There’s been a 10 per cent spike in workplace conflict, thanks to social and political tensions, and a genuinely noticeable drop in colleagues actually understanding each other. This isn’t just office drama, it’s a full-blown systems failure in how teams function.”
“We’re seeing workplace cultures split into two groups. Cultures built on trust where people feel safe and engaged, versus organizations struggling with disengagement, turnover, and fragile performance.”
“The companies that thrive will be the ones that understand trust and mutual respect are imperative to operational capability,” she says.
Helen Lim-Yang agrees, “I believe the buzziest culture-science topic in 2026 will center on executive presence in a future-ready world. This means showing up with a human touch, engaging sincerely, fostering psychological safety and trust so that even in hard conversations, people feel understood, valued, supported.”
“I’m a chronic yes person, which sounds heroic on paper but mostly results in calendar Tetris. In practice, it pulls me in too many directions to focus on what really matters (or do it well). In 2026 I’m going smaller but sharper, fewer events, tighter speaking gigs, more intentional partnerships, and real time with the team. Higher quality outcome, deeper preparation, cleaner execution, and work I’m proud to put my name to.”
– Rebecca Moulynox, General Manager, Great Place To Work, ANZ.
#4 Prediction | Mid-Career Managers Are The Hinge Point
If 2026 has a clear pressure point already, it’s weighted squarely in the middle of the org chart. Mid managers are the translators of the workplace, expected to take strategy and turn it into systems, values and behaviors while managing humans and increasingly supervising AI‑enabled workflows.
They’re a magnet for tension from both directions, executive demands from above, employee expectations from below, and global data now shows that when this layer struggles, culture fractures quietly and fast. Our data found satisfaction scores falling in direct parallel to seniority, with people closest to day‑to‑day execution carrying more strain.
Helen Lim-Yang sees this support as a serious focus point for senior leaders in 2026. “This is where executive presence grounded on empathy and authenticity becomes a cultural cornerstone. It’s their responsibility to build a consistent experience of care and candor.”
The organizations getting this right are investing deliberately in three areas:
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AI and data literacy: building managers’ ability to understand, question and explain AI‑enabled workflows and data‑driven decisions, not just use tools at a basic level.
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Decision rights and autonomy: clarifying where managers can adapt policies and make trade‑offs locally, which research links to higher wellbeing and lower stress among leaders.
- Emotional load‑bearing skills: using structured leadership development and, increasingly, AI‑supported coaching to strengthen communication, conflict resolution and psychological safety skills at scale.
Properly supported middle managers become the quiet stabilizer that keeps the whole system working, even as everything else shifts.
