Insights from Blanchard’s 2026 Global Trends Survey

December 10, 2025

David Witt

Earlier this month, Dr. Jay Campbell and I had the pleasure of sharing the results of Blanchard’s 2026 HR and L&D Trends Survey in a live webinar with leadership, learning, and talent development professionals from around the world. What I appreciate most about this community is how responsive, curious, and optimistic it continues to be, even in the face of extraordinary workplace complexity.

This year’s dataset is especially timely. We closed the survey on November 16, making these findings among the freshest insights you'll gather about the year ahead. With nearly 500 completed responses representing organizations across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific, the survey paints a nuanced picture of the challenges and opportunities HR and L&D teams will face in 2026.

Now that I’ve had time to reflect on the webinar and the rich discussion that followed, I’m sharing some of the key themes Jay and I believe will shape leadership and learning strategies in the coming year.

Leadership Capability: The Standout Challenge for 2026

One finding rose above the rest: leadership capability remains the number one organizational challenge. Nearly half of all respondents identified it as their biggest concern for the year ahead.

Why? Because in uncertain environments, leadership becomes the stabilizer, the multiplier, and the differentiator.

For executives in particular, change and agility are now the dominant pressure points. Organizations are navigating economic headwinds, AI disruption, shifting talent expectations, and new strategic demands—all at once. Leadership capability is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s foundational to organizational resilience.

HR’s Focus Endures—But the Stakes Feel Higher

Despite the shifting environment, HR’s priorities have held remarkably steady. Across roles and industries, leaders continue to center their work around:

· Strengthening leadership bench depth

· Retaining high performers

· Enabling innovation and change

· Attracting skilled talent

· Creating a compelling employee experience

These enduring priorities reflect the foundational nature of HR’s role while highlighting the increasing pressure on HR teams to solve long-standing challenges under entirely new circumstances.

Hiring and Retention: The Landscape Gets Tougher

Another area where survey respondents signaled a continuing concern was talent acquisition and retention.

· 80% expect hiring to be more difficult in 2026

· 83% expect retention to become more challenging

The real story isn’t in the data. It’s in the why.

For the first time, the top hiring barrier identified—outpacing even skill shortages and talent competition—was finding candidates who are the right culture fit. This suggests organizations are becoming more introspective about who they are and how they show up to the talent market.

On the retention side, three issues rose to the top:

· Limited career growth

· Burnout and workload

· Dissatisfaction with leadership

Jay called this a “perfect storm,” and I agree. When promotions freeze, workloads spike, and leadership capability lags, trust and engagement quickly erode. Yet I was struck and encouraged by how many webinar participants shared creative, human-centered approaches they’re using to boost morale, connection, and well-being inside their organizations.

Training Budgets: Optimism Tempered With Pragmatism

For the first time in years, budget expectations reflect a more measured optimism. Respondents project an average 6.5% increase in training budgets, which is positive but lower than historic trends.

Notably, C-suite leaders anticipate a higher increase of around 8.5%, signaling continued executive commitment to developing people amid economic uncertainty.

Top drivers of budget decisions include:

· Economic conditions

· Organizational performance

· Workforce capability needs

· Inflation

· New strategic priorities

That final factor, strategic direction, was new to the top five. This truly underscores how quickly priorities are shifting within organizations.

Where Learning Will Focus in 2026

When we asked where organizations plan to invest their learning resources, the message was unmistakable: focus on managers.

· 90% say mid-level managers will be a high or medium priority

· 88% say frontline managers will be, as well

These two layers of leadership bear the largest load in today’s environment. They are the translators of strategy, the keepers of culture, and the leaders who most directly impact engagement and retention.

Survey participants also shared new insights about how they expect to deliver learning. Respondents anticipate:

· 59% of experiences will involve some level of customization

· 45% of content will be purchased

· 55% will be built internally

This hybrid blend of internal and external solutions reflects both budget pressures and the push for relevance and integration.

Training Modalities: The New Normal Has Arrived

One of Jay’s and my favorite charts is the long-term trend in delivery modalities. Pre-2020, when we first started our Trends Survey, organizations predicted that roughly 70% of learning would be delivered in person.

Fast-forward to 2026, and the picture has stabilized at a new normal with:

· 41% in-person instructor-led learning

· 29% virtual instructor-led learning

· 30% self-paced e-learning

E-learning is the quiet climber here, steadily growing year after year. While in-person learning remains vital, the data clearly shows that blended and distributed learning ecosystems are here to stay.

Bite-Sized Learning, Personalization, and AI: What’s Next?

Our deep dive into learning methods surfaced a few notable trends:

· 43% of respondents feel their current bite-sized learning efforts are effective.

· 52% would find value in a curated daily feed of micro-content.

Preferred formats include practical tips, short videos, infographics, and quizzes.

This tells us that learning professionals want relevant, digestible, high-quality content—not just more content.

On the AI front, most respondents believe AI or chatbots will play a significant teaching role within the next ten years. While AI today functions primarily as a coach or advisor, its potential for personalization and real-time support is growing rapidly.

Trends in subscription learning models also led to some rich findings. Respondents value:

· Access to fresh and varied content

· Lower cost per use

· Simplified purchasing

But they also worry about usage levels and content overwhelm. The tension between organizational consistency and personalized learning paths is real, and will require thoughtful approaches going forward.

Top Leadership Capabilities for the Year Ahead

Survey participants identified four leadership capabilities as most critical for 2026:

· Coaching and mentoring

· Communicating effectively

· Leading change

· Adapting to new challenges

Adaptability, in particular, has climbed rapidly in importance—from thirteenth place just two years ago to fourth place this year. It reflects the reality of the modern workplace: leaders must be able to guide their teams through ambiguity.

Looking Ahead: Five Priorities for 2026

Drawing from data that included both structured multiple choice and unstructured open-text, we presented five themes that I believe will define the leadership and learning landscape looking ahead:

· Leadership capability as a multiplier

· Adaptability and agility as core competencies

· Retention and development as strategic imperatives

· Employee experience and well-being as differentiators

· Strategic alignment and resourcing as critical constraints

In times of uncertainty, leaders must become anchors—clear in communication, steady in direction, and intentional in how they support their people.

At the end of the event, Jay added a powerful reminder about leveraging challenging conditions to create opportunities for innovation, reinvention, and courageous leadership. His advice? Have one or two forward-thinking, self-disruptive ideas that you're percolating on to move your organization forward.

Explore the Full Findings

The insights above represent just a slice of what we uncovered in this year’s research. If you would like the complete dataset, charts, and recommendations, I encourage you to: