By: Laurel Kalser

Dive Brief:
When people believe they’re being assessed by artificial intelligence, they emphasize their analytical skills and downplay their intuitive and emotional skills, according to research published in the June issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.
This shift in behavior – what the researchers refer to as the “AI assessment effect” – happens because of the lay belief that AI assessments prioritize analytical characteristics, the researchers said.
The result has significant implications for HR managers and decision-makers involved with the selection process, the research found. This is because “if people strategically adjust their behavior in line with their lay beliefs about what AI prioritizes, their true capabilities and/or personalities may not be revealed,” the researchers explained.

Dive Insight:
The researchers, from the Institute of Behavioral Science and Technology at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and the Rotterdam School of Management at the Netherland’s Erasmus University Rotterdam, based their findings on several studies.

At the outset, they surveyed 1,421 job candidates who participated in a game-based assessment for Equature, an employer software company, according to a research summary.

The candidates were asked to rate, on a continuum from exclusively human to exclusively AI, who they believed assessed them. They were also asked to rate, using a similar continuum, whether they adapted their behavior to this belief.

Given bedrock psychology that people tend to adapt their behavior to match what they believe an assessor will find favorable, understanding the responses the researchers found is critical as AI tools become increasingly prevalent in the selection process, they explained.

In the context of HR management, this behavioral shift could fundamentally alter who gets selected for positions and potentially undermine the selection process, the researchers said.

To address the issue and make sure candidate responses are authentic, they recommended that organizations identify and address the AI assessment effect in their own assessment practices.

Based on recent findings by Resume Builder, the advice comes at a crucial time.

According to the findings, released in June, almost all (94%) of the 6 in 10 managers who use AI tools at work use AI to make decisions about their direct reports, including for determining raises, promotions, layoffs and terminations.

Yet only a third of the more than 1,300 U.S. managers surveyed said they received formal training on how to use AI ethically, and about a quarter said they haven’t received any training.

Additionally, 1 in 5 managers told Resume Builder they frequently let AI make final decisions without human input, although nearly all managers said they’re willing to step in if they disagree with an AI-based recommendation, the survey showed.

“It’s essential not to lose the ‘people’ in people management,” Stacy Haller, Resume Builder’s chief career advisor, cautioned. While AI can support data-driven insights, it lacks context, empathy and judgment, and AI outcomes reflect the data the tool is given, which can be flawed, biased or manipulated, Haller said.

By: Nicole Lombard

A healthy talent pipeline is a valuable asset — it forms the foundation for smooth operations, market responsiveness, and innovation, all of which are necessary to drive sustained business growth. However, organizations worldwide are still facing talent scarcity.

Beyond simply filling vacancies, HR leaders must identify and proactively resolve the recruitment challenges hindering their organizations’ hiring effectiveness and market competitiveness. This article discusses the importance of addressing recruitment challenges and HR’s role in doing so, and presents 23 such challenges and how to solve them.

Why address recruitment challenges?
Recruitment issues don’t just remain in HR — they affect every team and hurt your organization’s bottom line. Here are other key reasons to address them promptly and proactively:

Business growth and employee morale: Recruitment issues can lead to stalled projects and operational strain, which delays growth and raises costs. Understaffing can also result in greater workloads that negatively impact team morale.

Quality of hire: When roles stay open too long, there’s pressure to hire fast. This often leads to poor hiring decisions, which can cost up to 200% of an individual’s annual salary, disrupt teams, and increase turnover.

Hiring difficulties: The talent pool is competitive, and finding people with the right mix of skills is tricky. In fact, skills mismatches slow down progress and place pressure on both employers and employees.

Employer reputation: Over 75% of job seekers check a company’s reputation before applying, and 69% say they’d turn down an offer from a company with a bad reputation — even if they didn’t have other options.

You must address these challenges upfront to attract top talent and optimize your hiring process. This proactive approach not only improves retention and reduces turnover,but it also safeguards your employer brand for long-term success.

HR’s role in solving recruitment challenges
As an HR professional, you play a key role in shaping your company’s talent strategy, solving recruitment challenges, and helping the business grow. When addressing recruitment challenges, you’ll likely have to take on the following responsibilities”

Lead the recruitment strategy, process, and execution
You own the full recruitment lifecycle, from planning to onboarding. This means building a hiring strategy that supports business goals, creating efficient processes, and guiding candidates through each stage. You define job needs, manage offers, and make sure everything runs smoothly and consistently.

