This article discusses what building an HR career involves, the various types of career paths you can pursue, and three HR career progression examples to help inspire you.

Want to picture what your own career path in HR could look like? Don’t hesitate to explore AIHR’s free HR Career Map tool!

Contents
The modern career path for HR
How to start a career in HR
Understanding HR career progression
Types of HR career paths
HR career path examples from practice
HR job titles by career level
How to choose your HR career path

The modern career path for HR

Traditionally, people viewed the career path for HR as a series of steps leading up to the highest point of success — a strategic leadership position. Typical career progression went from HR Assistant to HR Manager and ultimately, overseeing a team as an HR Director or CHRO. Today, career trajectories in HR are much more varied, as we’ll discuss below.

HR roles, at all levels, have evolved to be more strategic and data-driven. A successful HR professional needs more than in-depth knowledge of compensation and benefits, talent acquisition, and learning and development. You must also understand business operations, including production, service delivery, and key profit drivers.

Still, 83% of HR professionals report feeling highly confident in operational and transactional tasks, while only 64% say they’re confident in translating strategy, aligning HR priorities, and using financial data for HR decision-making. The modern HR career development path must shift focus from operational and transactional tasks to becoming a strategic business partner.

Traditional vs. modern HR career paths

HR career paths have shifted from a predictable, title-driven progression to more flexible, business-focused journeys that prioritize impact, strategic capability, and continuous skill development. Here’s a summary of how the modern HR career paths have evolved:

How to start a career in HR

It’s essential to have strong foundational knowledge and competencies before embarking on a career in Human Resources. Here are four steps to help you get started:

1. Build your education and training

Develop foundational HR knowledge through a mix of formal education (such as a degree) and short-term learning like courses and certificates.

Tip: Degrees in HR, Business, Psychology, or similar fields are beneficial. Short courses in recruitment, employee relations, performance management, employment law, or organizational behavior help you expand your knowledge further.

2. Gain relevant experience

Apply experience from non-HR roles such as administration, customer service, operations, or people management to HR contexts and actively support HR-related tasks and initiatives in your current role.

Tip: Clearly connect your skills from other roles (communication, coordination, problem-solving, confidentiality) to real HR tasks and outcomes. Also,look for opportunities to contribute to HR activities like hiring, onboarding, and training through projects, shadowing, or internal moves.

3. Get certified

Attain an entry-level HR certificate (e.g., HR Coordinator or HR Generalist) and continue upskilling to meet changing business needs.

Tip: Focus on certifications that add value to the role you’re currently aspiring to, as well as your desired future HR roles.

4. Apply for entry-level HR roles

Look for entry-level HR positions once you’ve built relevant (transferable) skills, experience, and knowledge.

Tip: Common entry points include HR Assistant, HR Coordinator, or Recruiter, but hybrid or project-based roles can also open doors.

Understanding HR career progression

HR career path options are not just changing; they’re growing. Research shows that HR jobs have been growing steadily in most Western countries since the early 2000s. The HR Manager role is projected to grow by 5% within 10 years (faster than the average for other occupations), with a median salary starting at over $140,000. HR Specialists can expect an average of 81,800 job openings per year over the next decade. In fact, unemployment rates among HR professionals have been trending below the average rate in the U.S.

With the rise of new HR roles and responsibilities related to wellbeing, digital transformation, and sustainability, there are now more non-traditional HR career progression opportunities. HR professionals now switch between roles and companies more often, allowing them to take on different roles and still achieve the same end goals.

This means, for instance, if your end goal is to be a Chief HR Officer (CHRO), you don’t have to take the traditional path from HR Assistant to HR Specialist, HR Manager, and then to HR Director beforehand. It’s possible to begin your career as, for example, an HRIS Analyst, transition into an HR Ops Manager role, then become a Shared Services Manager before reaching the CHRO position.

You can easily visualize your career path with AIHR’s free HR Career Map tool, and it can look like the journey below:

Your career progression in HR is essentially a collection of meaningful experiences. With each role you take on, you gain a new set of skills and competencies that boost your personal and professional growth.

These skills will also enable you to advance further in your career. Remember — different companies (depending on size, structure, and industry) might require different skills, competencies, and portfolios for the same job. This means the possibilities are endless.

However, it also means you must go beyond your HR specialization and develop additional, more general HR competencies that are transferable between roles. These competencies will not only allow you to collaborate and innovate across the board but also adapt to changing work environments and future-proof your career in the face of global disruption.

Types of HR career paths

Did you know that just 8% of HR professionals start their careers in HR? Most don’t. HR professionals often start off in administrative and non-business roles, for example, as admin assistants, teachers, and social workers. Entry into HR is often unstructured and unplanned, which impacts career readiness, motivation, and the skills of entry-level HR professionals. 

So, why do these people want to join the HR profession? AIHR’s research suggests that people move into HR because they have a desire to make an impact on businesses and their people. In fact, 37% of those surveyed in HR said that “translating business needs into impactful people interventions” is their number one preferred job activity. 

Let’s explore the five types of HR career paths, including what each one looks like, what it’s motivated by, and its potential advantages and disadvantages.

1. Traditional vertical career path

A traditional vertical career path is defined by linear career progression, often beginning with an entry-level position, and making vertical career moves into increasingly more senior positions. HR professionals who tend to seek out this upward career mobility are often motivated by increased responsibility, leadership, status, and recognition.

To climb the career ladder in this way, it’s essential to build foundational functional skills, learn to effectively manage others, and form a strategic vision to guide the organization forward. This movement is often tied to opportunities that are available within the organization, but it can also involve stepping into a more senior role at another company.

The main advantage of a vertical career path is the relatively fast progression from entry-level roles to senior positions, often accompanied by increased responsibility, visibility, and pay. However, this path can also encourage overwork as individuals push to keep moving up, which increases the risk of burnout. In some cases, organizations may award more senior titles without a corresponding increase in skills or experience, creating a gap between role expectations and actual capability.

AIHR’s research shows that approximately 33% of people in HR take this career path.

An example of a traditional vertical HR career path: Serena begins her HR journey in an entry-level role as an HR Coordinator. From here, she moves into an HR Business Partner role, and then into a Senior HR Business Partner position, continuing to increase her responsibilities and leadership status. Next, she is promoted to HR Director, followed by Head of HR. Finally, she moves into the role of Chief People Officer (CHRO) at the organization.

2. Specialist domain-driven career path

A specialist domain-driven career path focuses on selecting one specialist area of interest within HR and progressing in this niche. HR professionals who follow this HR career path tend to be motivated by mastery of their specialty: gaining credibility, developing specialist skills, and obtaining a deep knowledge and experience of one domain. People who carve out this type of career tend to love the scientific or technical aspects of their work. 

This career path requires ongoing learning, visibility, and specialization. Movement is always aligned to specialist domains, for example, compensation and benefits, people analytics, or organizational development. 

One of the advantages of taking this path is that you tend to spend a lot of time developing your skills and obtaining new qualifications, which often puts you in the minority of people who can do what you do, increasing your job prospects. As a result, people on this HR career path have the option to move into a similar role in a new industry or environment. However, there are some drawbacks. This path can lead to siloing, less mobility within an organization, and role narrowness. 

According to AIHR’s research, around 17% of people take this type of HR career path.

An example of a specialist domain-driven HR career path: Ranahjai studied law at University and began his career as University law lecturer, before moving into HR and becoming an Industrial Relations Expert. By deepening his expertise, he was promoted to Industrial Relations Executive, where he now plays a critical role in maintaining and improving the relationship between his organization and its employees.

3. Moving across disciplines within HR

Moving across disciplines within HR is also known as a lateral career move, or a non-linear career path. People who take this path are often motivated by variety and grow bored if their area of work stays the same for too long. They enjoy exposure to lots of different disciplines and having a wide range of experiences at work. However, to succeed on this path requires individuals to build deeper functional and transferable skills, enabling them to arrive at a new discipline with a strong foundation to build on.

Movement along this HR career path is through opportunities within and outside of the organization, making it more flexible than a traditional path. 

The main advantage of this path is the variety of experience, knowledge, and skills you’ll build by being exposed to many disciplines and departments within HR. This can be particularly helpful in understanding how all the operations within HR intersect. The main disadvantages are that it requires substantial transferable skills, can take longer to demonstrate impact, and requires exposure to the different HR domains in order to broadly develop.

AIHR estimates that 23% of HR professionals choose this career path.

An example of a lateral HR career path: Janelle begins her career in HR as an OD Administrator, then moves across into another entry-level, but more general role as an HR Coordinator. From here, she undertakes some specialist training so that she can move into an HRIS Analyst position.

After a while in this department, she has a desire to work with and develop people more, so she makes another lateral move but is promoted to HR Scrum Manager. She enjoys this work, but wants to move into operations, and secures a position as HR Operations Manager. Utilizing all the skills and experience she has developed so far, Janelle is promoted to Head of Employee Experience.

4. In and out of HR

The in-and-out HR career path involves moving from a non-HR role into HR, and potentially back out and in again. Individuals who choose this path are often motivated by curiosity, integration, and breadth. People on this path must master the application of transferable skills and create meaningful links between varying HR and non-HR roles. Movement here is aligned to the various opportunities available and role expansion, and is not purely bound by organizations. 

The advantage of this career path is the much wider range of opportunities available, as well as the vital transferable experience acquired in both HR and non-HR roles. However, the main drawback of this route is that it can present an unclear career ambition and appear as if someone is simply “hopping” from one job to another. 

AIHR has found that approximately 11% of people take this HR career path.

An example of an in and out of HR career path: Luca begins his career working as a Call Center Agent, but doesn’t enjoy the monotony of this role. He uses his skills to gain an entry-level HR role as a Learning and Development Administrator, and quickly rises to become a Learning and Development Specialist, followed by a Learning and Development Manager.

