Stagility: Creating stability for workers for organizations to move at speed

For many organizations there is a gap between knowledge and action. According to our 2025 Global Human Capital Trends survey (see “Methodology”), a significant majority of organizations (72%) recognize the importance of balancing agility and stability, yet only 39% are doing something meaningful about it (figure 2). Whether organizations can strike this balance will likely depend on their ability to find ways to anchor the work, the organization, and the worker. These new anchors should provide a sense of identity, a clearly defined path of action, and a mental model for the way work works. They should also provide a sense of grounding and direction, binding worker to organization in a shared vision that benefits both parties.

Traditional anchors that have long provided stability for both organizations and workers are being challenged. These anchors include static job descriptions, defined teams, and linear, internal career pathways and employment models. As these anchors become upended, workers may struggle to find the grounding they require to act with confidence and creativity and to have a dynamic capability to respond and evolve.

Organizations and workers must find new sources of stability to reinforce the connection between worker and organization, putting both in a position to adapt and thrive. These new anchors will come in the form of reimagined organization structures, greater intentionality in the design and resourcing of work, a better understanding of workers as individuals, and stronger networks within and beyond the four walls of the organization.

Sources of instability for work, organization, and worker

For organizations and workers to establish new anchors, they should first assess the sources of instability they face. These fall under three broad categories: work, organization, and worker.

Instability in the work

Traditional models of work are giving way to more fluid and dynamic frameworks, thanks largely to new market demands, evolving stakeholder expectations, rapid advancements in technology, and the evolution of artificial intelligence. More than 4 out of 5 executives (81%) agree that work today is increasingly performed across functional boundaries.⁵ More than 2 out of 3 workers (71%) perform work outside the scope of their job descriptions.⁶

Even in traditional models of work, many organizations often struggle to effectively define the work, break it down, and assign it to workers in ways that could enhance performance. However, there’s an opportunity to use the very AI solutions that are disrupting work to help rearchitect work in ways that drive new and improved business and human outcomes.

Instability for the organization

Organizational design and structure have long played an important role in not only organizing work but providing a sense of organizational home to workers. In traditional models, where work could be grouped into tasks and tasks could be neatly organized into jobs, organizational design’s purpose was to hardwire jobs and functional structures to create those organizational homes.

As organizations seek new ways to unlock potential through collaboration, traditional structures might act as barriers to more fluidly organizing work at speed. Nearly half (45%) of HR leaders cite “organizational transformation” as their top priority for 2024, indicating a shift toward proactive organizational transformation strategies.⁷

Instability for the worker

Workers have long been anchored to their jobs as a source of identity, and to linear, internal career paths for a sense of direction. But these anchors have come at a price, as some organizations have undervalued worker skills and capabilities—among a host of unique individual attributes—while assigning too much value to job definitions and experience. Meanwhile, career development has stagnated for many workers due to an overreliance on the limited internal pathways organizations can identify and provide.

Workers are demanding a change in approach. According to this year’s Global Human Capital Trends research, roughly 2 in 3 say it’s very or critically important for their organization to customize the design and experience of work and workforce practices based on worker skills, behavioral patterns, motivations, passions, and work styles. Meanwhile, 59% say their organization values job experience and degrees over demonstrated skills and potential,⁸ and 66% say they would be more likely to be attracted to and remain at an organization that values and makes decisions based on their skills and potential rather than on jobs and degrees.⁹

As jobs and functional teams evolve, organizations will need to find new ways to provide workers with a sense of stability, community, and connection to grow, adapt, and thrive.

Giorgia Agnello, chief human resources officer at Ceva Santé Animale, and the executive team at Ceva are actively working to close the disconnect between worker and organizational needs. In that journey, they’re exploring how to empower their workforce with five different types of agility—neuro-emotional, learning, trust, stakeholder, and growth—to create a new form of stability for the workforce that will drive both workforce and organizational performance.¹⁰

Finding new anchors

In addition to navigating the tension between stability and agility, leaders will also need to make decisions on the spectrum between predictability and potential (figure 3) to establish new anchors for workers. “Predictability” deals with the known or decided in advance, with reliable and repeatable outcomes, enabling leaders to mitigate risks. “Potential” focuses on the capacity to become or to develop something in the future that is currently unknown or unrealized, which requires taking some risk.

Getting to an “and” rather than an “or” between predictability and potential is at the heart of this trend; organizations and workers need both predictability and the ability to stretch and grow into the unknown. However, organizations will need to shift where they find predictability to unlock potential. 

The sources of instability mentioned above can be addressed by establishing new anchors in each of the three categories, that is, work, organization, and worker.

Anchoring the work

As organizations integrate new technologies, they should consider the combination of humans and technological tools that can most effectively drive both business and human outcomes. Progress will be measured less by specific actions completed than by value delivered. The following examples illustrate some of the actions organizations can take to anchor work in a world of rapid technological advancement.

• Use technology to create value for both the organization and the worker.

