Evolving Workforce and its Culture

Workforce planning and labor sources have been key discussion points for some time. The workforce today is reorganizing because of the pandemic, technology innovations, workforce skill base, education, training, and professional development availability and options.

Industries like the hospitality sectors are adjusting to a new business world. Hospitality, for example, is significantly more technologically adapted than in the immediate past. For example, Mobile Apps became the common place during the pandemic, remote check-in, check-out and more became the standards to utilize, and helped avoid close contact with guests and between employees. The hospitality industry has also capitalized on technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce repetitive tasks and allow employees more time for guest service.

What is The Function of The Workforce?

Is it to accomplish a task, is it to make the hospitality (service) factory run smoothly or is it to serve and satisfy guests? I have been in and or aligned with the hospitality industry for many years and remain connected to it through hospitality business education. We are all in the business of service. The world economy continues to grow into a service economy. Per Statista almost 80% of the United States work force are in the service sector. The act of service provides guest satisfaction and a reason to return to a restaurant, a hotel, a retail store, or other service providers.

One issue in service and the workforce in general is that the skill levels are varied and diverse. Service could be as simple as pouring a drink, to managing guest or customer problem and complaints, or making budget and other financial decisions. The iterations of service actions are many and the speed of making service decisions can be daunting. There are often limited opportunities to take time for consider options.

Film searches will identify numerous workforce films that are inclusive of manufacturing, service, and agricultural sectors, all with their own workforce needs and challenges. Films and stage performances like, 9 to 5 , Norma Rae, The Devil Wears Prada, (the sequel is out now), Death of a Salesman , Working Girl , Up in the Air , the Intern , and How Green Was My Valley to name a few. The themes of the movies differ but look at the struggles and difficulties of working and the environments (cultures) people are working in.

Some highlight labor unions, others focus on the management and supervision, and bosses of all kinds. Other films examine company downsizing and layoffs, working conditions (coal mines offer that setting), and some offer progressive workforce ideas, looking at seniors as interns. Films specifically focused on hospitality include Hotel Rwanda, Maid in Manhattan , Casino , Chef , Waitress, and more. The hospitality themes in these films focus on workplaces and a workforce that needs to be proactive in the environments where businesses are located.

Some films examine career pathways and the opportunities for careers, entrepreneurism, and employees sharing workplace skills, training, education, often highlighting a common desire for advancement. Film analysis is one way to search for exemplars for work force guidelines and the history of hospitality and business workforce cultures.

From my perspective, the hospitality industry career pathways need to be created and supported by industry and education, exemplifying sought after opportunities for employees at all levels. The modern workforce wants to have positive work environments, i.e., great places to work, have opportunities for advancement and cross training, flexible work hours, and choices of remote and onsite career paths. To attract and retain the best employees, managers and leaders, hospitality industry organizations also need to offer compensation and salaries that are competitive with other sectors. Industry recruiters also need to see the value of experience and the transferability of skills from one sector to the next.

For example, the pandemic showed that hospitality employees and managers were sought after when fear of pandemic spread closed hotels and restaurants. In our school, we saw our graduates find positions in healthcare, retail sales, human resources, grocery, financial planning, and other segments. This evidence prompted us to say that we are preparing graduates for every opportunity in service sector businesses.

More specifically, one catalyst for evolving the hospitality industry and workforce has been technology. The 2026 Workforce Augmentation AI Playbook is the guide to the next frontier of customer experience where AI amplifies human potential and redefines what’s possible. The premise of applying technology to guest service, for example, is that less time performing repetitive tasks, can mean more time with guests providing service, enhanced experiences, and overall satisfaction. Technology as a tool for the new workforce can stimulate workforce potential, enhance performance , and confidence, as well as compliance and allowing the workforce to work smarter across every role.

AI and technology in general are rapidly transforming workforce management , enabling leaders to forecast, schedule, and make real-time decisions with unprecedented speed and precision. The most fundamental building block of work, the job, could be hampering many organizations. Many businesses are now applying skills-based models to meet the demand for agility, agency, and equity. The skills-based organization is the new operating model for the workforce. For example, at Unilever, an internal talent marketplace enables skills to fluidly move to projects and tasks across the organization, either as a permanent employee or as a “U-Worker”: a worker who has a guaranteed minimum retainer along with a core set of benefits, and who contracts with Unilever for a series of short-term projects. Increasingly, departmental work at Unilever is being divided into projects, tasks, and deliverables. The future will have a more granular method of

viewing employees’ contributions focused on outputs and skills rather than on years with a job title, to understand what employees offers. As noted “When you can get to that level of detail, you can get much more targeted in your recruitment, in your internal mobility of talent, and applying the right talent to the right tasks and projects, and thereby also accelerate business performance.”