At this point, Luca is ready for a change and hungry to progress to the next level of his career, but his current organization doesn’t have a suitable opportunity. So, he secures a non-HR role as a Regional Manager at another company, where he spends a few years further developing his leadership skills. Following this, he’s keen to move back into HR, and takes a Regional HR Head position at the same company. 

5. Squiggly career path

The final HR career path is a squiggly one, where someone makes a lot of moves across departments, and in and out of HR. These people are motivated by freedom, experimentation, and their personal values. To succeed, they must gain exposure, continually upskill themselves, and align with the core needs of the next role they’re pursuing. Movement in this path is through projects, short term-gigs, assignments and certifications. 

The advantage of a squiggly career path is that this person can stay true to their changing personal and professional aspirations and prevent boredom. However, it can quickly lead to burnout, result in a lack of formal recognition, and loss of career identity. 

AIHR estimates that around 17% of people take a career path like this in HR.

An example of an in and out of HR career path: Aoife begins her career as a freelance Fashion Consultant, but work dries up and she decides to move into HR as an entry-level Talent Researcher. She’s great at her job and is quickly promoted to Headhunter, but after taking a diversity and inclusion course, she follows her interests and transitions to a DEIB Officer role.

Again, she’s quickly promoted to DEIB Specialist, but after a few years, she feels stagnant in this role. A huge career change sees her leave her organization and take an external job in Public Relations, followed by a promotion to Head of Comms. Three years later, she decides to move back into HR and secures a position as a Senior HR Project Manager.

HR career path examples from practice

Now that you have a good idea of the various shapes and forms an HR career path can take on, let’s look at some examples to see how an HR professional can progress in real life. The following three stories are taken with permission from Andrea, Michael, and Lucy (we’ve changed their names for privacy reasons).

From HR Administrator to CHRO

Andrea has held various HR roles over the past 20 years after acquiring her Generalist HR degree. She started as an HR Administrator in one of her country’s biggest mining operations. This role was a valuable learning experience for her, as she not only mastered HR tools like ATS, CRM, HRIS, and HR analytics, she also gained end-to-end exposure to the HR value chain.

Being an HR Administrator helped prepare her for her first HR Generalist role two years later, when she moved to a financial services organization. In this position, she learned the ins and outs of many HR areas, such as recruitment, payroll, C&B, and HR compliance.

As an HR Generalist, she acquired versatile skills, enabling her to lead a number of HR initiatives before moving into a Senior HRBP role, this time in the telecommunications sector. As a Senior HRBP, she had the opportunity to work with the business on more strategic initiatives, collaborate with other HR specialists, and lead long-term projects.

After four years, Andrea moved on to her first HR executive role. She worked as the VP of HR of another telecommunications business that was undergoing an M&A process, and was responsible for one of their largest enterprise service lines. She capitalized on her comprehensive HR toolkit, building strategic partnership abilities and leadership experience to support senior leaders during the M&A.

Building on her executive and strategic leadership experience, she easily transitioned into the role of CHRO at a public sector organization 3.5 years later, leading the transformation of the organization’s HR function.

Currently, she’s a Senior CHRO at one of her country’s biggest multinational banks. She has gained enterprise-wide influence and management experience in a large-scale organizational transformation. She’s also in charge of the strategic HR agenda and solutions for her 30,000+ workforce.

From HR Consultant to CHRO

Michael started his career as an HR Consultant in the insurance sector. In his first role, he focused on supporting the HR group services team in implementing various interventions across the business. This experience allowed him to support the implementation of major change processes.

After realizing his true passion was engaging with the business, he moved into an HRBP role, where he was responsible for aligning HR initiatives with business objectives. He developed key skills in stakeholder management and strategic business partnership.

Due to his success in recruitment, he could move into a CoE, where he was responsible for the business’s end-to-end talent management portfolio as Head of Talent Acquisition. In this role, he developed expertise in talent strategy, performance management, and succession planning.

Over time, he also took on the L&D portfolio, which allowed him to become the Manager for OD and Learning, gaining skills in organizational design and creating large-scale L&D programs. After 14 years, Michael wanted to move into a different industry, so he became the Group OD Executive for a company in the logistics industry.

He mastered stakeholder management to optimize specialist HR functions and strategic HR consulting at the executive level. This prepared him for his next role as VP of Shared Services, which put him in charge of developing, implementing, and optimizing HR tech solutions for the business. This built his capacity for global system implementation and service delivery optimization. Currently, he is the CHRO of a global manufacturing business.

From OD Assistant to OD Head

Lucy is an HR professional with 12 years of experience in various roles within a multinational organization. She started her HR career path as an Organizational Design (OD) Assistant in the financial services industry. In this role, she supported the business in implementing various interventions. She gained a solid understanding of organizational design principles, project management, and HR reporting and analytics.

She later moved into an HRBP role, which taught her how HR engaged with and could add value to the business. At the same time, her role’s broad focus helped her understand all the stages of the employee life cycle better.

After four years, she moved into a CoE as an Organizational Development Specialist, where she gained expertise in strategic needs assessment, program implementation oversight, and end-to-end program design. Eventually, Lucy took up the role of Head of Organizational Development, making her responsible for the OD portfolio and giving her experience in setting the strategic direction for OD across the organization.

HR job titles by career level

When planning your HR career path, it helps to understand how HR roles are typically structured at different stages of seniority. While titles vary across organizations, most HR positions fall into entry, mid, senior, and executive levels, which gives a useful reference point for mapping possible next steps. Here’s an overview of the typical hierarchy with example job titles.

Entry-level

Mid-level

Senior

Executive

How to choose your HR career path 

With so many different HR roles and career paths available, how do you choose the right one for you? 

A good first step is to familiarize yourself with the different options we’ve discussed above. This way, you can make an intentional decision about your career progression, knowing what’s possible. 

The second step is to take some time to reflect on various factors to help you better understand who you are, what you want, and how to get there.

Here are four guiding questions you can pose to yourself to make informed decisions about your HR career progression:

Question 1: Who am I and where am I?

Begin by reflecting on who you currently are and everything that has brought you to this point in your career. For example, what past interests led you here? What education do you have? What work experience (voluntary and paid) have you acquired to date? What are your key skills and competencies? Have you completed any additional certifications or courses?

It’s equally important to reflect on where you are personally and all of the choices, events, and learning lessons that have led you to this point. For example, if you’re a parent and looking to plan out your HR career path, you might make different choices than someone who is single and doesn’t have that responsibility to consider.

Question 2: What do I want and why do I want it?


Next, move into the present and consider your current aspirations. Make time to consider what your current interests and passions are, and which areas of HR these naturally align with. What motivates you, or would motivate you, in a work context? For example, are you primarily motivated by money and status, or are you intrinsically motivated by growth? What do you want out of your career as an HR professional?

Tap into resources like online articles, industry newsletters, and career pages to better understand different roles and what organizations are looking for with each of these. 

Take as much time as you need to make a decision, but do make one. If choosing a path feels restrictive, it’s likely something less linear (a squiggly path) will suit you and offer more flexibility in the future. 

Question 3: How will I get there?

Once you’ve got a clearer idea of which role(s) and path is most appealing and suitable for you, you can assess what skills and experience you need to build to get there. 

What is standing in your way, and how can you navigate these obstacles?

Do you need to continue your education, enroll in an online course, or complete a certification to increase your chances of securing a role and make yourself stand out from other candidates? Is there anyone in your personal or professional network who can offer some guidance and wisdom? Is there a different role that would serve as a stepping stone to the one you really want? 

Question 4: What will I want or who do I want to be?

The final step is to look to the future and consider where you want to go. 

It’s okay if you don’t have a clear end goal – not everyone will. If this resonates, focus your attention on as far into the future as you can go. Perhaps there are two different areas of HR that really interest you, and you’re not sure which direction to go in. In this case, a general role as an HR Generalist or Administrator would help you explore both, and once you’re further in your career, you can make that decision. 

Define some clear goals, and set expectations that align with who you are and what you want from your HR career. Think about what success in this field looks like to you – because it will be different for everyone. Remember to include your personal self in these decisions, and set goals that align with the other areas of your life. 

There’s no one single way to determine the best HR career path for you. However, a skills-first approach has become increasingly critical. This applies especially to developing analytical, technological, and AI skills. You must think beyond advancing to particular HR job titles and continuously upskill to drive long-term HR career progression.

With the number of HR roles available and the different competencies each one requires, this can be a daunting task.

However, a quick and simple way to do this is to use AIHR’s HR Career Map. This will help you explore and compare suitable roles, identify the skills and training you need, get salary insights, and plan next steps to advance your HR career. It also allows you to discover emerging HR roles and trends based on regularly updated data, so even as the world of HR evolves, you can carefully consider your next career move.

Over to you

As an HR professional, you need a well-rounded set of skills to ensure you are able to turn existing and future challenges into opportunities for yourself. In this article, we’ve introduced the HR functional profiles and the different HR career path options you have within each functional profile. Each type of role requires a specific combination of core and functional competencies, divided into skills and behaviors. You can explore different HR roles in our HR Career Map.

However, understanding which skills and behaviors you need is only the first step. The next step should be to determine your current skills level and identify your own personal skills gap. Head over to our T-shaped assessment to measure your current HR competency level and identify the learning path you need to take to advance your career.

The post HR Career Path: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on AIHR.

The pressure to constantly adapt, learn, and “keep up” with AI is eroding wellbeing at a scale few leaders fully grasp. Layoff anxiety is only the tip of the iceberg that consists of chronic uncertainty, doubts, incapabilities, and a sense of never being “up to date” to stay relevant.

This growing strain affects organizational performance, weakening productivity, slowing transformation efforts, and ultimately putting revenue and competitiveness at risk.

In this article, we look at how HR can protect employee wellbeing amid the technostress resulting from AI anxiety and the constant drive for employees to adapt.

