The Year Ahead 2026: Workplace Considerations in a Globally Mobile, AI World
From technological innovation and digital nomadism to physical + emotional safety considerations and more, what work is, how it gets done, who does it and what workplaces mean will continue to engage employers in 2026.
Takeaway
“Employers see the value that AI provides, but they also must contend with the growing set of laws targeting the use of AI.”
Eric J. Felsberg
Principal | Leader, Technology Industry Group | Leader, AI Governance and Bias Testing and Pre-Employment Assessments Subgroups
Considerations
Tech’s Expanding Impact on Workforce Planning
Shifting AI Regimes Impact Global Talent Strategies
Employers can expect a growing patchwork of global compliance risks due to rapidly shifting AI-privacy regimes responding to myriad concerns from multiple angles. AI decision-making and “bossware” continue to trigger governance, monitoring and privacy challenges. And emerging algorithmic-management laws promote transparency, fairness and worker rights.
AI’s Role in Global Talent Strategy
- AI enhances recruiting, workforce planning and performance management — but with compliance risk.
- Reskilling and talent redeployment become core business imperatives.
- Multinational use of AI tools raises cross-border data, transparency and bias-audit obligations.
Immigration + Global Mobility Costs
The Considerations of Broader Fees Across Categories
The Sept. 2025 “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers” presidential proclamation introducing a new $100,000 fee requirement for certain H-1B nonimmigrant visa petitions is facing two lawsuits that are in initial stages and raise the possibility the proclamation could be halted or ultimately found unlawful before the annual registration and lottery.
Rising Per-Employee Mobility Costs
Still, most employers are anticipating the heightened H-1B fee that, along with broader fee increases across visa categories, would significantly raise per-employee immigration costs.
Here are key consequences of these collective costs:
- Ongoing volatility in visa reform, adjudication standards and processing timelines make long-term immigration planning more difficult.
- Expansion of cross-border remote and hybrid work raises immigration, tax, payroll and permanent establishment risks across jurisdictions.
- Employers should discuss with counsel how to manage global mobility costs, prioritize sponsorship decisions and structure compliant cross-border work arrangements.
Better Business Immigration Case Management
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Jackson Lewis’ advanced immigration case management system accounts for every step of the onboarding process, providing employers and their foreign nationals and recruiters with real-time updates, state-of-the-art reporting tools and more.
Related Content
EU Pay Transparency Directive
More Reporting + Rigor for Multinationals
EU member states have until June 7, 2026, to implement the EU Pay Transparency Directive 2023/970 into their national law.
The Directive requires salary transparency, broadens employee access to pay data and mandates pay data reporting for employers with at least 100 employees. It applies to all employers based in the EU or with employees in EU member states, strengthens enforcement and imposes potential penalties at the member state level.
Here’s what employers need to know and can start to do as 2026 begins.
EU Employer Obligations
- Disclose starting salary or pay range in job postings or before interviews; no salary-history questions.
- Provide employees with information about their pay and average pay levels for comparable roles, upon request.
- Employers with 100+ EU employees must publish pay gap data.
- Conduct joint pay assessments with worker representatives if gaps exceed five percent without objective justification.
- Reports for larger employers (250+ employees) are due in 2027, with smaller employers following on a staggered schedule.
Multinational Employers + the Road Ahead
- Conduct pay structure audits now to identify potential risks before reporting begins.
- Create Directive-aligned hiring and pay-progression policies that integrate EU, U.S. and other global transparency requirements.
- Ensure HRIS and analytics systems can capture, standardize and report required pay data across countries.
- Employers should discuss with counsel how to structure pay transparency practices, equity analyses, action plans, training and documentation in a way that supports compliance while mitigating risk.
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