The Real Risk in Talent Strategy? Ignoring Experience
In a year defined by acceleration, AI disruption, and leadership turnover, many companies are making a costly mistake:
They’re cutting experience under the guise of efficiency.
But as we enter 2026, the organizations that will thrive aren’t those with the leanest cost structures. They’re the ones that know how to translate experience into strategic advantage.
The global workforce is at a crossroads
40% of workers will require reskilling within three years due to AI. [IBM]
Leadership churn is at historic highs. More than 1,400 CEOs stepped down in the first half of 2023 alone. [Challenger]
Millennials and Gen Z now represent 70% of the global workforce, bringing fresh perspective, but less lived leadership experience. [ManpowerGroup]
In this climate, many organizations have responded by prioritizing speed, scale, and emerging talent. But often, that comes at the expense of institutional wisdom.
The very asset most capable of stabilizing change.
Experience Is Not Overhead. It's Infrastructure.
When senior talent is let go during restructures or bypassed in leadership succession, it’s easy to justify in terms of salary cost. But the true price is paid in:
Leadership readiness gaps. Companies often mistake high potential for high readiness. GE’s volatile leadership changes post-Immelt are a case in point: a lack of succession depth contributed to one of the fastest declines in market cap in Fortune 100 history.
Cultural drift. Experienced employees carry the unspoken context that defines an organization's DNA. When they exit, culture often unravels faster than any org chart can capture.
Decision-making drag. According to Harvard Business Review, mixed-experience teams are 45% more likely to generate breakthrough ideas than homogenous ones. [HBR]
Put plainly: when companies cut experience, they often sever their own safety net.
Mentorship: Your Most Underrated ROI Lever
Mentorship isn’t a soft skill program. It’s a business continuity strategy. Yet only 37% of U.S. employees report having a mentor at work. [Gallup]
In a world where knowledge cycles are shortening and generational turnover is accelerating, mentorship offers compounding returns:
Reduces failure rates among newly promoted leaders
Accelerates integration of external hires
Transmits institutional knowledge faster than manuals or wikis ever could
Builds loyalty and psychological safety across generations
At Microsoft, reverse mentoring has been used not only to train executives on new technologies, but to strengthen intergenerational trust, inclusion, and engagement.
These aren’t perks; they’re performance enablers.
Experience + Mentorship = Strategic Force Multiplier
The McKinsey Global Institute found that organizations with strong mentoring cultures had profit margins 18% higher than those without. [McKinsey]
The most progressive companies are shifting how they value and deploy experienced talent:
✔️ Enterprise mentors: Positioning senior leaders as internal coaches to scale decision-making.
✔️ Fractional roles: Retaining wisdom through part-time, advisory, or board-level positions.
✔️ Cross-functional mentorship networks: Embedding mentorship as part of leadership KPIs, not optional extras.
At People Advisory Group, we help organizations design mentorship architectures that bridge gaps. Not just in knowledge, but in capability, confidence, and culture.
Protecting Experience Is a Future-Proofing Strategy
This is about more than nostalgia. It's about risk mitigation, succession acceleration, and organizational resilience.
When experience is ignored, you see:
Leaders flailing in new roles.
Cultures unraveling in moments of stress.
Strategies getting recycled without refinement.
But when experience is intentionally leveraged?
New leaders rise faster.
Cultures stabilize through change.
Teams move from reactive to proactive performance.
In a world obsessed with “what’s next,” we must not forget who got us here.
The real edge belongs to those who combine boldness with wisdom and make mentorship the bridge between them.