Contents
The human impact of AI: Understanding AI anxiety and technostress
The role of HR in managing AI anxiety and technostress
Four actions HR can take to reduce technostress and protect wellbeing

The human impact of AI: Understanding AI anxiety and technostress

Digital fatigue and overwhelm threaten employee wellbeing and productivity. Nearly one in three people feels overloaded by digital devices and subscriptions. Meanwhile, 60% of people with high screen time worry about the emotional and physical toll of the digital world.

The rapid rise of AI has worsened these concerns. 71% of U.S. workers familiar with AI express anxiety about its effects. A study of 1,606 employees found that concerns about AI, such as job loss and career insecurity, are strongly linked to lower performance and wellbeing. These anxieties reflect deeper worries about displacement, loss of autonomy, and keeping up with evolving job responsibilities.

When anxiety rises, organizations feel the impact through reduced focus, slower adoption of new tools, and overall declines in productivity and work quality.

Instead of thinking about AI as “support in your pocket,” we should ask what it can actually do for people. At an event I went to, nearly every stand claimed to be AI-enabled, but I kept wondering: what problem are we really trying to solve? If your product uses AI, will it actually address the fact that employees working on a laptop are distracted every two minutes, according to Microsoft’s latest Future of Work report? It takes about 25 minutes to reach a state of deep focus, and we’re distracted every two minutes…

Ryan Hopkins, Strategic Wellbeing Leader

It’s not an organization’s responsibility to improve happiness, and that’s where a lot of apps and quick fixes miss the mark. But it is their responsibility not to make things worse. And when we flip that switch, we stop looking at the individual and giving them shiny tools to deal with and actually look at the workplace itself. Instead, we ask, how can we let the smart humans do the job that they were brought in to do with the minimal amount of distractions?

Ryan Hopkins, Strategic Wellbeing Leader

AI anxiety is emerging as a central driver of technostress. Employees encounter numerous AI tools, but often lack the time to learn how to work with them effectively. This creates an “always-on” culture that blurs work-life boundaries. It also brings complexity, as fast-paced learning outstrips employees’ readiness. 

Concerns about job security, skill relevance, loss of autonomy, or the pace of change serve as the psychological spark that activates the four classic technostress creators: overload, complexity, invasion, and uncertainty.

When employees feel threatened or underprepared, these technostress creators produce cognitive strain, emotional fatigue, and ultimately, declines in wellbeing and performance.

Importantly, evidence shows that organizational support can disrupt this cycle. Transparent communication, accessible skill-building opportunities, and attentive leadership significantly weaken the link between AI anxiety and technostress. 

These forms of support also buffer the downstream effects of technostress on wellbeing, shifting employee responses from fear and resistance toward confidence, capability, and engagement.

Organizations should treat AI anxiety and technostress as strategic risks to successful transformation. Left unaddressed, they slow implementation, erode trust, and undermine productivity.

The role of HR in managing AI anxiety and technostress

HR plays a critical role in enabling leaders to make responsible, people-centered decisions about AI adoption. Many leaders focus on efficiency and performance gains without fully understanding the workforce implications of how AI reshapes workloads, alters autonomy, or introduces new sources of stress.

Here’s where HR’s impact lies:

• Strategic guidance for leaders: HR must help leaders look beyond efficiency gains and understand how AI reshapes workloads, autonomy, and stress, guiding them toward decisions that balance innovation with employee wellbeing.
• Clear frameworks for responsible AI use: HR should equip leaders with structured ways to evaluate AI use cases, identify where human judgment remains essential, and anticipate how roles and capabilities will need to evolve.
• Psychological safety for experimentation: HR needs to create an environment where employees feel safe to explore AI, ask questions, and make mistakes. This can be achieved by utilizing learning spaces, such as AI labs or low-stakes testing sessions, to build confidence rather than fear. When employees are encouraged to test, challenge, and provide feedback on AI tools, adoption becomes a shared journey instead of a top-down mandate.
• Communication and support structures: HR must embed transparent communication, prepare managers to spot early signs of digital fatigue, explain the purpose and limitations of AI tools, and maintain open feedback channels for continuous improvement and real-time adjustments.

To summarize, HR can offer strategic guidance to leaders, promote psychological safety for employees, and facilitate communication that fosters trust. This ultimately creates an environment where AI adoption and employee wellbeing can coexist.

Four actions HR can take to reduce technostress and protect wellbeing

From a practical perspective, HR should prioritize four key actions as a starting point in creating a safe and trusted environment for AI adoption.

1. Build AI literacy and confidence

As we’ve already mentioned, employees are more likely to adopt AI when they can experiment without fear of making mistakes. That involves building AI literacy, which is about helping people understand what AI is, how it works, and where it can be applied responsibly and effectively in everyday work.

HR can create this environment, for example, by establishing AI learning labs where employees can explore tools in short, guided sessions. 

The focus should be on confidence, not on compliance. Instead of mandating adoption targets, organizations can encourage employees to share what they discovered, what didn’t work, and how tools could be applied to their roles. This reduces anxiety, normalizes learning, and builds capability from the ground up.

2. Redesign work with wellbeing in mind

AI reshapes workloads, not just workflows, and HR must assess both. For instance, automating report generation may save time, but if leadership interprets this as “capacity gained” and increases output expectations, burnout will rise rather than fall. 

Practical steps include:

• Conducting workload impact assessments before rollout
• Observing whether AI reduces or redistributes effort in teams
• Reallocating tasks so employees spend freed-up time on strategic or meaningful work.

We talked about AI and employee wellbeing with strategic wellbeing leader and author Ryan Hopkins. Watch the full interview below:

3. Own the narrative and make it human-centered

Employees need clarity, not hype. HR should proactively communicate the reasons behind introducing AI, the problems it addresses, and how roles will evolve. This narrative-building is essential for maintaining trust.

Leaders also need coaching to recognize the signs of digital fatigue, for instance, reduced responsiveness, irritability, declining quality, or repeated mistakes. A manager who notices these early can adjust workloads, review tooling complexity, or offer support, preventing deeper burnout.

4. Embed wellbeing metrics into AI rollouts

To ensure AI enhances rather than erodes the employee experience, wellbeing must become part of the measurement architecture. HR can:

• Add stress levels, autonomy, clarity, and engagement to KPIs for all AI initiatives
• Use short pulse surveys during key rollout stages to capture real-time sentiment
• Monitor whether AI is reducing administrative burden or inadvertently increasing pace and volume.

Final words

The rise of AI presents a critical moment for organizations. While the promise of efficiency is excellent, the human cost, manifested as AI anxiety and technostress, is a strategic risk that HR can no longer afford to ignore.

The post AI and Employee Wellbeing: Why HR Should Take Action Now appeared first on AIHR.

Yet significant barriers to adoption persist. Insights from our collaboration with Lightcast reveal a critical disconnect: the challenge lies less in employee willingness and more in leadership’s approach to AI adoption. While most leaders support AI in principle, they haven’t translated that support into structured, scalable action.

Early pilots often remain isolated, disconnected from real HR workflows and broader business impact. Too many organizations have fallen into the trap of fragmented pilots and unstructured experimentation, neglecting the integrated approach required to turn promise into performance.

This article examines what true AI readiness means and how HR can play a decisive role in guiding organizations to mature their AI practices, anchoring them in strategy, enabling them through technology, and amplifying them through people.

Contents
Why is AI adoption not only about technology?
What is AI readiness?
AI readiness pillars for the business and HR
How AI readiness enables maturity and value creation
How HR can drive AI readiness and maturity

Why is AI adoption not only about technology?

Over the past two years, it’s become clear that successful AI adoption depends less on technology, tools, or data and more on how work itself is designed. For many organizations, the real challenge is reshaping workflows and cultivating an open and ready culture to integrate AI meaningfully and at scale. This involves redesigning roles, rethinking processes, and supporting employees through change, all of which fall directly under HR’s scope.

This becomes even more important with the rise of agentic AI, where value isn’t just added in support tasks, but generated directly through core workflows, decision-making, and day-to-day operations.

Yet most organizations are stuck at the starting line. AI adoption remains confined to the individual level: employees are handed tools, guardrails are loosened, and they are encouraged to experiment. While this can drive impressive personal productivity gains, it rarely translates into systemic impact.

Few organizations have managed to move beyond individual tinkering toward embedding AI into shared practices, integrated workflows, or enterprise-wide operating models. The real competitive advantage will not come from the number of employees who use AI but from how deeply AI is woven into the organization’s core ways of working.

I think this is a really interesting implementation balance to strike, because you have to look at it almost like a matrix of two different factors. One is, is it a top-down initiative or is it bottom-up? And the other is, is it a very high control or a very low control environment?

Eryn Peters, Co-Creator of AI Maturity Index

Because if you have a top-down directive and an extremely high control environment, when was the last time your boss knew what tools you needed to do your job? So the chances are the three approved tools might not really be hitting the mark for what you needed to get done. But at the same time, if it’s extremely high control, most people are just going to go onto their phone, go on ChatGPT anyway, and now you have shadow AI, which is a huge issue.

Eryn Peters, Co-Creator of AI Maturity Index

Moving from individual experimentation to enterprise-wide transformation requires intention. It’s about building the right capabilities, implementing smart guardrails, and shaping a culture that can actually absorb and amplify AI. HR’s role in this is foundational, from activating new skill sets and creating the cultural conditions for AI to thrive to evolving organizational structures. Without this, organizations risk mistaking a burst of activity for real progress.

What is AI readiness?

AI readiness is the ability to successfully adopt AI in a business-focused and sustainable manner. In our work with businesses, we’ve determined that they need to have five readiness pillars in place to drive sustainable AI progress:

• Strategy
• Governance
• Technology
• People
• Skills

Importantly, AI readiness reflects how effectively the different pillars are integrated and work together rather than how they perform individually.

