The emergence of the chief productivity officer role is highlighted as a potential future trend, combining HR and IT to drive enterprise-level productivity. DHL Supply Chain serves as a prime example this with Claudius Christmas Jr., as vice president of Global HR Transformation and Digitalization. Christmas Jr. leads the charge in standardizing HR processes and leveraging digital tools to enhance employee experience, as well as designing effective data flows and overseeing teams composed of practitioners with hands-on process experience.

Chipotle Mexican Grill has reduced its hiring time by 75% by using Ava Cado, a conversational AI platform that collects information, schedules interviews and sends offers to candidates. With plans to open more than 300 new locations and increase its workforce to about 200,000 employees this year, Chipotle's AI platform supports the ambitious expansion.

Psychosocial risk assessments are pivotal in change management and restructuring to prevent significant legal risks, says Sarah Clarke, a partner at King & Wood Mallesons. Companies must manage workplace hazards like job demands and poor support, which can lead to psychological harm. "This may require a multi-disciplinary team of HR, workplace health and safety and legal to look at the changes and assess the impact on employees from a psychosocial risk perspective," Clarke said.

Beacon Mobility Chief Technology Officer Gaurav Sharda is prioritizing a people-first approach to digital transformation, emphasizing empathy and employee experience. Sharda's initiatives, such as AI-powered recruitment and the Beacon Buddy virtual assistant, have improved operational efficiency and employee satisfaction.

Agentic AI is already taking over some repetitive tasks, which means leaders must restructure teams to collaborate with digital talent while also focusing on ethics and transparency to transform the workforce rather than just create efficiency, writes Katherine Kostereva, the CEO of Creatio. Kostereva recommends adopting a process-first mindset, thinking about how to build workflows as if AI agents were part of the team from the start.

CFOs are navigating hiring decisions amid economic uncertainty, with executives' concern about future economic conditions leading to cautious hiring strategies despite stable financial results. The potential for rapid changes in the economic landscape, influenced by factors such as tariffs and geopolitical shifts, is adding complexity to workforce planning.

Women's participation in the workforce and leadership roles has increased in the past decade, with women now representing 41.2% of the overall workforce, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2025. However, gender gaps persist across industries, particularly in top-level management, where the share of women has stalled.

As organizations rapidly adopt AI, security measures are being left behind, according to the AI Risk Readiness in the Enterprise 2025 Report from BigID. Gartner research suggests that HR teams can help mitigate risks by integrating security awareness into workplace culture, potentially reducing employee-driven cybersecurity incidents by 40% by 2026. Leaders are encouraged to work closely with IT and security teams to create proactive measures to protect company data.