HR professionals are always kept on their toes with changing legislation, emerging trends and an ever-increasing difficulty to land and retain top talent. With 2025 set to be no different, we’re sharing our top 5 areas to watch, as well as how Connect Three are supporting our clients with navigating these areas for success.
- Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
An ever-present on the list in recent years which is only set to continue. We are seeing an increasing interest and uptake in our EDI service offerings as more and more businesses realise this is not something the modern and forward-thinking employer can ignore.
Our clients see tangible impacts from our education sessions on equality and diversity and building inclusive cultures. They note increased employee engagement, reduced employee relations issues and a safer environment where people feel invested in and thrive.
In 2025, our Team will be working with more of our clients in this space and helping them improve understanding, build their inclusive workplace culture and increase the diversity of their workforce, ensuring it all aligns to their overall strategic objectives.
- Artificial Intelligence and HR
The last 12 months have seen an increasing interest and clamour around artificial intelligence (AI), who is using it, what it is being used for and what its future implications for the workplace.
This year we expect an increased level of focus and interest in this topic area as HR professionals seek to understand how AI can complement the human touch of being a successful organisation. At present key focusses for AI within HR relate to how it can influence the recruitment & selection process (e.g. time consuming application screening), employee engagement (e.g. automated pulse surveys and analysis of results), as well as the learning and development space (e.g. AI generated training and development to build skills).
Our Head of Innovation and Growth saw an increasing interest in business AI adoption during 2024 and has been working with clients to explore the enhancements AI can have within their business. 2025 already has lots of these workshops booked in and you can learn more here by entering your email address.
- Wellbeing
An increased focus on employee wellbeing and in particular, mental health, will continue to trend in 2025. Top organisations across the globe are increasingly aware of the benefits that a fit, healthy and psychologically secure workforce will bring – not only increased productivity as a positive outcome for the business, but also attracting and retaining the right people who are going to make a difference to your business.
Employee wellbeing covers a wide range of areas from the benefits offering through working conditions and flexible working initiatives. At Connect Three, we’ve developed our tailored and targeted wellbeing offering Energise, focusing on three key aspects: Mind, Body and Work. Each key area has a series of modules to improve that aspect of the wellbeing offering – a real gamechanger for your business. Access our free guide to identify where your organisation is on its wellbeing journey and how Connect Three can support you with an initial free health check call to take this the next level and beyond.
- Talent Retention and Workforce Planning
A continued shortage of key skills and experience has been felt across a wide range of industries and sectors since the pandemic. With the continued evolution of technology and general pace of change, the retention of top talent and the continued development of the workforce will be front of mind for HR in 2025.
The cost of bad hiring decisions are more widely known and more acutely felt in the current economic landscape and we are seeing an increasing number of clients engage our services to review and improve their onboarding processes to maximise retention of new recruits as well as their skills gaps, learning & development needs and talent pathways.
Clients who focus on these areas demonstrate a commitment to their employees that they strive to be a great place to work and an employer who invests in their talent’s future career opportunities. We’re looking forward to helping more organisations with this in 2025.
- Make Work Pay
The last quarter of 2024 saw plenty of activity and interest in the Government’s make work pay initiatives as some of the details of legislative changes began to be shared. We summarised these in an article you can access here. Whilst these changes are not expected to necessarily take effect during 2025, we expect more detail to unfold and a clearer timeline for implementation.
Organisations will need to be prepared for the changes which will affect all areas of an employer to some extent. A good place to start is an audit of the current documentation and processes to identify which areas will be impacted. Thereafter, planning communication to leadership and bringing them up to speed with what this means is a positive step. Think also about how existing, new and potential employees are impacted and what communication and learning will benefit them.
Our retained HR service keeps our clients up to date with all legislative changes as well as providing the advice and hands-on support to help manage all HR related requirements. Click here to access more information about our retained HR support options.
If you’d like to understand more about any (or all!) of these initiatives and how you can implement them into your business in 2025, we’d love to hear from you. Book a free call with our Senior Consultant Neil, to discuss more, or email us at curious@connectthree.co.uk.