Human resources management: 5 challenges for 2025

26 de December, 2024

The world of work is constantly evolving. As technology and artificial intelligence become more of a reality in business, and as new generations join the workforce, HR leaders and managers need to be ever more attentive. More attentive to all the changes, the challenges they bring and the priorities they need to set to address them.

If you are a human resources manager, a company leader or a professional interested in labor market trends, this article is for you.

Gartner’s “Top 5 priorities for HR managers in 2025” study surveyed human resources managers in more than 60 countries and identified five challenges that will stand out next year in the area of people management. Come and discover them with us!

1 – Developing the skills of leaders and managers

Only 23% of HR managers surveyed believe that current leaders are prepared to respond to the future needs of their organization. As companies need to become more agile and adaptable, professionals in leadership positions must be equipped with all the tools and resources they need to do their jobs and manage their teams.

Having leaders with up-to-date skills, who remain resilient in the face of change, is fundamental to ensuring not only the operational success of businesses, but also that organizations are competitive and sustainable.

For this to happen, it is important that leadership programs are rethought and start to promote the regular exchange of experiences and good practices between leaders. This connection established between peers can prove very valuable for their ongoing training.

2 – Solid organizational culture

Less than 1 in 4 employees say they understand the values that guide their organization’s culture (State of Employee Experience Survey, 2023). At the same time, 57% of HR managers who took part in the Gartner study admit that their company’s managers are unable to convey the desired vision of the organizational culture to their teams.

In fact, organizations find it difficult to materialize their culture at all levels of their structure and in the daily work of the various professionals. However, the absence of a solid and clear culture for everyone has a significant impact on employee satisfaction, retention and productivity.

Only a strong and adaptable organizational culture – and alignment between that culture and day-to-day initiatives – allows companies to navigate times of uncertainty and transformation.

As such, leaders should focus on helping their employees understand the core values that support the organizational culture and clarify what behaviors are expected in order to achieve that culture.

3 – Strategic workforce planning

With rapid technological developments, the professional profiles that organizations are looking for are highly dynamic. This results in serious difficulties in identifying and anticipating the skills needed in the medium and long term. 66% of HR managers surveyed in the Gartner study admit that their workforce planning only considers the number of employees, while 61% agree that this planning is done on an annual basis.

This approach is neither scalable nor sustainable, as it leaves organizations unprepared and weakened to respond to scenarios of change (changes in the market and in competitors’ strategies, mergers and acquisitions, transformations in the socio-economic context, etc.).

In this sense, it is essential to adopt more strategic workforce planning:

Which focuses on skills and abilities, rather than traditionally on qualifications (adopting the logic of blind hiring in recruitment processes);
That it considers the goals and results that the organization wants to achieve in the medium and long term (and, therefore, what kind of professionals will be an asset in achieving those goals);
Which foresees potential gaps in human capital and how these gaps can be filled in the future;
Empowering human resources teams to work effectively on the above topics.

4 – Change management

According to the Gartner study, 74% of HR managers believe that managers are not prepared to lead change and 73% believe that employees are saturated with change.

In fact, employee resistance to change is one of the main challenges facing organizations today. With the sheer volume of transformations taking place at an ever-increasing pace, employees tend to feel overwhelmed and demotivated, which has an impact on their well-being and performance.

For this reason, leaders need to be able to manage change effectively. And that means realizing that change is something that happens through employees, not something that is just handed down to them. Listening to employees, training them, involving them in decision-making and recognizing them for their good work are essential for transitions to be effective, productive and constructive – for business and for people.

5 – Technology, AI and data in human resources

Technology, artificial intelligence and data are no longer a future trend. Rather, they are a reality at all levels of organizations and, of course, in people management.

Human resources departments are going through a phase in which they have to take advantage of what is known as people analytics in other words, they must base their decision-making on the data they have, both on candidates and employees. Obsolete processes must be abandoned, intuition put aside, and more precise and informed decisions made to improve recruitment, the employee experience, employee engagement and performance.

HR managers must look at data, artificial intelligence and other technologies holistically. In other words, they should not only think about how these tools make it possible to optimize operations and automate daily processes, but more than that, how they can have a significant impact on the business and how they can contribute to the organization’s competitiveness in its sector and in the job market.

More than adopting tools, it’s about strategically rethinking functions, competencies and policies, and promoting a culture of agility and innovation.

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