Create fair, inclusive, and effective hiring practices
You’re also responsible for making hiring fair and inclusive. This includes removing bias from job ads, interviews, and evaluations. Focusing on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) helps your company meet legal requirements, strengthens your workforce, and shows your organization is ethical and future-focused.

Coordinate with hiring managers, use the right tech, and adapt to trends
You must work closely with hiring managers to align on role expectations and timelines. You also need to choose the right tech — e.g., applicant tracking systems (ATS) or AI tools — to streamline hiring and obtain better data. Being able to spot and react to workforce trends quickly can help you give your company a competitive edge.

Manage candidate experience, internal alignment, and compliance
Additionally, you must manage the candidate experience, ensuring it’s efficient, respectful, and transparent. Internally, you must keep everyone — from hiring teams to leadership — on the same page. At the same time, make sure all your hiring practices adhere to labor laws to reduce the risk of compliance issues.

23 recruitment challenges and how to solve them

For every problem, there is a specific and actionable solution. Use this cheat sheet to help you overcome your pressing recruitment challenges:

1. Insufficient qualified applicants despite regular job postings
Challenge: Your job postings aren’t attracting candidates with the right skills or experience, leading to a shallow talent pool.

Solution: Diversify your sourcing channels beyond traditional job boards and use niche industry-specific platforms. You can explore professional social networks (e.g., LinkedIn or GitHub for tech roles) and invest in employee referral programs, which often yield high-quality, pre-vetted candidates.

2. Unnecessarily long hiring process
Challenge: A drawn-out recruitment process leads to candidate drop-off and the loss of top talent, as your more agile competitors snatch them up.

Solution: Streamline your workflows by automating scheduling, using video interviews for initial screening, and reviewing each step of your process to eliminate unnecessary stages or redundant approvals. Aim for improved efficiency without having to sacrifice quality.

3. High volume of offer rejections
Challenge: Qualified candidates are declining your job offers, indicating a mismatch in expectations, or your competitors having a greater competitive advantage.

Solution: Improve your employer branding by showcasing company culture and employee value proposition (EVP). Conduct regular salary and benefits benchmarking to competitive offers, and personalize offer discussions to address candidates’ specific needs and development goals.

4. Poor candidate feedback and experience
Challenge: Candidates often feel ignored, frustrated, or disrespected during the hiring process, which can damage your employer brand and put off future applicants.

Solution: Ensure consistent and transparent communication at all stages of recruitment. Provide timely updates, personalize interactions, and offer constructive feedback to unsuccessful candidates. Feedback surveys for both successful and unsuccessful applicants will shed light on areas for improvement.

5. Unclear or confusing job descriptions
Challenge: Vague or generic job descriptions tend to attract unqualified applicants, leading to confusion and wasted time for both candidates and hiring managers.

Solution: Collaborate closely with hiring managers and department heads to clarify role expectations, essential skills, and daily responsibilities for each job description. Use clear, concise language throughout all descriptions, and focus on intended outcomes in addition to listing tasks.

6. Lack of diversity in your candidate pool
Challenge: Your applicant pool lacks representation across demographics, limiting diverse perspectives that can drive innovation or reflect your customer base.

Solution: Use blind résumé reviews to minimize unconscious bias and broaden sourcing to include diverse professional networks and communities. Additionally, ensure minority representation on your interview panels and focus on DEIB messaging in your employer branding and job ads.

7. Competition from other companies
Challenge: Your competitors are aggressively pursuing high-demand talent, making it difficult for your company to stand out.

Solution: Develop a compelling EVP that highlights your organization’s standout qualities beyond salary (e.g., growth opportunities, work-life balance, or social impact). Actively promote this across all touchpoints, and nominate employee ambassadors to share their positive work stories on social media.

8. Budget constraints
Challenge: Limited financial resources restrict your ability to invest in premium job boards, recruitment marketing, or advanced tools.

Solution: Focus on cost-effective strategies, like optimizing your career page for SEO, using free social media channels, and maximizing employee referral bonuses and incentives. Additionally, you can track top applicant sources and prioritize tools that offer significant ROI.

9. Difficulty in assessing soft skills
Challenge: Traditional interviews often fail to effectively evaluate crucial soft skills, such as teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving.

