Five New Year’s resolutions for HR leaders in 2025

We are nearing the end of 2024.

Of course, it’s important to reflect on the state of HR and the workplace this year – what have been successes and progress, and where have mistakes been made? However, always looking backwards can be a distraction.

Instead, as a new year begins, let’s look ahead and predict how HR can drive real progress in 2025.

To do this, UNLEASH dug into the data, and came up with five new years resolutions for HR leaders for 2025.

Here’s what we learnt from analyzing large-scale research reports from ADP, Wellhub, meQuilibrium, McLean and Workl, and speaking to executives at those brands. What five things must top HR leaders’ to-do lists in 2025?

1. Think outside the box on wellbeing

In 2024, 52% of employees have been burnout in the past year, 37% report feeling so overwhelmed that it was hard to do their job, and 80% say burnout and wellbeing challenges have impacted their work performance (and affected their emotional and psychological health).

These ADP statistics are damning – importantly, the findings are confirmed by research from meQuilibrium and McLean.

meQuilibrium’s survey of 6,700 employees and 250 HR executives found that workers are highly anxious of change (34%), and this is impacting their wellbeing; they have significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety and burnout.

The issue is that organizations aren’t stepping up sufficiently to look after employees in their time of need.

ADP’s data found that there is a 29% care delivery gap between employees who say they were impacted by burnout and those who say their employer demonstrated care during these challenging times.

Clearly, something needs to change.

Talking exclusively to UNLEASH, Wellhub’s Chief People Officer Livia Martini shares some advice. “We’re in an era where the lines between work and life blur – that’s not going anywhere in 2025.”

Now is the time for HR to really foster a culture of wellbeing; “encourage open conversations about mental health, provide time and space for wellbeing practices, and lead by example” from the top, continues Martini.

Wellbeing is “not one-size-fits-all” – personalization is key to getting wellbeing benefits right in 2025. Martini calls on employers and HR leaders to “offer resources and empower employees to choose what works best for them at each moment in time”.

Organizations need to think outside of the box, and not just invest in physical and mental wellbeing.

Wellhub’s data pulled out an increased employee focus on nutrition in 2024.

McLean’s 2025 HR trends report found that 70% of employees see economic instability as the biggest threat to their wellbeing, but noted that this facet of wellbeing saw the lowest levels of investment.

Workl’s Founder Lord Mark Price shares with UNLEASH that “fair compensation remains a strong determinant of employee satisfaction in 2024”; “it continues to be a top factor for workplace happiness and retention”.

At the end of the day, by creating “a workplace where employees feel supported, engaged, and empowered to prioritize their wellbeing”, that is “investing in the human capital that drives organizational success”, concludes Martini.

2. Keep the human touch top of mind with AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) has dominated the HR discourse since ChatGPT emerged on the scene two years ago.

In a recent UNLEASH piece about ChatGPT’s impact on the HR function, experts predicted what AI’s continued influence would be over the next two years.

Wilson’s EVP of Product Michael Beygelman states that HR leaders have a chance to step up and “become agents of change in this transformation”.

“The future belongs to those who can effectively bridge the human-AI divide,” Beygelman concludes.

In a press webinar, McLean’s Director of HR Research & Advisory Services William Howard asked: “Where do we find the balance between leaning more and more into technology, while still bringing value to the human aspects of work that aren’t going to change?”

The issue right now is that only 42% of the 800 HR leaders studied by McLean were using AI in HR, and only 7% currently had a formal strategy for AI in their organization (a “concerning” figure for Howard).

It is time for HR to step up and improve how it supports the wider organization on AI – at the end of the day, for Howard, due its change management expertise, “HR can have a huge impact on the organization’s ability to adopt new technology”.

Building on these human-first approaches to AI, ADP’s GM for the UK & Northern Europe Sirsha Haldar tells UNLEASH: “The integration of generative AI into HR practices is reshaping how work gets done, driving efficiencies, but also demanding careful, ethical implementation to ensure compliance with new regulations.”

Haldar continues that looking ahead to 2025, HR leaders must “leverage AI responsibly by respecting that balance between and technology”.

During an UNLEASH and The Josh Bersin Company webinar earlier this year, when asked the biggest barrier to successful AI implementation, one in five (20%) cited regulatory challenges. A further quarter (27%) stated the lack of trust in the AI outcome, which is something that better ethical AI frameworks can solve.