As the capabilities of AI and advanced technology continue to progress, organizations must be intentional about how they’re applying technology in ways that create new value for both the organization and the worker.

Agnello says she recognizes that technology transformations meant to increase organizational agility can sometimes have the opposite effect. “When our workforce is not empowered and fails to see how technology can help them be better at their work and their work be better for them, we don’t see the desired business outcomes.” Agnello and her team are working to align what people expect and want from the technology and what the technology can provide.

Shell is using AI to reengineer monitoring and inspection processes at energy and chemical plants, pipelines, offshore facilities, and wind and solar farms. This work, which used to be performed in person by inspectors and maintenance technicians, can now be done remotely by robots and drones. As a result of these changes, inspectors and maintenance technicians can focus on other priority activities or, if they’re onsite, performing more advanced verification. At the same time, new tasks are emerging for multidisciplinary teams, such as annotation for images to improve inspection algorithms.¹¹

• Empower employees on the journey to rearchitect work with AI.

AI tools can also be used to assist workers more directly. Mercedes-Benz, for example, has democratized production and management-related data to its car plants worldwide through a gen AI–powered data platform. The platform generates data-rich insights for employees, who can then ask questions using plain language instead of technical prompts. The platform enables employees to quickly access data to support decision-making and has been instrumental in helping to identify process improvement opportunities and bottlenecks across the assembly line, supply chain, and more.¹²

• Leverage AI to drive collaboration across silos and teams.

Organizations can also consider the ways in which AI can help bridge the gap between different departments and teams. Klick Health developed an AI copilot to bring together siloed teams in pharmaceutical companies to improve omnichannel marketing efforts. AI-driven representatives of different departments can now complete a first pass review of briefs, scopes, and other project documents, creating a starting point for discussion and refinement. Then, during the creative process, workers can integrate real-time AI-based feedback, streamlining workflow. The tool automates the process of linking different perspectives, freeing up experts to prioritize the parts of the project that fall under their purview.

Anchoring the organization

As organizations become more dynamic and flexible, they should consider moving away from hardwired jobs toward softwired networks of multidisciplinary teams, each aligned to specific business outcomes. Rather than anchoring workers to single, static jobs, stability for workers and teams can come from a clearly defined purpose, specific strategic priorities, and tangible expected outcomes. This possibility is exciting for workers themselves, who prioritize a clearly defined purpose and mission nearly as highly as job stability.

• Develop structures that focus on outcomes, not actions.

Organizations are experimenting with new organizational structures to better align workers and work to business and human outcomes. For example, Haier has transformed into a “zero distance” company, where everyone is directly accountable to customers, employees are energetic entrepreneurs, and a formal hierarchy is replaced by an open ecosystem of users, inventors, and partners. The company has divided itself into more than 4,000 microenterprises of 10 to 15 employees, organized by specific business outcomes.¹³ All employees can join a microenterprise at will or start a new one. The microenterprises are grouped into platforms that identify opportunities for collaboration. Within the company, there are only three categories of employees: “platform owners,” “microenterprise owners,” and “entrepreneurs,” with no higher or lower rank.¹⁴

• Cultivate workforce ecosystems that go beyond the boundary of the organization through workforce ecosystems.

Some organizations are experimenting with creating networks that cross organizational boundaries to the benefit of the organization and the worker alike. Two major electronics companies created a job-swap program that supports the upskilling, advancement, and adaptability of the workforce across the two organizations. One company is leveraging the others’ engineers and business planning employees in their electronics and semiconductor businesses, using their workers to support the commercialization of services using metaverse technology and products that combine AI and image sensors. The other company is similarly leveraging employees from their job swap partner for research and development, specifically looking at how to utilize AI and virtual space technologies in industrial fields.¹⁵ These ecosystems are cropping up in the public sector too. The US Department of Defense and five private sector participants created the Public Private Talent Exchange to share talent across organizations through temporary projects and assignments.¹⁶

To create greater organizational agility in the face of an aging and shrinking working-age population and changing consumer behaviors, global hotel company IHG Hotels & Resorts in China now embraces different types and sources of workers, including workers from workforce crowdsourcing platforms. This allows the organization to increase speed and tap into under-represented talent pools, particularly those from other industries (especially from manufacturing sectors), as well as individuals seeking flexible, nontraditional work arrangements (for example, young mothers, freelancers, and college students seeking to gain working experiences). Gina Yue, vice president of human resources at IHG, said, “As we seek greater organizational agility, at the same time we also need to provide foundational stability and a culture of care for all our workers (including flexible workers) in a way that motivates them to choose IHG for where they distribute their workable hours.”¹⁷

To achieve this balance, IHG brings stability to the agile crowdsourcing strategy in three ways:

o   Supporting and training managers in how to access, develop, and motivate flexible workers effectively

o   Redesigning work to be task-based, rather than job-based, so work can be packaged to be performed effectively and in a meaningful way by different types of workers including crowdsourced workers

o   Cocreating the redesign of work and roles by engaging hotel frontline managers, fostering collaboration and innovation to drive human performance

Anchoring the worker

In the new world of work, organizations can help workers make career choices not merely in terms of a progression but also growth in capabilities.

