Finance leaders heading into 2026 are operating in a labor environment shaped by persistent economic pressure, accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence and shifting expectations around how work is structured and rewarded. That, as most CFOs know, is on top of the growing list of responsibilities that are falling in finance’s repertoire.
However, the aspects of the people-related business findings from HR service provider Randstad’s Workmonitor 2026 survey suggest that these dynamics are increasingly influencing financial planning, productivity assumptions, and execution risk across the enterprise. And for finance leaders at growing businesses, managing this is critical.
The survey, which includes responses from more than 26,000 workers and 1,200 employers across 35 markets, shows employers entering the year with high confidence. Nearly all employers (95%) say they expect business growth over the next year. That outlook is not fully reflected among workers, just over half of whom (51%) report similar optimism about the future.
Beneath that divergence, the data points to a workforce adapting to financial and technological change in ways that increasingly intersect with finance leadership responsibilities.
Economic strain is reshaping labor behavior
Rising living costs continue to influence how employees engage with work. Four in 10 workers (40%) say they have taken on a second job to manage expenses, while over a third (36%) report increasing or planning to increase their working hours. Among full-time employees, more than a quarter (27%) say their preferred arrangement combines a full-time role with a side hustle. Though this can help employees supplement income, it can create a transactional relationship with work that can lead to burnout and ultimately turnover.
These shifts are occurring alongside greater caution in the labor market. Workers report being less likely than in prior years to request pay increases or threaten to quit when dissatisfied. Nearly half of respondents (46%) say they are concerned about the impact of economic uncertainty on their job security, a sentiment that appears to be moderating job mobility rather than eliminating dissatisfaction.
At the same time, retention drivers are becoming more clearly defined. While pay remains the top factor attracting workers to new roles, cited by more than four in five respondents (81%), work-life balance emerges as the primary reason people stay in their current job, selected by nearly half of workers (46%), ahead of job security and pay. Though regulation around salary transparency in job ads has become law in some places, the ways that employees discuss compensation with managers and each other are also changing, as employee retention takes a hit and camaraderie can be found in the shared struggle of employees who feel underpaid as a unit.
AI adoption advances amid uneven workforce alignment
Artificial intelligence has moved deeper into day-to-day operations. Nearly two-thirds of employers (63%) say they have invested in AI over the past 12 months, and close to three in five workers (59%) say their organization now encourages AI use more than before. Nearly two-thirds of workers (62%) report that AI has improved their productivity, a view shared by more than half of employers (54%) who say AI has increased workforce productivity over the past year.
Confidence in using technology is also relatively high. More than two-thirds of workers (69%) say they feel confident using the latest technology, and nearly two-thirds (65%) say they want to see more investment in AI skills development from their employer.
Even so, perceptions of who benefits most from AI remain uneven. Nearly half of white-collar workers (47%) believe AI primarily benefits companies rather than employees. About one in five workers (21%) say they do not expect AI to affect their work at all, even as job postings requiring AI agent skills have risen sharply up 1,587%.
Those gaps appear alongside growing concern about long-term impacts. Over a third of workers (34%) say they worry their jobs could disappear within the next five years due to AI, underscoring uncertainty about how automation and task redesign will affect individual roles.
Trust, collaboration and autonomy move into focus
As technology adoption accelerates, workplace relationships are taking on greater importance. Nearly three-quarters of workers (72%) say they have a strong relationship with their manager, an increase from the prior year. Nearly two-thirds (63%) say they feel more connected to their manager than to the organization as a whole, and three in five workers (60%) say they seek reassurance from their manager amid macroeconomic volatility.
At the same time, half of workers (50%) say they now turn to AI for work-related advice instead of asking their manager, reflecting both rising comfort with AI tools and lingering job insecurity. Among employers, two-thirds (66%) say they are encouraging managers to check in more frequently with employees to reduce attrition risk.
Collaboration remains closely tied to productivity and retention. More than three-quarters of workers (78%) say they are more productive when collaborating and incorporating multiple perspectives, and nearly half (48%) say working in the office with their team improves productivity. Yet more than four in five employers (81%) say remote or hybrid work has made collaboration more challenging. Nearly a third of workers (31%) report having quit a job in the past due to poor collaboration.
Across these dynamics, the survey shows career expectations continuing to evolve. Seventy-two percent of employers say the traditional linear career ladder is outdated, and 38% say they prefer portfolio-style careers that span multiple roles or sectors. Only 29% of workers say a single full-time role represents their preferred working arrangement.
