Top 5 Priorities for HR Leaders in 2025

February 24, 2025

In 2025, it's time for HR leaders to look forward and determine what they need to prioritize in the coming year. By analyzing data and insights from leading HR research firms and experts, we’ve identified five key New Year’s goals that should top HR’s to-do list for 2025.

The Importance of Setting Annual Goals for HR Leaders

Thoughtfully crafted goals allow HR leaders to identify areas for improvement, create plans to address problems or gaps, and rally their teams around shared objectives. There are several key reasons why defining goals is so critical for HR this year:

• Drives Strategic Planning
  The new year offers a natural moment for strategic reflection and planning. By setting priorities, HR leaders can align priorities and major initiatives for the year ahead. This includes addressing any skill or capability gaps uncovered in 2024, planning major projects, and ensuring the function is poised to play a strategic role supporting overall business goals.
• Supports Talent Development
  Many common HR priorities center on enhancing talent management and leadership development. This includes rolling out new learning programs, overhauling performance management processes, improving retention and advancement rates, and more. Defining these sets targets for the HR team and prompts them to devote time and resources to reaching talent goals. It also signals to the broader organization that talent is a major priority and everyone has a role to play in supporting development.
• Boosts Employee Experience
  HR should set priorities aimed at directly improving the employee experience across the organization. This ensures they are continuously working to understand pain points, gather feedback, and implement changes to policies, tools, or culture. Whether focused on flexibility, wellbeing, inclusion, or other areas impacting the day-to-day for employees, goals keep HR accountable to making enhancements. The result is a more engaged, productive workforce.
• Enhances Company Culture
  Priorities focused on company culture set the tone for daily interactions and team cohesion. Efforts to build transparency, trust, collaboration, or other cultural traits give HR guideposts to orient programs and communications around. Explicitly calling out desired cultural shifts makes it clear that values matter and provides a basis for measuring progress. This helps move the needle on soft skills that directly impact performance.
• Improves HR Efficiency
  Many goals rightly aim to streamline HR operations, save money, or work smarter. Identifying areas for operational improvement ensures HR leaders take time to step back and assess current tools, workflows, and resource allocation. Maintaining efficient systems and eliminating redundancies allows for better service delivery across HR. Streamlining also demonstrates responsible financial stewardship.
• Reorients Around Future Needs
  HR should anticipate emerging organizational needs and set plans to build critical capabilities before demands arise. This might include upskilling teams in analytics, emerging tech fluency, deal-making, or other future-oriented competencies. Getting ahead of strategic shifts allows HR to play an active role in guiding change across the business. Readiness to pivot also demonstrates HR’s foresight and value.
• Boosts HR’s Credibility
  Simply making public commitments to major initiatives boosts HR’s profile and credibility as a strategic function. Goals signal to the C-suite and broader organization that HR is actively working to address talent challenges, enhance operations, and readythe workforce to achieve business goals. Setting ambitious but realistic targets allows HR to showcase its unique value throughout the year.
• Drives Accountability
  The resolution process builds organizational accountability—for both individual HR leaders and the function as a whole. Making explicit declarations about plans for the year puts pressure on leaders and teams to actually make progress. Regular check-ins on resolution goals prompts analysis of what is or isn’t working. Accountability for following through also motivates continuous effort and improvement.
• Provides Sense of Control
  Major business challenges loom in 2025, from the threat of recession to continued upheaval following the pandemic. This uncertainty can leave HR leaders feeling anxious or indifferent about making an impact. Setting goals asserts a sense of control and self-efficacy. HR plays a critical role in helping organizations weather any storm, and goals set a roadmap for proactive planning.
• Enhances Team Cohesion
  Rallying an HR department around shared goals builds camaraderie and strengthens intra-team connections. Collaborating to set ambitious but realistic goals emphasizes everyone’s contributions and commitment to moving the function forward. Aligning priorities also enhances role clarity for professionals managing different areas of HR. Pursuing unified targets motivates continuous coordination and cooperation amongst peers.
• Offers Sense of Meaning
  Priorities put time-bound stakes in the ground that give teams a sense of purpose and meaning. Having tangible problems to solve and milestones to hit provides the opportunity for HR leaders to see the direct impact of their efforts. Using priorities as a vehicle for positive change allows HR teams to connect their day-to-day work with improving employee lives and strengthening organizational performance.
• Tracks & Celebrates Wins
  Throughout the year, goals provide a framework for capturing and celebrating incremental wins. Setting shorter-term goals aligned under broader annual goals allows for regular progress tracking. As objectives are accomplished, HR leaders have the opportunity to highlight successes, reinforce positive outcomes, and motivate teams. Acknowledging achievements together also further connects team members to organizational results.
• Resets Focus Every Quarter
  In addition to annual priorities, setting quarterly goals reorients teams around priorities every 90 days. Regular offsites to reassess priorities ensure major initiatives remain on track but also allow for adjustments based on shifting needs. Quarterly check-ins provide occasions to solicit fresh feedback from stakeholders, get the latest data on performance indicators, and realign on the most impactful projects given limited resources.
• Drives Continuous Improvement
  Even if some resolution targets aren’t fully accomplished after 12 months, the process of establishing goals, striving for progress, and analyzing outcomes drives continuous improvement. Teams assess what worked and what didn’t, allowing them to build on successes and avoid similar pitfalls. The unmet goals then inform the next year’s areas of focus to perpetuate positive growth.
• Spurs Innovation
  Goals that emphasize ambitious metrics encourage teams to get creative with execution. By setting the bar high in terms of program scale, ROI, or other indicators of success, the brainstorming required to meet these goals often yields innovative approaches. Working diligently toward “stretch” objectives prompts HR leaders to think outside the box, pioneer new solutions, and push practice forward.
• Resets the Workforce Mindset
  Though HR sets their own internal goals, communicating out organization-wide goals helps align and motivate the broader workforce. Sharing simple, inspiring goals with employees enables everyone to understand HR’s priorities and prompts them to consider how they can lend support. This transparency and employee engagement roles models proactive planning while exciting staff around shared targets.

