FEBRUARY 25, 2025
In 2025, Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) are poised to continue their strategic initiatives from 2024, with an emphasis on developing a future-ready workforce. A critical component of this effort is to enhance their technical acumen, which will be essential for effectively aligning talent with emerging technologies. Additionally, this expertise will enable HR leaders to serve as trusted advisors to the CEO and board as the business focuses on transformation.
Within Evanta communities, CHROs are actively participating in our annual Leadership Perspective Survey, sharing their mission critical priorities, challenges and investments for 2025. The preliminary responses highlight the impact of advanced technologies, including AI and GenAI, on their strategic direction for the year ahead.
These insights, along with discussions with CHRO community members, shape the topics and agendas for our programs and events throughout the year. Here, we explore some of the initial survey results, highlighting the key themes CHROs are expected to prioritize in 2025.
- Fast-tracking Leadership and Manager Development
Leadership development has consistently been the number one priority for CHROs over the past two years, and our initial survey results suggest it will remain a focal point in 2025. Given the rapid pace of change, CHROs recognize the urgent need to enhance the change management capabilities of leaders and managers.
Currently, only 30% of CHROs believe their leaders and managers are equipped to lead change effectively, according to Gartner. Furthermore, another Gartner report indicates that 70% of CHROs feel their organizations' leaders and managers are not adequately prepared to develop midlevel leaders. In response, CHROs are reevaluating their approaches to leadership development to achieve significant improvements in this critical area.
- Building an Organizational Culture through HR Technology Innovation
It is well-established that a strong organizational culture enhances employee engagement, thereby driving greater business value. However, with business transformation and AI projected to impact 23% of jobs globally over the next five years, CHROs are amplifying their efforts to evolve their cultures to accommodate continuous change and technology disruption.
CHROs also recognize that advanced HR technologies and people analytics will be crucial for them to effectively evaluate employee adoption and satisfaction as they refine their organizational culture. In a recent survey of CHRO community members regarding their views on AI, one CHRO commented, "There is significant potential for AI to enhance the employee experience… provided we implement it with appropriate controls to manage risks." Another expressed, "I am extremely optimistic about the impact [AI] can and will have on our business and how we execute our talent and engagement strategy."
- Strategic Workforce Planning and Change Management
Ongoing business and technology disruptions are challenging CHROs' ability to effectively plan for the future. In fact, due to persistent changes, 61% of CHROs report that their workforce planning is restricted to a one-year plan. Our initial survey results suggest that CHROs will be concentrating on strategic workforce planning in 2025, aiming to focus not only on headcount but also on the capabilities they need to acquire for the long term.
In parallel, CHROs are evaluating their change management strategies to ensure that the current workforce is agile and capable of adapting to future needs, while also addressing the widespread issue of change fatigue among employees across industries. On a positive note, our recent CHRO community survey on change management revealed that 90% of CHROs are confident in their organization's change management capabilities moving forward.
As our 2025 community gatherings are set to begin, we look forward to connecting CHROs on these critical themes. If you are not already a member of your local CHRO community, we invite you to apply to join today. Members can sign in to MyEvanta to register for upcoming community programs.
by CHROs, for CHROs
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