AI readiness pillars for the business and HR

Let’s take a look at each pillar and how HR leaders can start building them up:

Strategy

AI readiness starts with strategy. For organizations, this means moving away from treating AI as a side project or disconnected experiment and instead viewing it as a key driver of how the business creates value.

Aligning AI initiatives with strategic goals sets the direction and defines the “why” behind adoption, clarifying what success looks like and where AI can deliver its greatest impact.

HR plays a crucial role in enabling this process. By bringing business and functional leaders together, HR can help define AI’s purpose, establish clear success metrics, and identify use cases that directly support organizational priorities. When HR facilitates these conversations, AI becomes embedded in the organization’s operations, enabling more intelligent decision-making and measurable business outcomes rather than isolated technological wins.

Readiness checklist

• A defined promise of value and the purpose of AI for the business
• Defined success criteria and metrics for AI initiatives
• Identified use cases aligned to overall strategic objectives.

Governance

Instead of becoming a bureaucratic hurdle, governance provides the structure that ensures AI initiatives are built on trust, aligned with compliance, and resilient against risk. It clarifies what’s allowed, how decisions are made, and where accountability lies, removing friction and uncertainty from the process.

Governance anchors the responsible use of AI in fairness, transparency, and accountability. This includes identifying potential risks, setting clear policies, and maintaining oversight over how AI decisions are made and monitored.

HR contributes significantly here, especially as the steward of employee data and workplace ethics. By partnering with legal, compliance, and IT, HR can help create governance frameworks that uphold integrity and protect stakeholders. HR can also lead training and awareness programs to educate teams on what ethical AI use looks like in daily operations and build a culture where innovation and responsibility advance hand in hand.

Readiness checklist

• Identified risks related to AI use across the organization
• Clear policies and guidelines on how AI should be used
• Processes to monitor compliance and support ethical decision-making for AI
• Cross-functional CoE team in place, owning AI adoption
• A list of approved AI tools and access for employees

HR can encompass so many important roles within an organization. For example, in learning and development, with things like the EU AI Act, it’s HR’s job to make sure everyone is feeling at least some level of literacy. When we look at governance, HR is also closely tied to legal in many instances. So, how do we put safeguards in place while maintaining that human-centric AI element of it

Eryn Peters, Co-Creator of AI Maturity Index

Technology

Your business can only achieve your ambitious AI goals when the underlying systems are ready to support them. That means having reliable data, a robust infrastructure, and tools that integrate seamlessly across workflows.

Clean, connected, and accessible data is the foundation for AI impact. With scalable systems and well-integrated tools, AI solutions are not short-lived experiments but evolve with the business and bring continuous value.

HR can partner with IT to identify gaps in data quality, integration, accessibility, and system scalability. When HR is part of these conversations and decisions, organizations can make technology choices that truly support people and process goals and result in real organizational advantage.

Readiness checklist

• Reliable, structured business data
• Tools and platforms that support AI use across the organization
• Systems that are scalable and easy to integrate for AI solutions
• A technology roadmap for future AI adoption

People

Even the best tools and strategies fall flat if employees aren’t open to experimenting, learning, and adapting. Change accelerates when people see AI as something that helps them rather than is pushed upon them. Visible leadership support and everyday use of AI tools are often the strongest signals that an organization is truly ready to embrace this shift.

Culture plays a decisive role here. A culture that rewards curiosity, values learning, and celebrates experimentation is far more likely to turn AI ambition into reality. This is where HR becomes a powerful enabler. By creating psychologically safe spaces to learn, spotlighting early wins, and empowering AI champions to lead by example, HR helps build momentum and confidence across teams.

Through stories, collaboration, and real use cases that show how AI simplifies work and sharpens decisions, skepticism turns into engagement. When leaders model this behavior and teams feel trusted to explore, AI stops being a side project and becomes part of the organizational DNA. And when that happens, innovation doesn’t just spread from the top down; it grows through collective ownership.

Readiness checklist

• Clear understanding of AI’s value for the business
• Visible support from business leaders
• Practical examples of AI being used in everyday business operations
• Sharing of success stories
• Encouraging and rewarding experimentation.

Skills

Finally, AI readiness depends on skills—the ability of people to understand, interpret, and apply AI effectively and ethically. Beyond technical know-how, employees need confidence in using AI insights for decision-making, awareness of bias and fairness, and the capacity to adapt as tools evolve.

HR’s role is to make this learning accessible, continuous, and relevant to real work. This happens through integrating AI capability-building into learning programs, mentoring, and everyday tasks. Embedding ethical considerations into every learning moment makes the organization’s progress in AI maturity responsible and sustainable.

This way, HR helps create a workforce that doesn’t just use AI but understands its implications, ethically, practically, and strategically. As a result, the business becomes truly AI-ready, equipped to thrive in a future where technology and human potential advance together.

Readiness checklist

• Core skills and confidence to use AI across the workforce
• Opportunities to apply AI tools in daily work
• Ongoing learning and skill development for AI capabilities
• AI fluency is incorporated into job design and competency frameworks.

We discussed the different aspects of AI maturity with Eryn Peters, co-creator of AI Maturity Index. Watch the full interview below:

How AI readiness enables maturity and value creation

Readiness is only the starting point of AI adoption. The real value emerges when organizations advance and mature their AI capabilities in an integrated manner across these five pillars. However, maturity should not be viewed as a universal end goal or a race to the top. Not every organization needs to operate at the highest level of AI maturity to achieve meaningful impact.

A more effective approach is to pursue best-fit maturity, a level of capability that aligns with the organization’s strategy, operating model, and ambition. Instead of striving for the highest maturity possible, organizations should first define the value they want AI to deliver, determine the maturity level required to realize that value, and set up the five readiness pillars in a way that supports and enables the desired maturity and intended value.

A saying that’s become popular is “AI won’t steal your job, but someone who can use it better than you will.” I don’t think that’s a helpful narrative because more usage isn’t always better, and not every company, team, or role is built the same when it comes to AI.

Eryn Peters, Co-Creator of AI Maturity Index

It’s not fair to compare someone in HR to a software developer who’s been building AI tools for 20 years, or someone in healthcare, where data use is heavily regulated, to someone in tech, where governance is often optional. Benchmarking matters because it helps people avoid feeling left behind and gives them the confidence to ask the right questions.

Eryn Peters, Co-Creator of AI Maturity Index

By pursuing best-fit maturity, organizations can prioritize investments where they matter most. AI adoption can then deliver sustained value rather than chase maturity benchmarks that may not serve their strategic objectives.

How HR can drive AI readiness and maturity

HR is uniquely positioned to connect strategy, people, and technology in a way that accelerates responsible adoption. By bringing leaders together to define AI’s purpose, align initiatives with business priorities, and measure impact, HR helps transform AI into a strategic enabler—not an isolated experiment. This clarity of direction is what turns curiosity about AI into meaningful progress.

As maturity grows, HR becomes the guardian of trust and ethics in AI use. Robust governance, built on clear policies, transparency, and shared accountability, ensures AI decisions are fair, explainable, and compliant. When employees trust the systems they use, adoption follows naturally, and AI shifts from a technical add-on to a strategic business partner.

To drive AI readiness and maturity, HR should:

• Start from within: The journey begins inside the HR function. Too often, HR looks outward—enabling others—without first building its own confidence, capability, and clarity on how AI will reshape its operating model. Before guiding the business, HR must reflect inward: assess data maturity, rethink workflows, and ensure technology and skills are fit for purpose. What’s more, HR teams that experiment with AI build credibility and empathy for employees’ learning curves, showing that progress comes through exploration and iteration. Practicing what we preach means experiencing firsthand how AI streamlines processes, improves insights, and elevates service delivery.
• Develop employee AI fluency: Build understanding and confidence across the workforce. When HR drives accessible, ongoing learning, employees are better equipped to use AI effectively and responsibly.
• Enable leadership role-modeling: Encourage leaders to define AI’s purpose, align initiatives with strategic priorities, and visibly use AI tools in their work. Leadership involvement sets the tone for adoption and trust.
• Foster experimentation: Create space for testing, learning, and innovation. Encourage teams to explore new tools, share lessons learned, and understand that mistakes are part of the learning process. Normalizing experimentation, including setbacks, helps build confidence, curiosity, and a culture where progress comes through trying, refining, and improving together.

Final words

The journey to AI maturity is not a destination but a continuous evolution. Organizations can strategically integrate AI by prioritizing a “best-fit maturity” approach that serves their unique goals rather than chasing universal benchmarks.

HR plays an essential role in this transformation, fostering a culture of trust, ethical governance, and continuous learning. By leading from within, HR can demonstrate the tangible benefits of AI, empowering individuals and shaping an organizational DNA where human and artificial intelligence collaborate to create lasting value.

The post AI Readiness and Maturity: The Strategic Role of HR appeared first on AIHR.

Yet despite their prevalence, M&As are notoriously risky. The Post-Merger Integration Survey by Eight Advisory found that 71% of transactions were perceived as strategically and financially successful, but only 40% achieved or exceeded expected synergies. Similarly, EY reported that nearly half of employees leave within the first year of a merger, highlighting the human cost of poorly managed integrations.

For HR leaders, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Beyond the financial and legal mechanics of the deal, HR plays a decisive role in ensuring employees, culture, and leadership come together to realize the intended value.

This article explores the role of HR in navigating M&A change management and highlights seven critical success factors.

Contents
The HR role in mergers and acquisitions
What HR needs to get right in M&A change management

The HR role in mergers and acquisitions

While many HR professionals see their role in M&A as focused mainly on managing the people side of change, like communications, engagement, and culture, the reality is that HR’s involvement should start much earlier and extend across every stage of the deal.

That involvement begins with understanding the type of transaction taking place. Mergers involve combining two or more companies into a new entity, while acquisitions refer to one company purchasing and integrating another. These differences are essential as they set the tone for the integration and transition.

