My key focus areas for 2024 comprised five main topics: remote work, AI, diversity, wellbeing, and speaking business. I believe these will remain high on our agenda’s of 2025 too, with their importance evolving dynamically over time, but adding a more extended concept of hybrid, onshore staffing and employee experience.
When it comes to diversity, this year brought numerous discussions and exchanges of experiences about age, generational, and cultural diversity within workplaces. This focus aligned closely with my PhD research, The Impact of Demographic Changes on HR Management. The research idea emerged, back around 5-6 years ago, from challenges I encountered in talent attraction, particularly the scarcity of resources in recruitment. Over time, my assumption that demographic changes also significantly affect retention—through development, upskilling, and reskilling—was validated by the respondents in my study. By the end of the research, interviews and insights from businesses revealed that the most pressing challenge for companies and HR professionals was the integration of four or even five generations within the workplace, and internal talent development was validated a top priority, even as workforce shortages have lessened in certain industries and regions.
On a broader scale, macrotrends like demographic shifts and AI are undeniably reshaping the workplace economy. These forces intertwine within the “circulatory system” of the employment landscape, influencing staff demographics. Observations extend beyond age groups or generational segments to encompass life stages and cultural specificities—factors that will continue to shape workplace strategies in the years to come.
A year with some thoughts written related to summer slump, an article about balance during the entire year not just maybe in summer, to the history of HR, an article comprising a famous experiment of Hawthorne in a factory, and to the multigenerational workplaces, using the oboe with its limited positions in orchestras are a frequently used example to illustrate a situation where the number of qualified individuals exceeds the number of available opportunities in a specific field or job, and with a book recension on The Life Intense, all hosted by wonderful TSM. Also, some shared by Pluria, about the pressure to slow down, and about portfolio lives. And with some thoughts expressed about career and family, multigenerational work cultures, intangible and tangible benefits, interconnections between demography and competitiveness in the wonderful organization of BBTE, MCC, Smart HR, Unesco Chair, Mirro, Deepdive, Learning Network, RMKT, Oeconomus. And with the generous invitation to respond to some interviews, one, about gaining trust and optimism, while being constructive with Human Invest and one, about curiosity, resilience, and antifragility in modern leadership – a potential perspective on people management in Careers & Business. Adding to all the words, a piece of sound as well, in the tumultuousness of the thoughts, words and letters, Flageolet, a classical musical radio show, one hour, once per month! Everything inspired by Temenos, colleagues, BBTE, students, and a wonderful community of HR.
2025? My bet of 3 cents goes like this, one for hybrid: office & remote & human & AI, a second one on onshore staffing, as demographic changes following pandemics might influence companies to prioritize onshore staffing, and the third, on focus on employee experience.
Nora Dobre
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