HR Trends 2025: What are the Top HR’s Priorities?

As organizations continue to face economic pressures with ongoing challenges and intensified market competition in the post-pandemic era, HR’s focus and priorities have shifted from recruiting skilled and experienced talents to retaining and developing internal talents. This shift reflects an emphasis on leadership development, upskilling and reskilling for long-term and sustainable business growth while reducing recruiting expenses and controlling labour costs. 

On the other hand, with technological advancements, HR has become more effective at recruiting with a streamlined process and more powerful analytics. Therefore, they now focus on areas where they still encounter obstacles rather than on areas where they excel. 

2024 vs 2025: What are the shifts in HR's focus?

Source: HR Trends 2025 by Mclean & Company

According to the “HR Trends 2025” report conducted by Mclean & Company, which surveyed over 779 business professionals last year, it is surprising that recruiting is no longer the top priority for HR for the first time in five consecutive years since 2019, experiencing a significant drop from rank #1 to #5 in 2025. This shift in priority coincides with an increase in HR's performance and effectiveness in recruiting over the past few years, rising from 44% in 2023 to 55% in 2025. However, performance in talent development has remained low, with only a modest increase of 2%, moving from 30% in 2023 to 32% in 2025. These statistics highlight the reasons behind HR's shift in focus from recruiting to talent development. It is therefore predicted that HR will tend to seek tools and systems that help accelerate the effectiveness of talent management and retention.  

How to optimize talent management strategy?

Source: HR Trends 2025 by Mclean & Company

As talent development and retention have emerged as the top priorities for HR this year, HR worldwide are adapting changes and making significant progress on employee listening strategy. They believe that listening to the employee voice is the key to employee retention and enhanced employee experience. The survey from Mclean & Company has also proven that implementing strategic and formal listening strategies are more likely to be high performing at developing leaders, shaping organizational culture and providing a great employee experience.  

Yet, it is important to bear in mind that listening to employees is just one aspect; acting on their feedback is another. Effective listening must transform into meaningful actions that actively engage employees and demonstrate respect for their contributions. Otherwise, they may develop feelings of negativity and distrust that may negatively affect their sense of belonging and productivity, which may ultimately lead to increased turnover. 

From feedback to action: How to be a good interpreter?

Source: HR Trends 2025 by Mclean & Company

It is undeniable that technological advancements empower HR to overcome challenges and formulate more targeted and effective solutions to achieve their top priorities by enhancing their data analytical capability. As highlighted by the aforementioned survey, “when HR is highly effective at facilitating data-driven people decisions, effectiveness across top priorities is higher.” This stresses the importance of utilizing systems to streamline data collection, integration and analysis, which allow HR to have a more holistic and comprehensive view of HR and employee performance. 

A Comprehensive Performance Appraisal Module 

By leveraging an integrated human resources system which incorporates a performance appraisal module, HR can gain a deeper understanding of employee strengths, weaknesses and work performance through collecting data and employee feedback via a formal, standardized and engaging evaluation process. These systems enable HR to effectively assess employee performance by customizing goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) tailored to meet different company needs, assisting HR to develop more effective talent strategies for business growth.  

Moreover, HRMS can assist HR in implementing an effective and all-around performance appraisal system by providing both 180° and 360° appraisal models. Both models empower HR to tailor-made their unique appraisal and talent management journey by offering customizable and configurable e-appraisal forms, multiple appraisal paths, flexible grade and weighting, continuous feedback mechanism and comprehensive reports. This wide range of comprehensive functionalities enable HR to identify areas that need improvements and drive effective decision-making on talent management. 

Despite the importance of using technology and analytics to make data-driven people-related decisions, not many HR professionals are prioritizing digital transformation, leading to limited progress in this area, thereby hindering the progress of other top priorities. It is therefore time to embrace the digital era by incorporating systems and analytics into your HR practices. If you would like to know more about how HRMS can help you strengthen your talent management strategies, please do not hesitate to contact us!