Organizations pursue M&A for a variety of reasons:

• Growth acceleration: Expanding market share or entering new markets quickly.
• Economies of scale: Driving efficiency and cost reductions through consolidation.
• Risk mitigation: Diversifying across geographies or industries.
• Talent and capabilities: Acquiring specialized expertise, technology, or intellectual property.
• Competitive advantage: Consolidating market position or disrupting through innovation.

However, many employees do not experience M&A as an opportunity but as a time of disruption, uncertainty, and loss. Fear of job loss and uncertainty about leadership changes and culture can cause employees to become disengaged. As a result, key talent is at a higher risk of leaving during M&A.

We discussed the role of HR in mergers & acquisitions with Andrew Bartlow, HR leader and Founder of People Leader Accelerator. Watch the full interview below:

Before M&A

Before the deal closes, HR focuses on due diligence and planning. This involves thoroughly auditing the target company’s HR policies, employee contracts, and benefits to identify potential risks and liabilities. HR also conducts cultural assessments to gauge how well the two organizations will fit together. Where possible, HR teams should also be involved in workforce analysis to better understand each organization’s critical talent and skills and how they can be leveraged in the future.

I think maybe the greatest misconception is that a lot of people think it’s mostly about the mechanics, like making payroll work, getting everybody onto one system, harmonizing benefits. Day one communications often pop to mind. There’s often an ops-centered focus versus a culture-oriented focus. And I’d suggest that there’s actually a different focus area that might be more important, and that is value creation. What is the logic for that transaction? Why are these companies coming together? Are you trying to increase distribution? Are you trying to reduce costs through corporate synergies?

Andrew Bartlow, CHRO & PE Operating Partner

During M&A

As the deal unfolds, HR leads the transition and communication effort. The responsibility during this phase stretches beyond these activities. It should also include ensuring that the new entity has a clear strategy, that work on an integrated operating model and organizational design is taking place, and managing governance and compliance requirements related to the transition. Depending on the nature of the deal, this could extend to consolidating contracts and terms or further negotiations with unions and bargaining councils.

Post M&A

After the merger, HR’s focus shifts to integration and alignment. Here, they work to blend the two company cultures into one cohesive identity, which is a significant factor in the merger’s long-term success. Additionally, HR monitors employee morale and engagement, ensuring the new workforce is motivated and aligned with the company’s strategic goals.

What HR needs to get right in M&A change management

Managing change during a merger or acquisition is one of HR professionals’ most complex challenges. They need to guide employees through uncertainty, aligning cultures, and building trust in a new direction.

Beyond the formalized HR responsibilities above, there are specific critical success factors that HR needs to ensure are in place to drive value throughout and beyond the merger process.

1. Understand the value creation plan

The most common mistake in M&A is assuming employees automatically understand why the deal is happening and what value the organization aims to realize.

Understanding the value creation plan and the business case outlining how the deal will create financial, operational, or strategic value is non-negotiable for HR. Without it, HR cannot prioritize initiatives or tailor communications effectively. If the agreement aims to capture talent and innovation, retention of key experts must become the top HR priority. If cost savings are central, workforce restructuring must be managed transparently and fairly.

The value creation plan also serves as a great starting point for aligning a leadership coalition responsible for leading the integration efforts.

2. Clarify HR’s role and set boundaries

During M&A integration, HR often becomes the default owner of all people-related work. While HR should lead on the people strategy, it is important to define what that includes and what it doesn’t.

Set clear boundaries across functions early. HR is responsible for designing frameworks, supporting leaders, and keeping alignment on track. Day-to-day change management within teams should remain with people managers. HR can guide and support, but cannot take on every task tied to the transition.

Be cautious about falling into the role of being the person that everybody complains to. Focus more on the value creation and drive clarity and decision-making. Even if you’re not the decision-maker, you can highlight the benefits of providing more clarity faster.

Andrew Bartlow, CHRO & PE Operating Partner

3. Build a strong integrated leadership coalition

Integration success hinges on leadership alignment. When leaders from both organizations present conflicting messages, employees quickly lose trust. HR’s role is to help shape a unified leadership coalition that represents both legacy organizations and speaks with a single voice.

This can sometimes be problematic if specific leaders exit the organization as part of the deal. In these instances, it is essential to be clear about these leaders’ expectations and create clarity on their roles during the integration process.

Where possible, it is beneficial to have representation of different entities on an integrated leadership steering committee that will guide the transition. Importantly, you need to set the expectation that this leadership team might not be the final leadership team for the new integrated business. Still, they have been put in place specifically to guide the transition.

Illustrative example

A retail business had acquired two smaller players to diversify its product suite. All three CEOs formed part of the integrated steering committee responsible for guiding the transition for the first six months after the deal. Once the organizational design work had been completed, one CEO exited the business, while the other moved into a different role in the new structure.

It’s really important that there are conversations with the senior leadership team and key members of the staff of the acquired organization.

HR is best positioned to do that. The investing team is having those conversations as well, but it’s really helpful to have a professional who’s thinking about org structure, org design, org effectiveness, to speak with the humans, understand what their expectations are, ask them what their recommendations are to support the value creation efforts.

Andrew Bartlow, CHRO & PE Operating Partner

4. Conduct cultural due diligence

While financial due diligence is standard, cultural due diligence is often underestimated. 67% of executives have reported that cultural alignment and change management were the most underestimated issues during integrations. Mercer’s Culture Risk in M&A study similarly found that around 30% of transactions fail to meet financial targets due to cultural misalignment, with 67% experiencing delays in synergy realization.

Cultural due diligence involves assessing leadership styles, decision-making processes, and employee engagement before the deal closes. By identifying cultural differences and disconnects early, HR can craft integration strategies that bridge differences and prioritize culture work as part of the integration process.

For example, Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn succeeded partly because leaders preserved LinkedIn’s autonomy in areas critical to its culture, while aligning operational practices. This balance prevented the culture clash that has derailed other high-profile mergers.

5. Own the narrative and tell the story from the start

In the absence of clear communication, rumors dominate. Employees report feeling less involved in decisions and goal alignment and becoming demotivated during the M&A process, highlighting a need for frequent and consistent two-way communication.

HR must proactively own the narrative, crafting a story that connects the deal rationale with employee concerns. This means addressing questions about job security, career opportunities, and culture. Importantly, communication should be two-way: employees need safe channels to ask questions and express concerns.

Example from practice

An insurance business that had bought one of its biggest competitors embarked on a national communication campaign, with key leadership members visiting all the various branches and highlighting the reason for the acquisition, the value to be realized, and the process that will guide the transition.

In the absence of clarity, we humans tend to jump to the worst conclusions. We have all sorts of fears and anxiety spin up.

So fill the void, drive the message, own the message, and be proactive about all the questions that are likely circulating in people’s heads, which again are likely to steer towards negative outcomes. So provide clear, definitive messaging as soon as you can. If you don’t have an answer on something yet, acknowledge the issue and provide updates along the way.

Andrew Bartlow, CHRO & PE Operating Partner

6. Deliver on the 90-day integration plan

The first 90 days post-close are critical. To achieve quick gains, it is good practice to set up an integration steering committee focusing on specific high-priority items that must be completed during the first 90 days after the deal’s announcement. Some of these could include:

• Strategy integration work: Setting a short-term strategy to continue with business as usual before finalizing the long-term strategy.
• Client consolidation: Ensuring that clients are transitioned to the new business in a meaningful way.
• Technology consolidation: Aligning different systems across the various companies to ensure an integrated way of working going forward.
• Organizational design: Clarifying structures, reporting lines, and role expectations quickly.
• Cultural initiatives: Integration workshops, joint onboarding sessions, and symbolic rituals that build a shared identity.
• Communication: Ensuring clarity and continuous communication to bring employees along the journey.

7. Look after the HR team

HR teams often face heavy workloads, emotional strain, and role uncertainty during M&A processes. If their needs are overlooked, it limits the HR’s capacity to support others, making it essential to actively protect their wellbeing throughout the process.

HR leaders should aim to create certainty for the team as quickly as possible, be transparent about what they can communicate, and guide the team in staggered priorities aligned to the available capacity.

Final words

The future of mergers and acquisitions is becoming more digital, data-driven, and global. HR leaders must be ready for virtual integrations, AI-supported cultural assessments, and cross-border compliance in increasingly complex regulatory environments.

To lead effective M&A change management, HR must be involved early, act strategically, and stay aligned with the organization’s value creation goals. When done well, HR can turn a complex, high-risk initiative into a structured process that delivers lasting impact.

The post M&A Change Management: Where HR Can Lead appeared first on AIHR.

Psychological safety at work is a key ingredient of a healthy organizational culture, and a concept well familiar to HR. Yet despite ongoing initiatives, efforts, and awareness, it’s facing a troubling decline. In an era shaped by hybrid and remote work, the rapid adoption of AI, and high levels of uncertainty, the traditional efforts to build psychological safety – employee surveys, leadership workshops on communication and inclusion, and manager training – may no longer be fit for purpose.

While most HR professionals have actively championed psychological safety, many organizations still encounter familiar challenges: team members hesitant to speak up, stagnating or declining engagement scores, and a quiet undercurrent of resistance to change.

This article explores why psychological safety is faltering despite best intentions and what HR can do about it.

Contents
What is psychological safety?
Psychological safety examples
Why does psychological safety at work matter?
Why is psychological safety declining?
HR’s evolving role: Architect, not owner of psychological safety
How to create psychological safety at work: 5 practical strategies for HR

What is psychological safety?

Psychological safety at work is a shared belief that it’s safe to take interpersonal risks within a team. That includes speaking up with questions, flagging mistakes, offering dissenting opinions, or admitting you don’t know something. More broadly, psychological safety refers to the sense of being able to show and employ oneself without fear of negative consequences.

It’s not about being comfortable all the time or about avoiding conflict. In fact, psychological safety enables healthy conflict, with trust, candor, and mutual respect as the foundation.

