In the first Human Capital Insight episode of On Aon, Jason Trull and Aon talent and rewards leaders unpack how organizations can turn rapid workforce change into a performance advantage across technology, life sciences and financial services. Drawing on Aon data and current market signals, the group explores what’s shifting fastest: accelerating AI adoption and governance needs, skills evolving beyond traditional role-based models and rising expectations for personalization, flexibility and career pathways.
Key Takeaways:
Experts in this episode:
Key moments:
(1:05) The global labor market is in a state of flux. Employee turnover, shifts in hiring trends, the spread of AI and healthcare costs are all piling the pressure on people leaders, and each industry is moving through really its own version of disruption.
(5:00) We believe that about 96% of life sciences firms plan to invest in reskilling to stay competitive.
(6:00) The tech sector, maybe more than any other, is facing a fundamental shift of the skills that companies need as AI adoption accelerates.
(14:15) Today's employee value proposition requires companies to refocus and consider various elements, including skills, pathways and growth.
Soundbites:
Jason Trull:
“Demand for professionals with AI skills is only going to increase, making it all the more necessary for leaders to seek out reskilling opportunities for their teams.”
Chris Tanana:
“It's a difficult balance staying cost efficient without undermining the ability to attract and retain critical talent.”
Tanaz Moazami:
“Firms are navigating multi-generational needs, evolving expectations on well-being and ongoing reinvestment in employee value proposition to keep pace.”
Ephraim Edelman:
“Companies are rebuilding a very different kind of talent model. We're seeing a shift towards a more skilled, more specialized and more globally distributed workforce.”
Rahul Chawla:
“Our clients are focused on delivering personalized benefits and communicating that value through non-traditional methods.”
Intro:
Hello and welcome to this, the latest episode of On Aon.
On Aon is Aon’s global podcast that explores the top issues affecting businesses around the world with each week dedicated to either a Risk Capital, Human Capital, Industry or Global topic.
This week it’s our Human Capital Insight, which explores the big talent trends across three key industries — Life Sciences, Technology and Financial Services.
We’ve got a great Aon panel for you today.
Joining Jason Trull, Global Head of Talent Data Solutions at Aon are:
Together they discuss key issues impacting those industries such as reskilling for a world of AI, rising costs and shifts in workforce skills.
Jason Trull Hello everyone and welcome to this, the first of our Human Capital Insight episodes of On Aon.
My name is Jason Trull and I'm the Global Head of Talent Data Solutions at Aon. This episode is the first of our regular series to explore human capital issues that are shaping businesses around the world.
In today's session, we're going to be looking at how talent strategies across three vital industry sectors — technology, life sciences and financial services — are being transformed by human capital trends, including AI, rising labor costs, and shifts in how organizations are adapting to the evolution of skills in the workforce.
And I'm thrilled to say we have a great set of Aon experts to guide us through the findings.
Hi there, team, and why don't you go ahead and introduce yourselves?
Chris Tanana Hi everyone.
Chris Tanana and I lead Financial Services Data Solutions in North America.
Tanaz Moazmi
Hi everyone, Tanaz Moazami. I am a partner at Aon, a part of our data solutions based out of New York City.
Ephraim Edelman
Hi everyone, I'm Efraim Edelman, I lead Data Solutions for North America, based in New York.
Rahul Chawla My name is Rahul Chawla. I'm calling in from Singapore, from where I lead our talent solutions practice for Southeast Asia.
Jason Trull
Thanks, team. Let's go ahead and get started. So there's no denying that the global labor market is in a state of flux. Employee turnover, shifts in hiring trends, the spread of AI, and healthcare costs are all piling the pressure on people leaders, and each industry is moving through really its own version of disruption.
And because of this, it's more vital than ever to have timely industry-specific data and insights.
So that's why Aon's talent data analytics teams have analyzed both internal and external data, including the Radford-McLagan Compensation Database that covers more than 4,200 technology life sciences and financial services companies across the globe.
And across these industries, we've identified a number of key workforce shifts. The first one is how artificial intelligence is reshaping talent pools across every industry. In fact, almost every company we analyzed expected significant impact from AI in the coming years.
And sometimes skill priorities are shifting faster than companies can really adapt. And there's a real struggle to put the right people in the right roles. So Chris and Rahul, why don't you start with a look at what we found in financial services.
Chris Tanana
Absolutely, Jason. When we look specifically at financial services, the adoption of AI isn't theoretical anymore. It's happening in real time and it's broad. Nearly every firm we work with is implementing AI in some capacity, and for many, it's become a core strategic priority.