Confining work to standardized tasks done in a functional job and then making all decisions about workers based on their job in the organizational hierarchy, hinders some of today’s most critical organizational objectives: organizational agility, growth , and innovation; diversity, inclusion, and equity; and the ability to offer a positive workforce experience for people. People can be freed from being defined by their jobs and instead be seen as whole individuals with skills and capabilities that can be fluidly deployed to work matching their interests, as well as to evolving business priorities.

People also want to work where they feel the organization is contributing to their growth and realization of their potential, and where they feel seen, valued, and respected. Skills-based organizations let people’s uniqueness as humans match work and individual strengths. Skills-based organizations can also promote equity. Deloitte notes that eighty-percent o f business executives say making decisions about hiring, pay, promotions, succession, and deployment based on people’s skills rather than their job history, tenure in the job, or network would reduce bias and improve fairness; and seventy-five percent say hiring, promoting, and deploying people based on skills (vs. tenure, job history, or network) can help democratize opportunity and improve access to it.

The new workforce are seeking organizations’ with a growing sense of responsibility for their workers’ welfare. Seventy-nine percent of business executives agree that the purpose of the organization should be to create value for workers as human beings, as well as for shareholders and society at large. This premise also means that organizations need to provide more training and development and support for their employees educational aspirations. The new workforce is seeking additional autonomy and better recognizes the need for quickly pivoting in the face of change and is aware of the shortage of talent and needs for digital transformation. These factors also point to the need for more fluid organizational structures and valuing employees for their skills and abilities as individuals.

The hospitality industry is unique because its primary product is service in environments where the guest experiences are produced and consumed simultaneously. This balancing act for guest service and satisfaction versus technical efficiency is difficult to achieve and maintain. In another service sector, global commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield looked to understand how the skills and adjacent skills of those who served in the military, such as leadership, project management, engineering, strategic planning, and machinery maintenance, that could easily be applied in an entirely different industry and set of roles, thus recruiting from an underutilized talent pool.

Another approach to organize work without jobs is to fractionalize the work therefore, breaking it down into more meaningful pieces (e.g., in the form of internal talent marketplaces) for projects or tasks that continuously evolve as business needs change. In these instances, workers with a relevant portfolio of skills and capabilities flow to that work.

The literature focusing on workforce also makes mention of building “skills hubs.” These hubs are a collection of workforce and business data balancing and assessing employee skills, and technology applications to support decision making. Similarly, higher education organizations need to recognize that individual students or employees all learn differently and bring a different set of learning and performance skills to the university and the workplace after graduation. This means that organizations need to embrace different skill styles and employee learning styles and provide optimal educational and training opportunities for employees. Students often say that they are done with their education when they graduate when that is not true; learning is forever.

Workforce Environments

Diane Belcher, vice president of strategy enablement at Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), says a primary challenge is engaging a multigenerational workforce, these groups often differ in how they approach work/life balance, career growth, loyalty, authority, and other issues that affect an organization. She adds that HR and business leaders have an important role in creating common ground across their teams, helping them leverage their collective strengths. Hospitality businesses face more diversity in the workforce than ever before, particularly generational diversity. With that reality comes the challenge of figuring out how to create a workplace where engagement, loyalty, and productivity are high, despite the differences among those demographic groups.

Additionally, how will the organizations facilitate human connections, relationships, and trust? For example, as Generation Z entered the workforce in growing numbers, they bring fresh perspectives and expectations that are reshaping the traditional workplace. This digital-native generation, born between 1997 and 2012, is driving significant changes in management styles, work environments, and organizational values. Their influence is prompting companies to adapt, evolve and innovate, creating a new paradigm for the future of work.

Forbes.com share d that work-life balance and flexibility are the key to the new workforce. For business success the new workforce needs to be aligned with technology integration and AI, leadership and management styles and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Research also shares that interactions through digital mediums increase distractions and reduce non-verbal cues, inhibiting our ability to truly engage and connect with others. As the frequency of technology-enabled human collaboration increases, true human connections at work will become increasingly rare.

To optimize collaboration for future workforces organizations might consider focusing on adaptable workers, augmentation of collaboration via technology, accessibility for workers that enables and empowers, autonomy and ownership of collaboration by the human workforce. Additionally, factors focused on employee wellbeing may help organizations to be proactive and therefore, help employees survive a loneliness epidemic, help create a holistic employee wellbeing program, work on reducing organizational burnout, and work towards a workforce culture of connection and in turn create a more resilient workforce.

