By 2030, nearly 40% of key workforce skills will need to change. Four in ten. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report gave that number. Speakers at Transform 2026 used it to make one point: companies still design careers for a world that no longer exists.
"Future of Jobs report for 2025 estimated that over a third of workers will need a significant reskilling just to stay relevant and that nearly 40% of key skills need to change by 2030. 40%. That doesn't sound like a world where you can have a linear career path."
— Speaker, "Refining Career Growth for a Nonlinear World" (Culture + Belonging Track)
Most corporate HR systems still run on the old model: the career ladder. Get the next title. Check the boxes. Wait your turn. That model was built for a world that no longer exists.
No topic at Transform's 57 sessions got more attention than career pathways. The 156 speakers from 323 organizations agreed on one thing: the ladder is not just outdated. It actively hurts people. The metaphor they kept using instead? The subway map.
Ask a high performer what they want from their career. They'll say they want to grow. Ask their manager what that means. Watch the manager freeze. Many Transform sessions named this same problem: managers don't know what to offer when there are no more rungs on the ladder.
"And I think it's such a personal conversation. It has to do with money, it has to do with your life, it has to do with your family decisions as an employee. It's so stressful to bring it up to your manager. And so the thing that I've learned over time is it has to be a continuous conversation."
— Speaker, "Refining Career Growth for a Nonlinear World" (Culture + Belonging Track)
One session shared internal research on lateral moves. These are called "lattice" moves: cross-functional or diagonal shifts. Employees who make lattice moves score 10 engagement points higher than those who get a traditional promotion. Their intent to stay is even higher. Promotions give a short-term boost. That boost fades within a year. Lattice moves hold.
"And what is really interesting is those who have moved in different opportunities, so doing the lattice versus the promotion, in the first year, those who get promoted, their engagement goes up. And then after the first year, it drops. And those who move lattice to new opportunities, in fact, their engagement score is 10% points higher, and their intent to stay is even higher than that."
— Speaker, "Refining Career Growth for a Nonlinear World" (Culture + Belonging Track)
One metaphor kept coming up across Transform sessions: the subway map. London's tube. Tokyo's rail network. These are webs of intersecting routes with many transfer points and many paths to the same place.
"But when it's complicated and the world around us has changed, it's become so complex... I think in a corporation, I would say we need to think of the map that is the UK map or Tokyo map, because it is more important for our people to be successful and think of their careers not just as, you know, what do I do next, how do I progress next, I've done the checklist."
— Speaker, "Refining Career Growth for a Nonlinear World" (Culture + Belonging Track)
Using the subway map means changing how companies plan succession, manage performance, and talk about growth. One session on C-Suite succession pushed this further. Even at the top, companies focus on the direct-line heir. They miss the wildcards. They miss the cross-functional transfers who often become the best leaders.
"Moving from the career ladder to more of the lattice. Where you're not only looking in the next in line successor, you're looking cross-functionally across those transferable skills... Also, perhaps maybe, you know, diagonal roles, people who are kind of the wildcards that you wanna make a bet on them."
— Speaker, "C-Suite Succession in the Age of Disruption" (Featured Track)
One speaker used her own career as an example. The relationships she built outside her direct team opened the most doors.
"I really encourage organizations to set up — make it a part of the culture, make it a norm. Norm for people to get involved in things outside of their normal areas. And so building those informal networks, because it was the voice of those that didn't necessarily work day to day in my space that led to those opportunities."
— Speaker, "Refining Career Growth for a Nonlinear World" (Culture + Belonging Track)
Karen Fasenda spoke in the Featured track session "Education Is Being Rewritten." She shared a number that every talent acquisition leader needs to hear.
"Over the past 2 years, we took degrees off of all of our jobs to provide a better playing field for people to come in and build skills with us."
— Karen Fasenda, "Education Is Being Rewritten: What Comes After Degrees, Credentials, and Classrooms" (Featured Track)
Dropping the degree requirement is just the first step. Skills-based hiring needs skills-based evaluation. That means new job descriptions, new interview frameworks, and updated ATS workflows. The payoff is a larger, more diverse talent pool.
