This year marked a significant shift in how HR professionals and business leaders worked together to bring in new talent. A boom in AI and a gradual swing toward skills-based hiring means that the C-suite is increasingly looking to HR professionals for their guidance and that talent professionals are on the front lines, driving change in their organization.
Based on conversations with over 400 talent professionals, Korn Ferry research uncovered the factors that are of greatest concern to how talent professionals view their job. Instead of perfection, HR professionals and business leaders are embracing progression and adaptability—incorporating calculated risk and taking intentional actions to respond to the trends dominating recruitment.
Notably, Korn Ferry’s research found that nearly two-thirds of talent professionals believe AI will play a major role in their strategies for the coming year, while 39% of talent leaders recognize the need for skills-based hiring. But as companies struggled to implement these new technologies and hiring strategies, progress often took a back seat to the pursuit of perfection.
As employers prepare hiring strategies for 2025, they should keep in mind five salient trends that emerged from these conversations. By staying agile and recognizing when to pivot, employers can proactively mitigate risk with intentional action.
1. AI’s growing pains—reality sets in
As talent experts experiment with integrating AI into the hiring process, they’ve discovered that it is not the “quick fix” leaders anticipated it would be to cut costs and increase efficiency. Rather, the technology often falls short particularly in identifying talent gaps and recognizing candidate potential beyond the resume. Further, 40% of the talent specialists surveyed expressed concern that too much AI in recruitment could make the process impersonal, causing them to miss out on top candidates.
Despite these limitations, AI will continue to play a major role in talent acquisition in 2025. Even after acknowledging the tech’s shortfalls, 67% of survey respondents believe that increased AI usage will be 2025’s top talent trend. However, the integration of AI into recruiting must be done correctly and with human oversight to improve productivity, expedite the hiring process and ultimately create real impact. Moving forward with hiring strategies for 2025, HR leaders will zone in on how to strike the balance between leveraging AI technologies and selectively bringing in a human touch.
To do so, employers must ensure that training and guardrails for proper use of AI are in place and must emphasize the importance of aligning tech integration with the organization’s overall business and talent acquisition goals. By ensuring the proper parameters are in place, leaders strike a balance between the competing factors of technology and human connection.
2. Learning and development’s wake-up call
Korn Ferry’s Workforce 2024 Report determined that 67% of employees would stay with a company if they were offered upskilling and advancement opportunities—even if they hated their job. A lack of career growth was stated as the second-biggest reason workers said they would leave their role.
As employees reconsider L&D as a core component for evaluating their place of work, companies are now placing greater importance on prioritizing talent development initiatives. Notably, 32% of survey respondents plan to focus on upskilling current employees to address skills gaps, and another 30% of respondents plan to focus more on creating career paths for long-term growth.
Building a culture of learning demonstrates to current employees that their needs and personal development are priorities for the company, which often results in increased talent retention and improved employee engagement. To foster learning, talent leaders should promote traditional strategies for continuous development. This could take the form of filling roles internally and offering customized training that aligns employees’ professional goals with that of the business’ growth goals. Additional methods could include experimenting with innovative strategies such as gamification and AI-enabled coaching to further aid employees’ development and upskilling.
3. Aligning the employee value proposition to company culture
Compared to 15 years ago, today’s job candidates have access to more information on what a “day in the life” is like at a potential employer than ever before. And accordingly, if an employer often makes lofty promises during the recruitment process but does not “walk the walk” post-onboarding, new hires today are more likely to move on from a post faster than previous generations.
If a strong company culture is not built into the employee experience, talent acquisition and retention will suffer. Almost half of the HR professionals that we spoke with (45%) indicated that integrating cultural values is key to successful hiring strategies for 2025.
So, how can employers ensure that they follow through on the promises made during the recruitment process? It starts with creating an authentic employee value proposition that defines core company values. It is then critical for leadership to weave these values into messaging that spotlights the human experience of being part of the organization.
4. Razor-sharp focus on critical skills
To drive immediate and long-term growth, skills-based hiring has become a key talent acquisition strategy. Yet, many companies still struggle to effectively adopt this approach due to challenges in defining what “critical skills” mean to their company and potential job candidates.
To bridge this gap, companies should evaluate which roles drive growth and transformation and then determine which skills are necessary for those roles. Additionally, hiring managers must receive sufficient education around skills-based hiring and should further develop a skills-based employee value proposition. Companies will also need to better integrate talent management and talent acquisition in 2025, which will allow for better collaboration to fill talent gaps.
5. Flexibility is key
The hybrid working environment is here to stay. As we enter 2025, employers will adopt models that aim to strike the balance between employees’ preferences for flexibility and their businesses’ overall needs. With this model comes the need to train managers on the best ways to lead hybrid or remote teams and ensure that hiring processes that utilize virtual tools support collaboration and communication.
Hybrid work no longer only refers to the physical place in which employees work. Today, hybrid work also encompasses how jobs are structured. For example, open schedules that allow workers to leave their computer for an hour during the day to attend a doctor’s appointment or pick up their child from school. Nearly half (48%) of employers surveyed said managing expectations for work/life balance will be a major challenge in hiring early career talent in 2025.
Strict 9-to-5 schedules jeopardize talent acquisition and retention. Accordingly, HR professionals should focus on a flexible working culture.
The following questions should be taken into consideration as employers prepare for 2025:
- How sustainable is our current working model, and have we limited future opportunities by being rigid in our approach?
- Which collaboration and communication tools do we need to manage and support remote and hybrid employees?
- How do we keep people engaged and connected, even when they’re not in the same room?
Small steps lead to big gains
What will be different in 2025, and how will leaders balance the competing factions—like technology and human connection, efficiency and personalization, flexibility and structure—all of which have major impacts on the workforce? To continue moving forward, leaders will need to focus on steady and forward progress, leveraging data-driven insights and personalized strategies to embrace momentum without waiting for perfection.
Related: Read more about how HR leaders can prepare for the year ahead.
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