Going Forward

Experts say that executive teams will have to navigate delivery on today’s growth targets while nurturing a workforce capable of driving future value amid AI transformation. To do that, organizations must prioritize: navigating new realities of the AI era: rapid technological advancement, economic volatility, and political uncertainty. Kirianova notes that the workplace has been changing in plain sight, in the form of work schedules, AI copilots, DEI practices, and other skills we had not heard about five years ago. The argument is that business leaders ought to think one step ahead to avoid being left behind.

Some trends can be noted to help bolster the workforce culture. For example, they can include hybrid work setups that mesh onsite and offsite workdays. The task is to create environments that can do this to create value. Some tools to accomplish these tasks include setting social norms, utilizing AI to support the stetting, and considering mental well-being of employees. Skills and traits could include diversity, equity and inclusion, learning, and leadership. Managers can then share talent across business functions and teams for organizational good rather than siloing it on individual teams. The goals, objectives and overall vision needs to be communicated, and understood by all. The key is matching the right skills with the right teams.

For example, AI in the hiring process for many companies is almost a necessity, where candidates use AI for easier applications and organizations use AI to sift through a higher volume of candidates and lean more into AI to stand out plus organizations are using AI to detect genuine, qualified matches and avoid malicious actors. It is interesting to note that in conversations with soon to be college graduates, students are not happy to realize that a person, will not likely be how their resume(s) and or letter(s) of interest will be reviewed. It is also noted that students are using AI to produce what they consider a better snapshot of their skills, abilities, and education.

Moving from jobs to skills as an organizing principle of work and the workforce, will require a shared approach across the organization. A key question is who will manage the transformation to a skills-based organization? Often in business human resource units take ownership of transformation efforts. These efforts may become complicated, and organizations need to create a common language and framework for skills. Also, consider the large number of roles that exist in a hotel or a restaurant and working in those environments as teammates that can influence the culture of the workplace.

In focusing on worker experience, organizations will also need to be careful not to confuse fairness with sameness. When people are treated the same, differences may be ignored, however, treating people equitably with transparent and consistent standards based on a particular type of work arrangement and skill set may lead to differences are recognized, celebrated, and harnessed so that people are viewed as the humans they truly are.

Therefore, career pathways will be changing in hospitality organizations, they can be established to focus on expertise or leadership in a particular functional area or field, rather than leadership for management and control and therefore create multiple options for employees. In some ways university faculty operate in this mode, where their expertise based on research and teaching is what is or should be valued.

Therefore, faculty members are working in what might be referred to as “gig economy.” Definitions for gig work are based on the work arrangement or the contract or relationship between workers and the individual or company who pays them. In these situations, work might also be temporary or project-based, with workers hired to complete a particular task for a certain period.

What is known is that the labor market, technology, and how workers (the drivers) find value in their work are changing faster than ever, and organizations that can successfully adapt will have a significant competitive advantage. Organizations need to understand what drives their businesses and as noted above they need to focus on employee development, organizational design, leadership, collaboration, and employee wellbeing. Business organizations and especially service organizations need to reimagine human technology collaboration.

There is a lot of discussion around the elimination of roles across industries. One theory is that technology, for example, will augment human abilities rather than completely replace them through automation. Alos, consider the age of the workforce and where future worker expertise will come from. The baby boomers like me, and others are nearing what have been seen as retirement years, however, due to economy concerns these works may stay in the work force.

Another example for service organizations is that universities are facing a crisis of age, as there are fewer of the traditional eighteen-to twenty-two-year-old students in general (note low birth rates) and then many of those in that age bracket that may not see college as their path. The birth rates for that age range are low and where will future students and then new industry personnel come from? Jobs will be different, though it is hard to imagine service without people. The World Economic Forum estimates that technological change will both displace and create roles by 2027. Therefore, the need for re-skilling, more education and training will be more important than ever.

One argument is that as automation will change the shape of work, humans will still be at the center of it. View hospitality businesses through the eyes of their leadership who should see interrelationships and interconnectivity of departments, and throughout an organization incorporating and utilizing the traditional functional business disciplines to reach common goals. They apply finance, accounting, marketing, and information systems principles to hospitality business operating models.

Furthermore, employees, students and leadership are expected to see how all business disciplines fit and work together to create a healthy, modern, and whole businesses, creating optimal working environments and culture. Focusing on analytical thinking, technological literacy, and curiosity and lifelong learning will support the workforce, its leadership, and its ownership. Business organizations can structure themselves as academies for learning and growth and career pathways across business sectors to reach new levels of engagement.