Supporting the diffusion and uptake of business innovation can yield broad productivity benefits and enhance mental capital and transferable skills.

To reverse the productivity slowdown, significant investments in research and innovation are needed, accompanied by well-designed national policies that move beyond the traditional linear ‘lab to market’ model of commercialisation to the development of ‘innovation ecosystems’.

Enhancing cognitive and relational competencies to leverage technological advances and adjusting business skill structure to resemble frontier firms are proposed to deliver the largest gains in reducing the cross-sector productivity gap.

Workers need to acquire advanced skills like technological know-how, problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration and empathy due to the increase in automation and the changing nature of work. Such skills are best acquired in the context of developing deep disciplinary and/or professional/trade expertise. This is a particular priority for countries with the lowest human capital investments, where it has been estimated that the workforce of the future will only be one-third to one-half as productive as it could be if people enjoyed full health and received a high-quality education.64 65

Collaboration between employers and educators is crucial to create an adaptable workforce with quality, transferable vocational skills, reducing vulnerability to productivity declines and skills shortages.

Occupational structures should be developed to enable easier transitions between related domains of work, allowing individuals to navigate changing labour market opportunities. Micro-credentialing can facilitate transitions promoting upskilling, flexibility and improved access to education, benefiting disadvantaged populations, provided they build on systems that give quality, foundational qualifications of disciplinary, trade or professionally defined domains of expertise.

Brain Health Living Labs, facilitated by public–private–people partnerships, are needed to integrate clinical care, research and innovation to accelerate the development of evidence-based brain health solutions across all stages of life.

Research and innovation efforts should go beyond clinical trials to explore optimal mental health system design.

Models of care need to emphasise social, vocational and educational functioning, and successful work transitions.

In the post-pandemic era, business needs to move beyond a short-term focus on incentives to boost individual worker productivity and make longer-term investments in brain capital and the creation of work environments that foster collective intelligence as a pathway to enhancing innovation and adaption.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, exemptions from lockdowns reminded all societies of what sectors were most important in economic and social life. They were health, education, the food supply chains and utilities (especially telecommunications), and the provision of quality social services—especially aged and disability care.

For the last 30 years, large-scale experiments with outsourcing, compulsory competitive tendering, and the creation of quasi-markets in education and human services have steadily hollowed out the quality of the foundational economy.66 Unless the foundational economy is strengthened, the above initiatives will have limited impact.67 68

Job retention programmes during economic downturns—such as those implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic (eg, JobKeeper) preserved jobs and supported incomes, reducing the mental capital, social and mental health consequences of unemployment. These programmes should include vulnerable groups such as those reliant on casual work, individuals developing new skills, and those without accumulated assets or independent social networks.

Short-time work schemes, already in place in several countries, help businesses facing temporary declines in demand by avoiding job separations, reducing job destruction rates and improve business survival.

Investments in infrastructure for economic stimulus (usually roads, tunnels, bridges) should consider opportunities for transitions towards new goals, such as the green transition, workforce re-skilling or boosting social capital infrastructure.

Provides a living wage to those that are unemployed, underemployed or not participating in the formal economy, but are participating in socially productive activities.

Strengthens the under-resourced community sector and directly promotes social productivity.

Driven by individuals’ meaningful social contributions, shifting the meaning of work to be more inclusive.

Flexible and adaptable to social, economic and environmental changes.

Provides an alternative or supplement to the aged pension, incentivising continued social participation in retirement.

Reforms should focus on ending unhelpful subsidies, improving labour market regulations, globally overhauling taxation policies to achieve a fairer distribution of the gains of productivity, and redesigning social and economic structures to ensure more inclusive, liveable societies.

The framework would encompass an adaptive supply chain, with technology serving as an enabler, and deploy financial and fiscal buffers as defensive supports within an overall proactive stance.

Environmental, social and governance frameworks need to explicitly add brain capital and resilience to their focus and recognise the essential reskilling and upskilling requirements that are needed to help individuals and organisations adapt to a changing world.

A resilience legal framework would foster the cooperation of public sector, private sector and civil society organisations in supporting sustainability and inclusiveness across societies and help build a more resilient, stable and secure world for all.