For me, I think it very much means now how people can show up in the workplace. So yes, it’s about how they feel safe, whether they can give ideas or voice their opinions, but it’s also about not having to mask who you are anymore in the workplace as much as you feel comfortable doing so.

Michelle Fields, HR Subject Matter Expert

Even though Carl Rogers coined the term​​ in the 1950s, two well-known models of psychological safety are:

1. Edmondson’s model, which focuses on team climate and interaction, and;
2. Clark’s model, which views psychological safety as various stages that need to be progressed through.

Psychological safety has evolved from a theoretical construct into a practical lens for understanding how people experience their work environment. Today’s assessments go beyond the individual. They examine how leader behavior, team norms, and the broader organizational climate shape the conditions for speaking up, taking risks, and learning from failure. 

This reflects a growing understanding that psychological safety doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s tightly linked to learning culture, feedback dynamics, and readiness for innovation. More organizations are pairing psychological safety metrics with related concepts. These include concepts like employee voice, belonging, and trust to make psychological safety an integral part of climate and culture. These behavioral and emotional signals offer actionable insight, revealing whether people feel safe to speak up and whether they’re empowered and supported to do so.

Psychological safety examples

Let’s explore what psychological safety can look like in practice through two illustrative examples.

Normalizing failure as a learning opportunity

At BrightWave Technologies, a failed product feature became a shared learning moment. Instead of assigning blame, the team held a “failure post-mortem,” capturing lessons in their internal wiki so everyone could benefit. This approach ”normalized” failure, enabling people to speak up without fear of consequences and turning failure into a learning experience for all.

Breaking down barriers so that every voice matters

At Lumenara Health, CEO Priya Desai noticed a junior analyst hesitating during a project review. After the meeting, she invited the analyst for coffee, clarifying there were no “right” answers, only honest perspectives. Priya asked, “If you were in my role, what would you do differently?” , The analyst shared a concern about the pace of a new initiative. Priya thanked them and brought the point into the next leadership discussion, crediting the analyst by name. The exchange sent a powerful signal that feedback flows both ways, and even the most senior voices are open to being challenged.

Why does psychological safety at work matter?

Psychological safety at work is one of the strongest predictors of team effectiveness and organizational health. Research consistently shows that psychological safety underpins innovation, productivity, retention, and overall organizational resilience. Let’s take a look at why psychologically safe businesses thrive:

• Encourages openness and drives learning and agility: When employees feel secure enough to voice their thoughts without fear of reprisal, they are more inclined to offer innovative solutions, acknowledge errors, seek assistance, and provide constructive criticism. These behaviors are vital for continuous learning and agility in today’s dynamic work environments.
• Boosts team performance: McKinsey’s research highlights that teams with high psychological safety demonstrate 76% greater engagement, 50% higher productivity, and a 74% lower likelihood of experiencing burnout compared to teams lacking it.
• Strengthens retention and inclusion: Gallup reports that organizations where employees feel their opinions are valued experience a 27% decrease in turnover, 40% fewer safety incidents, and 12% increased productivity. 
• Shifts focus from self-protection to growth: When psychological safety is high, employees shift from self-protection to improving outcomes, fostering collaboration, and taking calculated risks.
• Prepares organizations for the future: Without psychological safety, individuals tend to withhold ideas, evade accountability, and are more prone to leave. In the current environment of hybrid work, AI disruption, and high levels of ambiguity, cultivating psychological safety is not merely about building a better culture; it’s about future-proofing the organization’s capacity to adapt and flourish.

Why is psychological safety declining?

Despite its strong link to innovation and adaptability, only 26% of leaders actively work on creating psychological safety in the workplace. What’s more, recent numbers show that psychological safety at work is getting worse.

A study by Henley Business School found that the number of employees who feel they can “bring their whole self to work” dropped from 66% in 2020 to just 41%. Another survey by Diversity.com found that while 86% of employees feel they belong, only 76% feel safe speaking up. This shows that even if people feel included, many still don’t feel safe being honest or raising concerns at work.

Several key factors are contributing to this unsettling trend:

• Mismanaged hybrid and remote work: The rise of hybrid and remote work has inadvertently complicated trust-building and seamless communication. Informal, spontaneous interactions have become less frequent, diminishing opportunities for candid dialogue and relationship-building. This does not imply that psychological safety cannot be high when working remotely. Instead, it points to the fact that many leaders have struggled to adapt to managing hybrid and remote teams in a way that promotes psychological safety. 
• Anxiety over AI and job security: The accelerating integration of AI-driven automation amplifies job insecurity across industries. In response, employees are increasingly opting for silence over risk-taking, prioritizing the protection of their roles. Fear of becoming obsolete and news media reporting high levels of AI-led job replacement have sparked a lack of trust between employees and employers.
• DEIB stagnation: Stalled or superficial Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) initiatives can leave underrepresented groups feeling excluded or unsafe, directly undermining the foundational elements of psychological safety. Recent developments in U.S. legislation have led many organizations to roll back their DEIB commitments, making many feel unsafe and excluded at work.

These factors show an urgent need for a fundamental rethink of our current HR strategies for building and promoting psychological safety.

HR’s evolving role: Architect, not owner of psychological safety

Many organizations make the mistake of believing that HR should own psychological safety. Psychological safety should never be the sole responsibility of HR. Instead, HR’s crucial role is to architect the conditions that naturally foster psychological safety throughout the organization.

This includes:

• Designing and implementing inclusive and transparent feedback, recognition, and performance management processes.
• Equipping leaders with the skills and behaviors to model psychological safety authentically.
• Actively encouraging open dialogue about what safety truly looks like within specific teams and organizational contexts.
• Rigorously revisiting existing policies that may inadvertently penalize risk-taking, honest feedback, or healthy dissent.

Crucially, HR must advocate for embedding psychological safety into the daily interactions and fabric of the workplace. This moves it beyond the confines of sporadic workshops or annual surveys.

I think traditionally, the thinking was that it’s HR’s role to create that psychological safety. I don’t believe that is the case. I think it is the leadership, it’s the managers within the company who are responsible for doing it. Our role is to architect that. Our role is to create opportunities for leaders and managers to enable psychological safety within their teams, and also to embed psychological safety growth within the employee experience.

Michelle Fields, HR Subject Matter Expert

How do you support and guide those leaders to embed little strategies within their ways of working, their behaviors, and how they engage their team? I don’t think, in reality, or at least on paper, embedding psychological safety is that difficult; just a lot of people don’t necessarily know effectively how to do it.

Michelle Fields, HR Subject Matter Expert

How to create psychological safety at work: 5 practical strategies for HR

Here are five actionable strategies for HR professionals to proactively rebuild and strengthen psychological safety:

1. Coach leaders to lead with openness and vulnerability

Leaders set the tone. When they admit mistakes, ask for input, or acknowledge when they don’t have the answer, they create a culture where it’s safe to be honest and imperfect. This encourages others to speak up without fear.

HR can coach leaders to be more open and vulnerable, and help them understand that vulnerability is not a sign of weakness.

2. Make safety part of everyday life

Psychological safety grows through consistent, small actions. Encourage practices like starting meetings with quick check-ins, creating space for respectful disagreement, and reflecting on what’s been learned. HR can support this by equipping managers with practical tools, such as prompts, reflection questions, or sample scripts, that make these practices a regular part of team routines.

Over time, these behaviors should become a core part of a manager’s responsibilities, reinforcing their role in shaping safe and inclusive team environments.

3. Use stories to support learning

Create regular opportunities for teams to reflect on successes, missteps, and lessons learned. Retrospectives or “failure stories” shift the focus from blame to growth, helping normalize honest conversations and collective learning. HR can help by introducing company retros or championing check-in moments.

HR can make this practical by setting up regular company retros, creating a simple template for sharing “what worked, what didn’t, what we learned” that teams can use in their lookbacks, or even starting meetings with a quick story spotlight.

4. Empower team champions

Not everyone feels comfortable going to their manager or HR. Train and support peer-nominated champions who can offer informal guidance, listen confidentially, and help surface issues early, thereby making psychological safety feel personal and accessible.

5. Use AI to spot patterns in team dynamics

AI tools can help identify trends in team dynamics, such as who’s speaking up and who’s not. Meeting analytics, for example, can show who speaks most (and least) during discussions, while sentiment analysis of surveys or chat channels can reveal shifts in tone or engagement. Collaboration insights platforms can also surface patterns of inclusion or isolation across teams. 

These tools don’t measure psychological safety directly, but they provide useful indicators leaders and HR can act on, always with ethics, transparency, and human judgment at the center.

All these strategies have a caveat: they only work in organizations that genuinely value inclusion, foster a sense of belonging, and have leaders who respect human dignity. HR’s role is to ensure that these principles aren’t just words on paper but the foundation of every psychological safety initiative.

Moving forward: From safe to empowered

Psychological safety is not a static destination but a continuous journey that must evolve with our workplaces. HR professionals should embrace an iterative approach: pilot new methods, gather feedback, and co-create solutions with teams. Only then can HR genuinely build environments where employees feel safe and are deeply valued and empowered to contribute their best work.

The post Psychological Safety at Work: HR’s Role + 5 Actions To Take appeared first on AIHR.

What really sets them apart is something less obvious but far more powerful – their ability to navigate complex dynamics through an instinctive understanding of how power works within the organization, relationships, and influence. Though often absent from formal HR competency frameworks, these capabilities are the true differentiators between those who manage HR and those who lead it strategically.

In this article, we explore the dynamics of power, relationships, and influence as critical success factors for the modern HR leader.

Contents
HR leadership skills of the future
How HR leaders build influence
Taking the first steps

HR leadership skills of the future

The evolution of the HR function is well documented. What began as a focus on welfare and personnel administration has matured into a business-critical discipline that enables performance, mitigates risk, and shapes the culture that sustains organizational success.

