Human Capital Intel - 9/30/25
Leadership pipeline risks | AI vs GenZ | Change fatigue deepens | Employees working unpaid virtual jobs? | Phishing training flops
Welcome to the latest edition of Human Capital Intelligence, your weekly brief synthesizing over 250 leadership, HR, and people sources to filter out the noise. As always, we would love to hear from you at ken@reyvism.com with questions you’d like answered or topics covered.
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By Ken Stibler; Powered by Reyvism Analytics
Where Has All the Leadership Gone?
It’s not a rhetorical question. New data shows 80% of HR professionals lack confidence in their leadership pipelines, and CEOs now rank “developing the next generation of leaders” among their top four concerns. At the same time, Gen Z is increasingly opting out of traditional management tracks. More than half say they’re avoiding leadership roles on purpose, while nearly 70% see middle management as a stressful, thankless dead zone.
This is likely to get worse to as academic achievement and professional orientation both slip with every new graduating class: only 22% of leaders say entry-level workers at all prepared.
Even for the prepared cohort, many see managers burn out in rigid hierarchies and are reluctant to sign up for the same. Prestige and titles also hold less sway than balance, purpose, and cold hard cash, making it harder to draw younger workers into the leadership bench.
While a third of Gen Z assume they will eventually have to manage, 16 percent say they will refuse outright, and most view middle management as a burden rather than an opportunity. For succession planning, that signals not a passing trend but a structural weakness organizations must address.
The risk is not immediate collapse but a slow-moving time bomb. As current managers retire or move on, the bench to replace them will be thin. Organizations can defuse the problem with cheap and incremental steps though: rebranding leadership around coaching and impact, using new tech to minimize busy work, and providing the strategic clarity that can make management genuinely engaging.
But each of those steps takes time and commitment. That sets up the strategic question for leaders today: try to rebuild a hesitant generation of managers, or invest in automating away some of the very roles they are reluctant to fill.
AI or GenZ: The new buy or build
More companies are leaning toward the automation. Nearly 40% expect to replace workers with AI by 2026. The big people news this week was Accenture’s CEO promising to “exit” any staff it cannot retrain on AI, while Google and Intel are cutting management ranks by up to half. The result is leaner teams and flatter org charts, with technology stepping in to cover responsibilities once handled by junior or mid-level leaders.
Whether an oversight or a choice, the leadership bench is thinning. Many firms are struggling to convince younger employees to pursue management, while older managers are retiring or being cut in restructuring. Entry-level pipelines are weak (colleges HCI has worked with report less than 30% of graduates are landing jobs) and the middle of the org chart is being stripped out. That leaves executives facing a strategic choice: commit to rebuilding the people pipeline with time and investment, or lean into the complexity of AI and automation to fill the gaps.
Or you could go back to old employees: Retirees return to the fold to fill Georgia-Pacific’s labor gaps. (HR Dive)
Rebuilding a leadership bench preserves culture and continuity but is slow, costly, and dependent on a hesitant generation. Automation delivers speed and efficiency but creates engagement, key person, and complexity risks. The tradeoff is unavoidable. The leadership shortage will not solve itself, and the AI wave will not wait for organizations to catch up. Choosing only one path risks imbalance; ignoring both ensures decline.
Quote of the Week: Who’s responsibility is the “build”
“A majority of leaders surveyed said training is mostly the responsibility of workers, with 6 in 10 saying employers hold at least some responsibility. But while 80% of leaders said they offer adequate training the number of workers that agree is falling rapidly.”
— Research from training firm General Assembly
Reading List:
Why are people working unpaid virtual jobs?
Gaming trends are revealing something unusual: after hours, millions of workers are voluntarily stacking shelves in virtual supermarkets or managing virtual supply chains, or doing FP&A on a space mining company, the FT reports. Games like Supermarket Simulator and Discounty replicate tedious real-world tasks—but players describe them as soothing, even rewarding. The appeal lies in control and progression: unlike real jobs, virtual ones guarantee fairness, autonomy, and predictable success. It’s a reminder that the modern workforce is more hungry and willing to work than is often reported.
Pace of changes overwhelm worker capacity
More than half of executives expect to implement three or more major changes in the next two years. Yet employees say they cannot handle any more, saying in surveys that they can only take 30-50% of leaderships’ planned changes. Partially this is how the changes are being made, organizations without strong coms are 5.5 times more likely to see transformation efforts fail. As change accelerates (often driven by AI adoption) leaders who don’t sequence clearly and communicate transparently risk burning out their workforces before the transformation is even underway.
Employees don’t learn anything from phishing training
A new University of California San Diego study suggests cybersecurity training isn’t working. Across 19,500 employees exposed to phishing campaigns, researchers found no meaningful difference between those who had completed training and those who hadn’t. In fact, three-quarters of employees spent less than a minute engaging with training modules. The authors argue organizations should shift focus toward technical defenses like two-factor authentication and password managers rather than relying on awareness programs alone.
Data Point: Who wants that deal?
300%
The increase in average reports per manager over the last 10 years; meanwhile manager salaries after inflation are 1.1% lower during the same period.
In Other News
Advertising giants change tune on climate as industry grapples with AI. (Financial Times)
4 in 5 of Workers Have Been “Catfished” Into a Job: Monster’s Career Catfishing poll reveals how misleading job descriptions and resume lies impact hiring. (Monster)
The hiring process is getting faster for some workers—especially in these fields. (CNBC)
Trump’s H-1B visa fee to hit US employers with $14bn annual bill. (Financial Times)
Employee benefits cost employers $13.58 per hour for private industry workers in June 2025. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
The financial wellness gap: Why half the workforce is looking to management for help. (WorkLife)
Is the contingent workforce really taking over? (Staffing Industry Analysts)
AI ‘Workslop’ Is Killing Productivity and Making Workers Miserable. (404 Media)