No matter which industry you look into, 2024 had a massive impact on the way we work. The new developments and ongoing global events give rise to perplexing concerns and controversies:
- While technological advancements are taking on a massive portion of our daily tasks, they make employees fearful of job displacements.
- The overall economic and geopolitical situation makes employees hold on to their jobs tighter, it also instills tremendous organizational anxiety.
- And whereas constant change brings along a lot of opportunities for growth, it makes leaders and their teams fatigued in the perpetual attempts to keep up.
Since it’s better to anticipate potential risks than simply respond to them, here we present the biggest HR trends to watch out for in 2025. Read this post till the end to understand what to prepare for this year and how to address the biggest challenges that are bound to come your way as an HR professional.
1. AI is reshaping the nature of work
By far, AI makes the biggest trend this year, and it’s plain as day that it will continue to disrupt our habitual ways of doing work and business in the future to come.
According to the IMF study, “In advanced economies, about 60 percent of jobs are exposed to AI, due to prevalence of cognitive-task-oriented jobs.” In emerging market economies, the exposure equals to 40 percent, and just 26 percent in low-income states.
Since AI helps to generate ideas and create textual or visual content more rapidly, about 23% of organizational leaders expect to see better functional productivity in their teams in the following year (Gartner).
Yet do all employees really understand how to drive performance efficiency using AI? And are they even willing to integrate this new technology into their daily workflows?
Addressing these questions is the paramount task for any HR professional in 2025.
HR response:
#1: Rethinking traditional roles and overall approach to work
AI adoption requires a technical know-how and more in-depth professional expertise.
Let’s take a content creator as an example:
AI is capable of answering simple questions (sometimes even better than humans). Thus, to add value through their work, a content writer must be able to answer more complicated and nuanced questions in their texts – using their own head.
Such a task, requires advanced research and data synthesis skills – these will be a must-have for staying competitive in the profession.
An HR’s job in this regard is to help employees to acquire the necessary competencies and amp up their professional development so the entire team stays aligned with the latest technological advancements. This includes AI training programs, as well as more profession-specific education.
#2: Promoting AI experimentation
AI is still a new technology, and its true potential is not yet fully understood. This opens doors to experimentation – don’t stick to standard ways of implementing AI, try to come up with new ones:
Refer to AI to seek answers to all sorts of workplace-related issues and combine GPT content with human-generated ideas to develop innovative solutions. More importantly, encourage employees to use AI without the fear of being judged – that’s the only way to transform your approach to work in line with current trends.
2. Being slow to adopt AI-powered HR tools is a massive risk
AI adoption is the key driver of competitive advantage in any field, including HR. According to data by Gartner, “76% of HR leaders believe that if their organization does not adopt and implement AI solutions … in the next 12 to 24 months, they will be lagging in organizational success compared to those that do.”
This belief is very much reasonable.
For instance, any AI-supported software development team can produce 100% accurate code, 10x faster than a team that continues to adhere to traditional methods.
In the sphere of HR, AI-powered tools can also streamline a lot of routine processes and allow professionals to channel their creative powers to strategic planning and more specialized tasks that can directly impact team development and business growth.
HR response:
#1: Choosing your AI assistant
AI tools can solve a variety of HR problems: from recruitment and acquisition to employee performance evaluation and strategic workforce planning.
Check out this post to find out more about AI functions in HR and explore a few examples of available software.
#2: Addressing ethical challenges
“AI systems are only as unbiased as the data they’re trained on. If your historical data reflects biases – whether related to gender, race, age or other characteristics – algorithms can perpetuate and even amplify them.” – Raunak Bhandari
The collection, storage, and processing of employee data is also of major concern here.
To address these risks, double-check that the software you use is designed in line with all the ethical standards, fair labor laws, and data safety regulations. Moreover, be transparent with your team members or job candidates about any involvement of AI in decision-making + always get written consent for personal data collection and usage.
3. Shifting to longer-term workforce planning is a must
The emerging technologies create an immense skills gap in the modern workforce and drive the development on new types of jobs.
Take “new-collar” jobs as an example. They require one to be competent in AI, cybersecurity, and similar hi-tech fields that are currently on demand. However, to do such jobs you don’t need an advanced degree (Source). Essentially, it’s like blue-collar work of the new era – a completely new type of work with its unique features, workflows, and workplace contexts.
To be able to deal with such workforce changes effectively, HRs need to understand how to make solid plan for long-term periods. Currently, 61% of HR leaders report that their workforce planning is limited to just one year (Gartner). Yet, by long-term planning we mean a much wider perspective.
HR response:
Adopting a strategic approach to workforce planning
Gartner defines strategic workforce planning as “capabilities-focused planning to prepare for future talent needs 2+ years in advance.”