Top 5 Priorities for HR Leaders

Here are the top five priorities for HR leaders to drive meaningful impact and create thriving workplaces.

• Foster a Culture That Values Employee Wellbeing
  The statistics from 2024 paint a concerning picture of today's workforce. Over 50% of employees have experienced burnout, 80% say it has impacted their work performance, and 1 in 3 feel too overwhelmed to do their jobs. Yet despite these challenges, there is a nearly 30% “care delivery gap” between the number of employees affected and those who feel their employer provided adequate support.
  
  Clearly, organizations need to do more to promote employee wellbeing. We’re in an era where work and life blur – that’s not going anywhere in 2025. The onus is on HR to nurture a culture centered around mental health, work-life balance, and emotional support from the top-down.
  
  In 2025, employee wellbeing must become more personalized. One-size-fits-all programs simply don’t cut it anymore. HR needs to empower employees to choose resources and solutions that work for their individual needs. This means promoting open dialogues about mental health, giving people time for wellbeing practices, and leading by example.
  
  It also requires thinking holistically about wellbeing. Don't just consider physical and mental health programs. Look at how you can provide financial stability, healthy nutrition options, and a sense of purpose. When employees feel wholly cared for, they will be more engaged, fulfilled, and committed to the organization.
• Adopt Ethical Frameworks for AI Implementation
  With AI playing an increasingly pivotal role in reshaping work, HR leaders have a responsibility to ensure its ethical and transparent adoption. Organizations leveraging AI tools like chatbots and skill assistants must balance technological progress with respect for regulations and employee trust.
  
  HR is perfectly positioned to guide their company’s AI strategy in 2025. With their expertise in navigating change management and compliance requirements, HR can build guardrails to make sure AI complements rather than compromises company culture. This means establishing oversight procedures, auditing algorithms for bias risks, and being transparent about how AI impacts talent decisions from recruiting to career mobility.
  
  It also requires investing in employee education around AI so people understand how tools augment (not replace) human capabilities. When workers see AI as an ally rather than a threat, they will more readily embrace it.
  
  The bottom line is HR leaders must serve as Chief Ethical Officers for AI implementation. This will ensure innovation moves ahead responsibly, legally, and in alignment with organizational values.
• Adopt Skills-Based Approaches to Hiring and Development
  The rise of AI coupled with a tight labor market is driving more companies to adopt skills-based approaches to managing talent. This focus on competencies provides greater visibility into the capabilities that exist across the workforce. HR can leverage this insight to make more informed decisions around hiring, mobility, and upskilling.
  
  In 2025, HR should champion skills-based frameworks that catalog employee expertise in granular detail. Rather than relying on self-assessments, utilize AI-powered skills inference to objectively map competencies to opportunities. This gives recruiters and business leaders transparency into the in-house talent that fits open roles.
  
  Similarly, skills intelligence enables more personalized development pathways. With comprehensive visibility into existing and missing skills, HR can create focused training programs to address organizational capability gaps. This ensures learning investments are targeted to business-critical needs rather than wasted on irrelevant content.
  
  Overall, embracing a skills orientation will allow HR to deploy talent more strategically in 2025. When you understand the precise capabilities within your workforce, you can quickly mobilize the right people onto the right projects. This agility is invaluable, especially in volatile times.
• Create Infrastructures to Support Remote Employees
  The pandemic-fueled shift to remote and hybrid arrangements is here to stay. As such, enabling flexibility must be a top HR priority going forward. Data shows employees overwhelmingly want location flexibility; failing to provide those risks losing top talent.
  
  In 2025, HR leaders need to develop infrastructures and policies that empower people to work successfully from wherever they are most productive. This means providing collaborative technologies, ergonomic equipment allowances, and clear guidelines around schedules and availability expectations.
  
  Additionally, remote and in-office employees require equal levels of support. HR must nurture inclusive cultures where no one feels left out or disadvantaged by when and where they work. Fostering strong connections among all employees – through investing in team building, recognition, and social events – is key.
  
  While flexible location policies provide value, HR cannot assume remote workers won't still face burnout risks from increased blurring of work and life. Proactive check-ins, reasonable online expectations, and remote wellbeing resources are essential.
• Prioritize More Robust Manager Support Systems
  Managers represent the frontline of defense for employee wellbeing and engagement. Yet data reveals managers face far greater emotional stress and burnout risks than individual contributors. Overburdened managers struggle to support their teams, creating a dangerous cascade effect across organizations.
  
  Strengthening manager support must be an urgent priority for HR leaders in 2025. Through more training, peer networking, and administrative resources, HR can empower managers to put their best selves forward. When managers feel equipped to lead amid complexity, their team members also thrive.

Conclusion

By resolving to focus on these five areas in 2025, HR organizations will be poised to foster agile, ethical cultures centered around employee wellbeing and strategic talent deployment. While these initiatives require investment on the front-end, the long-term dividends – as measured by attraction, retention, innovation, and delivery of business objectives – make them well worth the effort. HR leaders must recognize that courageous decisions today pave the way for organizational prosperity tomorrow.