As we enter a new year, what can HR leaders expect? UNLEASH asked our analyst community to share their predictions for 2025, and what HR must have as their resolutions for the New Year.
2024 was a special year, will 2025 be more of the same? Or pose new, different challenges for the HR function?
Read on to get the views of leading analysts from HRtechradar, The Josh Bersin Company, Talent Tech Labs, Fosway Group and H3 HR Advisors.
Find out their predictions for 2025, and what HR needs to prioritize in their New Years resolutions.
2024 was a standout year for the HR function.
Notably because, in the words of Kathi Enderes, SVP of Research at The Josh Bersin Company, it was “a year for HR teams to focus on HR reinvention”, especially when it came to topics like AI and skills.
As we enter a new year, will 2025 be more of the same? Or will 2025 present new challenges and opportunities for HR?
UNLEASH put these questions to our community of leading HR analysts; here are their perspectives on and predictions of what this year will bring for the HR function.
The leading HR analysts UNLEASH spoke to had differing views about what 2025 has in store for HR.
Rana Fatima, Senior Research Analyst at Talent Tech Labs, anticipates that “2025 will be a continuation of 2024”, particularly around AI.
Her Talent Tech Lab colleagues Dustin Schrader, Senior Data Analyst, and Nicole Mundy, Senior Research Analyst, agree.
Schrader tells UNLEASH: “We’ll see significant advances in technologies that are already becoming quite prominent (e.g., AI), but I don’t expect any substantial changes in the labor market or consumer and business spending that would elicit a big shift in how organizations are hiring new workers or managing their current workforces.”
However, there was divergence of opinion among the HR analyst community.
Josh Bersin, UNLEASH World keynote, global industry analyst, and CEO of The Josh Bersin Company, is very clear that “2025 will look vastly different”.
He sees the next generation of AI, agents, as being key to this position.
As agents go “mainstream”, they are “fundamentally transforming the HR tech stack, broadening use cases, and reshaping job roles”.
“The possibilities are incredibly exciting,” according to Bersin.
His colleague, Enderes, argues that agentic AI will ensure that “HR’s role will become much more important” in 2025.
She explains: “Gone are the days where we had to deal with antiquated dated legacy systems and struggle through them.
Instead, we will be able to use AI agents to empower employees with much simpler, more engaging, and more useful HR technology.
“In 2025, we’ll have AI agents in every major area of HR, and integrated agentic systems that handle recruiting, L&D, employee career management, and employee service.”
This optimism explains why tech giants like Salesforce and Workday are taking bets on agentic AI as a huge step forward for the future of not just HR, but businesses as a whole.
Of course, it is not just AI that will make 2025 different from 2024.
For Trish Steed, Founder & Principal Analyst at H3 HR Advisors, other important trends are that “numerous countries are in the midst of social and political unrest”.
“Add to that the economic pressures and certain current events that tend to bend and shape the workplace and you have a perfect recipe for a different 2025”, continues Steed.
Of course, many of these challenges are the same as in 2024 – as are trends like wellbeing, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) and upskilling – but what will change this year, for Steed, is “the nuance in approach”.
Interestingly, David Perring, Chief Insights Officer at Fosway Group, agrees that “the big problems haven’t gone away – climate, conflict, employees’ declining sense in the value of their renumeration, pace of innovation, demographics, employee engagement, skills availability, AI disruption”.
“We don’t have strong answers, so not much will change. There will be a lot more of the same, but those with the most ‘intelligence’ and the most empowered talent will start to win more and more”, Perring concludes.
Talent Tech Labs’ Global Head of Research David Francis adds: “2024 was a year where a lot of new capabilities and solutions came to market; 2025 is going to see a massive acceleration in adoption and new paradigms.
I think 2025 is going to feel a lot more futuristic than anything we’ve seen in 2024, or over the last decade.”
In this context of a futuristic 2025, UNLEASH was keen to find out what our analyst community think HR leaders need to prioritize this year – what must they put on their list of New Years resolutions?
For Francis from Talent Tech Labs, “2025 is a year to break out from the pack, build new solutions, and win your market”. It’s an opportunity to “think bigger” and make things happen.
Anita Lettink, Partner & Founder at HRtechradar, agrees – she tells UNLEASH that HR’s resolution must be “stay curious, be cautious, and embrace experimentation” – while Perring from Fosway calls on HR to be “human-kind and real-value focused” this year.
These resolutions particularly come to the fore when it comes to technology and AI; our HR analyst community has lots of advice for what HR professionals must keep top of mind regarding HR tech in 2025.
Schrader from Talent Tech Labs calls on HR leaders to “optimize, rather than expand,” their tech stack. “Take time to see whether your organization already has the tools it needs and how the organization can better make use of those tools,” he adds.
Lettink also calls on HR leaders to go back to basics in 2025 – “getting the basics (core HR, payroll, time) right isn’t basic at all – it’s transformative”.
“With so many new technologies and innovations coming to the market, keeping up can be challenging.
“HR professionals should…prioritize initiatives that align with your company’s goals”, as well as “avoid trying to tackle everything at once”, according to Lettink.
Mundy from Talent Tech Labs shares that getting tech foundations right is key in 2025 – “HR must finally learn to control, manage and understand organizational data and HR data”, otherwise “companies will be lost in the new wave of AI”.
Perring agrees, and calls on HR to “be careful in how you engage with AI”. “Make sure you have the IT governance, AI compliance to keep you on the right side of the law”.
The key for Perring when it comes to AI and HR technology is that “this is not a race to be first. It’s a race to get it right and deliver the most value”.
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Chief Reporter
Allie is an award-winning business journalist and can be reached at alexandra@unleash.ai.
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