Solution: Incorporate behavioral interview questions, scenario-based assessments, and peer evaluations into your process. Use structured interviews to ensure consistency and objectivity in assessments, and involve two or more interviewers. This allows the others to observe while one interviewer engages with the candidate.

10. Candidate ghosting
Challenge: Candidates disappear mid-process or after accepting an offer, leaving your organization with unexpected vacancies and wasted effort.

Solution: Maintain continuous, engaging communication throughout the recruitment process, build rapport with candidates, and update them promptly and clearly. This can minimize candidate ghosting, as it often happens due to a poorly managed recruitment process, or recruiters being too impersonal.

11. Internal communication breakdowns
Challenge: Misalignment between HR and hiring managers or department heads leads to delays, duplicated efforts, and a disjointed candidate experience.

Solution: Establish clear communication protocols, schedule regular check-ins, and use shared platforms to track candidate progress. You should also promote a culture of collaboration and mutual accountability to ensure all relevant parties are on the same page at all times.

12. Legal and compliance risks
Challenge: Navigating complex labor laws, anti-discrimination regulations, and data privacy requirements can expose your company to legal liabilities.

Solution: Stay up-to-date on all relevant employment laws. Implement standardized, legally vetted processes, and train all your organization’s hiring personnel on compliance best practices. Finally, consult legal counsel regularly and proactively to keep up with legislative changes.

13. Ineffective onboarding
Challenge: A poor onboarding experience can increase new hire turnover, resulting in wasted time and effort in recruitment and higher recruitment costs.

Solution: Create a structured, supportive onboarding program that extends well beyond each new hire’s first week. Focus on cultural integration, help new staff set clear goals, provide necessary resources and mentorship, and ensure all newcomers can function effectively in their respective roles.

14. High turnover of new hires
Challenge: New employees tend to leave within their first year, indicating a possible disconnect between reality and promises made during recruitment.

Solution: Conduct regular stay interviews with new hires to gather feedback on their experience and identify any systemic problems so you can address issues promptly. Provide realistic job previews during the recruitment process. For instance, describe what a new hire can expect from a typical work day to help manage their expectations.

15. Lack of clear hiring manager expectations
Challenge: Hiring managers have vague or conflicting views of the ideal candidate, prolonging the search and leading to frustration and inefficiency.

Solution: Implement a structured kick-off briefing process for HR, hiring managers, and department heads to align on role requirements, candidate profiles, interview stages, and decision-making criteria before your search begins. This helps prevent confusion and conflict from the start.

16. Outdated recruitment technology
Challenge: Relying on manual processes or outdated systems can slow down recruitment, limit data insights, and frustrate both HR and candidates.

Solution: Invest in modern Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), CRM tools, and AI-powered solutions that automate tasks, provide analytics, and enhance candidate engagement. AIHR’s Artificial Intelligence for HR Certificate Program can teach your HR team how to streamline the recruitment process.

17. Measuring recruitment efforts’ ROI
Challenge: Difficulty quantifying your recruitment strategies’ effectiveness and ROI can make it hard to justify budgets, improve performance, and make informed hiring decisions.

Solution: Implement clear recruitment metrics (e.g., time to hire, cost per hire, source of hire, or quality of hire) and use data analytics to track performance, identify bottlenecks, and demonstrate value to leadership.

18. Global hiring complexities
Challenge: Expanding your talent search globally introduces complexities related to local labor laws, cultural nuances, and logistical hurdles.

Solution: Partner with a global Employer of Record (EOR) service provider, or hire a local HR consultant. Additionally, be sure to develop culturally sensitive recruitment materials and adapt your interview processes to suit relevant local norms.

19. Attracting passive candidates
Challenge: You may struggle to attract passive candidates as they aren’t actively job hunting and need a strong, personalized reason to consider switching roles.

Solution: Develop a strong talent-nurturing strategy through content marketing, professional networking, and targeted outreach. Build relationships with potential candidates well in advance of a vacancy arising, and consider using headhunters for high-priority roles.

20. Specific skills gap for roles
Challenge: The market simply doesn’t have enough candidates with the highly specialized or emerging skills your company needs.

Solution: Explore internal upskilling and reskilling programs, invest in apprenticeships, or consider alternative talent pools. These can include recent graduates, freelancers, or career changers you can train. Alternatively, consider global candidates who are willing to relocate or work remotely.

21. Managing application volume
Challenge: An overwhelming number of applications (many of which come from unqualified candidates) consumes excessive HR time and resources.

