As one year ends and another begins, we’ve been collating insights from industry experts on the HR trends of the new year. From employee engagement and workplace dynamics to the possibilities of AI, these highlight the challenges and opportunities awaiting HR professionals and business leaders in 2025.
- Empowering Frontline Workers
Over the past 12 months, there have been multiple factors that have impacted frontline workers. “Strikes across a variety of industries, the threat of AI replacing jobs, a new government imposing new employment directives, to name just a few,” explains Mark Williams, Managing Director EMEA at WorkJam. “Whilst the majority of these factors are external, they can have a big impact on the employee experience.
“Frontline workforce leaders must take measures to digitalise and empower its workforce, for the benefit of its customers, its bottom line and to help rejuvenate the economy,” he urges.
Despite the ongoing digital transformation across almost every industry sector, however, research has shown that nearly three-quarters of frontline employees are yet to benefit from tech-led efficiencies.
“As we head into 2025, all businesses should be prioritising the employee experience of their frontline workers by taking a technology-led approach to their workforce management,” advocates Williams. “Using technology to open direct lines of communication with frontline workers has an empowering and engaging effect.”
- Balancing Change with a People-Centric Approach
2025 is set to be a year of change as new governments in both the UK and US will have a big impact on businesses. Bruce Martin, CEO at Tax Systems, underscores the need to maintain a people-first perspective in uncertain times.
“Whilst today’s business leaders are fairly adept at navigating uncertainty thanks to everything from Brexit and COVID, to geopolitical challenges causing worldwide economic instability, every change brings new challenges.”
“With operational costs rising in the UK, leaders will be re-evaluating their strategies to ensure they continue to stimulate growth despite margins being squeezed,” Martin adds. “It will be crucial that organisations maintain a people-centric approach, that it is not sacrificed in a short-term quest to make operational savings.”
Instead, he calls on businesses to set clear objectives and be cost-efficient, reminding them, “don’t lose sight of the human element.”
- Retaining and Nurturing Talent
In an increasingly competitive labour market, Lindsay Gallard, Chief People Officer at Six Degrees, emphasises the importance of employee retention.
“With a quiet labour market and vacancies at a very low level, the retention and engagement of employees is more important than ever before. In this period of relatively low growth, it’s the perfect opportunity to be focusing on how to help people progress their careers internally while growing and developing in their roles.
“The economic forecast for next year seems positive, predicting higher consumer spending and increased business growth; however, the national insurance rates are also rising for businesses, which may in fact counteract any boosted spending.”
Gallard predicts that there will be “more of a focus on organisations maximising existing talent already available to them. Working to retain and nurture their own people will help businesses to avoid the challenges that will inevitably surround hiring and talent acquisition next year.”
- Transforming Learning and Development
An obvious way to improve retention is with impactful learning and development (L&D) initiatives. However, research shows that only half of UK office workers feel they have sufficient opportunities to learn. Building engaging, personalised learning programs is another challenge in itself.
Des V. Anderson, Co-Founder & CTO at LearnUpon, discusses how AI technologies are transforming learning experiences. “Predictably, AI and automation are significant contributors, providing those using learning management systems (LMS) with the ability to individualise experiences. AI has begun to pull user history, prompts, and organisational data, providing quality learning experiences that require less effort from managers.”
Looking ahead to 2025, Anderson predicts, “organisations will continue to use AI and machine learning, skills-driven personalisation, and collaboration-focused learning technology.” He believes organisations that embrace these advancements will be better equipped to engage their workforce and foster development.
- Harnessing AI in Recruitment and Retention
Martha Delehanty, Chief People Officer at Commvault, also highlights the growing role of AI in recruitment processes. “As we move into 2025, AI becomes more and more relevant and the tools at our disposal have components of AI driving behind it.
“GenAI opportunities like linking a perspective candidate’s LinkedIn profile with a company’s job description will assist recruiters with personalised outreach messages. The AI-assisted InMail functionality in LinkedIn Recruiter is already showing an increased acceptance rate (nearly double our templated messages) and this is just the beginning.”
In 2025, Delehanty envisions AI playing a pivotal role in predicting cultural fit and enhancing retention strategies. “In the coming year we will also see changes well beyond resume screening, to include helping organisations predict cultural fit, forecast employee engagement, and enhance retention strategies.
“Companies that integrate AI thoughtfully in HR will lean heavily into soft skills and streamlining the work to be more efficient and effective.”
- Elevating Contact Centre Careers
On a positive note, recent research from Calabrio revealed that agents in European contact centres are feeling positive about working in the industry – 70% would recommend the job to a friend and 64% say that they are proud to work in a contact centre.
“As we reach the end of 2024, it is great to see the progress that has been made to make contact centres a positive working environment,” explains Ed Creasey, Vice President of Solution Engineering at Calabrio.
“Agent wellbeing should continue to be a priority as we move into 2025, where the use of AI to handle the basic customer request will grow, and agents will be faced with a growing proportion of complex and emotional interactions.”
Creasey suggests leveraging AI for coaching and analytics to empower agents with career progression plans. “Enabling agents to self-assess empowers them to proactively take action to improve, often without any management intervention. Integrating this process with AI allows AI-powered coaching to be provided and tailored to each individual agents’ needs and preferences.”
HR will play a critical role in shaping the future of work in 2025. By embracing innovation and maintaining a focus on people, organisations can navigate the complexities of the year ahead and emerge stronger, more resilient, and better equipped to achieve their goals.
