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Patrick Hollard, Chief Customer Officer & Executive Board Member at PageGroup
It’s becoming clear for many large enterprises that the hiring challenges they faced throughout 2025 will continue into 2026 - only now, the stakes are higher.
Ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, evolving workforce expectations, accelerating digital disruption, and relentless advances in AI continue to reshape how global businesses operate. For hiring leaders, this moment is both a wake-up call and an opportunity: to stop patching over the cracks and instead design a workforce strategy that’s truly fit for the future.
Some organisations are adapting well. Skills-based hiring has gained momentum, with talent teams moving beyond job titles and CVs to focus on capability, adaptability, and potential. In a world where roles evolve rapidly, this shift is not only more inclusive but also more aligned with long-term business resilience.
Others are successfully streamlining global operations. By consolidating fragmented hiring ecosystems, they’re reducing inefficiencies and improving both speed and quality of hire. They’re choosing fewer, more strategic partners—ones with both local insight and global scale—and seeing stronger outcomes as a result.
But in many organisations, the old ways still dominate. Hiring remains reactive. Talent processes remain siloed. Technology is being introduced in pockets, without alignment to broader goals. And perhaps most concerning of all, leadership often underestimates just how much their hiring strategy needs to evolve.
Global hiring is already complex—but the cost of inaction will only escalate in 2026. According to our research, large enterprises may be losing up to nine working weeks due to inefficient hiring practices.
AI continues to dominate the conversation—and for good reason. Used well, it can transform hiring: cutting time-to-fill, improving candidate matching, and freeing up teams for more strategic work. But chasing the latest technology for its own sake won’t solve deeper problems.
The best organisations are approaching AI with purpose, not panic. They’re starting small - identifying specific pain points, whether it’s screening, scheduling, or talent mapping - and using AI to address them with precision. For example, a global contact centre we work with used AI to simulate real-world learning curves across several scenarios, helping them identify not just the best performer, but the best learner. That’s a smarter way to hire for long-term growth.
At PageGroup, we’ve seen this firsthand. We use AI alongside our consultants’ expertise to mine our global database, predicting when candidates will be ready for their next move. This helps us identify the most suitable candidates more efficiently, allowing us to be more responsive to our customers’ needs.
The lesson? AI is most powerful when it’s led by strategy, not hype. And that strategy starts with the workforce vision you build at the top, with leaders who are ready to lead.
The most overlooked element in transforming hiring is not tools or tactics—it’s leadership mindset.
Hiring isn’t just an operational function. It’s a strategic lever. Yet many senior leaders still treat it as transactional or secondary. That has to change.
Modern hiring requires openness to experimentation, investment in scalable systems, and a willingness to challenge long-standing assumptions. It also requires trust in your talent partners—particularly those who can bring integrated, cross-border capabilities that match your business footprint.
Whether you’re operating across five markets or fifty, consistency and agility can no longer be at odds. A single, coordinated hiring strategy—with local nuance but global alignment—is increasingly what separates the agile from the outdated.
2026 isn’t just another year of disruption, it’s an inflection point. For global enterprises, hiring can no longer be a bolt-on process, confined to HR or outsourced ad hoc. It must be embedded within your business strategy, designed to fuel growth, resilience, and adaptability.
That means asking difficult questions: What’s working in your hiring ecosystem? What’s holding you back? Where could AI or automation help - not in theory, but in practice? And most importantly, what kind of workforce are you actually building - and retaining?
Those who embed agility and foresight into their hiring strategy today will not only attract better talent, they’ll future-proof their business for the disruptions ahead.
Because in today’s world, how you hire is how you grow.