Solution: Use AI-powered résumé screening tools to filter candidates based on predefined criteria, and implement clear pre-screening questions. At the same time, consider introducing pre-interview assignments, and optimize your job descriptions to deter unqualified applicants.

22. Lack of internal mobility programs
Challenge: Overlooking internal talent for new roles leads to external hiring, increased costs, and missed opportunities for employee growth and retention.

Solution: Develop formal internal job posting processes, create talent marketplaces, and encourage managers to identify and develop employees for future roles within your organization. Use an effective internal job posting template to support you in this process.

23. Ineffective interview techniques
Challenge: Unstructured or biased interview approaches typically lead to inconsistent evaluations and poor hiring decisions.

Solution: Implement structured interview guides with standardized questions and scoring rubrics. Train interviewers on behavioral interviewing techniques and make them aware of unconscious bias, so they know what to avoid asking or doing. This also helps hiring managers make objective, fair hiring decisions.

Handling recruitment challenges: HR best practices

To fix recruitment issues, identify what’s not working and apply these best practices to your day-to-day HR work:

Track recruitment metrics to improve results
Regularly monitor time to hire, cost per hire, source effectiveness, offer acceptance, and retention. Use the data to find process slowdowns, improve efficiency, and show leadership your recruitment ROI. For example, if your time to hire is long, data can help pinpoint where delays occur and what’s causing them.

Train hiring managers to spot bias and interview better
While hiring managers must be able to make sound hiring decisions, it’s unwise to expect them to know how to conduct interviews without unconscious bias. Train them on behavioral interviews, active listening, and how to spot bias. This can help create a consistent, fair approach across teams and departments.

Use HR tech to save time and boost reach
Use an ATS to manage applications, automate tasks, and track progress. AI tools can sort resumes faster and highlight top candidates. Recruitment marketing tools help promote your employer brand and enable your organization to attract both active and passive talent across digital platforms.

Standardize and update your recruitment process
Create a clear, repeatable workflow that defines roles, timelines, and decisions at every step. This will minimize confusion and maximize fairness and consistency. At the same time, make sure you review and update this process regularly (e.g., every quarter or year), based on data, feedback, and hiring needs.

Build pipelines for future roles
Don’t just hire for open roles — prepare for future positions. Identify key roles and build relationships with potential candidates early. This might include talent communities, university outreach, or nurturing passive leads. A full pipeline helps you speed up the hiring process when the time comes.

Watch labor market trends and adjust your strategy
Stay alert to changing skills, candidate expectations, and industry shifts, so you can adapt your sourcing strategy using market insights and predictive data. Partner with schools and industry groups, and update your employer brand and EVP to match the needs and requirements of top talent.

To sum up
HR professionals face many recruitment challenges, including fierce competition for top talent, evolving candidate expectations, skills gaps, and outdated or ineffective internal processes. All these hiring roadblocks can impact growth, increase costs, and drain morale.

Recruitment challenges are unavoidable but not unmanageable. By addressing problems head-on, building strong processes, and staying in tune with the market, you’ll not only attract better candidates but also strengthen your company’s ability to grow and compete.

By: Michele McGovern

Hiring is expensive, but hiring the wrong person costs a whole lot more.

How much will bad hires cost? About 30% of the new hire’s salary, according to the folks at CareerBuilder.

What’s worse, 74% of managers admit that they’ve hired the wrong person for the job at some point in their leadership career.

Snowball Effect of Bad Hires
But really, the cost of a bad hire doesn’t stop at the hiring and turnover dollars. It has a snowball effect on the workplace.

Think of the potential issues when a bad hire starts poisoning the well: There will likely be a negative impact on employee morale and customer satisfaction, quality of work and company reputation. There are costs related to all of those issues.

So even if you’re only planning to add one person to the mix, you want to tighten your hiring processes to ensure expensive missteps don’t happen. Here’s help.

Where Things Go Wrong
Some Monday morning quarterbacking from your peers who’ve already made hiring mistakes can help you avoid a similar fate.

