3 Forward-Thinking HR Strategies to Future-Proof Your Workforce

In this article we discuss:

• Key HR Trends Shaping the Workforce in 2025
• Preparing Your Workforce for 2025 and Beyond
• Embracing an Unpredictable Future

HR leaders often find themselves under pressure to predict the next major shift in the workforce, whether it's changes to hybrid working or how AI will impact their industry. But if history teaches us anything, it's that bold predictions can often miss the mark. Consider these notable events from history:

• 1930: John Maynard Keynes predicted a 15-hour work week within a century. While we haven't quite reached that, we've certainly seen advances like the four-day work week and increased productivity.
• 1977: Ken Olsen stated, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Now, we can hardly imagine life without them, and they have given us access to information and connectivity in a way we never could have imagined.
• 1995: Bob Metcalfe forecasted the internet's imminent collapse, due to factors including security breaches and capacity overloads. Instead, it has become an indispensable part of our lives.
• 2006: Bill Gates optimistically declared that spam would be solved within two years. As we know, it has evolved into a more sophisticated challenge, with spammers continuously developing new techniques to bypass filters and security measures.

While it's always a bit of fun to look back and chuckle at these missed predictions, the reality is that accurately forecasting the future is incredibly difficult. After all, not many people could have imagined the transformative impact that generative AI and now agentic AI has had on the way we manage our people.

As Albert Einstein famously said, 'The only thing we can predict about the future is that it will be unpredictable.'

So, if we can't predict the future, how do we prepare for it? How do we future-proof our teams and organisations so they're ready for whatever comes next? I believe it all starts with looking at broader industry trends, which can give us clues about where we may be heading in the future, so we can make better decisions today.

Key HR Trends Shaping the Workforce in 2025

These trends aren't new, but they continue to impact recruitment and retention across Australia, making them a significant factor in strategic workforce planning.

A Tight Labour Market Heats Up Competition for Talent

Australia continues to experience a tight labour market, with the unemployment rate remaining low at 4.1% in May 2025 and wage growth remaining moderate. This suggests a competitive environment for talent and a cautious approach to salary increases, as businesses find it difficult to find suitable candidates for roles.

There also continues to be an evolution in the workforce ecosystem, with HR leaders now managing a greater variety of workers, including contingent workers, employees, gig workers, crowdsourced contributors, app developers, and even AI agents as digital employees.

Deloitte's research shows that 80% of companies say they need to do more to manage both employees and their contingent workforce in an integrated way, which is creating new challenges for leaders looking to harness the collective strength of their workforce and streamline how they are managed.

Critical Skills Gaps Continue to Drive Migration

Australia continues to face critical skills shortages across sectors including healthcare, engineering, IT, construction and education. In many cases, these are being addressed with overseas migration, which has shown to positively impact labour productivity in Australia and can help organisations take a skills-based approach to strategic workforce planning.

Our Global State of Skills research found that this approach can increase an organisation's potential for economic growth, but leaders are worried about whether the skills in their organisation today will remain relevant and necessary for future success. It's a valid concern, with research showing that 39% of worker skills will be transformed or outdated by 2030.

Ways of Working Evolve as New Generations Join the Workforce

The hybrid and flexible work debate continues, though research from the Australian HR Institute shows that working patterns have largely stabilised. Employers expect these patterns to continue in the future, with more than 80% saying that hybrid working will either increase or stay the same at their organisation over the next two years.

This preference for flexibility and a greater work-life balance is also impacted by the changing shape of the workforce. For the first time in history, the workforce now comprises five generations, which is placing a greater focus on how organisations can encourage knowledge and skills transfer, collaboration and ways of working between older and younger generations.

Preparing Your Workforce for 2025 and Beyond

How can these trends help us improve our strategic workforce planning, and help our people get ready for an unknown future? Here are three strategies to prioritise this year.

Staying Ahead of Workforce Demands

To compete for talent in a tight labour market, organisations need to be proactive in identifying future talent gaps before they become critical. According to a Gartner survey, 66% of HR leaders are only considering headcount in their strategic workforce planning, and struggle to demonstrate the ROI on their efforts.

Having real-time visibility of key metrics in the hiring lifecycle is critical to understanding where there are opportunities to reduce bottlenecks, inefficiencies and deviations from best practice. This data can also help you take a 'jobs to be done' approach to resource planning, looking beyond traditional headcount to leverage the cost-effectiveness and skills of contingent workers.

Continuing to Take a Skills-Based Approach to Talent

Skills are now a competitive advantage for organisations. There is a growing demand for AI skills (Korn Ferry reports that 67% of HR leaders see increased AI usage as a top acquisition talent trend in 2025) as well as softer skills like creativity and resilience. But before looking elsewhere, consider what skills already exist in your organisation that you can leverage.

Internal mobility programs can help you redeploy talent across the organisation, helping you fill skills gaps and prevent top talent from going to a competitor. AI can also boost your efforts, giving you the ability to quickly map existing skills to business goals, identify internal candidates for roles, and surface trending skills that should be included on job profiles.

Empowering Employees for Future Growth

Supporting five generations in the workforce will require organisations to foster a culture of adaptability and growth, with a greater focus on empathy, trust and meaningful connections. As part of your strategic workforce planning, consider how your organisation can upskill leaders in these areas, as well as free up more time for them to spend with their people.

AI agents can support these goals, by giving employees quick answers to common questions and providing resources to support their career growth. They can also automate succession planning, identify future leaders across the organisation and generate personalised development plans that will elevate the potential of every employee.

Embracing an Unpredictable Future

It turns out, we don't need to make bold predictions to future-proof our workforce. By leveraging AI to get real-time insights, build a skills-based organisation, and free up leaders to spend more time with their people, we can create strategic workforce plans that can adapt to whatever the future may bring.

HR leaders across Australia are using AI to drive strategic workforce planning. Tune in to Workday Elevate Online to discover how you can embrace AI to automate, augment and enhance your HR function.