Employers are reshaping their talent strategies around commercial performance, customer experience and advanced technology skills, according to WTW’s 2026 Q1 General Industry Talent Intelligence Report.
WTW (formerly Willis Towers Watson) is a global advisory, broking and solutions company.
The findings point out that in a tougher economic environment, organizations are prioritizing the capabilities that drive revenue, strengthen resilience and help manage risk.
U.S. employers are doubling down on sales and relationship management to protect growth – making revenue generation, retention and commercial discipline the top capability as customer spending remains tight. Customer experience capabilities remain core. Leaders are investing in service quality while automation and AI redesign contact centers and global service delivery – raising the bar for digital fluency and change adoption.
The report also highlights growing demand for governance and control, especially compliance and documentation or records management as regulations shift and organizations tighten operating discipline.
This shift aligns with a broader move towards skills‑based workforce strategies and talent management, where capability frameworks cut across job families and enable more dynamic deployment of talent as priorities change.
At the same time, organizations are embedding technology‑enabled skills, for instance prompt engineering, digital visualization and agentic design across functions rather than confining them to specialist roles. Skills such as data analysis, programing large language models, AI agent builds and scripting are increasingly expected as part of day‑to‑day roles, supporting data‑driven decision‑making and scalable digital operations.
AI, supply chain and workforce analytics roles are continually important as employers look at future work transformation. These roles are expected to help fill the skills gap, manage workforce costs and align talent to business strategy in an uncertain economic climate.
“AI acceleration is causing employees to look for growth in new skill centric ways – not within a single, traditional career progression”
— Catherine Hartman, global practice lead for Work, Rewards and Careers, WTW
“As skill requirements evolve, companies are focused on a deliberate redesign of how work gets done, who does the work and which work is necessary – including what roles, processes, and technologies meet changing business requirements to generate value for all stakeholders,” said Catherine Hartmann, global practice lead for Work, Rewards and Careers, WTW.
“AI acceleration is causing employees to look for growth in new skill centric ways – not within a single, traditional career progression. For employers, this puts renewed emphasis on transparent skills frameworks, and rewards programs that recognize value creation, contribution, and capabilities over out dated job structures,” concluded Hartmann.
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