Here’s a list of reasons some managers felt the wrong person got the job:

-The candidate didn’t have all the needed skills, but we thought they’d learn quickly
-The candidate lied about their qualifications
-We took a chance on a nice person
-We felt pressured to fill the role quickly
-We had a hard time finding qualified candidates
-We focused on skills rather than attitude
-We ignored some of the warning signs, and
-We didn’t do a complete background check.
-Bad hires seem to boil down to three issues. Here they are and how to avoid each:

1. Failure to Do Due Diligence
Failing to check that everything is true on resumes and in interviews, skipping background checks and rushing through interviews: They’re shortcuts that can saddle you with a bum hire.

Not only background checks but reference checks can help spot any inconsistencies or downright lies.

Key: Be diligent. Look for answers on anything that seems suspicious or too good to be true. Work with HR to check references. Get permission from the job candidate with a stand-alone release form for a background check.

2. Making Too Many Assumptions
You know the old expression about when you assume . . .

Assuming someone can pick up skills on the job can fail. Same goes for the other side of the coin: If they’re skills-proficient, and you assume their bad attitude will diminish, it quickly comes back to bite you.

Key: Look at both hard and soft skills – as well your corporate culture and how well the potential employee fits it – when evaluating. Sometimes hiring for experience works. Sometimes hiring for potential works better. You want to consider what works best for each role.

3. Lacking Resources
Whether it’s the time or the tools, hiring managers who feel ill-equipped to make the right call often make the wrong one. Hiring managers often feel they don’t have the time, training or technical tools to make good decisions when it comes to hiring. They often feel rushed to fill a role because their staff doesn’t have the bandwidth to take on the work that remains from the person who left.

Key: It’s so important for hiring managers to work closely with HR in the hiring process. When you can, spend a few more days conducting additional interviews. And remember: The cost of a background check pales in comparison to how much you stand to lose if the wrong person gets the job.

By: Kate Rockwood

The world of work is changing at a staggering pace. From changes in talent acquisition practices to the rise in people analytics to the can’t-be-talked-about-enough impact of AI, 2025 is sure to be a year of new opportunities and new challenges driven by the need for the workforce to be increasingly flexible and skilled to meet market demands. With that in mind, SHRM experts shared their insights on seven major trends that are likely to impact HR in the year ahead.

1. Skills Over Degrees
Momentum is surging around skills-based hiring, which is the idea that workers’ skills and capabilities matter more than their educational background or work history. Focusing on what employees can do—not where or how they learned to do it—widens the talent pool, helps solve skills shortages, and boosts retention, says Justin Ladner, senior labor economist at SHRM.

The practice is catching on quickly: In 2024, 81% of employers practiced skills-based hiring, up from 73% in 2023 and just 56% in 2022, according to research from TestGorilla, a talent assessment platform.

“The ongoing labor shortage provides a strong incentive for firms to search for ways to expand their ability to recruit and retain workers,” Ladner says.

Disruptive events such as the pandemic and the subsequent labor shortages, as well as the rise of AI, have taught employers that an adaptable workforce is one of the most critical ingredients in future-proofing an organization.

Therefore, says SHRM CHRO Jim Link, SHRM-SCP, companies are seeking employees who are persuasive, open to learning, and able to communicate well.

“We used to think about [business] sustainability in terms of things,” Link says. “Going forward, we’re going to think that way about people. Do we have the right people with the right skills and enough workforce numbers for today and tomorrow?”

Do we have the right people with the right skills and enough workforce numbers for today and tomorrow?—Jim Link, SHRM-CP, SHRM CHRO

Some employers will also continue to rethink college degree requirements for certain roles. An analysis by Indeed found the number of job postings requiring at least a four-year degree fell to 17.8% in January 2024, compared with 20.4% in 2019. Of employers who eliminated degree requirements for some roles, 73% said they had successfully hired one or more candidates who previously would not have qualified, SHRM’s 2024 Talent Trends research reveals.

2. Evolving Skills, Thriving Workforces
The need for updated skills in the workplace is accelerating—so quickly, in fact, that new employees may need more training even before they’ve finished onboarding, says James Atkinson, vice president, thought leadership, at SHRM.

Technology is driving this quickening pace of upskilling and reskilling. Quite simply, in a world where AI exists, employees’ skills can’t remain static. In fact, 83% of HR leaders believe upskilling will be essential for workers to remain competitive in a job market shaped by AI, SHRM data shows.

As more organizations pursue AI, machine learning, and other advanced technology, they are taking stock of their employees’ skills and trying to “match that, as best they can, to what their future needs are likely to be,” Link says.

