Workforce Planning Trends in 2026: HARDI Talent Development

The final quarter of 2025 proved to be both strategic and forward-looking for many of our members. As organizations finalized their 2026 strategic plans, a significant focus emerged around workforce planning — specifically identifying the skills, capabilities, and leadership competencies required to execute those plans in the coming year. In the Cross-Industry Compensation & Benefits Survey from 2024 HARDI members along with other Firms identified the following issues:

The ability to attract qualified employees has emerged as the top organizational concern, closely followed by employee retention. Together, these two critical priorities form the foundation of long-term business success. Without the right talent, companies struggle to innovate, compete, and grow. Equally important, failing to retain skilled employees leads to increased costs, lost institutional knowledge, decreased morale, and operational disruption. Organizations that strategically invest in recruiting high-caliber talent and creating an environment where employees feel valued, supported, and motivated position themselves for sustained performance, stability, and competitive advantage.

This emphasis aligns with broader labor market data. According to McKinsey, nearly 87% of organizations report current or anticipated skills gaps within their workforce, while the World Economic Forum projects that 44% of workers’ core skills will change within a five-year period. For distribution and sales-driven industries like HVACR, this shift is particularly pronounced as companies navigate evolving customer expectations, digital transformation, and margin pressures.

Responding to Workforce Needs

Recognizing this trend, HARDI Talent strategically expanded its faculty in the second half of 2025 to better serve member needs. In late summer, Don Gillis joined as HVACR Technical Trainer, followed by Jeff Revlett in late fall as Director of Sales Coaching. These additions significantly enhanced HARDI Talent’s ability to deliver both technical excellence and sales leadership development — two critical pillars for distributor performance.

By expanding our faculty bench, HARDI Talent strengthened its capacity to customize training engagements based on where each member organization stands in its talent journey. Our approach begins with a comprehensive assessment of current capabilities — evaluating both functional skillsets (technical, operational, sales) and leadership competencies. These insights are then directly aligned to each company’s strategic objectives, ensuring development efforts are not isolated training events but targeted investments tied to measurable business outcomes.

Employee Performance and Company Success

“According to McKinsey research, companies that focus on employee performance and talent development are 4.2× more likely to outperform peers financially, achieve ≈30% higher revenue growth, and maintain lower attrition rates compared with organizations that do not prioritize these practices.” Specifically, HARDI Talent’s ability to scale offerings while acting as a true extension of our members’ teams represents a differentiated value of HARDI Membership.

During the back half of 2025, the Talent team conducted extensive due diligence across the channel — including Needs Assessments, Focus Groups, and one-on-one interviews with distributors, manufacturers, and contractors. These qualitative insights were paired with HARDI’s Marketing Intelligence data to ensure programming decisions were informed by both market trends and frontline realities.

This research directly informed the development and refinement of the following certification programs:

• People Leader

• Territory Manager Foundations

• Territory Manager Performance

• Dynamic Sales Leadership

• Inside Sales Excellence

• Counter Specialist

Each program is intentionally designed around HARDI’s multidimensional learning philosophy. Participants engage in structured pre-work to establish baseline knowledge and context, immersive in-classroom sessions led by industry practitioners and subject matter experts, and post-session application assignments to reinforce behavioral change and measurable performance improvement.

This blended approach reflects adult learning research indicating that learning retention increases from approximately 10% through lecture-based instruction to as much as 70% when learners actively apply concepts in real-world settings. By embedding practical application and accountability into every program, HARDI Talent ensures development translates into operational impact.

Preparing for 2026…and Beyond

As members move into 2026, the ability to build bench strength, accelerate sales performance, and develop next-generation leaders will remain central to competitive advantage. HARDI Talent stands ready not simply as a training provider, but as a strategic workforce partner — scaling alongside our members and delivering customized, data-informed solutions that drive measurable results across the HVACR channel.

HARDI provides our members with best-in-class training programs, both public and private, and customized eLearning programs relevant to the HVACR industry. If you’d like to learn more about these programs to engage and retain your associates or discuss how to attract, recruit, or hire associates, contact HARDI’s Talent Development Team.