HR Trends and Priorities You Should Know in 2025

After 20 years of consulting, advising and being an HR professional, I’ve learned we have to look ahead. How can we hope to hit targets we don’t spend time evaluating? Every big project you’ve embraced — like an employee assistance program or an exciting new benefit — moved forward because you made it happen. And it’s time to set our sights on the HR trends and priorities of 2025.

After all, our organizations succeed when we take a proactive step. No business can be effective when it just reacts without any form of planning. It’s why Steve Boese and I continue to host a podcast and manage a network focused on HR tech and strategy. We knew it when we started HR Happy Hour in 2009, and we know it now: In HR, you can never be overprepared.

By transforming your approach for the new year and beyond, you’ll help your company thrive. Now is the perfect time to set the tone. Let’s get a head start on everything that might come your way.

What’s the difference between an HR trend and a priority?

The difference between a trend and priority isn’t always clear. To make it at least a little easier, think of trends as patterns to help influence your decisions and planning. For example, trends could refer to rules or concepts — like predictive scheduling laws — that may not impact your business for years down the road. You should still consider trends, but they might not require action quite yet.

Priorities, on the other hand, are specific goals and objectives your organization deems critical. They lend themselves to policies and procedures that you can follow up on.

And remember, trends can eventually shift into priorities. Take employee well-being, for example. We recently found the need for increased attention on employees’ financial, mental and physical health. If your organization sees this trend emerge in the form of higher health care costs and a decline in productivity, you’d likely set a priority to expand your well-being resources.

In other words, you eventually have to act on trends. If you never shift them to priorities, you won’t have any results. It’s vital for us to translate trends that affect our employees into actional strategies and business priorities. Luckily, I’ll help you start for the coming year.

HR trends for 2025

To kick things off, let’s focus on what’s on the horizon. From hundreds of podcasts and interviews my network conducted this year, we identified seven trends that will shape our workplaces in 2025. These topics and focus areas will bring challenges — and opportunities — for specific areas of HR and companywide.

1. People analytics and data-driven HR practices

As organizations grow more competitive, more people expect their employers to help enhance their well-being. With this trend comes a renewed need to understand employees on a deeper level and drill down into their motivations.

Since we’ve emerged from the pandemic, businesses are placing an increased focus on the culture and experience they want to foster. Analyzing their workforce and meaningfully considering this data is key, but it also takes identifying and understanding how employees:

• feel about their work
• perceive their direct supervisors and leaders
• engage with their team and individual responsibilities
• use their tools and software
• and more

2. Employee financial well-being

Economic factors can impact all of us. But as money becomes tighter, more employees expect their organizations to provide resources to help manage it. This isn’t exclusive to raises and on-site consulting either. It could also include the access employees have to their compensation and the tech to help them better understand it.

Through 2025, it will become clearer that just getting paid isn’t enough — people will also want to learn how to better wield their wages to increase their quality of life overall.

3. AI in the workplace

In 2024, we saw the discussion around AI work explode. While its use for job descriptions and other basic tasks continues to grow, McKinsey & Company predicts AI could help deliver large-scale and in-depth training.

At the same time, generative AI still has ground to cover in terms of reducing bias in hiring and advancement. That’s why it’s still one of the higher-level trends. Keep an eye on how it’s used. It also wouldn’t hurt to think about how AI could enhance your role in the near future.

4. Employee mental health

This entry is directly related to financial health and speaks to a broader push for enhanced well-being initiatives. As employees face more stress in their personal lives, work has the potential to amplify it. Forward-thinking organizations shouldn’t just offer their workforce a place to escape, but an outlet to help soothe their concerns and improve their outlook.

Even if an employee’s mental health isn’t in crisis, you should still keep strategies to help alleviate their stress top of mind. Ultimately, improving mental health isn’t just about reaching a neutral, baseline state. Pushing for a healthier and more satisfied workforce can also help us boost efficiency and alignment with company values and culture.

5. Remote and hybrid working

While remote work may have seen a reduction throughout 2024, these and hybrid models will still have relevance in 2025 and beyond. Essentially, no matter where an employee works, they should still have the same level of attention and accessibility to resources that any worker would enjoy. The coming year will likely see new ideas emerge for how to build a community from afar and — like many of 2025’s trends — a healthier and psychologically safe environment.

And for organizations that have increased or switched back to in-person working, their HR teams should consider the significant adjustments employees may have to make to accommodate this change. Anything that makes this transition easier could help offset a wave of disengagement and burnout.

6. Employee caregiving challenges

It can sometimes be hard enough for someone experiencing stress to focus on their jobs. But when employees have to care for someone outside of work, it can make engaging with their role that much harder.

HR should keep this added responsibility in mind and consider programs that could help alleviate it. For example, employees with young children would likely benefit from a discount on after-school programs or other forms of assistance. A flexible schedule could help those caring for adults to consult with doctors and coordinate appointments.