Additionally, Atkinson says, employers are realizing the importance of determining how employees can work with technology in a role that’s being transformed or one that’s just emerging. Organizational growth and employee expectations will also continue to drive upskilling and reskilling.

“The fact that customers are more demanding means companies increasingly need to develop new products, and employees need to be more productive to keep up,” Atkinson says.

Employees are equally eager to stay competitive by updating their skills. According to a 2024 PwC survey, almost half of employees say that having opportunities to learn new skills is a key consideration when deciding whether to change employers. “This need for these workers to stay at the top of their game coincides with organizations’ needs to pull in that talent,” Atkinson says.

There’s more to explore and implement. While a majority of employers plan to upskill or reskill employees, according to a 2024 Express Employment Professionals-Harris Poll survey, just 29% of organizations have taken proactive measures to train and upskill employees who work alongside AI, SHRM research finds.

3. People Analytics Shaping the Future
In a still-tight talent market, organizations must find smart, effective ways to encourage long-term employee loyalty. A potential solution is people analytics, the science of using data on employee performance, skills, engagement, and sentiment to predict and shape the future of the workforce.

People analytics can reveal a variety of insights. Combing through employee engagement survey data, for example, can help companies determine employee morale or recurring reasons for departure or turnover. People analytics can also identify potential learning and development opportunities, such as skills gaps that may hinder forward momentum.

Link also sees people analytics as an opportunity for employers to provide interventions such as mental health resources before such issues become a crisis.

Currently, HR professionals most commonly use people analytics to assess employee retention and turnover (82%) and for recruitment, interviewing, and hiring (71%), according to the report The Use of People Analytics in Human Resources (SHRM, 2023). Some organizations also use AI to identify potential high-performing employees using profiles based on past successful employees. That way, Atkinson says, “They can focus on retaining those employees and helping them grow and thrive.”

Going forward, Atkinson expects more employers to use people data for predictive modeling around workplace planning. “It’s not where a lot of organizations are right now, but it’s an exciting opportunity for the future,” he says.

4. The Concern Rise of Incivility
If the world seems less courteous or empathetic lately, you’re not imagining it. SHRM launched its civility campaign in 2024 precisely because of “rising concerns about an incivility in society that’s bubbling up and overflowing into the workforce,” Atkinson says.

The SHRM Q3 2024 Civility Index survey of more than 1,600 U.S. workers, conducted Aug. 27-Sept. 4, 2024, proved these concerns to be well-founded. Workers said they experience 190 million acts of incivility per day, 58% of which happen in the workplace. The biggest drivers of incivility were:

Political viewpoints.

Disagreements on social issues.

Generational gaps.

Racial or ethnic differences.

The direction of U.S. society.

Politics was firmly in mind when SHRM launched its civility campaign in what was the biggest year in history for global elections. “Half the world’s population went through elections in 2024,” Atkinson says. “And we know with elections in general that you’re pitting parties against each other and pulling out differences.”

Those feelings won’t just disappear in 2025. “Almost half of your employees are going to be disappointed, frustrated, mad,” he adds. “As a leadership team, as an HR professional, you need to recognize that.”

Atkinson recommends having those difficult conversations rather than simply making controversial topics taboo. “It’s not about removing conflict entirely; it’s about how you manage the conflict when it occurs,” he says. “Be clear about what workplace culture you want, and make sure that your leaders model it.”

Be clear about what workplace culture you want, and make sure that your leaders model it.—James Atkinson, SHRM vice president, thought leadership
Communication problems are often at the root of rising incivility, Atkinson says. Take social media, for examples, which has made it easier for people to “more quickly engage in uncivil sentiments and not take time to think through alternatives or consequences.”

On top of that, generational differences are making workplace conversations even more difficult, experts say. Older employees may be uncomfortable with younger employees’ desire for more transparent and personal conversations, while younger workers may take constructive criticism as a personal attack. Remote workforces can also make it harder for employees to forge personal connections.

Tackling incivility in the workplace, though, is paramount. Workers who rate their workplaces as uncivil are three times more likely to be dissatisfied with their job, SHRM research has found. In the year ahead, employers may want to try strategies such as encouraging respectful dissent, creating diverse teams, and providing conflict resolution training.

Employers are also increasingly offering workplace etiquette classes, ResumeBuilder reports, with appropriate workplace conversations being at the top of the training agenda.

