Korn Ferry: 61% of employees now do more than one role, and 42% of organisations cut managers. 5 ways to review the job people actually did this year.

A Tuesday question for People leaders, CPOs and COOs in Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Tallinn: when your managers open this year’s review forms, will the goals on them describe the work their people actually did? Or the job as it looked before the reorg, the hiring freeze and the manager who left in June?

Korn Ferry’s third annual workforce survey puts numbers on the gap. Its Workforce 2026 report, “Growing Nowhere”, published on 8 September 2026, describes what it calls “the two-job job”: roles are cut, restructured or “replaced by AI”, but the workload doesn’t disappear, it gets redistributed to the people who stay. As Korn Ferry’s Jenna Young puts it in the report: “Can we sustain people feeling like they’re permanently working two jobs? Will you keep your highest performers?” The figures below come from Korn Ferry’s press release and published report summary.

1. What the data actually says

• The two-job job is now the majority. 61% of employees say they perform the responsibilities of more than one role. 62% report significantly heavier workloads over the past two years.
• Busy isn’t the same as productive. 45% say they are too busy to deliver meaningful results that contribute to growth, and 44% say they are stretched beyond their capabilities at work.
• Fewer managers, and tired ones. 42% of organisations have cut management roles over the past year. 55% of the managers who remain say they are exhausted, and 39% of workers say the lack of managers leaves them feeling directionless.
• Motivation is dropping. Employee motivation fell from 71% in 2024 to 61% in 2026. Korn Ferry says people are now staying for pay, job security and being treated fairly, while the work itself has dropped off that list.
• AI hasn’t closed the gap yet. 51% of individual contributors reported improved efficiencies from AI, compared with 79% of CEOs, and 52% of AI-weary workers say the technology has increased their workloads.
• Managers still matter most. 52% of workers credit their managers with encouraging experimentation, and the report’s advice is to reduce managers’ load, train them before promotion and treat manager exhaustion “with the same urgency as a revenue miss”.

Honest caveats. This is a self-reported survey of how people feel about their work, not a measurement of hours or output. The European markets in the 2026 sample are the UK, France and Germany; Ireland, the Benelux, the Nordics and the Baltics are not reported separately. The figures here come from Korn Ferry’s press release and report summary page, not from country-level data. It is a strong signal to check against your own data, not a benchmark for your company.

2. The mid-market hurdle: last January’s goals, this December’s job

In a 200–2,000 person company, especially an engineering-led one, the year usually goes like this. A team lead leaves and isn’t replaced, so a senior engineer quietly picks up the 1:1s and the sprint planning. An engineering manager goes from six reports to eleven after a flattening. Someone in People Ops covers payroll queries since the spring. None of it makes it into the goals set in January.

Then review season arrives. The form asks the senior engineer about the three delivery goals she set a year ago, not the team she has effectively been running. The manager with eleven reports has a week to write eleven reviews, so the strongest stretch work gets one line and the ratings bunch in the middle. Korn Ferry’s numbers suggest this isn’t an edge case: if most people are doing more than one role and many managers are exhausted, a review built on the original scope will undercount exactly the people you most need to keep. For a COO, that shows up later as regretted attrition. For a CPO, it shows up as a calibration meeting nobody trusts.

3. 5 ways to review the job people actually did this year

1. Refresh the scope before anyone rates it. Two weeks before reviews open, ask every employee and manager one question: “What are you responsible for now that wasn’t in your goals in January?” Add those items to the review as goals or responsibilities, so the rating covers the real job.
2. Name the stretch in calibration. Add a column to the calibration view for people carrying a second role. Korn Ferry’s advice is direct: redesign the role if the stretch has become permanent, and pay fairly for it. Calibration is where that decision should be made, not left to a single manager. The calibration meeting template has room for it.
3. Plan for manager capacity, not just the deadline. Count reviews per manager before the cycle opens. Anyone writing far more than last year needs help: a shorter form, a second reviewer, or more time. Fewer, better questions beat a long form written at midnight. Use the review cost and cycle-time calculator to see what the cycle costs in manager hours.
4. Put a time frame on extra load in 1:1s. The report says people need to know what’s expected, how to deliver it and how long they’ll carry the extra workload. Make that a standing 1:1 item for anyone covering a gap: what you’re carrying, until when, and what comes off your plate.
5. Read engagement next to workload, team by team. Put your latest engagement results next to the teams that lost a manager or a headcount this year. If motivation dropped there first, that is a role-design problem to fix in 2027 planning, not a list of individual performance problems.

