{"id":41249,"date":"2025-07-27T23:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T23:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/41249\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T23:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T23:36:08","slug":"power-shift-at-work-the-divide-between-what-employers-are-doing-and-what-employees-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/41249\/","title":{"rendered":"Power shift at work: The divide between what employers are doing and what employees want"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the weekly Work Life newsletter. If you are interested in more careers-related content, sign up<\/a> to receive it in your inbox. With the holiday Monday coming up, the next edition will be sent on Tuesday, August 5.<\/p>\n

What people want from work is shifting \u2013 fast \u2013 driven by new trends, technologies and values.<\/p>\n

At a time when companies are increasing in-office days, cutting layers of management and slowing salary increases, a new report warns of the importance of listening to employees even as the power balance shifts in favour of the employer. <\/p>\n

The recent Korn Ferry Workforce 2025 survey<\/a>, which included 15,000 professionals from entry-level staff to CEOs across 10 countries, reveals just how wide the gap has grown between what employers are doing and what employees want. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at the findings: <\/p>\n

Missing middle management<\/p>\n

In the push to reduce costs, many organizations are \u201cflattening\u201d or cutting middle managers, and the fallout is real: 41\u202fper cent of employees report fewer management layers, leaving a vacuum of direction and support. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen management disappears, so does direction. A leaner organization today can mean a leadership crisis tomorrow,\u201d says Lesley Uren, chief executive officer at Korn Ferry Consulting. <\/p>\n

With 43\u202fper cent of employees saying leadership feels misaligned and 37\u202fper cent feeling directionless without managers, the message is clear: structure matters.<\/p>\n

The salary squeeze <\/p>\n

Wages haven\u2019t kept pace with rising living costs. A striking 70\u202fper cent of respondents say their salary no longer matches expenses and 35\u202fper cent feel underpaid for their skills. Yet Korn\u202fFerry warns that pay isn\u2019t the only retention anchor. Employees crave job security, meaningful work, benefits and flexibility nearly as much as higher salaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cA paycheque gets employees in the door. Job security, meaningful work and respect for personal boundaries keep them from looking for the exit,\u201d says David\u202fEllis, the senior vice-president for talent transformation at Korn Ferry. <\/p>\n

A new AI world order<\/p>\n

Talent readiness for artificial intelligence is shifting globally with emerging economies such as India and Brazil outpacing traditional players in AI fluency.<\/p>\n

These regions report robust AI training uptake \u2013 more than 75\u202fper cent of workforces \u2013 while leaders in the U.S., Europe and Japan lag behind. The Korn Ferry survey shows that workers who are trained on AI are significantly more likely to embrace it, supporting the idea that filling skill gaps appears more critical than simply adopting new technologies.<\/p>\n

The hybrid headache <\/p>\n

Office mandates and hybrid-flex struggles continue. \u201cOf the 59 per cent of global employees who are working full-time in the office, only 19 per cent actually want to be there,\u201d the report notes. Meanwhile, nearly 50\u202fper cent prefer hybrid and 25 per cent fully remote, yet few have the option. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot of unhappy employees,\u201d says the report.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the data varies dramatically from region to region, thickening the plot for multinational companies that opt for global workplace policies. <\/p>\n

Generational gaslighting <\/p>\n

How\u2019s the multi-generational workforce going? Depends who you ask. While 49\u202fper cent of Gen\u202fZ feel communication and teamwork training is necessary, only 27\u202fper cent of Baby Boomers agree. Similarly, 40\u202fper cent of Gen\u202fZ see a tech skills gap in older co\u2011workers, compared with just 24\u202fper cent of Boomers. <\/p>\n

This \u201cdigital divide\u201d affects trust, collaboration and opportunities for cross-generational development.<\/p>\n

What it all means for leaders<\/p>\n

The report emphasizes that the employer\u2013employee power balance has shifted. Leaders must pivot from top-down mandates to empathetic, responsive strategies:<\/p>\n

Restore management lines: Provide training and empowerment to rebuild those missing middle layers.Recalibrate total compensation: If you can\u2019t compete on pay, double down on flexibility, purposeful work, security and supportive culture.Invest in AI skills: Focus resources on training and skill-building rather than just tool adoption.Honour flexibility preferences: Offer hybrid and remote options where demand is high.Bridge generational rifts: Foster intergenerational communication, tech training and mentorship to build a cohesive culture.<\/p>\n

Korn\u202fFerry puts it simply: it\u2019s not about what you ask employees to do. It\u2019s about how you listen and respond in real time. <\/p>\n

Fast factHybrid honeymoon<\/p>\n

15 per cent<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how much remote and hybrid job opportunities that pay more than $100,000 decreased from the first quarter to the second of this year, according to career search website Ladders.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n

Career guidanceMind > machine<\/p>\n

A recent MIT media lab study found that users of AI tools such as ChatGPT \u201cconsistently underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavioural levels.\u201d While that may sound troublesome, this article shares how to get AI\u2019s benefits without hurting your mental growth. <\/p>\n

Tips include using AI to push your ideas further (rather than using it to come up with ideas), avoiding using AI for first drafts of work and using AI to challenge your thinking (for example, poke holes in your arguments). <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n

QuotedFranchising fanbase<\/p>\n

\u201cThe days of people working for major corporations and waiting years and years for an opportunity for a promotion \u2013 I don\u2019t think that is attractive to a lot of these franchisees,\u201d says Stretch Zone chief executive officer Tony Zaccario. \u201cWhen you are able to deliver a simple business model that doesn\u2019t require a lot of money or experience, it falls into what they\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franchising used to be something people turned to later in their careers but these days more young people are getting in on the action \u2013 especially with lower-cost, easy-to-run franchise options.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n

On our radarMicrosoft mishap<\/p>\n

A newly discovered flaw in Microsoft SharePoint is being exploited by Chinese state-backed hackers and Canada is one of the top countries at risk. Because many Canadian companies and government agencies host SharePoint on their own servers, they\u2019re especially vulnerable to breaches that could give hackers access to everything from Teams to Outlook and OneDrive.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the weekly Work Life newsletter. If you are interested in more careers-related content, sign up to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[28,524,33288,33289,33285,33284,14093,33290,134,4910,24296,33287,22143,33286],"class_list":{"0":"post-41249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-career-advice","10":"tag-career-leadership","11":"tag-careers-globe-and-mail","12":"tag-careers-newsletter","13":"tag-careersnewsletter","14":"tag-future-of-work","15":"tag-globe-and-mail-newsletter","16":"tag-jobs","17":"tag-newsletter","18":"tag-noastack","19":"tag-thought-leadership","20":"tag-workplace-culture","21":"tag-your-life-at-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}