What's unique in financial services is that firms are trying to strike the right balance, maintaining the stability and risk management discipline the industry is known for, while also innovating fast enough to stay competitive.
We're seeing that tension play out in how organizations build talent strategies. It often starts with giving employees access to tools like Copilot or other similar solutions, but it doesn't end there. Most firms are hiring roles like Chief AI Officer and building dedicated AI governance teams to help scale these tools responsibly. Because so many financial services work is technical, analytical, and data-driven, there's significant opportunity to use AI to reshape workflows, improve decision-making, and expand capacity. And we expect the momentum to accelerate over the next few years.
Rahul Chawla
I would completely agree with what Chris has just mentioned, Jason. There are a tremendous amount of use cases for AI in financial services ranging from middle office risk and compliance to customer experience, client onboarding and front office divisions. Ultimately, they are working furiously towards creating shareholder value, top line and bottom-line growth.
Another important aspect that you mentioned in your introduction, Jason, was getting the right people in the right roles. I would add another dimension to that dynamic, which is getting the right people in the right role, in the right location, to serve this growing need to deploy artificial intelligence in financial services.
And let me give you a statistic. From our Radford and McLagan Compensation Database, we've gotten insight that India as a destination for talent to serve this expertise around AI has experienced dramatic growth in headcount, which are specialist engineering roles for technology to the extent of around 66% increase in headcount serving global banks, financial services across the world out of that center.
I think that there is a tremendous requirement. There is tremendous demand for AI and demand is being served through various roles and locations across the world.
Jason Trull
Thank you and Tanaz — what are you seeing in Life Sciences.
Tanaz Moazami
It's a great question. Companies are evaluating competencies and skills required with the AI adaptation. We believe about 96% of life sciences firms plan to invest in reskilling to stay competitive. In addition, we also believe 50% of today's workforce skill sets could become obsolete potentially by 2030. This probably includes jobs in clinical development, such as trial administration, documentation, and regulatory submissions as well as hiring entry-level bench scientists. So companies are in the process of re-evaluating type of work, as well as the career pathways and development that they offer to stay ahead of the AI adaptation.
Jason Trull
Great. And Ephraim, where's the tech sector at?
Ephraim Edelman
Thanks Jason. From a tech sector perspective, want to touch on two topics actually. One is the reskilling mandate and the second is the impact on turnover. The tech sector, maybe more than any other, is facing a fundamental shift on the skills that companies need as AI adoption accelerates. Traditional routine and transactional tasks are rapidly declining and at the same time demand for AI, machine learning, data science, and advanced engineering skills continues to surge.
And that dynamic is creating this urgent reskilling mandate. The level of transformation underway requires companies to redesign how they build talent, not just hire talent. And the tech firms that are getting ahead are being very intentional, embedding continuous learning, building career mobility pathways into AI and data roles, and reinforcing the leadership capabilities that matter most in an AI-driven organization.
It's not just a skills shift, it's a mindset shift.
So just a call out to a leader. If you're a leader, make sure to bring in your juniors into AI conversations early and often. And for everyone, don't wait for the memo. Start building your skills to work with AI now. Think of AI as your new teammate and learn how to manage it.
Jason, if I could just take one other minute just to talk about the impact of turnover as well, from the impact from AI. We've seen turnover fall in the tech sector from about 21% to 17.5% in the sector that has structurally higher turnover than many other sectors.
This probably is not driven entirely by AI, but certainly is a factor. When we look at our own Aon SITS data — the salary increase and turnover study — we see voluntary turnover falling. In other words, people are choosing to stay put, which makes sense given how unpredictable the market is.
And we also see involuntary turnover coming down. But this is an uneven trend. Even in the last number of weeks, we've seen a number of major firms announce new rounds of layoffs. So while the overall numbers look calmer, the underlying volatility and the impact of AI hasn't disappeared.
Jason Trull
Great. Thanks, Ephraim.
So it's clear that AI creates a ton of opportunities for organizations that adopt it, but only if they have skilled workers who know how to effectively use AI.
So in the future, demand for professionals with AI skills is only going to increase, making it all the more necessary for leaders to seek out reskilling opportunities for their teams, really, right now.
So moving on, the next area we looked into was changes in people costs, primarily healthcare, and the impact on overall total reward strategies.
So, around the world and in every industry, total reward budgets are being squeezed by rising healthcare costs, primarily driven by an increase in chronic conditions. But Tanaz, let's start with you this time. How is life sciences facing up to this challenge?
