How 2025 is shaping up. Jemma and Kerry share some interesting market insights…

With the first three months of 2025 now behind us, we’re starting to get some early indications of the lay of the HR and recruitment land and how the next nine months look to be shaping up. We asked our network what they were seeing and what they thought would be the key focus for HR professionals for the year ahead and their predications for 2025, and after the first 90-odd days thought it was the perfect time to see how they are stacking up.

The big ones that caught our eye were:

• The persistent challenge of cost of living.
• The role of AI in employee engagement.
• Difficult decisions around redundancies and restructuring.
• A focus on leadership development.
• Culture is key.
• Authenticity and transparency are a necessity.
• AI complementing HR

At face value it might feel like quite an extensive list, meaning plenty of changes but when it comes to the topics of culture, authenticity and transparency these aren’t new things that HR professionals need to be aware of, but continue to need a spotlight shone upon them, especially during unpredictable times.

The national minimum wage increase, and impending employment rights bill are both seen as positive steps for the individual employee, but for the employers it’s meant looking inwards at potential restructuring and the first three months of 2025 have very much seen HR in planning mode, ensuring robust, fair and followed processes are in place. 

The biggest shift in the way HR teams operate is the introduction of AI. Now this was a hot topic in 2024, but as we’ve moved into the new year we’re seeing ways that technology is helping streamline the HR and recruitment process – but the key is that it’s a resource and not a replacement for the Human in Human Resources or the People in People and Culture. There’s no doubt our industry has plenty to juggle this year, alongside the day-to-day and the introduction of these new technologies which can take care of the smaller operational tasks, freeing you up for those that require a more personal touch.

As we hit the 3-month mark, it’s fair to say that it’s been an interesting start so far.   If the year can be broken down like a project we’re still very much in the planning stage for some of the end-of-year predictions, but across them all there is one thing that stands out – the continued importance of the person-to-person connection, no matter how difficult the chat or challenge may be.  For us at HRLife, many of our clients are in a different place to 2024.  It feels more positive, hiring is happening and many of our candidates are securing great new roles which boosts confidence and encourages more people to move and take on new positions.  The TA space remains challenging, but we’ve definitely seen an uptake in HR Business partnering and reward roles.   Whilst leadership development came out top in the poll where we asked our HR network what the focus for 2025 was, we haven’t yet seen a real increase in specialist L&D roles albeit it’s been an important component to the HRBP briefs that we’ve taken.  What will be interesting to see is will we see an increase in pure L&D opportunities through the rest of the year and will businesses invest further into employee’s development, graduate programmes and their senior leaders or will it be down to HRBP’s to drive this as part of their roles?