In a world of constantly changing priorities and shifting business demands, it can be dizzying to determine what skills HR professionals need to acquire in order to strategically adapt. Before beginning to help employees, though, they first need to help themselves.
Before a problem occurs, they have guidance on how to solve it. When something unexpected impacts their workforce, change management plans are already in place.
HR professionals are the human life raft for their organizations.
They keep the business in motion, no matter what external factor is thrown at them, their employees, or their organization.
It’s a big job. But now, they have to throw themselves a lift raft. HR isn’t going anywhere, but the ones who adapt—and quickly—will distinguish the leaders from the laggards.
This adaptability in action is a business imperative because if HR is lagging, their workforce is probably lagging, too. Whether you’re an HR leader or practitioner, read on to discover tangible ways to sharpen critical skills, and how to respond to the rapid pace of transformation.
If you’re an HR leader, or are on your way to becoming one, you’ve seen an entire career’s worth of changes occur over just the last few years.
You understand the role you play at your organization in navigating disruption at a macro level. But the micro level can be a bit more complicated. And because transformations are happening so rapidly, there isn’t enough time in the day to do your job and determine the highest impact areas that need your focus.
While you can’t add hours to a day, you can address this by moving beyond traditional talent management approaches.
One area to rethink is the demand for certain skills. Because entire functions are transforming to meet business needs, so will the accompanying roles. Taking on a more proactive, flexible talent management model can help your team respond to these market shifts as quickly as they come.
While there’s no solution to how many hours there are in a day, there is one in moving beyond traditional talent management approaches.
Talent management strategies are shifting to a skills-based approach because of the agility it gives you, your recruiting teams, and your business.
Adopting a more proactive, flexible, skills-based talent management model can help your employees, your recruiting teams, and your business respond to these market shifts as quickly as they come.
Here are some areas where you can sharpen your knowledge in order to handle these waves of change with ease.
This requires predictive analytics, including a look at potential technology-driven impacts to your organization across functions, and will rely heavily on the future vision.
Example questions to ask as you dive in:
This requires cross-functional alignment on what skills are needed for current and future roles.
Example questions to ask as you dive in:
What skills are we missing?
Do these skills exist within our internal talent pool, but on other teams?
This requires a plan to develop existing and future talent to meet business needs, rather than having static learning models that aren’t updated frequently or tied to outcomes.
Example questions to ask as you dive in:
Which skills apply broadly to all employees that we can begin developing now?
What teams require function-specific skills, and how can we enable broad education and learning for those?
The days of solely administrative HR are long gone.
Today’s HR professionals are a crucial bridge between talent strategy and business outcomes. They don't just react to problems, they proactively identify opportunities and challenges, leveraging their deep understanding of both people and the business.
This approach isn't just a nice-to-have; it's a necessity. By sharpening the following skills, HR professionals can elevate their impact and become indispensable strategic partners.
This includes the ability to listen actively, diagnose challenges, propose solutions, and gain buy-in from business leaders, shifting HR from order-takers to trusted advisors who can shape business decisions.
Example questions to ask as you dive in:
What are the core business objectives of the departments I support, and how can HR initiatives directly contribute to them?
How can I proactively identify potential people-related risks or opportunities before they become urgent issues?
This focuses on moving beyond intuition to leverage workforce data for insights into trends, challenges, and opportunities, including understanding HR metrics, interpreting analytics, and using data to tell compelling stories that inform business strategy.
This focuses on moving beyond intuition to leverage workforce data for insights into trends, challenges, and opportunities, including understanding HR metrics, interpreting analytics, and using data to tell compelling stories that inform business strategy.
Example questions to ask as you dive in:
Empowering managers to maximize their full potential, navigate change, and continuously grow, this involves active listening, asking powerful questions, and guiding individuals toward self-discovery and solutions.
Example questions to ask as you dive in:
HR professionals need to understand how to harness AI’s benefits, use it for efficiency, and advise on its ethical implications. The integration of AI into the workplace isn't just about automation; it's about augmentation. It enables humans to do their jobs better and faster, and be more informed.
For HR, this means understanding how AI can revolutionize everything from recruiting and learning to talent management and employee experience.
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report highlights that 75% of companies are expected to adopt AI by 2027, and 60% of workers will require training before 2027 to adapt to AI and big data in their roles. This massive shift requires HR to be at the forefront, guiding organizations through the responsible and effective adoption of AI.
The integration of AI into the workplace isn't just about automation; it's about augmentation. Enabling humans to do their jobs better, faster, and more informed.
This is about more than just knowing what AI is; it's understanding its capabilities and limitations, how it's applied in HR tech, and its potential impact on roles and work processes. It's about being able to engage in informed conversations with leaders about AI's strategic value and risks.
Example questions to ask as you dive in:
As AI becomes more pervasive, HR professionals must champion its responsible and ethical use. This includes understanding potential biases in algorithms, ensuring transparency, advocating for fairness, and establishing clear guidelines for AI's role in HR processes.
Example questions to ask as you dive in:
Whether navigating the sea of change in your organization at a practitioner or leadership level, the call to action is the same: Adapt to the new world of work, or lag behind.
In order to truly meet the moment, HR professionals need to embrace the opportunity to learn and develop their own skills in order to do so effectively with their workforce. As HR professionals lead the charge and first future-proof themselves, they’re poised to successfully lead their workforces into the future of work.
Is your approach to strategic workforce planning reactive, not proactive? Download this whitepaper from Workday and KPMG to learn how you can gain agility by unifying HR and finance data and stay ahead of your competitors.
87% of HR leaders recognize the need for HR transformation—but only 27% have a fully integrated strategic plan. Discover the biggest challenges HR leaders are facing in 2025 and how your organization can tackle them head on.
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