Dr. Patrick Fagan leads People for the NYC Public School System. He stated the problem plainly: schools are training workers for yesterday's economy.
"If we train or continue to train today's students as we did yesterday, we're going to rob them of tomorrow."
— Dr. Patrick Fagan, "Education Is Being Rewritten: What Comes After Degrees, Credentials, and Classrooms" (Featured Track)
Companies cannot wait for schools to catch up. Workforce development has moved inside the firm. Companies now own that responsibility whether they want to or not.
"We can't be outsourcing your workforce development. You gotta take that time to do it in-house to really cultivate that individual you need."
— Dr. Patrick Fagan, "Education Is Being Rewritten" (Featured Track)
Transform 2026 had a clear answer on what replaces credentials. It was not more technical certifications. Speakers kept coming back to what Karen Fasenda calls "adaptive skills." That phrase is a deliberate shift away from what most companies still call soft skills.
"One of the things we've been talking a lot about is, like, moving away from soft skills but to adaptive skills. And so we're doing a ton of work around how do you really... focus on building those adaptive skills? So things like agility, decision-making, problem-solving, critical thinking."
— Karen Fasenda, "Education Is Being Rewritten" (Featured Track)
Danny Guillory spoke in the Featured track on "The Now and Next of Work." He asked directly: when AI handles execution, what stays human? He named three things: building, evaluating, and taste-making.
"3 things I'd say. 1 is being a builder. 2 is being an evaluator to know whether or not something that's built is good or not. And 3, being a tastemaker, understanding what people still like and want. Those are the 3 unique characteristics and roles that we can still have in an AI-powered world."
— Danny Guillory, "The Now and Next of Work" (Featured Track)
One speaker made it personal. The most important skill she teaches is not technical.
"I said this before and I'll say it again. It's probably the number one skill I'm trying to teach my daughter, which is adaptability. And adaptability while still maintaining true to yourself."
— Speaker, "Refining Career Growth for a Nonlinear World" (Culture + Belonging Track)
One Featured track session named a hard structural fact. Black women leaders are leaving companies at high rates. Speakers called this the "exit economy." It is a career systems failure. And it has a measurable financial cost.
The business case is not ambiguous. Research cited at Transform found that organizations led by women leaders generate 13–31% more revenue. Losing those leaders is not just a moral failure. It is a strategic one.
Performance management systems are one of the main ways bias operates. AI-driven HR tools will encode and scale that bias unless representation is built in from the start.
"Statistically, women are more likely to get feedback that you are underperforming because someone doesn't like you, not because you're not doing your job."
— Speaker, "The Exit Economy and the Disproportionate Toll on Black Women" (Featured Track)
The fix is structural. Design your systems for the most underrepresented group in the room. Everyone benefits.
"If you were to design your business for the most underrepresented group, everyone would benefit."
— Speaker, "The Exit Economy and the Disproportionate Toll on Black Women" (Featured Track)
One session looked at what a hundred-year life means for careers. With longer lifespans, the old arc breaks down. The arc goes: school, then seniority, then retirement. That no longer holds. The real picture has on-ramps and off-ramps. People move in and out of the workforce. They switch industries mid-life. They return after caregiving breaks. They start second acts at 50.
"Longer lives are not a future problem. They're a design challenge that we're sitting with in these rooms right now."
— Speaker, "Designing the Workplace for a Hundred-Year Life" (Health + Wellbeing Track)
Brian Christman spoke in the AI + Humanity track. He made the personal stakes clear.
"This is not a moment for your company to learn something. This is something to learn for you. It's an investment into your future."
— Brian Christman, "What is a Job Now? Rethinking Work, Purpose & Value in the Age of Algorithmic Tools" (AI + Humanity Track)
Five actions grounded in what speakers at Transform 2026 actually recommended. No platitudes.