The best combination of benefits will vary between employees. Still, in 2025, offering these resources could provide relief for those who desperately need it and keep organizational efficiency on track.

7. Challenges and opportunities with corporate DEI programs

Throughout 2024, we’ve seen significant movement around DEI initiatives — including their decline. Despite gaining traction in recent years, many organizations appear to be scaling back and reducing their focus on DEI. While the exact reason for this isn’t abundantly clear, this shouldn’t stop HR from considering employees holistically and strategizing around their needs. It may also benefit you to ask employees about their perspective on your DEI programs and if they find them valuable.

The top 5 HR priorities for 2025

We’ve seen some of what lies ahead. Now let’s dive into HR’s specific areas of focus. To help, Paycom commissioned a survey from PSB Insights in September 2024 of 1,000 U.S. HR pros to see their most common concerns, goals and challenges for 2025. Here’s where their priorities landed.

1. Employee retention

A staggering 56% of HR pros listed employee retention as one of their top priorities. This isn’t a surprise either, given this issue topped last year’s survey.

Keeping people and protecting their well-being are unquestionably vital to the long-term health of your company. It also helps reduce the overall cost of recruitment, which continues to climb. The Society for Human Resource Management estimates the average cost of a new hire is $4,700, and it’s far more efficient to keep an exceptional employee than recruit, onboard and train one of the same quality.

Frankly, I’d be shocked if employee retention wasn’t the top priority, given how much depends on it. All of the others we’ll cover ultimately feed into this goal. You won’t find a single business that doesn’t benefit from keeping a stable, more productive workforce.

But it’s not always clear how to turn off turnover. Fortunately, a possible solution is probably closer than you think. Start by asking employees what makes it good to work at your company. A tool to anonymously gather feedback is great for this and conducting stay interviews can help you dial into specific motivations. The comments you gather also help you identify what could make your employees’ experience better — before they look elsewhere.

You should also reexamine onboarding to ensure it sets up new hires for long-term success and engagement. Companies with a solid onboarding experience strengthen their retention, and most new hires will likely form the defining perception of their company during their first few weeks.

Virtually all of 2025’s HR trends, especially those centered on mental, physical and financial well-being, feed into retention. Those pushes all reflect the need to foster an environment of care and support, one that employees will actually want to work in. At the same time, it’s vital that HR continues to study and analyze data around retention and engagement. Using tools to help measure this need will be instrumental to:

• understanding retention data
• identifying areas of concern
• helping keep managers and leaders informed

Finally, be honest with your people about how you’re working to improve retention. Constantly including employees in the process will help them feel heard and might even lead you to a few unexpected ideas.

2. Employee training

Close behind retention is employee training. According to PSB Insights, just over 51% of HR pros cited it in their top priorities — a slight uptick from last year. This isn’t a new priority for HR, but it’s clearly one that’s gaining traction.

While close to career development, employee training speaks more to professional development or upskilling and reskilling programs. It can be a way to ignite advancement, but it also helps your people enhance the traits they need to become more comfortable in their roles.

And people definitely want that comfort. In a recent Gallup survey, 65% of employees said training opportunities were “very important” to them when evaluating new jobs. In fact, 48% in the same survey said they would seek a new job if it offered a greater chance to upskill. Gallup also found the newest generations of workers value employer-provided training the most — even more than PTO.

When I started my HR career in the ’90s, we knew we had a huge space to grow in employee training. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the tech to do it. That’s not the case today. Now learning management software provides a framework to engage employees with training. Plus, they can fill their skill gaps in a way that truly speaks to them.

As you continue to research and expand training, assess the talent your workforce already has. This won’t just help fill existing job openings, but also inform the positions your organization will eventually need — and the skills tied to them.

3. Employee engagement

After training, PSB Insights found 48% of HR pros prioritize employee engagement. This year, engagement overtook talent acquisition as more organizations focus on keeping and satisfying their current workforce.

I’ve discussed this topic for the last 25 years. While we’re always working on it, I still feel as though we haven’t quite figured it out. Part of this is because low engagement doesn’t have a solution you can just buy; raising it is an outcome.

Listen to what your employees want and genuinely act on it. Your attempts to boost engagement should never be a secret. After all, employees should be the first to know about the impact of your initiative. With a renewed focus on our next priority, you’ll notice that when employees feel their workplace prioritizing their well-being, engagement naturally rises.

4. Employee well-being initiatives

In a direct response to the well-being trends we saw, programs to address this issue have knocked career development out of the list of priorities. According to PSB Insights, 48% of HR pros will make this one of their primary focuses of 2025.

It’s crucial to take care of your workforce. Once they know you value their well-being — and prove it with benefits and resources — workplace engagement, satisfaction and even retention rise. However, you shouldn’t believe addressing well-being has a single solution. Your employees are unique, and so are the issues they face.

