Soft skills have become the weak spot many companies don't see. According to WTW's 2026 Employee Experience Global Market Study, presented on 7 October in New York, a growing share of workers no longer know which skills will be needed tomorrow or how to develop them in time. The consultancy has given this feeling a name: “capability anxiety”.
What the WTW study says about skills
The research brings together two points of view. On one side 549 organisations, together employing 5.6 million people; on the other 7,000 employees surveyed in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France and Saudi Arabia.
The main figures:
- employees who say their manager helps them develop their abilities: down from 84% to 78% in four years;
- organisations with a structured process to identify, assess and track people's skills: about 30%;
- employees for whom AI is already important in their daily work: 45%, plus a further 22% convinced it will change it profoundly in future.
The picture is clear: work is changing fast, people know it, but often no one helps them understand where to invest.
What is capability anxiety?
For WTW, “capability anxiety” is workers' uncertainty about three questions: will my skills stay useful? Which abilities will count most? What should I focus on now?
Jill Havely, WTW's global employee experience leader, sums it up: employees recognise that work is evolving, but many are unclear about which skills matter most and how to prepare. Without that visibility, uncertainty becomes an obstacle to self-confidence and growth.
It's a point not to underestimate. Those who don't feel up to the job tend to hold back: they speak less in meetings, propose fewer ideas, present themselves to clients with less confidence. Capability anxiety doesn't stay private; it shows in the way a person moves, communicates and represents the company.
Why soft skills count more than technology
When we talk about new skills our minds go straight to digital tools. The study, however, suggests the crux is also elsewhere: the ability to find your bearings, to ask, to communicate your development needs clearly. These are soft skills in every sense.
Among those that make the difference at a time of change:
- communication, verbal and non-verbal, with colleagues, managers and clients;
- managing relationships, especially in times of uncertainty;
- professional presence, meaning consistency between what you say, how you say it and how you present yourself;
- self-awareness, the first step in understanding what to work on.
The drop in manager support, from 84% to 78%, signals exactly this: conversations about personal development have become rarer, just when they are most needed.
What companies can do
WTW points to a path: transformations of work succeed better when people see a clear growth path and the organisation has the tools to support it. In practice, it's worth:
- making visible the skills that matter for each role, not just the technical ones;
- preparing managers to talk about development with their teams;
- investing in soft skills training, from communication to professional presence;
- looking after the consistency of the team's image, because self-confidence also comes from how you present yourself.
From awareness to presence
A company that wants to reduce capability anxiety can start here: helping people recognise what they already know how to do and communicate it effectively, with colleagues and clients.
That's the work CG Imagine does with In-Linea, the corporate training programme of the C(h)IC® Method: workshops on communication, image and behaviour for teams in which, as the WTW study shows, change is moving faster than people's confidence.
Sources
- WTW, 2026 Employee Experience Global Market Study (press release of 7 October 2026)
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
