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Featured analysis
Q3 2026 Benefits Wrap-Up: What the Latest Data Shows on Flexibility, Mental Health, and Pay
By Andrew Mitchell, Senior Correspondent, Benefits & Total Rewards The third quarter of 2026 brought clarity to the U.S. benefits landscape. After years of experimentation during the pandemic and the post-pandemic recalibration, the data shows a workforce benefits market that has settled into a stable, evidence-based configuration. Organizations that understand what’s working — and what…
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HR Data Privacy in 2026 — What’s Changed Since GDPR
By Andrew Mitchell, Senior Correspondent, Compliance & Employment Law It’s been roughly a year since the most recent wave of major HR data privacy regulations took effect across the United States and Europe. What began as the landmark General Data Protection Regulation…
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Employee Wellness Programs Get AI Makeover for 2026
The employee wellness industry, long characterized by static benefit catalogs and one-size-fits-all wellness platforms, is undergoing its most significant transformation since the category’s inception in the 1980s. As organizations prepare for 2026, the dominant trend reshaping employee wellness programs is artificial intelligence…
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The Gen Z Reality Check: What the Data Shows About the Youngest Workforce Generation
Gen Z Is Already Here — And Their Preferences Are Converging with Millennials Gen Z is a fast-growing share of the workforce in 2026, and the data about their workplace preferences is more nuanced than the cultural narrative suggests. While headlines focus…
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Internal Mobility in 2026: How AI-Powered Talent Marketplaces Are Turning Internal Hiring From Gimmick to Default
By Andrew Mitchell, Senior Correspondent, Talent Strategy Five years ago, “internal talent marketplace” was a buzzword you’d hear at HR conferences and see on vendor PowerPoint slides. Today, it’s a standard capability at 67% of Fortune 500 companies — and it’s one…
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The Great Reassessment: Why 71% of Companies Are Flipping Back to Office in 2026
By Andrew Mitchell, Senior Correspondent, Future of Work / Remote Policy The remote work experiment of 2020–2024 has been followed by what industry analysts are calling “the great reassessment” — a wave of companies systematically revisiting their remote and hybrid policies not…
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The Rise of Internal Talent Marketplaces: 2026 Mid-Year Report
Two years ago, the internal talent marketplace was a novel concept — a nice-to-have module from a handful of vendors. Today, it is a strategic imperative. By June 2026, over 60% of Fortune 500 companies have deployed or are actively implementing internal…
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Employee Retention Strategies in 2026: What the Data Shows
Employee retention has become one of the most critical challenges for organizations in 2026. With the labor market still relatively tight, the cost of turnover continuing to rise, and workers increasingly willing to change jobs in pursuit of better opportunities, retention strategies…
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Workforce Planning in the Age of Uncertainty: 2026 Best Practices
Workforce planning has become more critical and more challenging in 2026. As organizations navigate AI disruption, economic uncertainty, and geopolitical instability, the traditional annual workforce planning cycle is giving way to continuous, scenario-based planning that can adapt to changing conditions in real…
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Compensation Technology in 2026: Real-Time Market Pricing and AI Adjustments
Compensation management has been transformed by the convergence of real-time labor market data, AI-driven analytics, and the regulatory push for pay transparency. In 2026, leading organizations no longer rely on annual salary surveys conducted by compensation consultants. Instead, they use continuous data…
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The Mental Health Paradox in the Workplace — Benefits Expanded, Utilization Didn’t
By early 2026, the workplace mental health paradox was impossible to ignore: companies had dramatically expanded their mental health benefits — therapy coverage, EAP usage, mental health days, digital therapeutics — but actual utilization remained stubbornly below expectations. The spending was up.…