Don't Leave the Engine Room Behind

PwC's newest Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey, released this week, offers one of the largest pictures we have of how work is changing. PwC heard from 49,364 workers in 48 countries and regions. Nearly two-thirds now use AI at work, and daily use has climbed from 14% to 22% in a year.

But the headline finding is a warning. PwC sees a workforce beginning to move at two speeds. A group it calls front-runners, about 14% of workers, combine scarce skills with strong AI capability. They are more confident, more ambitious and, at 29%, very or extremely likely to change employers within a year. Meanwhile, the majority, the 56% of workers PwC places in the engine room, have less scarce skills and are earlier in their AI journey. Only 40% of them say they have access to the learning they need.

Pete Brown, PwC's global workforce leader, frames the challenge well: keep developing the people who are racing ahead, but not at the expense of everyone else.

I agree. And I think the most important word in the report is not skills. It is access.

The Engine Room Is Not Behind. It Is Waiting.

It is easy to read the data as a story about two kinds of people: the curious and the reluctant, the adaptable and the stuck. That reading is tempting, and it is usually wrong.

Look at what separates the groups. Overall, only 51% of workers say they have the learning resources they need, down from 59% a year earlier. In the engine room, it is 40%. Daily AI users, by contrast, report more confidence in their job security and more trust in top management. People who are given room to experiment become more confident. People who are not given that room learn to wait.

I see this pattern constantly. Organizations quietly decide who gets to try new things and who is expected to keep the machine running. The first group is invited to explore. The second is told to execute. Then leaders are surprised when the second group appears less adaptable.

That is not a skills gap. It is a permission gap.

Two Questions Every Leader Should Ask

In my work on Leadership in the Age of Personalization, five indicator questions measure the environment people work in. Two of them go straight to the heart of PwC's findings.

Who do you let them be? Are engine room workers seen as people capable of growth, or as the steady hands who keep things running while others innovate?

What do you let them do? Do they get real time, tools and projects to build new skills, or only the training module they can squeeze in after the real work is done?

The answers shape conviction. I define conviction as the earned capacity to act on what you believe before the outcome is certain. People earn it through repetitions: trying something, learning from it and trying again. When only a few get those repetitions, only a few build the confidence to lead the change.

Reinvention Is Not Only for Front-Runners

Standardization still matters here. A shared baseline of AI literacy, clear expectations and common tools protects everyone and keeps the organization moving together. The mistake is stopping at the baseline for the majority while personalizing growth only for the few.

Reinvention is a skill, not a personality trait. In my work, it begins with helping people discover what they bring and know what they solve for, then pursue and build new capabilities from there. Engine room workers often understand the friction in the business better than anyone, because they are closest to the processes AI is changing. Leaving them behind does not just slow adoption. It wastes the knowledge most likely to make AI work.

As I explored in Recompose the Role Around the Person, Not Just the Work, people embrace new technology when they can see themselves in the new role. And as I wrote in The Ceiling Is in the Room, Not the Pipeline, talent rarely stalls for lack of ability. It stalls in rooms where leaders stop seeing it.

Three Moves for Leaders This Quarter

Map who is getting the repetitions. Look at who has been given AI projects, pilot roles and learning time. If it is the same small group, you have found your two-speed workforce.

Give the engine room a real seat in the redesign. Ask the people closest to the work where AI should help first. Their answers will be practical, and their ownership will be real.

Retain front-runners with growth, not just pay. PwC's data suggests many of your most capable people are already looking. Give them the chance to teach and lead others, and you build both loyalty and capability across the organization.

PwC is right that the workforce is starting to move at different speeds. Leaders still decide whether that becomes a permanent divide. The organizations that win will not be the ones with the fastest few. They will be the ones that bring everyone along.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.