Yet, despite this transformation, outdated perceptions persist. HR is still too often seen as a support function rather than a strategic force. This creates a persistent paradox: HR is expected to lead bold, enterprise-wide change, but it’s frequently excluded from decision-making until it’s too late.

Nowhere is this tension more evident than in the Chief Human Resources Officer role. The modern CHRO operates far beyond the boundaries of the HR department. They are tasked with the most pressing enterprise challenges: workforce transformation, digital and AI integration, cultural renewal, and ethical, sustainable leadership.

However, with this expanded mandate comes a subtle trap many HR leaders fall into. To be taken seriously at the executive table, some attempt to mirror the behaviors of traditional business executives, like over-indexing on metrics, financial language, or transactional influence.

Yet mimicking isn’t mastery. The CHRO role doesn’t demand imitation of other leaders; it needs a distinct leadership posture rooted in navigating complexity through relationships. This requires a dual capacity: to think strategically and systemically, while also leading through ambiguity, resistance, and emotion. In this context, power, relationships, and influence are not “soft” skills but strategic enablers.

Research confirms this. Zenger-Folkman’s analysis found that leaders who combine results orientation with strong interpersonal skills are 82% more likely to be rated as top-tier performers, compared to less than 10% for those strong in only one area.

Trust plays a similarly decisive role: employees working under high-trust leaders are 76% more engaged, 50% more productive, and experience 74% less stress. And in psychologically safe teams, organizations see a 50% rise in productivity and a 27% reduction in turnover.

For CHROs to succeed in today’s landscape, they must learn to lead with strategic acumen and relational intelligence. Influence, trust, and credibility aren’t accessories to leadership. They are foundational components for CHROs to establish their power and influence in the business.

How HR leaders build influence

1. Leveraging power

For many HR professionals, “power” feels misaligned with the values of care, trust, and service that define the function. However, reframing power as a tool for strategic enablement rather than control opens the door to a more effective, purpose-driven form of leadership. Power, when used well, is a critical asset for HR leaders. Leaders who leverage expert and relational power are more effective at driving change.

Today’s HR leaders draw on three core sources of power:

• Expert power is grounded in deep functional knowledge – organizational design, labor relations, compensation strategy, or workforce planning. This expertise gives HR the authority to shape decisions directly impacting business outcomes.
• Informational power stems from HR’s privileged access to critical data, such as engagement scores, attrition trends, diversity metrics, and skills gaps. When HR translates this information into actionable insights, it becomes an indispensable advisor to the business.
• Resource power involves the ability to influence budgets, technology investments, and talent allocations. This form of power allows HR to shape where and how the organization builds its future capabilities.

Used ethically and intentionally, these forms of power allow HR to move beyond operational support and become a valid driver of enterprise value.

2. Building strategic relationships

The ability to build and sustain relationships across multiple layers of the organization enables HR to deliver real, lasting impact. Without trust, even the best-designed programs fail to gain traction, and HR leaders can’t sense what’s happening on the ground without access.

Strategic HR leaders recognize the value of cultivating strong relationships in four key areas. HR earns a seat at the table with:

• Senior leadership and the board can bring credible, business-aligned solutions
• Managers and team leaders, who are critical partners in executing the people strategy and translating vision into practice
• Employees, whose feedback, sentiment, and engagement form the bedrock of culture and performance
• Cross-functional peers, including Finance, Operations, Legal, and IT, ensure that HR initiatives are integrated and scalable.

These relationships are not built overnight. They require ongoing investment, consistent communication, and a willingness to be a strategic partner rather than just a service provider.

A relationship-driven leader is someone who’s acutely tuned into the fact that human dynamics directly influence outcomes.

Dr. Karen Bridbord

3. Achieving real influence

Power gives you momentum, relationships give you access, and influence is the result.

Influence is the art of shaping decisions, shifting mindsets, and securing alignment, often without formal control. In HR, this might involve persuading business leaders to adopt a new performance philosophy, championing inclusion initiatives, or shaping organizational culture during disruption. While power determines what you can do, influence gets things done, especially in environments where direct authority is limited or distributed across functions.

The most effective HR leaders use influence deliberately. They:

• Build credibility by consistently delivering high-quality work, showing integrity, and aligning HR initiatives with business needs
• Demonstrate empathy and active listening to understand stakeholder concerns and tailor their messaging accordingly
• Use strategic framing to present HR solutions as business enablers rather than departmental programs
• Engage in reciprocity, offering support and insight proactively to foster goodwill and collaboration
• Invest in coalition-building, assembling cross-functional allies to amplify and advocate for people strategies.

Influence is one of the most powerful tools in a leader’s toolkit, and increasingly, one of the most essential. Leaders who know how to frame ideas, inspire others, and build trust are far more effective at securing commitment than those who rely on authority alone. The ability to connect with people, read the room, and adjust your approach turns direction into alignment and strategy into action.

In today’s networked organizations, influence isn’t about hierarchy but relationships. Some of the most impactful leaders don’t hold the highest titles, but they do have trust, credibility, and access across teams. They broker ideas, mobilize others, and navigate complexity through connection. As the pace of change accelerates, leadership will depend less on position and more on the ability to influence across boundaries.

What stops HR from going strategic? 4 barriers that influence in HR can break

Even with the right capabilities, many HR leaders encounter invisible barriers that prevent them from fully stepping into their strategic role. These obstacles aren’t due to a lack of expertise or intent. They often stem from unspoken dynamics around power, relational capital, and influence. In a world where authority doesn’t always equal impact, HR leaders must learn to lead through networks, not just titles, and influence becomes a strategic lever. It’s how culture is shaped, how difficult changes are implemented, and how HR earns its seat at the table, not just once, but consistently.

Here are four barriers that commonly constrain HR leaders and how to overcome them:

Executive politics

Executive leadership is inherently political. HR leaders must navigate influence networks, competing agendas, and behind-the-scenes dynamics. Yet many find themselves underprepared for this dimension of leadership, assuming that formal authority or best intentions are enough.

What helps? Learn to map the influence landscape. Identify who holds formal and informal power, pre-wire decisions by engaging stakeholders early, and build informal coalitions long before a formal initiative is launched.

We discussed building influence in HR with Dr. Karen Bridbord, Chief Talent Officer & licensed psychologist. Watch the full conversation below:

Lack of institutional legitimacy

Holding a CHRO title does not automatically grant strategic influence. In many organizations, HR is still excluded from early-stage conversations or is only informed after key decisions have already been made. This limits HR’s ability to shape, not just support, strategic direction.

What helps? Clarify your mandate with the CEO and align it with what HR is accountable for. Build high-trust relationships across the C-suite, positioning yourself as a peer, not just a function head.

Leadership isolation

Paradoxically, the leader responsible for organizational support often has the least support themselves. The loneliness of the CHRO role is fundamental and frequently overlooked. Without a sounding board or support system, influence becomes harder to sustain.

What helps? Invest in peer networks, seek mentorship outside the organization, and prioritize emotional resilience through self-reflection, boundaries, and intentional self-care. Influence is sustained through energy, not just insight.

Legacy narratives

Internally promoted HR leaders often face outdated perceptions that limit their authority. Stakeholders may still see them through the lens of their previous role, making it difficult to reposition themselves as strategic leaders.

What helps? Recontract expectations through new working agreements. Use your influence to elevate the nature of the relationship, shifting from service delivery to shared ownership of people and culture outcomes.

There’s the formal organization, but then there’s the way things really work. There are these influence networks that happen within organizations that don’t have as much to do with position and role per se as they do with many other variables, for example, how long the person has been in the organization and their connection to other influencers in the organization.

Dr. Karen Bridbord

Taking the first steps

Power, relationships, and influence aren’t abstract concepts but tangible levers HR leaders can assess and develop. To begin, start with a simple self-audit by reflecting on the following questions:

1. Power: What sources of power do I currently hold?

• Expert power: Do others seek out my functional insight?
• Informational power: Am I using people data to drive decisions?
• Resource power: Do I influence where talent, budget, or technology investments are made?

2. Relationships: Where is my relational capital strongest, and weakest?

• Do I have trusted relationships with key decision-makers?
• Can I call on informal allies to move a strategy forward?
• Where do I need to invest more time to build credibility or trust?

3. Influence: How effectively do I shape decisions?

• Are my ideas adopted or merely heard?
• Do I frame messages in ways that resonate with business priorities?
• Can I secure buy-in across functions, even without formal authority?

Once you’ve evaluated these dimensions, identify one high-impact area to improve over the next 90 days. This might mean scheduling recurring check-ins with business leaders, joining a cross-functional project, or more proactively sharing strategic insights from people data.

The post Building Influence in HR for Strategic Impact: What HR Leaders Must Know appeared first on AIHR.

But here’s where things often break down. Once that translation happens, the business doesn’t always recognize how HR’s strategic focus connects back to its goals. Even though HR aligns strategies, the business, at times, remains unaware of how HR priority moves the needle on business objectives.

This article discusses the importance of aligning HR and business strategies, what happens when there is a disconnect, and a practical approach to ensuring seamless alignment.

Contents
Why is there a disconnect between the business and HR?
Why it’s important to align HR strategy with business strategy
What happens when HR and business strategies don’t align?
How to align HR and business strategy with intent

Why is there a disconnect between the business and HR?

For years, we at AIHR have emphasized that HR professionals must speak the language of business and possess strong business acumen. While this remains crucial, it’s no longer enough. HR leaders must go further to demonstrate how HR contributes tangible value to the company.

Beyond understanding the business, HR practitioners must also educate business leaders on the “why” and “how” behind specific HR activities, helping them see how these activities impact business goals. More importantly, business leaders often are not able to connect HR activities to the original business objective.

Take a typical example: An organization pursuing rapid growth through acquisitions as part of its business strategy. From an HR perspective, this strategy calls for investments in change management, culture integration, and capability building.

