A top engagement driver.
Gallup identifies investing in team members’ development among the five most important manager behaviours for employee engagement.
Gallup · Manager behaviour researchForthworks / Commercial impact
Too much at stake
to leave untested.
Leadership gaps. Stranded skills. Investment without return. The talent and human capital agenda carries real commercial consequences.
External evidence cannot tell you exactly what your organisation is losing. It can show why an objective view of progress matters. For Boards, CEOs and Chief People Officers, the question is whether the capability to deliver has been assessed, compared and validated.
Explore the commercial impactThe scale of the issue
$10 trillion
Estimated annual global productivity loss associated with low employee engagement.
Gallup’s estimate puts the economic scale of unrealised human potential into perspective. It is a global model. It does not represent a loss figure for an individual business or a total attributable to any single talent practice.
Gallup · State of the Global Workplace 2026How much of your organisation’s performance depends on capabilities you have not yet objectively tested?
Commercial impact / Career growth
Career growth matters.
So does the return.
Career development belongs in the commercial conversation. Evidence links investment in people’s development with engagement. Separate evidence links engagement with stronger business-unit productivity.
Engagement & productivity
14%
Higher production productivity
Median difference in production records and evaluations.
18%
Higher sales productivity
Median difference in sales productivity.
Top-quartile versus bottom-quartile business units on employee engagement, in Gallup’s Q12 meta-analysis.
Gallup · Q12 meta-analysis, 11th editionThe Forthworks perspective
A grounded skills framework, visible career pathways and a talent marketplace make development tangible. Linking those opportunities to engagement and performance measures helps leaders test whether investment is changing the employee experience and creating commercial value.
Explore Skills & Career MobilityWhat the evidence shows and where its limits lie
These are separate findings, not a single causal study. The productivity differences relate to overall engagement; they cannot be attributed to career development alone or treated as a forecast of returns from a particular programme. The two productivity figures measure different outcomes and must not be added together.
Explore Learning TransformationThe evidence / Seven decision areas
Different exposures.
One enterprise agenda.
Research findings are shown alongside Forthworks’ interpretation of the commercial exposure and the question to validate. Estimates, forecasts and survey responses are labelled; the figures are not additive.
Leadership successionSkills & career mobilityLeadership hiring & assessmentLearning transformationTalent strategyAI & talent returnsPeople Function renewal
01 / Leadership successionShareholder value
Nearly$1 trillion
in annual market value lost through poorly managed CEO and C-suite transitions across the S&P 1500.
Harvard Business Review · The High Cost of Poor Succession PlanningPublished estimate · 2021 analysis. A historical estimate of annual shareholder value erosion across the S&P 1500, rather than a cash cost or a forecast for an individual organisation.
Leadership transitions put shareholder value at stake.
Leadership exposure can delay growth, weaken execution and leave the organisation dependent on a narrow set of individuals.
The question to validate
Are our successors ready for the capabilities the next phase of the business will demand?
Where Forthworks helps
Test future leadership requirements, assess internal readiness and validate the strength of external pipelines.
Explore this solution02 / Skills & career mobilityEmployer forecast
39%
of existing skill sets are expected to change or become outdated over the report’s 2025–2030 horizon.
World Economic Forum · Future of Jobs Report 2025Skills can become a constraint before the organisation sees the gap.
Poor visibility of capability can lead to unnecessary hiring, underused talent and missed opportunities to redeploy people.
The question to validate
Can we identify and mobilise the skills that will unlock our next growth opportunities?
Where Forthworks helps
Build a grounded enterprise skills framework, validate career pathways and connect people to a talent marketplace.
Explore this solution03 / Leadership hiring & assessmentCost estimate
~2×
annual salary: Gallup’s estimated cost of replacing a leader or manager.
Gallup · Employee turnover researchLeadership turnover carries a cost well beyond the search fee.
Replacement economics make appointment quality and retention commercially material. This is a turnover estimate, not a measured cost of a failed hire.
The question to validate
How robust are our appointment standards, and what are we paying for capability we could build in-house?
Where Forthworks helps
Assess in-house hiring capability and calibrate internal and external candidates against a common leadership standard.
Explore this solution04 / Learning transformationEmployer forecast
59 in 100
workers are expected to need training by 2030 in the employers’ global workforce scenario.
World Economic Forum · Future of Jobs Report 2025Capability will not renew itself.
Learning activity can absorb time and investment without closing the skills gaps that constrain performance.
The question to validate
Which learning investments build critical capability, and how do we know they are working?
Where Forthworks helps
Review investment and delivery, compare relevant market practice and measure capability gains against business priorities.
Explore this solution05 / Talent strategyEmployer survey / forward view
63%
of surveyed employers identify skills gaps as a major barrier to transformation over 2025–2030.
World Economic Forum · Future of Jobs Report 2025Talent constraints are execution constraints.
An ambitious growth or transformation agenda can stall when leadership, skills and deployment decisions are disconnected.
The question to validate
Does our talent strategy address the constraints most likely to prevent delivery?
Where Forthworks helps
Assess the talent system outside-in, validate progress and prioritise the decisions and investments that enable execution.
Explore this solution06 / AI & talent returnsCEO self-report
56%
of surveyed CEOs report neither higher revenue nor lower costs from AI over the preceding 12 months.
PwC · 29th Global CEO Survey 2026Investment is not evidence of return.
