Bosses prepared to lure staff back to the office with higher pay and promotions

Global CEOs predict staff will be working full-time from offices in the next three years and that investing in AI will power global economic growth, according to a survey of top business leaders by international professional services company KPMG.

More than four in five company leaders (83%) think hybrid working will be soon be a thing of the past, up significantly from 64% (three-in-five) in 2023.

The majority of the bosses, drawn from 11 major global economies, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, USA and China, reported a willingness to offer staff sweeteners to lure them back to the office.

Around 9 in 10 (87%) were happy to reward staff who made the effort to be in the office, with favourable assignments, pay rises or even promotions.

The wide-ranging KPMG survey of 1,325 top CEOs overseeing companies with annual revenues between US$500m and US$10bn, provides a snapshot of their priorities, plans and concerns across 11 key industry sectors - asset management, automotive, banking, consumer and retail, energy, infrastructure, insurance, life sciences, manufacturing, technology, and telecommunications.

The polling found that confidence in the growth prospects of the global economy had fallen considerably over the past ten years since the survey was first conducted.

Only 72% of CEOs were confident about the direction of the world economy over the next three years, compared to 93 percent in 2015.

Across European nations, confidence rates were slightly lower than the average. Among business leaders in France, Spain and Italy only 68% believed global economic growth would improve in the next three years.

Only in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, and the UK, which sits outside the European trading bloc, were confidence