HR foresight is a delicate exercise: we often navigate between grandiose and short-lived promises on one side, and recycling of the same concepts on the other. Let’s try to discern not what is new, but the trends on which a qualitative leap is underway.
There are at least three main ones, which come from major inflections born at the beginning of the decade:
- A real rise in the power of the human, of the individual, in the definition of HR policies, in the long tail of the health crisis of 2020-2021;
- The rise of technologies resulting from artificial intelligence – ChatGPT, from the end of 2022, having served as an ambassador for a whole series of new applications resulting from generative AI and predictive algorithms;
- The company as an active vector of sustainable development, in its triple economic, social and environmental dimension, which is increasingly infiltrating processes with the entry into force of the CSRD directive.
I will allow myself to borrow figures and testimonies from HR 2025 trend bookto quickly evoke this vast dynamic picture.
Humans, by force of circumstances
The idea of the employee and the candidate as clients of the HR function is not new; but its implementation in business reality is undoubtedly accelerating. We see this in the growing success of the notion of employee experience. Two thirds of French companies say they have deployed an approach of this type, according to the 2024 employee experience barometer. It is no longer a question of displaying good intentions and, sometimes, implementing them, but rather of deploying a process of permanent transformation – the precision of listening and evaluation guaranteeing relevance and effectiveness actions.
This should go hand in hand, in principle, with a transformation of managerial culture. This, however, is slow to occur: according to the 2024 barometer of managerial skillstwo thirds of French companies have not yet implemented a systematic manager training process. However, the necessary managerial transformation requires a transformation of related skills. The idea is gaining ground, but the reality on the ground is still mixed.
To quote the analysis of Jérôme Hoarau, management expert, “organizations that are agile, flexible and equipped with a strong feedback culture will be better equipped to proactively change their managerial culture in order to adapt it to the requirements of our world. Conversely, more rigid and conservative organizations will be forced to change reactively and under the influence of circumstances.”
Recruitment is another area in which the emphasis on the individual has won over mentalities but not always practices. 7 out of 10 companies have not yet implemented a candidate experience process (SmartRecruiters Barometer, 2024). However, 75% of professionals in this function prioritize skills-based recruitment, according to a survey LinkedInwhich marks a real desire to move away from traditional sourcing recipes to truly assess the potential of each person in a personalized way.
It is clear that the expertise acquired by the HR function in implementing employee experience processes will ultimately bear fruit and lead to the transformation of both the managerial culture and the recruitment approach.
Tame the machine
Why this optimism? Because in addition to the favorable context created by post-Covid, the technological means are there. Digital and AI are in the process of industrializing the employee experience, by making it easier to carry out internal surveys and their analysis, by accelerating feedback, and also opening up the possibilities of value-added HR services for employees.
However, IDC estimated that in 2024, 80% of the 2000 largest companies in the world were already using AI in their HR processes. According to Florian Cordel, from Cegid, “for a long time, with each wave of digital innovation, the HR function was a little slower than the others in having new tools. But this is less and less the case. On big data, HR professionals have positioned themselves quickly. And with the advent of generative AI, we were able to see the simultaneous arrival of use cases in finance, marketing and HR”. The transformation of HR through AI is therefore underway, and everything suggests that this time, HR uses of AI will spread to other functions – particularly management.
The HR function will also be fully affected by the consequences of AI in terms of organization and skills. In 2023, Tomorrow Theory already identified, with the help of Chat GPT, five HR professions which had more than an 80% chance of seeing 80% of their tasks being replaced very quickly by AI. The HR function is therefore facing a major HR transformation itself – which will only strengthen its relevance on the subject.
The imperative of collective and sustainable development
These first two meta-trends combine to accelerate the third: that of sustainable development. This last expression, which is more than 40 years old, has never been more relevant. The comeback of remuneration at the top of the concerns of employees and candidates (see in particular the 15th edition of the Randstad Employer Brand Research study) should not create illusions: employees have high expectations of their companies in terms of CSR commitment.
According to the Beeshake Barometer/Act for Now of the perception of CSR by employees, the latter expect them particularly in terms of working conditions (obviously), but also in terms of recycling and energy savings. In fact, the CSR commitment of companies is gradually beginning to leave the domain of “virtue” and enter that of “simply normal”. The cursors have moved, as have the level of requirements.
The institutionalization of the “raison d’être” and the status of “mission company” offer an increasingly popular framework for corporate civic engagement. At the date of writing this article, the observatory of mission-based companies counted 1787, compared to 1490 at the end of 2023. At the same time, the European CSRD directive creates new obligations, while giving HRD the opportunity to demonstrate its new superpowers in AI-assisted HR reporting. Faced with squaring the circle of sustainable development, HRD’s expertise in managing contradictions gives it new value.
The human transformation of the company and the AI revolution reinforce each other: AI makes credible promises that have long remained in vain in terms of feedback, HR data analysis, personalization of training, and employee performance. recruitment, fluidity of administrative management, etc. At the same time, the hybrid organization, promoting the autonomy of employees, gives a reason for being and numerous use cases to the digital and AI tools that are emerging.
At a time when companies are faced with the often contradictory challenges of sustainable development, this new HR agility comes at the right time. Thanks to it, in 2025, new thresholds will be crossed in terms of business transformation.
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