Crafting tomorrow: Winning the people advantage

By Cyrus Asgarian, Viktoriya Bondarets, Fabian Huhle and Jann Oetken

In this spin-off report from our "Crafting tomorrow" study on shaping future-proof organizations, we explore the people advantage – the integrated foundation that enables employees to contribute more, grow faster, and stay longer. Why do some companies turn talent into a real performance engine, why do others fall short, and how can organizations activate the full spectrum of functional, emotional, and well-being needs?

Building a strong workforce is no longer about hiring alone. With rising skill shortages, shifting expectations, and ongoing transformation pressure, organizations need people systems that create capability, motivation, and resilience at scale. The ability to unlock employee potential has become a decisive competitive advantage.

In our report " Crafting tomorrow: Shaping future-proof organizations in turbulent times ," we identified the people advantage as one of the nine essential elements for organizing and operating a company. Success across these dimensions is what sets excellent organizations apart from average ones. We surveyed more than 260 business leaders on each dimension to understand what it takes to become a next-generation winner – a company that sets the future standard in organizational development.

This spin-off report provides an in-depth look at how to activate people advantage as a system. It examines what differentiates high-performing organizations, why many still leave significant value untapped, and how functional, emotional, and well-being needs reinforce each other when embedded consistently.

Why organizations struggle to unlock employee potential

Despite substantial investment in HR and learning, most organizations still operate with fragmented people processes. Workforce planning remains siloed, development is often disconnected from business priorities, and leaders spend more time on operations than on coaching. Employees experience unclear expectations, uneven support, and limited transparency on career paths – weakening contribution and commitment.

Our survey shows that next-gen winners take a more integrated approach. They build visibility into skills, personalize development through clearer structures, and create conditions that support belonging and well-being. Yet even among top performers, gaps remain – especially in linking learning to strategic needs and freeing leadership capacity for people development. The potential for improvement is significant.

How next-gen winners activate people advantage

Across the three core dimensions, the differences between high and low performers are striking. High performers maintain live skills inventories, use structured development practices, and embed learning broadly across the organization. They stand out in emotional enablers such as recognition and inclusion, where low performers lag far behind. And they support well-being with clearer frameworks and stronger leadership accountability.

What truly distinguishes the leaders is coherence. Their practices reinforce each other, creating an operating model where skills, culture, and employee experience work together rather than in parallel.

A detailed case study in the report illustrates how these principles can be applied in practice – showing how a traditional industrial company rebuilt its people systems to strengthen performance, engagement, and cross-team collaboration.

By focusing on these enablers, organizations can build a more capable, motivated, and resilient workforce. For more information, download a copy of the report below or reach out to one of our experts.

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