Such a complex activity is easier to perform when broken down into smaller portions. To do so, you need to figure out the following four things:
Deliverables, i.e., desired end results at each phase of strategic workforce planning.
Data, i.e., the information you need to achieve the defined deliverables.
Talent strategies, i.e., specific methods you will use to fill the growing skills gap.
Stakeholder support, i.e., organizational roles that will help you complete each phase successfully.
For example, suppose you made a solid workforce strategy plan that will help you retain your best talents and develop them. Now, you want to initiate the testing phase to see if it works.
A deliverable here could be a finished pilot test + you need to collect data on the impacts of your new workforce strategy on your staff retention rates over time and compare it to the overall business standards.
A talent strategy you could test include enhanced employee benefits packages, greater cultural embeddedness, etc. And the people who could help you realize the pilot test include HR analyst, CHRO, etc.
4. New leadership qualifiers enter the game
Traditional approaches to leadership are also rapidly changing.
According to Laura Smith-Proulx, a CEO at An Expert Resume, “The story of your career ascent is no longer your main qualifier [as a leader]; instead, it’s your ability to evolve the organization and mature your perspective on handling and embracing disruptions, including generative AI and the new perspectives offered by Gen-Z, Gen-Alpha and other emerging leaders.”
This trend calls for a completely new approach to leadership development + competent support for managers struggling with the ever-growing scale of their professional responsibilities.
HR response:
Amplifying human qualities
AI can easily take on a portion of leaders’ tasks, allowing them to shift focus to something more important and emphasizing the need to strengthen the truly human skills.
Effective relationship-building, empathy, and the ability to build people-centered cultures are the things that will differentiate a great leader from a mediocre one in the years to come. Thus, having leadership development programs that focus on emotional intelligence, networking, and communication is pivotal.
5. Constant change exhausts your employees
“Nothing is black or white anymore. People accept that the world is in a state of flux. Core foundations and presumptions can change quickly and organisations need to be able to adapt with the same speed.” – PwC
Your company’s adaptability to change is a matter of culture and your overall approach to change management. The problem here is that traditional change management models are not well suited for continual transformations – they don’t take into account that employees grow more and more fatigued with every new attempt to adapt to changes.
According to Gartner, fatigued employees tend to be disengaged, show lower intent to stay in their companies and don’t feel psychologically safe. And since employee attitudes directly affect business performance, undertaking a conscious approach to change management is of paramount importance.
HR response:
#1: Collaborating with change influencers
According to Gartner, “successful organizations understand that transformative change happens through employees, not to them. By partnering with employees and leaders to identify areas which will accelerate change adoption, HR leaders can create sustainable change led from within the organization.”
But what should you do exactly?
Firstly, identify the need for change and analyze your readiness to implement it.
Secondly, design a step-by-step plan on how to implement the change.
Thirdly, find supportive employees with strong peer connections who can communicate with others about change in a positive way.
Such a network-centered way of managing change is effective at promoting change awareness and engaging employees in the process. The result – lower resistance to constant transformation and greater organization-wide agility.
#2: Infusing the antifragility concept into your workplace culture
The term of antifragility is used to define “systems or entities that can not only withstand chaos, uncertainty and volatility but actually thrive and improve in the face of such challenges” (Forbes). While the conventional concept of resilience implies one’s capability of withstanding troubles and difficulties, antifragility, on the other hand, actively embraces those troubles and uses them as an opportunity to grow and thrive.
To embed this new concept in your workplace culture, you can:
- Welcome disruption and encourage your team to see at as an opportunity rather than threat.
- Engage employees in continual learning.
- Develop enormous tolerance toward failures and view them as a chance to learn new things.
- Experiment and stay open to new trends.
This way, you can help employees build stronger mental stamina and promote innovation at the same time.
Stay on Top of Resource Management with actiPLANS
As the world keeps evolving, one thing remains the same – you must have reliable and effective methods for resource management. Luckily, actiPLANS is ready to supply you with many intuitive tools that adapt to your needs and policies even if they keep on changing in response to current HR trends.
The software allows for a fully automated leave management process – you simply need to create your custom leave types and set PTO accrual rules, and after that actiPLANS will do all the complex calculations for you, and helping your team schedule time off in a matter of seconds.
It also lets you create bespoke locations or work types and create long-term employee schedules way in advance.
To plan out your workforce capacity even better, make sure to use detailed reports – they provide a wealth of data on staff absences and working time by location / activity that help to better anticipate your internal workforce trends and manage staff accordingly.
actiPLANS has even more handy features in store! Explore them all during a free 30-day trial. Make sure to sign up!