5. The Benefits of Financial Wellness
There’s growing momentum among smart employers to thoughtfully consider the role they play in employee wellness. While physical and mental health have been top of mind for years, financial health is now part of the conversation.

It’s become crystal clear how deeply employees’ financial wellness impacts their personal and professional lives, Link says. As a result, more employers are beefing up financial wellness benefits. In 2023, just 14% of U.S. employees had access to financial planning benefits at work.

By 2024, that number doubled to 28%, according to PNC Bank’s Financial Wellness in the Workplace Report. By the end of 2026, nearly half of employers are expected to offer a comprehensive financial wellness program, according to Transamerica.

“Financial wellness is moving from an enhanced benefit to a primary benefit,” Link says. That’s critical, considering that more than half of employees say they are stressed about their finances daily or multiple times a day, according to a survey of 5,000 employees by financial services company ZayZoon. The most in-demand financial wellness benefits, according to Morgan Stanley research, are:

Assistance with retirement preparation.

Help with financial planning.

Guidance on goals-based retirement investment planning.

Heading into 2025, employees also increasingly expect financial benefits that are personalized to their needs. Younger employees, for example, may want help saving for a down payment on a home or managing student loans. Meanwhile, Baby Boomers prioritize financial education, and Millennials and Generation Z favor personalized financial coaching and planning, says Ragan Decker, Ph.D., SHRM-CP, manager of Executive Network and SHRM Business research at SHRM. While Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials all agree that saving for retirement is their top financial goal, Gen Zers’ top priority is boosting their credit score, PNC Bank’s research found.

“This highlights the need for organizations to consider the unique financial needs and preferences of different generations to better support the workforce,” Decker says.

6. AI’s Impact on Talent Strategy
As AI usage becomes ever more ubiquitous, an increasing number of organizations are harnessing this still-evolving technology to transform talent acquisition. However, that’s a relatively recent development—of the 1 in 4 organizations that use AI to support HR-related tasks, nearly two-thirds only began doing so in 2023, according to SHRM’s 2024 Talent Trends: Artificial Intelligence in HR report.

In other words, most organizations have yet to tap into AI’s vast number of potential applications. Those who are, though, most commonly put AI into play to support recruitment, interviewing, and hiring by streamlining or increasing efficiency. What does that look like in practice?

Nearly 2 in 3 companies use AI to develop job descriptions.

More than 42% use it to customize or target job postings to specific groups.

Around two-thirds use AI to review or screen applicant resumes, communicate with applicants during the interview process, or automate candidate searches.

“By streamlining these tasks, we’re really seeing employees who feel they’re able to be more efficient and effective, and as a result, they’re more engaged,” Link says.

The use of AI can also be a boon to improving diversity in the applicant pool, SHRM’s research shows, with nearly 30% of companies reporting that AI allows them to better tap into underrepresented talent networks.

In addition to talent acquisition, HR professionals are drawing on AI to increase and encourage workforce knowledge and development, identify gaps in employee knowledge, and track employees’ learning and development progress.

“The best employers today are basically offering very large learning management systems (LMSs) so people can tackle any type of learning that they want to have,” Link says.

That is key, he explains, because many younger employees are no longer content to wait years to gain exposure to certain skills or experiences. Employers that give these workers the knowledge they seek may be able to hang onto them longer.

7. Post-Election Regulatory Shifts
New regulations are introduced every year, but on the heels of a presidential and congressional election, 2025 could give HR professionals a bit of whiplash. Not only are new policies likely to come to the forefront, but it’s possible that existing ones may be scaled back or eliminated altogether.

For example, the new presidential administration could result in either a less or more pro-labor stance, says Emily M. Dickens, J.D., SHRM chief of staff, head of government affairs, and corporate secretary. If a worker shortage persists, she adds, “it will be very interesting to see how the government handles worker visas to allow workers into the country.”

Potential laws, regulations, and enforcement actions that could affect HR professionals include:

The possibility of intensified workplace enforcement and immigration raids.

The Trump administration letting stand any court decision striking down the Biden administration’s overtime rule or independent contractor status rule. On Nov. 15, 2024, a district court struck down the overtime rule nationwide. Another district court followed in its footsteps, determining on Dec. 30, 2024, in a separate case that the rule should be vacated.

The National Labor Relations Board taking a less aggressive approach on existing workplace rules once it has a Republican majority.

State laws and regulations on paid leave, artificial intelligence, and captive audience meetings.

