How do leading enterprises prepare their people for a world where change never slows down?
As businesses navigate the accelerating shifts of the digital era - from AI disruption to hybrid work to multigenerational teams - the question of how to future-proof the workforce has never felt more urgent. At Unite 25, senior leaders from CVS Health, Wipro, and the Adecco Group came together to explore what it really takes to build a workforce ready for what’s next.
Moderated by Unily’s Kaz Hassan, the conversation revealed a shared conviction: preparing for the future isn’t about reacting to change, it’s about anticipating it and empowering people to thrive through it.
Through the discussion, four key characteristics of a future-ready enterprise emerged.
Featuring insights from:
- Samantha Rope, SVP HR NEEMEA at The Adecco Group
- Ateet Jayaswal, Chief Employee Experience Officer at Wipro
- April Jaconski, Executive Director, Internal Channels & Innovation at CVS Health,
1. Anticipating Change Before It Arrives
Why foresight is the foundation of a future-ready workforce
For Wipro’s Ateet Jayaswal, readiness begins with foresight.
“Progressive organizations don’t wait for a crisis,” said Jayaswal. “We look at what’s happening outside - hybrid work, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, consumer technology - and think about how to bring those insights inside the enterprise.”
The company actively monitors social, technological, and generational trends to ensure its people strategy evolves alongside the world outside.
Samantha Rope agreed that businesses must stop treating disruption as a temporary event. From Adecco’s perspective, agility is a long-term competency, not a crisis response. This sentiment was echoed by April Jaconski, who said that foresight isn’t just about anticipating external shifts, but also creating the internal infrastructure - technology, data, and culture - that allows organizations to pivot when needed.
How Wipro is embedding external insights into internal culture
Wipro’s decision to create a dedicated Chief Employee Experience Officer role is a product of this mindset, ensuring that insights from the outside world directly shape how the business operates internally. The move signals a recognition that employee experience now sits at the heart of business strategy, carrying the same weight as customer experience or digital transformation. By aligning strategy, culture, and employee experience, Wipro is building an organization that evolves in sync with the changing world around it.
Across the panel, there was consensus that employee experience is now a strategic pillar, not a supporting function. As Rope put it, “You can’t deliver innovation externally if your people internally are struggling to adapt.”
2. Turning AI Anxiety into Empowerment
The Adecco Group’s approach to AI learning and workforce confidence
At The Adecco Group, Samantha Rope shared that transparency and trust are critical to helping employees feel confident about AI. Their Global Workforce of the Future research revealed that 40% of employees worry about how automation will affect their roles. The company’s answer has been to democratize access to learning, allowing every employee to upskill at their own pace through four defined learning paths: Explorer, Trailblazer, Builder, and Leader.
Building transparency and trust in human–AI collaboration
For Rope, trust is built through openness and clarity.
“We’re very clear that AI will not replace our people,” she said. “It will enable them.”
Jayaswal and Jaconski both agreed that this message of enablement is key. Wipro’s leadership sees AI as a “collaborator, not a competitor,” while CVS Health is taking the same stance by introducing tools that enhance decision-making rather than replace human judgement.
Each speaker highlighted that the most important skill of the future is adaptability. Rope summarised, “AI is reshaping work, but it’s human curiosity and learning that will keep us relevant.”
3. Listening and Responding in Real Time
How CVS Health uses AI to strengthen employee engagement
With over 300,000 employees, CVS Health has learned that listening at scale is not just a communications priority, but a leadership imperative. April Jaconski, Executive Director of Internal Channels & Innovation, described how her team uses AI-powered sentiment analysis within their Unily platform to track real-time feedback across internal channels.
“We can’t read every comment, but AI helps us listen faster,” said Jaconski. “It means we can respond within minutes, not days.”
Her team has also introduced self-serve analytics dashboards for 700 content publishers across the business. These tools make it easy to review engagement, measure performance, and quickly adjust messaging to stay relevant. It’s a practical example of how technology can enhance connection, helping communicators stay in tune with what people really need.
Scaling workforce insights with intelligent analytics tools
Rope and Jayaswal both stressed the power of this feedback-driven approach. In particular, Rope noted that trust grows when employees feel heard and see their input acted upon. Continuous feedback loops are vital for maintaining agility, especially in global organizations where sentiment can shift quickly across regions. The panel underlined that listening is not passive; it’s a form of cultural intelligence that drives continuous improvement.
4. Redefining What ‘Ready’ Means in the Future of Work
Why readiness is more about mindset than technology
Across all three organizations, readiness was defined not by technology alone, but by mindset. The future-ready workforce is confident, curious, and connected. It understands how technology supports human potential rather than replacing it.
For leaders, that means creating conditions where people feel safe to experiment, learn, and challenge convention.
As Jayaswal summed it up, “Roles like mine exist because we’re bringing the outside in. The future-ready workforce is one that’s always curious.”
The panel agreed that HR, IT, and communications must operate as one ecosystem. Technology provides the infrastructure, HR builds the capability, and communications creates the connection. When these functions align, transformation moves from being a project to becoming part of how the organization thinks and behaves.
The big takeaway
The conversation made one thing clear: The future of work will be shaped by organizations that balance innovation with empathy. Technology might be the catalyst for transformation, but people will always be the driving force behind it.
Rope summed it up best: “Technology can accelerate progress, but empathy keeps people connected to it.”
Want to learn more about how Unily is supporting these three brands and many more to unlock speed and agility across disparate workforces? Speak to one of our digital employee experience experts today.
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