Tanaz Moazami
So healthcare costs have increased, raising four times the rate of inflation, with costs increasing by 25-34% across regions in the past two years. So, life sciences companies are also increasingly focusing on employee healthcare, as expectations for comprehensive, high-quality benefits continue to rise. So, this includes expanding access to innovative treatment and medicines, mental health support, personalized healthcare programs, both to attract critical talent and to reflect the standards they set for their patients in the broader healthcare ecosystem.
Jason Trull
Great. Thanks, Tanaz. And Chris and Rahul, what are you hearing in financial services?
Chris Tanana
No problem, Jason. It's one of the world's most stable and mature industries and the financial services firms are operating with an intense focus on return on equity and expense discipline. And that brings people cost the single largest expense in the sector directly into the spotlight. Leaders are being challenged to optimize every dollar of spend while still meeting expectations around pay equity, competitive rewards and rising healthcare costs.
It's a difficult balance staying cost-efficient without undermining the ability to attract and retain critical talent. We're seeing firms explore more strategic workforce planning, sharper differentiation in rewards and a more proactive health and wellbeing strategy as ways to manage this cost pressure.
Rahul Chawla
Jason, where I'm calling in from Singapore, there has been a dramatic increase in healthcare costs. Medical inflation is in double digits. It's around the 11% mark across Asia Pacific. In certain markets — Indonesia, Malaysia — it's heading into mid-teens. And firms need to find a way to manage these costs through various levers and through the data pool.
Our employee sentiment study reveals that employees are actually willing to trade off certain core benefits for flexibility. So that's one area that firms are looking at to optimize total rewards to ensure they deliver the right client experience while managing costs effectively.
Another aspect is managing behaviors or driving behavior change to ensure that employees are focused on preventive care. There's less what we call fraud, waste and abuse to ensure that benefits costs are in check.
But at the end of the day, what our clients are focused on delivering is personalization of benefits and communicating that value through non-traditional methods and again using AI from our early discussion to communicate value to an HR endpoint client which is the employee.
Jason Trull
Great, thanks. And Ephraim, what about the tech sector?
Ephraim Edelman
Some of the themes that Tanaz and Chris talked about for life sciences and financial services applied to the tech sector as well, including the increasing impact of healthcare costs on the overall total rewards budget.
I wanted to just put a finer point on some of the highly specialized talent that's necessary in the technology sector as another driver of rising people costs and overall total rewards.
Looking at our own Radford-McLagan compensation data and a recent Aon Paying for AI Talent Pulse Survey, we looked at the technology participants. They talked about — two-thirds of the participants talked about paying a premium for AI talent. Almost half talked about paying a 15% premium to base pay and 40% offered the new higher equity premiums of 30% or more.
And on top of that, you've got startups and scale-ups competing directly with established firms by offering higher upside, more equity, faster titles, bigger scope. So you've got lots of different dynamics that are helping to drive some of those rising people costs in addition to the healthcare costs that Tanaz and Chris mentioned.
Jason Trull
Great. Thanks, Ephraim.
So, it's obvious that rising labor costs is a challenge across all industries. Organizations will need to continually adapt using strategies like ensuring appropriate staffing levels, improving employee efficiency, and really looking at automating certain tasks.
So, the first step is to really gain an understanding of the potential impact of AI on all roles across your organization so you can identify where you have the most opportunity for creating efficiencies.
Something I know a lot of our clients have been engaging our talent advisors on for guidance over the past year or so.
So, now let's move on to how the makeup of the workforce in these industries is changing. So, the big trends that we're talking about today are not only changing the composition of a firm's employees, but also the knock-on effect to engagement, retention and turnover. And this has an impact on how organizations build an impactful employee proposition. So, Ephraim, why don't we start with you this time? What's the workforce in the tech sector facing?
Ephraim Edelman
Well, it's been a wild ride the last few years in the tech sector, having undergone one of the most significant workforce transformations probably in its history.
So, there was the pandemic-era surge in hiring, and then the course-correction that followed. And now companies are rebuilding a very different kind of talent model. We're seeing a shift towards a more skilled, more specialized, more globally distributed workforce and AI continues to reshape business priorities.
So, headcount is moving from transactional and early career models — Jason, that you talked about some of that — towards more mid and senior level specialists, particularly in AI, cybersecurity, digital engineering, and data.
