Executives know their teams are stretched, and many still feel ready to handle whatever comes next. New Dayforce research suggests they may be putting too much confidence in their teams' ability to keep up.

In the HR tech vendor's 17th Annual Pulse of Talent report, 60% of executives say change in their organization feels more reactive than strategic. Yet, 59% say their organization is building the workforce it will need five years from now, compared with 31% of workers.

How executives assess workforce preparedness

Dayforce conducted the online survey with Hanover Research from July 27 to Aug. 14, 2026. It included 6,909 workers, managers and executives at organizations with more than 100 employees across six countries.

Some 43% of executives reported conditions that put their organization in the "high-fragility" category of Dayforce's Workforce Fragility Index. Dayforce's index looks at 11 areas to examine how stretched a workforce is, including whether too much depends on a few people and whether employees get development opportunities.

Asked about readiness, 43% of executives said organizations are "very or extremely prepared for major workforce disruptions," but only 10% of workers shared that viewpoint.

Working for now, but failing later

Dayforce describes how workforce fragility builds through "choices that make sense in the moment," such as leaving a role open longer or asking a high performer to cover the work. Those decisions may help teams keep delivering, but they "consume the staffing depth, shared expertise and development capacity that make performance sustainable," according to the report.

Read the full article here.