Global HR leaders & CEOs share top workforce priorities for 2025

With rapid technological advances and constant change, businesses are increasingly dependent on HR leaders to prepare their people for the future of work. 

However, from analyzing skill gaps to delivering upskilling programs, driving people growth and business performance will be a challenging task in 2025.

UNLEASH World 2024, Europe’s leading HR conference, brought together global HR and business leaders to share their people development strategies for the coming year. 

In this article, we’ll explore key insights from the event, including:

• The growing relationship between HR teams and C-suite leaders as they work closer together on business priorities
• The increasing momentum for skills-based talent development in large organizations
• How to anticipate and train future skills that maintain workforce competitiveness

Elevating HR’s role: CEO perspectives from Morrisons, Groupe VYV & Saur 

HR leaders can’t develop a future-proof workforce alone. They need direct support and buy-in from C-level executives to increase workforce retention and productivity. 

With changes in technology, workforce demographics and supply chains, CEOs from Morrisons, Groupe VYV and Saur shared three priorities when working with HR:

1. Boost talent retention through leadership development 

The war on talent is a key strategic priority for CEOs to compete in their industry. But talent retention isn’t only dependent on the company itself - the leaders who manage the teams are crucial. 

Therefore, CEOs and HR should work closely together to develop effective managers. This includes equipping leaders with the skills to engage their teams and establish 3 to 5-year career plans for every team member through talent development conversations. 

“HR leaders need to think like CEOs. You need to drive changes because you are managing the most important part of the business: people.” Patrick Blethon, CEO of SAUR. 

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2. Reskill to close skill gaps and increase workforce agility

Skill gaps are a major barrier to business growth. Without the right talent in the right roles, CEOs cannot maintain their company's productivity and competitiveness. As a result, reskilling employees is a top level priority to plug workforce gaps and decrease dependency on hiring from the external market. 

To prevent future skill gaps, CEOs should work closely with their HR managers to map out workforce challenges, empower teams to manage change and design effective training solutions. 

“HR is critical to anticipating and moving organizations through change.” Delphine Maisonneuve, CEO of Groupe VYV

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3. Transform company culture 

A rigid company culture is no longer sufficient to maximize people’s productivity and performance. Alongside CEOs, HR experts need to remove barriers and ensure teams feel empowered to make decisions and solve problems independently. 

“The role of HR is the advisor to me. They must be the defenders of teams.’” CEO of Morrisons, Rami Baiti

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Increasing business impact through skill-based development at LEGO

The mission at LEGO is clear: creating amazing play experiences for children. To succeed, the company’s L&D leaders must develop engaged, highly-skilled and creative teams that deliver world-leading products to the market.

Currently, LEGO’s learning team is at the beginning of a skills-based transformation project that centers on 3 key points for employees:  

• Know the skills you need to progress 
• Build the skills needed for the future 
• Grow as a professional 

To ensure that the company’s skills-based approach impacts employee growth and business performance, LEGO’s L&D team is pursuing several initiatives: 

• Working differently together: Reorganizing global L&D teams and encouraging them to work together closely, preventing a siloed approach that impedes an organization-wide upskilling approach. 

• Investing in technology that enables skills-based change: LEGO’s L&D team has identified critical skill groups that range from digital and data abilities to innovation and leadership.With a GenAI skills engine, they are creating a “skills bank” that has analyzed the key capabilities for over 1000 employees this year. 

• Standardizing skills across the business: By creating a defined skills criteria, the L&D team is implementing this into development plans for teams, internal career mobility and talent acquisition.

As a result, the skills-based initiative is increasing efficiency and creating a more balanced approach to talent development that reaches across the entire organization, instead of only focusing on marketing and sales. 

It’s also making it easier for LEGO to track learning impact and work closer with C-level: 

“We can articulate the impact much more clearly at a strategic level to our senior leaders.”  Liz Edler, Global Head of L&D

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Building critical skills for an unpredictable future

Preparing for an uncertain future is a critical challenge for HR leaders. By 2030, 1 billion people will have to learn emerging skills to keep up with technological advancements. On top of that, the half-life of skills is only 5 years. In some fields, it drops to just 2.5 years, creating a widening skills gap and decreasing competitiveness.

Closing these skill gaps requires HR professionals who can anticipate and train the skills needed to drive people and business performance. 

“The solution lies in developing an end-to-end workforce development strategy. From skills analysis to strategic upskilling programs, HR teams need a sophisticated skills-based approach in 2025.” Rene Jansen, CEO and Co-founder at Lepaya

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To prepare people for an unpredictable future, HR leaders can:

1. ‍Invest in skills-first strategies
   77% of business executives agree that their organizations should help workers gain relevant skills, but only 5% strongly agree they invest enough in skills.
2. Encourage internal mobility
   Organizations that neglect internal talent risk high turnover. 64% of employees feel their company lacks opportunities for internal movement.
3. Leverage technology and data
   Use AI-powered tools to continuously assess and close skills gaps, enabling a future-ready workforce.

To start your skills-first transformation, download the skills-based organization guide. 

The business role of HR grows in potential & importance

As businesses prepare to navigate challenges of 2025, the collaboration between HR leaders and the C-suite will be a defining factor. From closing skill gaps to leadership development, their partnership is key to driving both employee growth and business success.

Skills-based talent development, as seen at companies like LEGO, is also gaining momentum and will be critical to build a future-ready workforce. By focusing on identifying and training future skills, organizations can enhance workforce agility and build a strong foundation for success in 2025 and beyond.

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