From a global perspective, APAC continues to rise as a global hub for engineering and shared technology services. In North America, and probably true across the board, another theme is true: looking for skilled value-creative roles supported by automation and better tooling.
Those are some of the higher-level macro trends, but at the same time, and I talked about the turnover as moderated in a recent study that we did, 76% of tech employees said they're considering new opportunities in the next 12 months, which brings an employee value proposition.
Clearly compensation is a key component to that, but employers need to do more than that. Today's employee value proposition requires companies to refocus and consider various elements, including skills, pathways, and growths, wellbeing and burnout prevention.
This goes beyond the traditional technology sector workplace perks and includes systemic approaches to workload, mental health support, etc., flexibility and autonomy, and strong organizational purpose and culture.
EVP is one of the most powerful levers for attracting and engaging and retaining people who will drive innovation forward.
Jason Trull
Great, thanks Efraim. And Chris and Rahul, how about financial services?
Chris Tanana
Thanks, Jason. Financial services continues to shift work to near shore and offshore locations while keeping specialist talent in higher-cost hubs, the challenge is now keeping a globally distributed workforce connected and aligned as one team. These cost pressures also put more weight on the strong EVP, not just for attraction and retention, but to ensure employees everywhere feel part of the same culture and have access to consistent opportunities.
Rahul Chawla Yeah, Jason, we've already touched upon location strategy and the need for specialist roles. Another interesting point to look at is how organizations are looking at jobs and the constituent skills of those jobs.
So we've seen a significant reduction in certain roles like call center support. Where we've also seen organizations being more focused on is the shape and size of the organization.
We've been working with clients to provide intelligence on how they move their pyramids, where there should be this room to trim and grow headcount, looking at the long-term strategy, operating model, and location strategy.
Ultimately, what organizations are looking at is a workforce which will deliver — as Jason and Chris pointed out — in the opening shareholder returns. We've seen that there has been an increase in specialist roles, and those specialist roles are more at the middle to junior management level or junior individual contributor level. And we've seen certain reduction in headcounts at senior levels.
But that's not — I would say that we should not paint in the broad brush. We should do a deeper dive into industries. In certain industries, there has been an increase in headcount at senior levels as well but those are specific to industry demands and macroeconomic tailwinds like investment banking.
But broadly at financial services as a whole, at least from an Asia Pacific standpoint, see organizations more focused on hiring specialists, fit-for-purpose talent, admin management and junior individual contributor levels.
Jason Trull
Perfect. And then lastly, life sciences Tanaz?
Tanaz Moazami
So, the life sciences space is very similar, right? Firms are navigating multi-generational needs, evolving expectations on well-being and ongoing reinvestment in employee value proposition to keep pace.
So, life sciences companies are increasingly personalizing their employee value proposition by offering flexible and mix and match rewards. For example, choice of health plans, hybrid work, benefit wallets. So that early career, mid-career, and late career employees can each tailor support based on their stage of life.
As mentioned earlier as well, they are also investing more in differentiated learning and development and career pathways, such as structured early talent programs, mid-career reskilling, and phased retirement or expert advisory roles to retain critical talent and also keep multi-generational teams engaged and productive.
Jason Trull
Thanks, Tanaz, and thank you all for those great insights and recommendations. So if I were going to sum up everything we discussed today into three key takeaways for human capital leaders, and again, not just in the three industries we've been focusing on today, but every major organization, I would say:
One, optimize your workforce for changing skills and technology by redesigning roles and organizational structures and rethinking your location strategy, all with a focus on higher value specialist-type work.
Number two, focus on accelerating reskilling initiatives using smart build buy versus bot strategies to meet rising digital and AI demands.
And then lastly, attract and retain critical talent. This is really important. By strengthening your employee value proposition, aligning your rewards to what people truly value and truly want, all the while ensuring fairness and transparency across the workforce.
So that's our show for today. But keep on the lookout for other Human Capital Insight episodes in the coming weeks on topics including personalizing benefits and also our new Human Capital Trends Study.
And don't forget, if you want to find out more about our talent analytics and advisory solutions or speak to an Aon colleague about our capabilities, head to Aon.com.
So on behalf of Rahul, Chris, Ephraim, Tanaz, and myself, thanks for listening.
Until next time, goodbye.
Outro:
Thanks for tuning into the latest episode of On Aon. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to visit Aon.com to learn more about Aon.
We’ll be back next week with another episode — our Industry Insight — where we’ll be discussing the latest Risk Capital and Human Capital issue facing the Natural Resources Industry.