Korn Ferry released its Workforce 2026 Global Insights Report on 8 September 2026, drawn from more than 16,000 professionals surveyed across 11 global markets and every organizational level, from individual contributors to CEOs. The headline finding: nearly two-thirds of employees, 62%, report significantly heavier workloads than two years ago, and 45% say they are too busy to deliver the kind of work that actually contributes to company growth. Forty-four percent said they are stretched beyond their own capabilities on the job.
The report’s more pointed finding is about AI specifically. About half of individual contributors, 51%, reported improved efficiency from AI tools, but that gain has not closed the capacity gap Korn Ferry measured elsewhere in the survey, meaning organizations betting that AI adoption alone would relieve workload pressure are not seeing that bet pay off yet. “Growth doesn’t come from just asking people to do more. It’s about enabling them to do their best work, with space to experiment and innovate,” said Lesley Uren, CEO of Korn Ferry Consulting.
The original angle for HR leaders is the gap between activity and output. HR teams already juggling elevated hiring alongside prior headcount reductions now have data suggesting the fix is not simply adding headcount back or layering on more AI tools, it is redesigning how work is structured and measured. As restructuring itself has become a more negotiated, staged process rather than a single event, workforce capacity planning increasingly has to happen continuously rather than as a one-time headcount exercise after each cut.
Source: Korn Ferry
