Top 5 People Priorities for Leaders in 2025

As organizations evolve and face new challenges, leaders and managers are preparing to address the urgent workforce priorities that will shape the future of work. Based on extensive research conducted GartnerThese priorities reflect the most important areas that HR leaders (and all organizational leaders) need to focus on to remain competitive, retain top talent, and drive business results. Below are five top workforce priorities that leaders should include in their 2025 strategic imperatives. We highlight key trends that will influence human resource development strategy.

1. Development of leaders and managers

In 2025, developing leaders and managers will continue to be a major focus for HR teams. According to a Gartner survey, 75% of HR leaders report that managers feel overwhelmed by increasing responsibilities, and 70% believe that current leadership development programs are insufficient to prepare leaders to meet future challenges. Traditional approaches to leadership development, often based on one-off workshops and static content, are proving ineffective in preparing leaders for the dynamic nature of modern business.

A new imperative has emerged: leaders need to develop through peer learning that fosters strong professional relationships and practical application of their knowledge. Leadership teams must prioritize long-term development strategies that emphasize collaboration, on-the-job learning, and regular touchpoints rather than isolated events. Programs must include a combination of consistent face-to-face training taught by vetted experts, virtual training, peer mentoring and technology platforms for talent and workforce development. Organizations that integrate leadership development with broader business strategies will be more resilient in the face of continuous change.

2. Organizational culture

While nearly 97% of CHROs express a desire to change some aspect of their organization’s culture, the challenge is making these cultural aspirations a reality. Many organizations struggle to translate high cultural ideals into actionable day-to-day behavior, resulting in a mismatch between leadership vision and employee experience. Poorly managed cultural initiatives have a significant impact on the business, impacting employee engagement, productivity, retention and even customer satisfaction.

In 2025, embedding culture into an organization’s core values ​​will become increasingly important. Leaders need to ensure that employees understand the values ​​that underpin their culture and have the necessary processes and support systems in place to align their daily behavior with those values. Leaders will be tasked with not only setting cultural direction, but also modeling desired behaviors and holding their teams accountable. Companies that successfully implement culture will see improvements in employee engagement, productivity, and retention.

3. Strategic workforce planning

As the business environment becomes increasingly volatile, the importance of strategic workforce planning (SWP) has never been greater. However, 66% of HR leaders admit that their workforce planning is often limited to workforce planning that does not adequately address future talent needs (top 5 priorities for HR…). As labor markets change, 23% of the world’s jobs are expected to changee In the coming years, due to factors such as artificial intelligence and automation, HR teams will need to take a more holistic approach to planning.

In 2025, HR leaders will need to look beyond immediate talent needs and develop opportunity-focused plans two or more years into the future. This phased approach to SWP will allow organizations to better align their talent strategies with business goals, address critical skills gaps, and ensure preparedness for potential disruptions such as technological advances or economic downturns. By integrating talent management strategies into business planning, HR can deliver greater value and proactively solve problems.

4. Change management

Given the rapid pace of change in today’s business world, 73% of executives report that employees experience change fatigue. I’ve researched and written a lot about this reality—and this data was the same before the world widely moved to remote and hybrid workforce strategies. Employees are increasingly exposed to a constant wave of organizational changes related to technology, process or culture. Traditional top-down change management approaches are no longer sufficient because they do not consider the human aspect of change and the need for psychological safety and engagement in times of transformation.

To cope with this growing complexity, HR leaders in 2025 must focus on building resilience to change in their teams and organizations. Rather than simply managing change from the top, successful organizations will empower employees to actively participate in the change process. Identifying change influencers—employees with strong connections to colleagues who can help communicate and advocate for change—will be key to improving adoption of change and maintaining business performance. When employees feel involved in shaping change, they are more likely to accept and support it.

5. HR technologies

HR technology will continue to evolve in 2025, but HR leaders face significant challenges in ensuring that the technologies they implement deliver real value. 55% of HR leaders say their current technology solutions do not meet future business needs, and 51% struggle to assess the business value of their HR technology investments. Simply automating administrative tasks is not enough; HR technology must make a strategic impact by enhancing the employee experience, improving workflows, and leveraging new tools such as generative artificial intelligence (GenAI).

Leaders of all countries must take a more transformative approach to workforce technology. This means not just implementing tools to improve efficiency, but using technology to create new ways of working and achieving business results. In the coming years, GenAI will play a critical role in areas such as chatbots for employees, automated document generation, and advanced data analytics for workforce planning. However, leadership teams must also combat internal resistance to technology by investing in training and support to ensure their teams understand how to use these tools effectively.

The future of work is changing rapidly, and leaders will need to adapt to these changes by focusing on leadership and talent development, cultural alignment, strategic workforce planning, change management and workforce technology. Each of these priorities is interconnected, and success in one area often reinforces success in another. Looking ahead to 2025, organizations that proactively address these challenges will not only retain top talent, but also drive sustainable growth and innovation. By incorporating these priorities into their core strategies, HR leaders can ensure their organizations are well positioned for the future.