In the trainings I deliver, a recurring pattern keeps emerging. Younger professionals no longer see traditional employment as the default destination. Instead, they speak openly about entrepreneurship, freelancing, portfolio careers, or maintaining the freedom to choose projects rather than committing to a single employer for the long term.

At the same time, within the organisations I support, leaders describe the other side of the equation. Recruitment is becoming increasingly difficult. Retention is fragile. Many younger employees struggle to project themselves into the company beyond the short or medium term. This situation is often interpreted as a lack of loyalty or commitment.

Yet when these two perspectives are placed side by side, a different reality becomes visible: we are not facing two separate issues, but one structural transformation.

When career choices are shaped by lived experience

What makes this transformation particularly powerful is how often it is rooted in personal history. During training discussions, the desire for independence is not always driven by ambition or opportunity alone. In many cases, it is shaped by observation and experience.

I have heard participants say:

“I saw my mother become ill because of work.”

“My father was never really present at home. He was always on the road, always working.”

These statements are not anecdotal. They reveal how deeply work experiences from the previous generation influence today’s career decisions. For many, the goal is not to avoid effort or responsibility, but to avoid reproducing a model perceived as harmful to health, family life, or personal balance.

International research supports this shift. Global studies consistently show that younger generations increasingly associate work with wellbeing, purpose, and mental health, not only income or status. Deloitte’s global Gen Z and Millennial surveys repeatedly highlight purpose, flexibility, and wellbeing as central drivers of engagement and career choices.

What leaders are experiencing is the organisational reflection of the same shift

On the leadership side, the narrative is pragmatic and often concerned. Leaders speak about unfilled positions, high turnover, and the difficulty of building long-term commitment. These challenges are real and measurable. Gallup’s global workplace research has long documented the cost of disengagement on performance, productivity, and organisational stability.

What often remains implicit, however, is that many organisational models are still designed around assumptions that no longer hold: long-term linear careers, stable roles, and engagement secured primarily through structure and control.

From controlling management to accountable management

Across trainings, leadership programs, and advisory work, a deeper transition is becoming visible. Organisations are gradually moving (sometimes consciously, sometimes reluctantly) from controlling management toward accountability-based management.

In controlling models, uncertainty is managed through supervision, reporting, and presence. In accountable models, uncertainty is managed through clarity: clear objectives, clear decision rights, explicit responsibilities, and trust in execution.

This is where psychological safety becomes central. Without it, autonomy remains theoretical and accountability collapses into risk avoidance. Research conducted by Google (Project Aristotle) identified psychological safety as a key condition of high-performing teams, a finding echoed by extensive work published by Harvard Business Review.

Could organisational agility be the real answer?

If younger professionals are drawn to autonomy and flexible forms of contribution, and organisations struggle to attract and retain them within traditional frameworks, the response may not lie in stronger retention policies alone. It may lie in organisational agility.

More agile organisations are already experimenting with hybrid workforce models (ex: Talent.io; Dropbox; Spotify..) They combine employees and freelancers, externalize certain functions while protecting strategic core capabilities, and organise work around outcomes rather than static roles. Performance is assessed through contribution and impact, not only presence or tenure.

Global research reinforces this direction. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs reports describe how workforce strategies are evolving in response to economic, technological, and societal shifts. Microsoft’s Work Trend Index similarly highlights the emergence of new organisational forms designed for flexibility, speed, and distributed expertise.

Not the end of employment, but the end of a single model

None of this suggests the end of salaried work. What is ending is the idea that one employment model can fit all aspirations, all life stages, and all organisational needs.

The organisations that will remain attractive and resilient are not necessarily those that offer the strongest control or the longest promises, but those that can create clear, responsible, and flexible frameworks of contribution, frameworks where people can engage without sacrificing their health or their lives outside work.

Opening the conversation

If what emerges from these trainings resonates with what you are seeing in your own organisation in recruitment, engagement, or leadership dynamics, then the conversation is worth opening.

The key question may no longer be:

“How do we make people stay?”

But rather:

How do we design organisations that can attract commitment in today’s reality through accountability, flexibility, and trust?