Welcome to our new subscribers, and to those of you who have been subscribing for the last year. We have just reached one year of Edge Of Difference and these emails. With so many stories and learning shared. Here's what we share in From The Edges. We scan the news and social media and find the stories that matter to people leaders. We find the mistakes we can learn from, the glimmers that give us ideas and hope, and how that helps us find a way forward. We curate those stories into learning for you.
AI raised the bar. Has your inclusion strategy kept up?
The arrival of AI in the workplace was supposed to be about efficiency. What nobody said loudly enough is that it has also quietly raised the stakes on inclusion. Entry-level roles are disappearing. Automated systems are screening out candidates before a human ever reads their name.
The skills employers now want, emotional intelligence, judgment, and the ability to lead, are the ones that diverse talent often carries in abundance and rarely gets credit for. AI has not made inclusion less relevant. It has made it more urgent. If your inclusion strategy was built for the workplace of three years ago, it is already behind.
Here are the stories that tell us a story about future skills, AI, and inclusion.
Stories From The Edges...
1. Employers want entry-level workers with senior-level skills
PwC's research found that as AI takes on technical and procedural tasks, employers are prioritising emotional intelligence, leadership judgment and the ability to work with complexity. These are not skills you find by hiring the same profile you always hired. They are skills that emerge from genuinely diverse teams, developed through deliberate investment in people who have learned to navigate differences throughout their careers. If your talent strategy and your inclusion strategy are in separate workstreams, that is the first thing worth fixing.
Their study showed that AI can act as a multiplier in creating expert skills, so people joining roles now need to be more skilled. Companies that use AI to amplify human expertise see accelerated innovation. The interesting thing here is how AI amplifies the need for differentiation from people. The knowledge of information can be accelerated with AI, but people do need to work on and develop their leadership skills to succeed.
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The four-day week under fire again - from bosses
The ongoing resistance to shorter working weeks is, at its core, a failure of inclusion thinking. Belgium, Iceland, and Lithuania have passed legislation, and other countries are piloting the idea. Presence is not performance. When organisations conflate the two, they disadvantage carers, people with disabilities, and anyone whose best work does not happen between nine and five. There is overwhelming evidence that productivity holds or improves. The employers holding the line on long hours are not protecting productivity. They are protecting a norm that was never equitable.
Is this a generational thing? Do those who feel they had to work long hours and 'do their time' want to see everyone else having to do the same? Or is it the branding that has become tainted, and we need to say something different about the 'four-day week' to gain traction?
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Women in tech and finance at higher risk from AI job losses
The City of London Corporation found that women in tech and finance face disproportionate risk from AI-driven job losses, partly because automated CV screening penalises career gaps, including maternity leave. The algorithm does not know context. It sees a gap and marks it down. They are calling on employers to focus on re-skilling women and looking at potential over past experience.
The problem with automated screening is that an algorithm will see a gap and find an issue. If you have not audited what your screening tools are filtering out, your inclusion strategy has a hole in it that no culture programme will fill. We need to be careful of automated processes that miss opportunities. The report shows that focusing on training could help people to develop skills in new areas and build stronger, more resilient teams.
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Gen Z chooses lower pay for greater flexibility
Higherin's research found that young people entering the workforce prioritise flexibility and adaptable roles above pay. They would accept a lower salary for a role that offers those things, as they want adaptable roles. What sits underneath that preference is a desire to work somewhere that respects their whole life, not just their output. That is an inclusion question. Organisations that understand this are building loyalty early. Those who treat it as a perk rather than a principle are losing early talent to employers who do not.
This is another example of shifts in workplace culture. Previous generations who worked long hours had different priorities from younger people who want a different way of life. People do not expect to work overtime or be available out of hours. In short, people want their free time to be respected. There needs to be trust and respect that goes both ways.
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Cutting investment in inclusion work may cost more than it saves
Grant Thornton's research shows that organisations that invest in inclusion build more resilient decision-making, stronger retention, and greater investor confidence. Those who cut it do not just lose a programme. They lose the people who were paying attention to whether it existed. In a market where the skills bar has risen, you cannot afford to lose the talent you already have.
We see this through our work: those companies that cut their inclusion budgets start to see people leaving, weaker decision-making, and declining employee trust. Interesting in the research is the fact that investors are interested in what work is being done on inclusion. 'Inclusion is no longer confined to HR; it now sits firmly in the boardroom'
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Amazon UK to train 1,000 disabled young people
Amazon's announcement of 1,000 training places for young people with special educational needs and disabilities, alongside a $1bn global investment in early careers, is a talent strategy first and a values statement second. They could not find the skills they needed, so they built the conditions to grow them. Inclusive development at scale is not a cost. It is a competitive position. They are going to quadruple the size of the UK internship programme.
They want to create opportunities in the skills they are looking for. Crucially, they said they have not been able to find enough skills for the people they need, so they are going to develop people's skills themselves. These supported internships show that collaboration between employers and education can create more jobs. The focus of the programme is on creating inclusive environments and addressing barriers.
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AI has changed the talent landscape faster than most inclusion strategies have moved. The organisations that will come out ahead are not the ones with the most sophisticated technology. They are the ones developing the most capable, diverse, and well-supported people. That is exactly what our Future Talent programme is designed to do. If you are ready to build a pipeline that reflects the workplace AI is creating, let us talk.
How are you developing your future leaders? Are you building inclusion in the talent pipeline and thinking carefully about the skills and workplace culture you need?
And now news from us...
Future Talent - we're writing the book on this
As the news stories have shown us, the future of leadership is shaping up to be one where we need to think carefully about inclusion. Mo is literally writing the book on this. Through case studies from a range of industries, Future Talent uncovers the skills and frameworks we need for people leaders now and the leaders of tomorrow.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the research. If you saw us at a show recently, all of the ideas are making their way into the book. And the book is already available for pre-orders.
Are you Future Talent Ready?
How ready are you for tomorrow's leaders? Your next leaders probably already work for you. Are you seeing them? Try our FREE 8-question quiz to find out how ready you are.
Answer 8 honest questions, then discover what your answers mean for your organisation. We will send you a FREE report based on your answers.
