What a welcome we have had to 2025! It's already proving to be a year where HR is more complex than ever, and if you're a People professional or a business leader, you're likely feeling the heat. It isn't just about hiring and firing anymore, it's about managing a diverse, distributed, and dynamic workforce with individual needs.
In this article, we explore what recent changes have made the People landscape so difficult to navigate, before giving you 5 key areas to focus on to help you thrive through this challenging period.
Key takeaways
By reading this article, you will:
- Learn the main causes of your 2025 People challenges
- Understand the key areas of focus that can help you overcome these challenges
- Discover the value of a People Services partner when navigating this complex landscape
What has changed?
Before we delve into how to prepare for the People complexities the rest of 2025 may bring, here are a few reasons why supporting your people has reached new levels of complexity:
Remote and hybrid work: According to a study by Global Workplace Analytics, 76% of employees work remotely at least part-time. This means HR has to manage a workforce that's spread across different time zones, cultures, and working environments whilst maintaining team collaboration, ensuring productivity, and maintaining company culture remotely.
Employee wellbeing: The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported a 35% increase in mental health issues among workers post-pandemic, and employees now expect their employers to support these issues if they arise. People teams therefore need to implement comprehensive wellbeing strategies, provide mental health resources, make appropriate adaptions and reasonable adjustments and create a supportive work environment.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB): DEIB is a business imperative. Companies remain under pressure to build diverse and inclusive workplaces. According to McKinsey's Diversity Wins report, companies with diverse teams are 36% more likely to outperform their competitors. It’s been apparent already that as the varied demands placed upon businesses grow, some organisations have deprioritised this initiative. This won’t just cost them in the long run, it will be impacting them right now. As People professionals our job is to ensure fair hiring practices, provide DEIB training, and foster an inclusive culture. It also has to find the skills and capabilities needed for a business to be successful,to scalable and sustainable.
Technological advancements: The HR/People tech landscape is booming, with tools like AI revolutionising how businesses solve their people challenges. However, keeping up with these technological advancements and ensuring data security is a constant challenge. Gartner suggested that technology isn’t just about putting machines/tools/software in place to make life easier, it’s about taking your people along for the journey and ensuring they value and enjoy the experience. Engagement has never been so tough. With younger workforce generations demanding aligned purpose and to work for a business with values that resonate with their own, you can’t afford to rely on new technology to support engagement with your business unless you’re able to get them excited about it. You need a road map that is agile, encourages innovation, creativity and focuses your team on doing what is best for the organisation.
Employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX): Rather than just focusing on elements like turnover, absence, and recruitment spend, EX and CX are emerging as key indicators for success. In the last few years more organisations look at key metrics and data that are specifically related to the organisation they are operating in. Context is key, so not all metrics are right for all organisations. Take absence, the tried and tested metric, with its adaptations like the Bradford Factor calculation. What place does that have now in a business with remote or hybrid workers? Is presenteeism a bigger issue for some “onsite” organisations? You can’t run the data in isolation and without context. You have to understand your business first, and that is why calculations that look at your EX and CX, amongst others, could become more important data to gather, aligning an MD’s intentions with an employee purpose driven work ethic. As such, many People teams are therefore rethinking how they measure success and are having to adjust accordingly.
Preparing for the complexity
So, how can businesses gear up for this complex People landscape? Here are a few pointers:
1. Invest in the right technology
Tools like AI-driven recruitment software, employee engagement platforms, and performance management systems can make a world of difference, but recognise it’s all pointless if you don’t maximise the capabilities of each of the investments you make and if your people don’t engage and embrace it.
2. Focus on employee wellbeing
Implement wellbeing strategies, offer access to resources and make necessary adaptations to support the physical, mental, and emotional health of your people. A supportive work environment empowers your people to bring their best selves to work, helping with employee retention, engagement, and overall wellbeing.
3. Enhance DEIB efforts
Create a DEIB strategy that includes unbiased hiring practices, relevant training for employees, and initiatives to foster an inclusive workplace. Regularly review and update your policies to ensure they align with your DEIB goals and allocate proper assessment and focus to ensure your strategy remains effective.
4. Continuous learning, development and skills enhancement
Encourage a culture of continuous learning; offer training programs, workshops, and courses to help employees upskill and stay relevant in their roles. This will not only boost employee morale but also enhance your company's competitiveness.
5. Measure the right data for your organisation
Blindly focusing on metrics and data that you think everyone is doing won’t necessarily help you; it’s important to recognise what KPIs are a priority for your business and measuring the data that best shows your progress towards achieving them. Having metrics and KPIs you don’t take notice of is a waste of time and resources.
The value of a specialist people and talent partner
With all these complexities, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. That's where the support and guidance of a people and talent partner like NFP shows its value.
Our team of experienced People, Talent and Change consultants can help your business by:
- Providing tailored advice and strategies to tackle your unique People challenges
- Staying updated on the latest People trends and technologies, so you don't have to
- Supporting you through the complexities of People legislation and staying compliant
People initiatives and focuses in 2025 are already proving to be more complex than ever, but with the right strategies and support, you can navigate what is coming successfully. I’m sure you will have noticed how a lot of the headlines problems and solutions aren’t new! Many will tell you that there are lots of things to do differently, and to some extent they are right, but in reality many of the headline issues and solutions aren’t new! In reality they’re the same, but for many they’ve not being effectively resolved.
Author
Steve Foulger, Director of Organisational Transformation and People Services
Steve has worked in the People and Organisational Transformation space since the turn of the millennium, providing some of the UK’s most recognised companies across numerous industries with specialist People and Organisational Transformational strategic support. Now as NFP’s Director of Organisational Transformation and People Services, he delivers pragmatic, sustainable, and commercially focused solutions to businesses undergoing challenging periods of change.