education

There’s something listless, timeless, stateless about the period between Christmas and the new year. Socially, personally, professionally, the doldrums. Liminal. Between years. The year about to conclude, we’re happy to see depart; the one due to commence, we dare to dream.

There’s a sense that this time of year acts as a form of disempowerment. You come up with a great new idea, a game-changing initiative? Your audience is potentially not at its most receptive. Probably best sitting on that until the new year. 

Just like empty boxes of Heroes, sources of broader disempowerment are not in short supply.

The accelerating advent of AI has brought with it any number of implications. One of those being this same sense of disempowerment. It’s hard to look at the pace and volume of what AI churns out and not feel, well, a little impotent in comparison. There’s a feeling nearly of pointlessness – both in terms of short-term productivity and longer-term existence. How long before AI does the job you are doing, only better, more quickly and far more cost effectively?

The current miasma of disempowerment doesn’t stop there.

So much has been taken out of our hands by Government actions over the last year. April’s increase in employer NI costs saw an immediate 109,000 jobs lost. If we fast forward to November’s budget – its leaking and the messy run-up – Adzuna reported that UK job vacancies declined by 6.4% in November. The CBI also indicated a sharp fall in business activity across all industry sectors in the quarter to December.

As a result of the Government’s clumsy communications, jobs will have been lost, projects put on hold and bottom lines hit. All because of factors out of the hands of employees themselves. Disempowered employees. 

More generally, unemployment itself has been another factor disempowering employees. October’s unemployment figure was 5.1%, it was 4.3% 12 months ago. And the number of payrolled employees in the UK has fallen 165,000 since its peak in October 2024. 

Through no fault of their own, any number of talented people will have lost their jobs, largely as a result of declining economic sentiment and confidence. Just as relevant, people who remain working in those organisations will be wondering where next the P45 axe will fall. Hardly conditions conducive to engagement and empowerment. 

The length and duration of the current labour market malaise is also a factor.  People have felt vulnerable, apprehensive and under pressure since the labour market experienced its last peak in 2022. Three years of employees feeling as if they are not in charge of their own destinies. Where they have felt preoccupied with survival over progress. Tenure over risk taking. 

Employment over empowerment.

This, then, is what employers need to be emphasising in their people messaging into 2026. 

A realistic, credible sense of what their people can do. A notion of what is possible. An idea of what those people are empowered to achieve. 

I think this sense of can has been lost across many organisations, obscured by doubt, caution and paralysis. With people keeping their heads and ambitions down.

For both external candidate audiences and internal employee communities, organisations should be delivering a message of positive, active contribution. 

What are both new and existing people there to do? What sort of difference are they able to make? What more are they able to do at your organisation over their previous employer? In what ways can they contribute more?

Different employers will deliver empowerment in different ways. It’s important that the source of this empowerment is communicated to people audiences. Within your organisation, people can – be it through culture, through quality of management, through investment, through trust, through quality of colleagues. Choose the lane that works best within your organisation.

And back it up. Look at the internal messages your people consume – are they about the ‘musts’ and the ‘shoulds’, or do they reference trust, space and achievement? And take the time to celebrate the can. When people take initiative, when they solve problems, when they go beyond – make a noise about it. Applaud and reward when you see empowerment in action.

After three years of caution and apprehension, of your people constantly looking over their shoulder in fear, think about what sort of difference this emphasis on possibility, potential and empowerment will bring. Think how your culture will soar. How productivity will improve. Think about the benefits to your employer brand and reputation. Think about how internal belonging and unity will be enhanced. 

The doldrums should have passed by now. 2026 is stamping its feet, clapping its hands and dusting the snow from its shoulders. With it comes an opportunity to shift the narrative from the passive to the active. From the wary to the raring to go. From employment to empowerment. From surviving to thriving. Positioning your organisation as an employer which encourages and empowers achievement, contribution and initiative, enables internal growth and external excitement. 

Let 2026 be the year your people rediscover their can.