For the PDF, use your work email. The call is a free 15-minute discovery call: bring your review template and current reporting lines.

4. Where Revolut People fits, and where it doesn’t

Revolut People started as the system Revolut built to run performance as it scaled to 20,000 people across 60+ countries. The parts that map to this report are the ones a stretched team leans on at year end. Goals cascade from company to team to person and can be updated during the year, so new responsibilities don’t wait for January. Reviews use one scorecard (goals, skills by seniority and values), and each review opens with the person’s goals and previous-cycle data already filled in, which cuts the blank-page work for a manager with a long list. Calibration brings multi-dimensional data into one place, so a committee can see who carried what, not just a single number. 1:1s come with AI-powered summaries, so the “what you’re carrying, until when” notes are there at review time, and engagement surveys can be compared with performance data by team. Core HRIS records, including reporting lines, sit on the same platform.

To be straight about the limits: software won’t add managers back, redesign a role or decide what a stretch is worth in pay. Those are leadership choices, and the report is right that they come first. What one shared record does is make the two-job job visible in your own data before you rate it, so reviews and calibration start from the work people actually did. Related reads: adding review cycles without adding manager admin, Gallup on manager engagement and coaching, and why one cycle’s ratings are a snapshot.

Bottom Line

Korn Ferry’s survey of more than 16,000 professionals says 61% now do more than one role, 42% of organisations cut management roles in the past year and 55% of the remaining managers are exhausted. For a mid-market People team or COO in the UK, Ireland, Benelux, the Nordics or the Baltics, the year-end takeaway is simple: before you rate the year, update what the year actually asked of people. Refresh scope, name the stretch in calibration, plan manager time, set a time frame on extra load and read engagement by team. Try it with one department this cycle.

FAQ

What did Korn Ferry’s Workforce 2026 report find?

Korn Ferry surveyed more than 16,000 professionals across 11 markets, from individual contributors to CEOs, and published its Workforce 2026 Global Insights Report on 8 September 2026. 62% of employees reported significantly heavier workloads over the past two years, 45% said they are too busy to deliver meaningful results that contribute to growth, 44% said they are stretched beyond their capabilities, and 61% said they now perform the responsibilities of more than one role. Motivation fell from 71% in 2024 to 61% in 2026.

What does the report say about managers?

Korn Ferry reports that 42% of organisations have cut management roles over the past year, and 55% of the managers who remain say they are exhausted. 39% of workers say the lack of managers leaves them feeling directionless, and 52% credit their managers with encouraging experimentation.

Why does this matter for year-end performance reviews?

If people have absorbed parts of other roles and their managers have more reports and less time, a review that rates them against January’s goals and job description will miss much of the work they actually did. Updating scope and goals before rating, and planning manager time for reviews, are practical responses. The report itself recommends redesigning roles that have grown, paying fairly for the stretch and giving people clear direction and a time frame.

How reliable is the data for a European mid-market company?

It is a large self-reported survey, not a measurement of workloads. Its European markets are the UK, France and Germany; Ireland, the Benelux, the Nordics and the Baltics are not listed separately. The figures here come from Korn Ferry’s press release and its published report summary. Treat it as a strong signal to check against your own engagement and performance data.

Is Revolut People available in the UK, Ireland, Benelux, the Nordics and the Baltics?

Yes. Revolut People is available to businesses with a registered entity in the UK, the EEA or the US, which covers Ireland, the Benelux, Nordic and Baltic countries.