📓 the future of HR

The Future of HR:

Do you ever feel like HR is at a crossroads? 

The last few years it feels like there’s this tug – a push and pull of where HR was and where HR wants to go. 

This entire quarter I’ve tried to demystify what HR’s role is in an effort to create space to dream about what HR could be… 

Some top hits from this quarter:  

• HR Leader Profiles Part 1 & Part 2 
• Can I Just Do My Job?
• 5 Skills Every HR Leader Should Have

Now, I want to dream of what HR could be!! 

BUT FIRST: What do you want HR to be? 

If you could close your eyes, wave a magic wand and have HR be whatever you wanted, what would you imagine?

I’ll give you my vision: HR that sits at the center of people and progress. A function that is deeply strategic, balancing employee wants and needs with what is possible for the business. Our work is focused on building inclusive cultures with policies that strive to remove bias and barriers for all groups.

Sounds nice right? 

While I think we’re a ways to go from that being a reality for everyone in HR, here are some things I think could define HR in the future to get us a bit closer to my vision:

• Skills 
• AI 
• Wellbeing 

Let’s dig into each one!

We’ll be skills experts: 

We’ve been hearing about things like skills based hiring for a while, so I don’t think you’ll be surprised to see that in the future I expect HR to be even more focused on skills. 

In the past there was this focus on job architecture and building models with clear cut roles and responsibilities, almost putting what someone does into a fixed box. 

The problem? It can feel incredibly static. 

Look nothing against job architecture – I still think it’s super important but I also believe there’s this flexibility that comes with focusing on skills that could be a better approach. 

And truthfully, this approach could differ depending on what the organization needs. Some larger organizations may not be interested in pivoting away from job architecture. 

But the organizations that do? Well they could unlock an edge. 

The future will need to be more fluid when it comes to employee roles and capabilities because work is moving faster than ever before. 

Especially with the introduction of new technologies like AI. 

Not only that, employees also have expressed that they want more fluid careers. Gen Z seems less concerned with climbing a corporate ladder and more concerned with developing the skills they need. You love to see it! 

With all of that being said, I think HR in the future will become experts on skills. (Some of us are already!!!) 

HR will be at the center of understanding:

• What are the core capabilities that define our organization today?
• Which emerging skills are actively developing within our teams?
• Where are our critical skill gaps—and how are they impacting our goals?
• What skills will be essential to our success in the next 1, 3, and 5 years?

⭐ Internal talent mobility will become a real strategy where organizations can shift employees to focus on the most critical projects more easily and efficiently! 

The bottom line: A focus on skills allows organizations to be more personalized and adaptable. 

We’ll be AI enabled: 

AI this, AI that… 

AI will not replace HR, it will enable HR. 

I believe in the future all HR teams will be AI-enabled. 

Why?

Because AI can handle transactional tasks so HR can focus on the work that truly helps a company moving the needle. 

I see AI handling things like:

• Drafting policies 
• Analyzing large amounts of data 
• Automating workflows 
• Answer employee questions 

So that HR leaders can focus on work like:

• Coaching leaders
• Designing inclusive systems 
• Analyzing policies 
• Listening to employees 

AI will free up HR leaders to be more strategic, leverage their empathy better and create impact in their organizations. 

AI curious? Check out some of these tools:

• Kinfolk: AI agents for HR + employee support 
• Textio: Helps managers give actionable feedback without bias
• AllVoices: For employee relations and anonymous reporting 

I would also put money down that any HR tool in your tech stack is rolling out some sort of AI automation. It’s worth doing an audit to see where your gaps are. 

The bottom line: if you find yourself doing something over and over again, it might be worth thinking: can I automate this? 

We’ll weave wellbeing into everything: 

Employee wellbeing really had a moment in 2020 as our lives were turned upside down with the pandemic and the shift to working at home for knowledge workers. 

What quickly became clear during the start of the pandemic was that there was a big gap in how we supported many groups at work.

It’s like until COVID we didn’t really stop to ask ourselves – is this all sustainable?? And is what we’re doing REALLY working?

We saw moms depart the workplace, caregivers struggle with finding care and employees adjust to different ways of working. 

Burnout became the topic de jour and it was evident that burnout was a big business risk. 

✨ Enter the wellbeing focus. ✨

And I believe that we’re just getting started NOW and in the future wellbeing will be woven into everything HR does. 

What does that actually mean?

It could look like:

⭐ More personalized benefits.  Let’s be real, traditional insurance isn’t really cutting it these days. The need for more personalized benefits is already here!! Things like menopause support, fertility care, financial coaching, trans inclusive healthcare and neurodivergent coaching are becoming add-ons to traditional benefits. I think this trend will continue in the future and HR will become the architect of building the best set of benefits for their specific needs. 

Check out these companies:

• Maven Clinic
• Folx Health 
• Gabbi
• Origin

⭐ Life-centered leave policies: We’re all familiar with vacation, illness and bereavement leave but frankly, those categories don’t cover it all. In the future I’m hopeful we’ll consider more flexible leave options that revolve around real life moments. Things like grief, menstrual days, mental health days, even sabbaticals should be on the table. Hey, a girl can dream!

⭐ Better Management: Okay this one you might think is a reach but your manager has more of an impact on your mental health than your partner!!! So, you want to care about employee wellbeing?? Start with the group that could be doing harm… your managers. I believe in the future managers must be trained more in how to handle things like team dynamics, emotional intelligence, and signs of burnout. It shouldn’t be HR’s job to check-in with every employee. We should arm managers to do this work as they are having the biggest impact on an employee’s day to day. I dream of a future that has less toxic managers. 

At the end of the day employee wellbeing is a business imperative and HR could play the role of architect.

Up next:

New quarter means a new theme!!!!

And continuing with the inspo from music comes another banger… 

Remember when Cyndi Lauper said Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?

✨Well, I give you the Hebba Youssef twist… ✨

Employees just want ______. 

All of Q2 I’ll be inserting words into that ____ and talking about what employees REALLY want and need… 

DOUBLE WHAMMY: I’ll have guests on the pod to share their POV of what they think employees want. 

Q2 is already looking brighter! ☀️