📈 The C-Suite Is Going Flexible

Companies are solving their most urgent leadership problems differently than they were five years ago. They are pulling in experienced interim executives and independent experts to lead transformation, fill sudden vacancies, and keep major initiatives on track while the market moves faster than traditional hiring can.

Coming Up

• 📈 Requests for interim C-suite leaders climbed 151% since 2021, with COO demand surging 250% year over year

• 🔇 Only 1 in 10 employees say their feedback consistently leads to change at their organization

• 🎓 PwC's new "Learning Collective" builds 15 human skills alongside 15 AI skills as a daily practice for junior staff

• 🇳🇱 Workers in the Netherlands average 32 hours per week, and the country's unemployment rate is 3.7%

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📈 HR is the top function requesting on-demand talent as interim C-suite demand surges 151% since 2021

The 2026 High-End Independent Talent Report from Heidrick & Struggles draws on proprietary data from North America and Europe to track where companies are turning when full-time hiring is too slow, too uncertain, or simply the wrong tool.

Human resources tops the list of functions seeking independent talent support, ahead of CEO and president offices, strategy teams, and PMO and transformation groups. That placement signals something important: the people function charged with building workforce capability for everyone else is also among those most stretched for capacity.

Key insights

• 🚀 COO and CMO demand is accelerating fastest COO requests grew 250% year over year and CMO requests doubled, pointing to urgent gaps in operational execution and commercial leadership.

• 📊 Human capital expertise is the fastest-growing skill category Demand for HR-related independent talent jumped 129% YOY, reflecting just how complex workforce planning, org design, and people change have become

• 🤖 1 in 4 engagements now touches digital, data, or AI 25% of all independent talent requests across business functions link to digital and AI priorities

• Finance anchors interim C-suite demand 💼 Interim CFOs account for 51% of all C-suite interim placements, a signal that financial controls and stability are what organizations protect first in moments of significant change

Read more: https://www.heidrick.com/-/media/heidrickcom/files/attachments/2026-high-end-independent-talent-report.pdf

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🔇 Only 1 in 10 employees say their feedback ever leads to real change

The Sogolytics Experience Index: Employee Edition (EX) 2026 surveyed more than 1,000 full-time U.S. employees and found a persistent gap between how often organizations collect feedback and how often anything changes because of it.

Most employees are filling out surveys and sharing input in meetings. For most of them, nothing visible follows.

This matters beyond the obvious morale problem. When the feedback loop stays broken, employees begin to read listening efforts as performative rather than genuine.

Key insights

• 🔁 Feedback rarely produces visible change Only 10% of employees say their input always leads to action, while the majority say it only occasionally does or almost never does, exposing a credibility gap that compounds over time

• 🪜 Transparency has a seniority gradient 55% of executives say their organization communicates very clearly, compared to just 15% of frontline staff, meaning the employees furthest from decision-making trust the system least

• 🤝 Recognition is the area most in need of human investment 38% of employees want more human interaction specifically in recognition and appreciation

• 🗓️ Compressed schedules are becoming a baseline expectation 34% say a four-day workweek or compressed schedule would make a company stand out as a great place to work

Read more: [Sogolytics EX 2026 Report]

🎓 PwC is pairing 15 human skills with 15 AI skills in a new daily learning program for junior employees

PwC's new "Learning Collective" initiative is drawing attention for how deliberately it balances technical and human development. The program sets 30 skills at the core of daily learning for junior employees, split evenly between AI navigation and what the firm is now calling "human skills," a purposeful reframing of what used to be called soft skills.

The intent is to make sure workers can interpret, question, and apply what AI produces, not just operate the tools themselves.

Key insights

• 🧠 Human skills are getting equal billing with AI skills PwC's 30-skill framework invests equally in human capabilities and AI tool proficiency, challenging organizations to treat judgment, empathy, and creative application as strategic

• 🤖 AI coaches are part of the training model itself The firm uses AI agents to deliver direct, unfiltered feedback in practice scenarios, turning the technology employees are learning about into the tool that trains them

• 🏗️ Classroom learning is being replaced by applied problem-solving PwC's model favors hands-on challenges over formal instruction, which reflects growing evidence that skill retention improves when learning happens through doing rather than watching

• 📚 Early-career employees are the primary investment target Focusing the program on junior hires signals that PwC sees foundational skill-building as a long-term retention and performance strategy

Read more: https://www.thehrdigest.com/pwcs-human-led-tech-powered-training-strategy-seems-primed-for-the-ai-era/

🇳🇱 Workers in the Netherlands average 32 hours per week, and national unemployment sits at 3.7%

The Netherlands does not officially have a four-day workweek, but its workers are already living one. The country's average workweek settled at 32 hours through decades of gradual policy change, driven largely by working mothers entering the workforce in the 1980s and government structures that made flexible, part-time arrangements financially viable for families. What began as an accommodation became a national norm.

The country's largest labor union, FNV, is now pushing to make the 32-hour standard official.

For HR leaders in the U.S., where four-day workweek conversations that gained traction in 2022 have largely stalled and many companies are actively narrowing flexible work options, the Netherlands case offers a useful contrast.

Key insights

• 👩‍💼 Working mothers built the 32-hour norm The shorter workweek took hold because 1980s policies made part-time work financially viable for families

• 📊 Low hours and low unemployment can coexist Unemployment in the Netherlands fell from 7.3% in 1991 to 3.7% in 2026, complicating the assumption that shorter schedules inevitably weaken labor market participation

• 🕐 The U.S. gap is 11 hours per week American workers average 43 hours weekly versus 32 in the Netherlands, a difference rooted in both legal frameworks and deeply embedded norms around presence and hours as proxies for productivity

• ⚖️ Legal guardrails are the foundation of the model Dutch employers cannot schedule workers for more than 60 hours a week or require Sunday work by law

Read more: https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2026/04/28/world-of-hr-the-netherlands-is-slowly-adopting-a-four-day-workweek