I’m not a clairvoyant but you don’t have to be to see what might be around the corner for HR and organisations. With a fresh new year upon us, I predict the 2025 HR and work trends that lie ahead for organisations.
This year employees will push back.
Trend one: Different generational needs will drive employee churn
One of the four worrying signals I accurately predicted in 2024 was redundancies. Companies struggling to make a profit last year chose the quick fix of cutting their staff overhead to report a healthier balance to their stakeholders. This is never the most creative option.
In 2025, I predict new forces will drive employee churn.
First, Gen X are approaching their 60s. They may want or need to keep working but many are able to demand more flexibility, a better culture and a job with meaning before they eventually retire. They won’t stick around in a company that offers none of this if they can find an alternative. Life’s too short.
Second, Gen Z are approaching their late 20s and the big 3-0. As a generation that wants to make a difference, many are now able to make demands. While some haven’t yet entered the workplace, others are looking at management roles. They have high expectations around their rights at work (backed up by new legislation coming into force in the UK). If someone else offers work that makes a difference, better work-life balance and a more enlightened approach to tech, they are not loyal. They will be off.
Trend two: Tensions will rise between employer and employee
I sense frustrations among some business leaders in relation to upcoming legislative changes. Especially those that will make employing people more expensive and require updating practices in favour of employee’s new rights. I therefore predict more tension between senior leadership and junior employees.
The Employment Rights Bill includes plans to increase rights to request flexible working, raise the minimum wage, restrict zero-hours contracts, provide day-one rights to parental leave, and give more protection for new employees. Amid these changes, business leaders could feel resentful towards their junior employees while junior employees may feel more emboldened to challenge their bosses.
Trend three: Organisations will see the negative impact of badly thought-through technology
Many businesses have been excited about the opportunity that AI presents, largely because they see a way to cut costs on people and use tech instead. Companies under pressure to find profits (or the appearance of profits) from somewhere are increasingly claiming that technology can do what people currently do.
However, at this time very few business leaders really understand how AI is best used. They are jumping on the 21st entury AI bandwagon with a 20th Century attitude, viewing people as cogs in a machine who can readily be replaced by machines without a downside.
In 2025, we will see many companies realising that technology hasn’t lived up to expectations, it does not reduce workload (the opposite in fact) and it has not saved them money in the long term. Out of necessity, I predict many will re-hire people to work around the inadequacy of the tech and start bad mouthing AI as a result.
Trend four: Virtual living and working fatigue will drive informal face-to-face arrangements
Finally, I predict that people will start finding ways to work with colleagues and clients in person rather than reverting to online meetings and tools.
This does not mean employees will flood back to the office (even though their bosses would love that!). Instead, they will find less formal spaces to work in person, or meet at the office but then retire to a local coffee shop, hotel lounge or cool co-working space nearby.
Employees will continue to quietly resist the trend towards demanding ‘3 days in the office, 2 days at home’ or equivalent. But they will gather in person on their own terms, thus placating their bosses while not submitting to old-fashioned ideas of 9-5 in-office working.
What can you do?
2024 has seen many company leaders trying to revert to a command-and-control style of leadership in a desperate attempt to ‘get back to normal’. This year employees will push back, either because of new-found protections offered by the law or in quiet, subtle ways that look like adherence but are rebellion.
As HR professionals our job must be to prevent these tensions between the top and the bottom of our organisations. Tough rules force people into a corner where they have no option but to find workarounds for badly conceived diktats.
Tough rules force people into a corner where they have no option but to find workarounds for badly conceived diktats.
1. Double down on organisational mission, purpose, good governance and CSR
Call out policies or behaviours that undermine the stated values of the business so that Gen X and Gen Z employees can find the purpose and healthy corporate culture they are looking for.
2. Get coaching or personal growth training for your senior leaders
Help senior people confront their biases and upend outdated beliefs about employee productivity and their leadership roles. More than ever, senior and junior people need to listen and learn from each other and find clever solutions together.
3. Learn about AI and other new technology
You cannot assume this is IT’s business. Take courses, read articles and listen to podcasts. Learn how artificial intelligence will change the world and engage knowledgeably in conversation in your organisation about the interplay between human employees and new tech.
4. Make the office more like home
People don’t want to spend all day staring at the screen, whether that’s at home or at the office. They don’t want to waste time in face-to-face meetings that could have been done on a virtual chat, or be on a Teams meeting that should have been face-to-face.
Work with your facilities team and your employee reps to get outside perspectives, so you can provide the kinds of spaces that people desperately want.