Of course, HR leaders must also remember that there are not just incoming regulations on AI for HR leaders to watch out for – there’s also a growing legislative focus on pay equity and transparency.

3. Embrace skills-first approaches to hiring and upskilling

For ADP, generative AI has made skills a business priority in 2024.

Given the challenging labor market this year – one that looks set to continue into 2025 – “skills are quickly rising to the top of priority lists for employers and employees”.

There’s been a shift to a skills-first approach to talent which ADP’s Haldar describes as a “game-changer”. It sees organizations move “away from traditional qualifications and emphasizing the need for continuous upskilling and reskilling to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving job market”.

ADP’s data shows that 90% of HR leaders using skills-based hiring have reduced their mis-hires, while 94% agree that skills-based hiring is more predictive of on-the-job success than CVs.

This fact helps to explain McLean’s finding that recruitment, which was the number one HR priority from 2020 to 2024, has now dropped to number five.

Clearly, organizations are rethinking how they control labor costs and shifting away from acquiring all the skills they need from the external market, and instead looking towards upskilling and reskilling their existing workforce.

A challenge remains in figuring out the balance between digital and people skills.

ADP called on HR leaders to “prioritize human, or soft, skills since technology can’t replace interpersonal skills”.

According to UNLEASH and Workhuman webinar in January 2024, communications (27%), flexibility and adaptability (25%), team work (21%) and problem solving (21%) were the essential people skills for organizations to foster amongst their workforces.

When it comes to HR leaders themselves, they lead the way in these skills, but lag behind when it comes to digital skills.

According to McLean’s data, HR ranks its own proficiency in data and technology skills at 31%, compared to 37% for business acumen, 49% for change and risk management and 66% relational skills.

This is concerning as it means “HR’s ability to facilitate data-driven decision making remains so low”. Ultimately, when thinking about skills and skills gaps, HR also needs to turn its attention inwards and future proof its own function.

4. Stop forcing the commute on people

Return to office mandates continued to dominate the headlines in 2024. The best example is Amazon, the world’s biggest private employer, calling its employees back into the office five days a week.

The data from Workl shows that these mandates may be a mistake, and that organizations planning to switch up their working location policy in 2025 may want to think again if they want to be able to retain and attract the talent they need.

4,000 individuals told Workl that flexibility would improve their working lives – this plays out in terms of their hours, but also where they work.

“Hybrid and flexible working arrangements continue to be significant drives of workplace happiness”, shares Workl’s Lord Price with UNLEASH.

The commute remains a “major concern” for employees – “many view commuting time as lost personal time, even though it falls outside working hours”, continues Lord Price, who is also the author of Happy Economics: Why The Happiest Workplaces are the Most Successful.

“In response to the question, ‘what three things would make your working life easier?’, nearly 3,000 respondents in 2024 requested greater opportunities for remote work and reductions in travel time, underscoring the importance of better work-life balance”.

It is important, however, according to meQuilibrium’s report, that HR leaders don’t assume that remote employees’ are fine.

Work location is increasingly not shielding employees from rising stress, remote workers (just like hybrid and in-person workers) still need more support to protect them from burnout, which was discussed in the first resolution.

5. Make sure you look after your managers

While HR leaders have a key role to play in determining the top-down strategy on the previous four topics – wellbeing, AI, skills and workplace location – it is managers who are in the trenches in the workplace.

People managers are being asked to do more than ever…additional tasks are being added to their plants without existing responsibilities being removed”, McLean’s Howard tells UNLEASH.

This explains why they are 1.7 times more likely to report higher stress levels than individual contributors, according to McLean’s data.

The problem is that if managers are facing 59% higher emotional demands than individual contributors, as meQuilibrium’s report found, how are they supposed to step up to support employees? Remember, managers are well-known to play a crucial role in retention, an essential if organizations are to thrive in the future of work.

For Brad Smith, meQuilibrium’s Chief Science Officer, this ‘support gap’ for managers “creates a dangerous cascade effect where those responsible” for wellbeing of their teams “are themselves experiencing heightened exposure without adequate support”.

Howard concludes: “Something HR will be challenged with in 2025 is how to equip managers to support the wellbeing of their employees while still managing their own wellbeing burnout”.

The key to success, according to meQuilibrium, is to strengthen manager support systems – this could be more training, resources and peer-to-peer support groups so they put their best foot forward at work, which has the ripple effect of enabling all employees to do the same.