AI can add spend and complexity when use cases, adoption and benefits are not tested. This finding covers enterprise AI, not talent technology alone.
The question to validate
Where is AI creating measurable value, and where are we funding activity without a commercial case?
Where Forthworks helps
Compare current solutions and relevant deployments, assess use-case economics and define adoption and benefits measures.
Explore this solution07 / People Function renewalSurvey finding
11%
of organisations in McKinsey’s survey take a long-term approach to workforce planning.
McKinsey · HR Monitor 2026Operational delivery is not the same as enterprise readiness.
This planning indicator points to a gap between short-term activity and future capability; it is not a score for the whole People Function.
The question to validate
Do we have the expertise and operating model to shape the business’s next chapter?
Where Forthworks helps
Assess leadership, specialist and future skills, benchmark relevant operating choices and define the capability renewal required.
Explore this solutionWhere Forthworks helps
Assess. Validate.
Move forward with conviction.
There is too much at stake to confuse activity with progress. Forthworks brings an objective, outside-in view of where you are, how you compare and what needs to change, working with the CPO to connect Board and CEO priorities with delivery.
Establish the real position.
Examine leadership, skills, investment and execution against the capabilities your business needs. Distinguish evidence of progress from activity and aspiration.
Test it against the outside world.
Use relevant market comparisons and external intelligence to challenge assumptions, calibrate standards and identify blind spots.
Make the next decision count.
Prioritise changes, investment choices and measures of success. Engage Stephen as a consultant or an integrated interim leader to turn the assessment into progress.
Evidence & context
Evidence, with context.
These studies use different populations, periods and methods. They inform the questions to ask; they do not diagnose your business or establish that any one intervention will deliver a particular financial return.
Sources and how to read them
- Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026. The productivity estimate is global and modelled. It is not an estimate of Forthworks-addressable savings.
- Fernández-Aráoz, Nagel and Green, The High Cost of Poor Succession Planning, Harvard Business Review (2021). The authors estimate annual market value erosion associated with poorly managed CEO and C-suite transitions in the S&P 1500 at close to $1 trillion. This is a published historical estimate, not a current measured loss, a cash cost or a forecast of savings from an engagement.
- World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025. Findings reflect employer expectations across the 2025–2030 period, from more than 1,000 global employers. Skills change and training need are projections, not realised losses.
- Gallup, employee turnover research. The article was originally published in 2024 and updated in 2026. Replacement costs are estimates and vary by role and context; the leader/manager estimate is not specific to executive hiring failures.
- PwC, 29th Global CEO Survey 2026. Based on 4,454 CEOs across 95 countries and territories. The AI measure is self-reported enterprise revenue and cost impact over the preceding 12 months.
- McKinsey, HR Monitor 2026. Approximately 1,300 HR professionals and 5,500 employees across ten countries. Long-term workforce planning is one indicator, not a complete assessment of People Function effectiveness.
- Gallup, The Strengths, Weaknesses and Blind Spots of Managers (2024). Development is one of the five most important manager behaviours identified for engagement, not the single highest-ranked behaviour.
- Gallup, Q12 meta-analysis, 11th edition (2024). The 14% and 18% figures are median productivity differences between top- and bottom-quartile engagement groups. They describe different productivity measures, are not additive and do not isolate the effect of career development.
Commercial implications and assessment questions are Forthworks’ interpretation. No source implies endorsement of Forthworks. Research reviewed November 2026.
A signal to act
When familiar thinking
limits future growth.
Listen to how colleagues and leaders describe the organisation. Repeated sentiments can reveal its dominant logic: the shared, often untested beliefs about what makes the business successful. When those beliefs stop being challenged, past strengths can become future constraints.
Relationships outweigh evidence.
Who you know carries more weight than what the evidence says. Trusted networks narrow the field of ideas, talent and constructive challenge.
Internal precedent outweighs external insight.
“How we do things here” becomes the benchmark. Customer shifts, emerging competitors and new capabilities receive less attention than familiar practice.
Comfort outweighs curiosity.
Current performance becomes a reason to defer change. Leaders defend established approaches before testing whether they can deliver the next stage of growth.
Process completion outweighs progress.
Performance, talent and succession cycles consume time across the management population, yet create too few meaningful decisions, development opportunities or career moves. When transparency and candid feedback are not enablers of performance, talent and succession management, these processes can reinforce the status quo rather than open a window for growth.
42%
of CEOs say their companies have started competing in new sectors over the past five years.
Competitive boundaries are moving. An inward-looking view can leave an organisation measuring itself against yesterday’s industry while tomorrow’s opportunities take shape elsewhere.
PwC · Global CEO Survey 2026Survey of 4,454 CEOs across 95 countries and territories. Self-reported sector expansion; it does not establish a causal link between these warning signs and business performance.
Recognise the pattern? Test the assumptions.
These are prompts for review, not a diagnosis. Forthworks brings an outside-in perspective and constructive provocation to test the leadership, talent and organisational assumptions behind your growth plans. We assess whether performance, talent and succession practices turn management time into better decisions, stronger capability and visible opportunity, and identify what needs to change.
Let’s talk about what needs to changeThe next conversationHow confident are you
Discuss an objective assessment How confident are you
in the progress you see?
Start with an independent view of the decisions, capabilities and returns that matter most to your business.