By Allison Ebner
‘Progress is impossible without change’
George Bernard Shaw
As we scan the landscape of the past five years to predict our future fortunes, there are some recurring themes that we can count on to be familiar once again in 2025. One of those themes is change. To be more specific, the pace of change. Whether we are talking with HR professionals, managers & supervisors or the C Suite, one thing is clear today: we are tired of being on the change roller coaster. Unfortunately, this ride is going to continue into the new year, and one of the areas of focus for every organization will be teaching resilience. The practice of feeling balanced when you feel like you’re on a tilt a whirl ride isn’t easy, but part of resilience ‘best practice’ is getting more comfortable being uncomfortable. Change is here to stay, whether we are talking about technology advancements, managing generations in the workplace or operational demands on our organization. And we need to help our teams feel more resilient.
We also need to reimagine our EVP (employee value proposition) and our Total Rewards system. With Millennials and Gen Z comprising 70% of our workforce in the next few years, we’ve got a new audience of employees seeking different types of compensation, benefits, wellness programs and development pathways. 2025 is the year to review your total rewards program and determine the changes you need to make to support peak retention efforts and attract key new talent to your team.
Finally, we need to address the most critical role in your organization moving forward: The development of your people leaders. We cannot run our organizations in silos, and the competencies required for our managers and supervisors to be successful have completely changed. We have to empower them with the skills to balance empathy with accountability and teach them how to motivate individuals that have completely different value systems than they do. It’s not easy work, but our L&D team here at EANE is ready to support you through our various training programs, our new L&D round table (FREE for members) and an upcoming people leader newsletter designed to provide tips on how to lead in today’s changing workplaces.
By focusing on these key priorities and taking some steps of forward momentum, your organization will be well-positioned to not just survive but THRIVE in 2025 and beyond!