On Episode 91 of Astonishing Healthcare, we dove into the Workplace Intelligence Forecast for 2026 - The 10 Trends Businesses Need to Focus On! Here at Judi Health, we obviously live in the health benefits world and generally focus on content revolving around the pharmaceutical supply chain (i.e., PBM), health tech, and the administration of employee benefits, more broadly... but there is A LOT more going on our there that impacts America's workforce. Our guest, Dan Schawbel, Managing Partner of Workplace Intelligence (links below), has been tracking and publishing research on workplace trends for well over 15 years, and he unpacks the forces shaping the future of work, today. Aside from rising healthcare costs, how are employers - and their benefits leaders - thinking about remote work vs. returning to the office (and the impact on working mothers), the use of AI and a widening skills gaps, and the shift from white-collar to blue-collar jobs?

Dan paints a picture of a market where employer leverage has returned amidst hiring freezes and layoffs. This newer dynamic intensifies the pressure on benefits teams, who are on the front lines, grappling with the complexities of GLP-1 drug coverage, and the critical need for mental health support, for example. Other highlights of the discussion include:

• AI is widening the skills gap, and many companies are failing to provide adequate training, leaving employees feeling unprepared; this is fundamentally reshaping learning and development needs for 2026.
• The era of the "Great Resignation" is over - employers now have leverage, driving return-to-office mandates and changing the power dynamic.
• Amidst rising costs, a comprehensive and affordable healthcare plan has become a powerful tool for employers - sometimes valued even more than a salary increase.
• Unsustainable healthcare cost increases are reaching a boiling point. Dan predicts 2026 will be the year the system either breaks or fundamentally changes, driven by extreme cost pressures on both employers and employees.
• The gap between what the C-suite thinks about AI and what the workforce says is extraordinarily wide: "We found that 96% of the C-suite expect AI to boost worker productivity... But when we asked employees, 77% of them say that AI has increased their workload. So it's done the exact opposite."

Additional Resources/Links

• Connect with Dan Schawbel on LinkedIn
• Workplace Intelligence Weekly (Free Newsletter - LinkedIn)
• Join Dan Schawbel and Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX and author of Be Yourself At Work, for an exclusive webinar to look at the Workplace Trends 2026 Forecast: Click Here to Register

Related Content

• AH072 - The Benefits You Probably Didn't Know You Have, with Marsha Perry
• Replay - Strategic Well-Being: Rethinking Health Benefits to Empower Employees and Drive Impact
• AH086 - Balancing Technology and a Human Touch in Member Service, with Lisa Ellerhorst and Sonia Pettis
• Health Benefits 101: The Importance of a Transparent PBM Model

For more content and information about this episode, including the show notes and transcript, please visit Judi Health - Insights.