• Focus on skills more than jobs.

Organizations should consider moving past an understanding of workers solely as job holders to an understanding of workers as value creators. Kirsten Lange, the chief people officer for tech and enterprise operations and domain orchestration at the National Australian Bank (NAB), shared how NAB redesigned its delivery system in a way that allows for stability for its workers without an overreliance on formal job descriptions. NAB’s approach dedicates resources to specific customer needs, allowing them to contribute in various ways while also building experience and capability over time for faster delivery. It operates as an end-to-end business with clear strategic goals and aligned metrics for transparency. “With this model, we build long-term experience and capability, enabling us to deliver faster and more effectively. Everyone is aligned on the goals and invested in achieving the best outcomes for our customers.”

In another example, India-based tech company Zoho doesn’t define jobs rigidly and doesn’t assume there is an optimal pathway for individuals to move through the company. Instead, it encourages workers to develop new products and processes. Teams are built around diverse skill sets, which company leaders find ultimately results in better products. “We don’t have rigid job descriptions because they promote rigid thinking,” said Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of Zoho. “If you give people flexible pathways, they evolve into lots of roles they would have never thought they were interested in.”¹⁸

• Understand the individual worker.

Many organizations are beginning to collect data that enables a more nuanced understanding of workers at the individual level, often with a focus on using skills to better match workers to work. (See our chapter “Motivation at the unit of one” for how companies are tapping into data about individual worker motivations.)

Employees at Standard Chartered Bank, for example, now have “skills passports” that show what they are capable of beyond their job descriptions. An AI tool matches employees to project-specific roles. As employees gain skills, they can unlock more opportunities and career options both inside and outside the organization. Explains Group Head of HR and Chief Human Resources Officer Tanuj Kapilashrami, “We are moving away from past performance to agility and skills being a predictor of potential.”¹⁹

Meanwhile, brewing company Molson Coors has scrapped résumés altogether for certain positions in its European region. Applicants indicate their motivation for the role and how they might add to the culture at Molson Coors. They then take a task-based assessment and participate in an interview that might include giving a presentation on a favorite brand. “We are interested in seeing your behaviors in action and how they will help you become successful at Molson Coors, giving everyone the opportunity to show their potential, regardless of background or experience,” said one brand manager at the company.²⁰

These are just some of the ways organizations can begin building new anchors for workers that provide stability while also enabling organizational agility. To continue establishing new anchors, leaders can also consider the who, how, and where of work (figure 4).

What do the new anchors enable for organizations and workers?

Fundamentally, these new sets of anchors are all measures of the relationship between the organization and the worker. For organizations and workers seeking stagility, here’s what’s at stake:

• Worker engagement and innovation. With the right anchors in place, workers can gain trust in the people they work with and for. This could lead to an overall sense of belonging, with workers feeling more comfortable at work, connected to the people and teams they work with, and confident that they are contributing to meaningful work outcomes. All of this together can boost engagement, performance, and innovation.

• Trust. As some traditional anchors are upended by technology, organizations can be at risk of losing workforce trust. This may be especially true in certain industries and geographies where new technologies and models of working may feel counterintuitive to long-established values. For instance, Darren Clarke, executive of culture, leadership and learning delivery at the National Australia Bank, noted, “As industries, including financial services, face an ever-increasing wave of scams, fraud and cybercrime, the value of the human at the heart of the worker–customer relationship has never been more important. The right human response, paired with robust technology, is vital. At the center of that human connection is trust, and it is critical to maintain both stability and agility to preserve this currency of trust.”

• Retention. A sense of stability with their organization reduces the chances that workers will seek opportunities elsewhere, leading to lower turnover rates and increased workforce satisfaction. This is especially important in an environment in which switching jobs has become more normalized. Nearly half (46%) of working professionals surveyed across 31 countries said they were considering quitting their job in 2024.²²

• Business outcomes. Human outcomes are directly tied to business outcomes in a mutually reinforcing cycle. Studies have found that organizations that are more committed to practices related to human sustainability—or the ability for organizations to create value for workers—produce stronger business results.²³

• Upskilling, reskilling, and human employability. According to our research, most workers believe that it’s the primary responsibility of the organization to support their long-term growth and employability. In fact, our research has shown an increase in this trend since 2020.²⁴
  

Perhaps the most important benefit of creating new anchors is that it gives organizations the ability to adapt. To remain agile and perpetually reinvent themselves in the face of ongoing change, organizations need a base level of stability.

That stability begins at the level of people. If workers don’t feel a stable connection to the organizations they work for, an organization’s ability to continuously adapt and evolve could be hindered. In other words, changing direction at the organizational level is far more difficult when there is a fundamental lack of internal coherence.

This is not about the choice of stability or agility, but rather about strengthening and enabling both stability and agility to elevate experiences and outcomes for workers, businesses, and customers.