Why workforce strain is an opportunity for reward leaders

As a reward and benefits leader, workforce strain isn't a roadblock, it's your cue to act. REBA’s latest report, Turning challenge into opportunity: how organisations can move from workforce strain to workforce strength, outlines how you can translate those pressures into long-term workforce strength.

This three-part report breaks down the exact friction points that could be holding your organisation back- skills gaps, global workforce pressure points, and cultural behaviour- and how to address them.

Combining expert insight from Marsh and independent specialists with employer case studies, the Turning challenge into opportunity: how organisations can move from workforce strain to workforce strength report provides a blueprint for closing the disconnect between the fast-changing world of work and employee experience, to create a stronger, more resilient workforce with benefits as a driving force.

For each challenge, the report lays out practical, budget-friendly steps that reward and benefit teams can put into action right away.

Part 1: Closing skills gaps and redesigning pay for an AI‑integrated future

Organisations are racing ahead with AI, but employees are struggling to keep up. Caught between changing skills, rising job anxiety and tighter budgets, how can employers avoid stalling their AI productivity gains by breaking the career ladder and cutting off the junior talent pipeline needed to build future institutional expertise?

In this section: Designing skills-based pay and reward structures, building upskilling and reskilling pathways, and incentivising learning and career mobility.

Part 2: Designing global health strategies that improve workforce resilience

With more reward and benefits budget being spent on the rising cost of medical cover that is failing to curb sickness absence, how can organisations actively use prevention and early intervention to reduce people risk, protect productivity and build resilience?

In this section: Using AI and digital advances, such as early screenings, to support workforce health, set consistent global standards for digital health, and build the data foundations to understand risk by region.

Part 3: Shaping the behaviours, trust and culture of the future of work

Expanding benefit budgets isn’t an option for most employers right now, so how can they re-engineer existing provisions and benefits into everyday behavioural nudges that remove operational friction and actively prevent burnout?

In this section: Using benefits as behavioural levers, uncovering how EVPs are evolving around employee expectations of fairness, flexibility and purpose, and applying AI-enabled personalisation and nudging.

Find out more by downloading the Turning challenge into opportunity: how organisations can move from workforce strain to workforce strength report.