Talent Management Trends for 2025

At this time of resolutions and plans, through our conversations with HR leaders, six critical talent management priorities have emerged that will shape the workforce in the year ahead.

Whether you’re refining your people strategy or seeking to stay abreast of what others are doing, take a look at these key areas of focus – and the actionable steps we’ve outlined.  

#1 Going beyond automation in HR tech: making data-driven HR decisions

For years, HR tech has relied on its time-saving contribution.

It is now imperative for HR leaders to access the true value of the talent data stored in order to inform its talent decisions.

Actions to take:

1. Explore how to make the most of AI tech responsibly. AI is still on a massive hype curve with applications being developed that focus on the ‘could’ and not necessarily the ‘should’.  Ask your vendor how their implementation of AI benefits the majority, without raising concerns about bias and fairness.

2. Learn about the information your platform offers you. Again, not all talent platforms have been created equally. Make it one of your key actions to get to grips with the functionality of your talent system. If needed, get a demo from your supplier - and also talk with Head Light to see what our platform can give and how easy it is to access the information.

3. Use the data within your key talent activities, such as succession planning. It is time to move beyond the traditional succession planning processes of yesteryear and include real-time talent data in your decision making.

#2 Reinventing leadership development: traditional methods are failing

Despite massive investment and programme overhauls, traditional leadership development is failing to deliver.

Gartner's research reveals that just over one-third of HR leaders believe that their current leadership development programmes are preparing leaders for future challenges and less than one-quarter are confident in their leadership pipeline. Perhaps more concerning, nearly three-quarters acknowledge their mid-level leadership development is ineffective.

While the delivery of leadership development programmes might need addressing, effective leadership development needs the fuel of insight – and the recognition that leadership skills and competencies continue to change, and development is personal.

Actions to take:

1. Identify the leadership skills of the future. Invest in designing a skills framework for skills needed going forward. Hire in expertise to work with you to create this: a consultant who knows the pitfalls to avoid and ensures you can own and update the framework when needed. 

2. Benchmark current strengths and areas for development. Ensure your 360 programme is easy to use, and contains easy-to-understand capabilities to be benchmark capabilities. Measure current skills against those needed today, and those needed in the future.

3. Take steps to build a feedback culture. Development comes from feedback. Check that your performance review system encourages ad hoc and in-the-moment feedback and appreciation – rather than storing up comments for the six monthly or annual review.

#3 Shifting organisational culture: emphasise employee centricity

Organisational culture is a very real challenge – and a key priority for many of our clients.

This is reflected in Gartner’s HR leaders’ survey. A staggering 97% of HR leaders are actively looking to change some aspect of their organisation’s culture – and yet only half report that their leaders take accountability for modelling the desired cultural behaviours.

Actions to take:

1. Start giving out kudos – and celebrate what’s important. Acknowledging who is demonstrating and living the values your organisation wants to see can be done easily with the giving of a ‘card’ through our Talent Performance module. If you’re not yet using this platform as your fundamental review system, get in touch: performance review has changed dramatically in the past year or so.

2. Record the moments that matter. Adopt a way to record in one place the success – and areas for development – for each person. Make it easy for peers and managers to share their feedback, let the individual take ownership of requesting and accepting comments and feedback – and the resulting actions.

3. Transfer the ownership of talent management to the individual. Culture change can be accelerated by giving the ownership of key talent management activities to the individual, such as performance review, skills management and career development. Give them an easy-to-access platform (such as our Talent platform) that shares data between modules, is customisable by your organisation and puts the individual firmly in control of updating and sharing their information.

#4 Reimagining skills management: focus on the skill, not the job

We predict an acceleration of the importance of skills in 2025. While competency frameworks remain a fundamental part of understanding the skills, behaviours and values needed for today’s organisation and that of the future, there is a growing focus on understanding skills families outside of specific roles.

Actions to take:

1. Get to grips with the current skills level within your organisation. A skills audit can be difficult to implement and keep up to date. Deploy a platform, such as Talent SafeGuard, that encourages each employee to update their current skills, drawn not only on their current role, but on past experience, prior employments and away-from-work expertise.

2. Build skills profiles for job roles – and show how skills are transferable. Encourage employees to explore future and not yet considered roles that build on existing skills. Make this easy to do in a safe space by providing a tool, such as Talent Navigator.

#5 Recognising change fatigue: organisations have witnessed huge shifts in recent years

Change is constant – and employees are feeling the effects of this. Gartner reports that nearly three-quarters of HR leaders say that their employees are fatigued by change.

The impact of this on the business is tangible:

• 35% agree that fatigued employees are less likely to be engaged.
• 44% agree that fatigued employees have lower intent to stay.
• 44% agree that fatigued employees are less likely to have psychological safety.

Organisations who encourage employees to own change boost sustainable performance by up to 29% (2024 Gartner Organization Structure and Leadership Trust Survey).

Actions to take:

1. Partner with employees. Develop an employee-centric approach to talent management so that they understand the change taking place, are empowered to take their role in such change and have the tools to track their performance, development and career planning.

2. Build change resilience. Provide employees with the tools to prepare, plan and normalise change and the need to adapt. Think career planning, skills development and embedding feedback.

#6 Sharpening the focus on retention: a continuation from 2024

The ongoing skills and talent shortage will carry forward into 2025. From what we have seen, organisations will increase their efforts to retain the talent they already have. Fundamental to these efforts will be the demonstration of their commitment to continued learning and career development, as well as ensuring that the flexible working models implemented over the previous years continue to work for all.

Actions to take:

1. Deploy development tools, owned by the employee. Demonstrate your commitment to retention by showcasing possible career paths for employees to explore within their own safe space. Help them to see routes not yet considered and how their skills apply.

2. Check that your talent management platform is flexible, accommodating of change and customisable. Not all talent management platforms are flexible enough to incorporate different working patterns – and allow you to cut the talent data based on these. Check on the practicalities of your talent platform being accessed by office- and home-based employees and those hybrid workers.

As a start point, get to understand how your system works and, if needed, talk to us at Head Light and see what is possible.

The Next Step

Without doubt, 2025 offers a range of challenges for the HR leader, not least in the area of talent management.

When you are ready to take stock of where you and your organisation currently sits and explore the possibilities already in place at other companies, get in touch with us.

We can help you create a more engaged, skilled, and future-ready workforce that drives your organisation's success.