Gather feedback and take the time to truly assess it. It might take time for employees to get comfortable with asking for help. But if you put effort into creating a safe environment for them to do so, they’ll guide you toward a path to keeping them longer. Plus, when employees believe their employer cares, they’ll let their peers know their organization is a great place to work.

5. Talent acquisition

In a dramatic shift from last year, just 43% of HR pros told PSB Insights talent acquisition was among their top priorities in 2025. This result reflects a switch from organizations expanding their workforce to focusing on keeping who they have.

Essentially, talent acquisition encompasses a spectrum of HR responsibilities, including:

• workforce planning
• recruiting
• applicant tracking
• interviewing
• assessing
• hiring
• onboarding

In my experience, hiring tends to be the biggest struggle companies face in talent acquisition. Recruiting and HR tend to create distinctions between each other, but they must tear down the wall to form a connection. They need to focus on the specific processes and spot the hand-off points. Maybe you’ll find an issue with the HR platform or discover that hiring managers aren’t following up with applicants fast enough.

Additionally, HR should work on understanding where people fall out in the hiring process. Understanding these people-driven analytics can be a significant help for organizations in general, but data is absolutely key for understanding and enhancing talent acquisition. You should make the most out of reporting over:

• job posting, advertising and interview effectiveness
• application rates and drop-offs
• progress through your recruitment funnel
• offer letter acceptance
• and more

And once you identify where your talent acquisition strategy falls short, you can start to correct it. And it will need to be adjusted, even once reliable hiring processes have an expiration date. One of the most common mistakes I see organizations make involves keeping hiring practices stagnant. Your business’s success depends on adapting.

Lean on easy-to-use HR tech to streamline talent acquisition. If you work with a vendor for recruitment, ask them to share their expertise and be candid about where your strategy needs a boost.

How does the right self-service HR software help organizations focus on value-adding initiatives?

Across all workforce generations, people have the power to complete HR tasks themselves. Doing so gives HR the space to focus on the big picture while improving the accuracy of employee data. Self-service tech also helps businesses attract members of Generation Z, who expect a high level of control with all the tools they use.

Empowering people with their data makes your job easier, too! The right self-service software can easily:

• streamline administrative tasks
• free up employees and their managers to focus
• improve data accuracy and accessibility

And the more employees feel comfortable interacting with and managing their data, the more it clears off the plates from HR and leadership. With that new freedom in tow, HR pros can turn their focus away from handling routine inquiries and piecing together data. Instead, they have a chance to hone in on engagement, improve data accuracy and look ahead at the future of their organizations.

Luckily, the tools to help accomplish this are readily available. Compensation, for instance, is one of the most important factors to your people. Beti®, Paycom’s tool that lets employees do their own payroll, automatically flags errors, then guides employees to fix them before submission — right in the Paycom app.

Beti also gives your employees access to greater financial convenience through the Vault Visa® Payroll Card. With Vault, employees can have some or all of their wages deposited on the secure Vault card.^* Combine it with Everyday® to sharpen your competitive edge. This tech allows your people to get paid daily, enhancing the control they have over their financial well-being.^**

While you boost your employees’ well-being with great perks, Paycom’s Benefits Administration software makes it effortless for them to enroll. The tech guides them through their options, giving them a clear understanding of their benefits while also letting them test the effect they have on their pay.

Your supervisors need support, too. Paycom’s Manager on-the-Go® simplifies time-off approvals, scheduling, personnel action forms and more right on their mobile device. Speaking of time-off requests, GONE® automates decisions around time off by allowing you to set policies, lightening leadership’s plate while providing employees with the quick responses they expect.

As you grow and expand your team, Paycom’s talent acquisition tools streamline the entire process, from recruiting to hiring, background screening and onboarding. Once you’ve secured your talent, Paycom’s talent management software makes it easier to:

• engage and retain employees
• create clear career paths
• help your people find purpose in your organization

Don’t forget: Compliance plays a crucial role in your company’s success. To give yourself a head start on re-evaluating your compliance strategy, watch this webinar, Workplace Compliance Trends for 2025!

* Employers must offer split direct deposit to multiple accounts in order to have just a portion of wages deposited to the Vault card.
** Please see Terms of Use. Employees generally receive their net pay within 24 hours of working, but some employees may receive their pay sooner. Some limitations may apply based on employer’s pay cycle, employee’s pay amount, timing of approvals or certain employer configurations. Employees start receiving net pay after they have earned enough money to cover their required deductions, taxes and benefits each pay period.
The Vault Visa® Payroll Card is issued by The Bancorp Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and can be used everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted. Opinions, advice, services, or other information or content expressed or contributed here by customers, users, or others, are those of the respective author(s) or contributor(s) and do not necessarily state or reflect those of The Bancorp Bank, N.A. (“Bank”). Bank is not responsible for the accuracy of any content provided by author(s) or contributor(s).