By Carolyn Crist

Workers now face a “seemingly infinite workday,” where they scan emails before getting out of bed in the morning, attend countless meetings throughout the day and catch up on work during the evenings and weekends, according to a June 17 report from Microsoft.

For instance, mass emails with 20 or more recipients have increased 7% in the past year, Teams messages per person grew 6% year over year globally, and evening meetings held after 8 p.m. have increased 16% year over year as well.

“This points to a larger truth: the modern workday for many has no clear start or finish,” according to the report. “As business demands grow more complex and expectations continue to rise, time once reserved for focus or recovery may now be spent catching up, prepping and chasing clarity.”

Based on Microsoft data, employees receive an average of 117 emails per day and 153 Teams messages per workday. About 57% of meetings are ad hoc, or called in the moment without a calendar invitation.

Half of meetings take place between 9-11 a.m. and 1-3 p.m., which are considered the most productive hours for workers based on their circadian rhythms. Message activity also increases during the time, leaving little time for deep focus work, Microsoft said.

Telemetry data indicates that employees using Microsoft 365 are interrupted every two minutes by a meeting, email or chat notification, adding up to 275 times per day.

In the evening, 29% of employees check their email again after 10 p.m. Nearly 20% of employees actively working on the weekend tend to check their email before noon on Saturday and Sunday. More than 5% also check email on Sunday evenings.

Overall, 1 in 3 employees said the pace of work during the past five years has “made it impossible to keep up,” Microsoft said.

In response, employers should question how time is spent, how work gets done and what really drives impact, according to the report. For instance, companies can use the 80/20 Pareto principle to focus on the 20% of efforts that deliver 80% of the outcomes. This requires setting boundaries and prioritizing deep work, the report indicated.

Microsoft also recommended redesigning organizational charts to focus on goals and outcomes rather than traditional silos. As part of this, departments can incorporate artificial intelligence tools to develop insights, draft reports and fill gaps, according to the report.

This most recent report echos what other research has indicated about work and personal time blending. Employees are increasingly working while on vacation, according to a report from Dayforce. Employers can help workers achieve better work-life balance by creating team coverage plans for vacation days and training managers to lead by example, the report found.

The phenomenon may differ by region, however. In general, Americans work more and feel less happy than Europeans, according to survey results from Kickresume. Americans tend to work longer hours and feel more stressed, while Europeans tend to vacation more and report greater satisfaction with their work-life balance.

By: Ginger Christ

SAN DIEGO — The workplace after the COVID-19 pandemic is not the same as before. In the same way that putting computers on people’s desks transformed the office, so, too, did the nationwide shutdown, Allyns Melendez, CEO and founder of HR Transformed, a human resources services provider, said during a Monday session at SHRM 2025.

“Why do we keep trying to copy and paste 2019 into 2025 all of the time?” Melendez asked. “The rules have changed in the workplace.”

Workers are now fully in-person, completely remote or on a hybrid schedule, which makes what constitutes a normal office completely different than it used to be, Melendez said.

“Return to office doesn’t equal rewind,” she said.

Noting that what resonates will differ at every organization, Melendez offered employers some tips on how to navigate a blended workforce.

For one, companies with hybrid workforces need to be intentional about how and when they bring workers into the office, establishing things like intentional collaboration days to make the effort seem worthwhile to employees. There also needs to be coordination to make sure that, on days when hybrid workers are in the office, they aren’t tied up in virtual meetings with remote workers, she warned.

Companies also should reward remote workers when in-person employees receive perks, she said. For example, instead of just providing bagels to office workers, consider a food delivery gift card for those working from home.

She recommended making it a point for leaders to show their hands during virtual meetings to make it clear they’re listening to workers and not multitasking. This tip stemmed from a co-worker who said they thought Melendez wasn’t paying attention to them because her hands never left her keyboard. This way, leaders can help build relationships with workers they may not see, she said.

Another tip, Melendez said, is to require workers to have their camera on for virtual meetings to further build those ties — even if that scares some workers.

“I don’t care if you have makeup on. I don’t care if you have acne,” she said. “I want to collaborate with you.”

Melendez also urged HR professionals to periodically reassess what is and isn’t working at the organization and to make changes accordingly.

“We have to think about what’s really working, and what’s really working may look a little bit different for your organization now, in the summer, in the fall, in the winter or the day after a big check-in with the CEO on how things are financially,” she said.