For years, many organizations treated hiring challenges as a temporary problem.
The labor market would eventually improve. Candidate pipelines would get stronger. Open positions would become easier to fill.
Lately, though, that mindset seems to be changing.
According to Chief Executive's 2026 Best & Worst States for Business report, 41% of CEOs expect to expand their organization's real estate footprint this year. At the same time, fewer than a quarter expect to fully achieve their hiring goals. The average hiring fill rate is expected to decline from 74% to 69%.
At first glance, those numbers don't seem to go together.
If hiring remains difficult, why are so many organizations still planning to grow?
The answer may be simple: Growth opportunities don't always arrive when staffing levels are ideal.
Customers still need to be served. New markets still open up. Strategic opportunities still appear. Most leaders can't afford to put growth plans on hold while they wait for hiring conditions to improve.
So instead, they're adapting.
One thing this survey makes clear is that many CEOs aren't expecting perfect staffing conditions before moving forward with their plans.
That's a notable shift.
The conversation is no longer, "We'll grow once we have enough people."
It's becoming, "How do we grow with the people we have while continuing to build the team we need?"
For small and mid-sized businesses, that's an especially important distinction.
The survey found that the smallest organizations are missing roughly half of their target hires, while the largest companies are filling more than 80% of theirs.
Most growing businesses don't have a large recruiting department, a nationally recognized brand, or excess capacity sitting on the sidelines. When a role stays open, the impact is felt quickly.
And unlike larger organizations, many SMBs don't have the luxury of spreading that impact across multiple teams.
In many growing organizations, an unfilled position doesn't simply remain unfilled.
The work gets redistributed.
Managers take on more responsibility. Team members stretch further. Deadlines get adjusted. Sometimes the CEO steps in to fill the gap.
For a while, that can work.
But over time, it creates pressure across the organization.
That's one reason the disconnect in this survey is so interesting. CEOs are still pursuing growth opportunities even though many expect hiring challenges to continue.
The implication is that organizations are learning how to operate in an environment where workforce constraints may be part of the reality for the foreseeable future.
If you know you're unlikely to fill every position you hoped to hire for this year, every hiring decision becomes more important.
A few years ago, a hiring mistake was frustrating.
Today, it can be much more costly.
The wrong hire can slow down a team, consume valuable manager time, create additional turnover, and send you right back into a hiring process that may already be taking longer than expected.
That's why hiring success isn't just about finding someone who can do the job.
It's about finding someone who is likely to succeed in your environment.
Someone who aligns with your culture. Someone who understands expectations. Someone who can build strong relationships with their manager and teammates. Someone who has the potential to grow with the organization.
When hiring becomes more difficult, fit, retention, and long-term success matter even more.
In a labor market where many leaders already expect to miss at least some of their hiring targets, success can't be measured by speed alone.
The goal isn't simply filling an opening.
It's making a hiring decision that strengthens the business six months, a year, or even several years down the road.
The organizations that navigate growth most successfully may not be the ones that hire the most people.
They may be the ones that consistently make thoughtful hiring decisions, retain the talent they've worked hard to find, and build teams that can support growth over the long term.
The Chief Executive data suggests that many CEOs have accepted a new reality: growth isn't waiting for hiring to catch up.
That makes every hiring decision more important than ever.
If you're growing and don't know if you can count on filling every role, we’re here to help you find the right fit. Let's have a conversation.