However, if these connections aren’t made explicit as to how these initiatives advance the business objective, business leaders unfamiliar with HR practices may struggle to see the value. Their unspoken question becomes: How does this HR focus help us achieve our business growth targets?

This disconnect isn’t unique to HR. 

Other functions, like Finance and Marketing, have faced similar challenges. The difference is that most business leaders have, over time, built a working knowledge of financial and marketing principles. When Finance presents a cash flow management plan, leaders typically understand that cash flow is essential to fund operations and manage risk. When Marketing positions their brand plan, most business leaders realize the importance of investing in the brand.

However, HR does not always enjoy the same level of understanding. The reason for this is that very few leaders know the science that underpins some HR practices, so they rely on personal opinions and previous experiences to inform their views.

We discussed building a business-first HR strategy with Avi Kohli, the founder of intalent.ai, agentic AI for recruitment. Watch the full interview below:

6 reasons why HR and business strategy don’t align

Misalignment between HR and business strategy can occur at several points due to these common pitfalls:

• Late or little involvement in strategic planning: HR is often brought in after key decisions have been made, limiting the function’s ability to shape direction and align people strategies with business priorities.
• Weak link between business goals and HR initiatives: Business objectives aren’t always translated into focused, actionable HR programs. This disconnect reduces impact and makes it harder to demonstrate value.
• Inconsistent strategic communication: HR’s contributions are not communicated consistently or strategically, leaving business leaders unclear on the function’s role in driving outcomes.
• Failure to reinforce impact: We don’t regularly highlight or celebrate how HR efforts contribute to business success, which weakens buy-in and momentum.
• Underutilization of data: HR often misses the opportunity to use data and evidence to make a compelling case for its strategies, investments, and results.
• Insufficient stakeholder education: Business leaders may not fully understand HR’s strategic role or how it enables execution, leading to misalignment and underappreciation of the function.

Fortunately, these pitfalls are avoidable, but they require an intentional and structured approach.

Why it’s important to align HR strategy with business strategy

There is no shortage of evidence showing that organizations with well-aligned HR and business strategies consistently outperform those without them. 

Research has shown that high-performing HR systems, built on practices like strategic workforce planning, targeted skill development, and performance-based rewards, are linked to stronger profitability, productivity, and shareholder value. 

But the benefits go beyond financials. When HR is aligned with business strategy, it drives higher levels of employee engagement and commitment, which have been linked to improvements in customer satisfaction and market share.

Furthermore, it also solves the challenges that HR experiences in terms of being seen as a strategic partner. By explicitly being tied to business strategy, HR is able to demonstrate its impact clearly, thereby also solving misperceptions about the value and relevance of the function.

As an HR person, I was expected to really proactively think about, hey, this is what my business is going through. Is there an HR team or an HR thread or an enabler to this challenge that they are facing, or what they are trying to do with their business? What can I do?

Avi Kohli

There is a big risk of HR strategy being decided and shaped within the HR team, with HR agendas in mind and HR metrics in mind, which could be a lot of vanity metrics at times versus a real impact on the business.

Avi Kohli

What happens when HR and business strategies don’t align?

The implications for the HR strategy not being aligned with the business strategy are significant. Even though the symptoms start small, they quickly build and create lasting damage.

The first disconnect starts with seeing misallocated resources, with HR investing time, budget, and effort into resources that the business does not see the value of. HR might launch a new leadership development program or roll out a sophisticated wellbeing platform, but these initiatives will fail without a clear link to the business’s growth priorities. 

This leads to a questioning of HR’s purpose. Business leaders begin to ask: “What is HR solving for?” If they can’t draw a straight line from HR initiatives to business outcomes, like increased sales effectiveness, faster onboarding, or stronger innovation pipelines, HR’s credibility starts to erode.

Once that happens, the financial consequences follow. Budget allocations shrink, not because HR is less important, but because it’s perceived as not essential to business success. When budgets are tight, investment flows toward functions that enable growth, market share, or efficiency, and HR gets left behind.

This reinforces the perception of HR as a cost center rather than a value creator. In some organizations, HR is quietly sidelined, centralized into shared services, or outsourced entirely. The belief becomes: “We just need HR to process the basics. Strategy is someone else’s job.”

How to align HR and business strategy with intent

No matter which business strategy framework your organization uses, HR leaders must follow five essential steps to ensure their HR strategy is business-relevant and contributes real value:

Step 1: Understand

Before anything can be translated or aligned, HR must first understand the business strategy in depth. This means grasping not just the high-level goals but also the drivers of success, the value creation levers, and the internal and external factors influencing the business.

Without this foundational understanding, HR risks misalignment from the start.

Ideally, HR is a key contributor to the business strategy process, leading to HR already having the strategic context. However, if this is not the case, HR needs to spend time understanding the “why” behind the strategy.

Litmus test: Can you explain the business strategy in plain language, as if you were the CEO?

In this step, HR can demonstrate that they:

• Know the organization’s strategic goals and why they matter now
• Can identify the value drivers (e.g., growth, efficiency, innovation, market entry)
• Understand what success looks like in business, not just in HR terms
• Can articulate the competitive landscape, risks, and core challenges.

Step 2: Translate

Once HR is clear on the business strategy, they must translate it into a meaningful people agenda. 

A good approach here is for HR to craft so-called contribution statements aligned with each business goal. For example, if the business goal is to solve declining client satisfaction, the contribution statement can be phrased as follows:

For HR to help solve the business problem of declining client satisfaction, HR needs to contribute:

1. A workforce with the right skills
2. A culture that promotes client-centricity
3. By implementing an incentive program to reward client-centric behaviors.

This translation explicitly makes the business case for HR’s role and helps shift the conversation from HR activities to the contribution that HR wants to make related to the business objective.

Litmus test: Can you clearly state what HR must contribute for the business to succeed, and would business leaders agree?

Here, HR can demonstrate that they:

• Have clear written HR contribution statements linked to business priorities.
• Ensured that each contribution statement answers the following: How does this help the business achieve its goal?
• Have aligned with business stakeholders to agree on what success looks like.

Step 3: Align

With contribution statements in hand, HR must align its resources to the prioritized contributions. This means breaking down these contributions further into key focus areas, specific initiatives, measurable objectives, and the resources required to deliver. 

It also requires strategic choices: Where will HR invest its time and energy? What will be prioritized? What will be deferred or deprioritized? 

Alignment is about ensuring that while HR contributions are aligned to business, so too are the internal HR resources required to deliver. This could also imply that HR needs to stop doing some of the current activities it might have been busy with to ensure the capacity to drive strategic execution.

This step is not about saying yes but rather about being clear on what HR will and won’t do.

Litmus test: Can every HR activity and initiative be traced back to a business-relevant contribution?

HR should be able to demonstrate that they:

• Made intentional choices about what HR will focus on and what it won’t
• Have clear objectives that are specific, measurable, and logically derived from the contribution statements
• Created alignment across HR sub-functions (e.g., Talent, L&D, Rewards).

Step 4: Connect

The next step is to connect HR strategy back to the business in a way that makes sense to non-HR audiences. When sharing the HR strategy, frame it as a direct response to business needs:
“Because the business wants to achieve X, HR will focus on Y, which delivers Z, enabling the organization to reach X.”

This deliberate looped narrative helps stakeholders see how HR contributes to the broader picture and reinforces shared ownership of results.

Litmus test: Can business leaders repeat the HR strategy to you and link it to their goals?

In this step, HR can demonstrate that:

• Leaders outside HR can articulate how HR is helping achieve strategic outcomes
• HR updates are part of regular business reviews.

But it’s really the accountability of the business leaders, the business managers, who drive that culture. So, any HR strategy has to be co-owned and co-sponsored by business leaders, hand in hand.

Avi Kohli

Step 5: Reiterate

The best-aligned strategies lose momentum when they aren’t reinforced. That’s why the final step is reiterating and continuously reinforcing the connection between HR strategy and business priorities. This involves regularly checking alignment, updating stakeholders, and adjusting the course when needed.

Reiteration isn’t repetition for the sake of repetition. It reminds stakeholders why HR is focused on specific priorities and keeps the people strategy at the top of the organization’s mind.

It also creates a rhythm of accountability. Returning to the original business objectives and showing progress, HR builds credibility.

Litmus test: Are you consistently reinforcing the HR and business strategy connection over time?

At this stage, HR can demonstrate that the:

• HR strategy is revisited and refined as business needs evolve
• Progress updates explicitly tie HR results back to business goals
• Business leaders hear the same message consistently across forums.

Final words

As business demands more from HR teams, being misaligned between HR and business strategy should no longer be tolerated. By adopting a different approach, HR can ensure the relevance of the strategy and improve the perception of value that we contribute as people professionals.

The post The Importance of Aligning HR Strategy with Business Strategy & How To Get It Right appeared first on AIHR.

This article explores how HR can lead to AI integration while preserving these human foundations of work.

Contents
The hidden risks of the growing AI adoption
Why HR needs to lead AI integration and capability efforts
What a human-centered workplace looks like in an AI world
Making human-centered work a strategic priority for HR

The hidden risks of the growing AI adoption

It is easy to get swept up in the excitement of AI’s promise. The technology is already reshaping how work gets done, from generative AI tools that write job descriptions to algorithms that screen resumes in seconds. However, while the benefits are significant, so are the risks, especially if we focus solely on efficiency and ignore the broader implications for people and jobs.

While concerns about bias and unethical AI use are valid, the conversation must include more systemic implications of how AI shapes our organizations and society.

Productivity gains may come at the cost of engagement

Globally, AI could displace up to 300 million jobs, with 47% of workers in the United States alone at risk of being affected by AI-driven automation. One in four CEOs anticipates job cuts due to generative AI in the near future, while 30% of workers are concerned about their jobs.

Despite AI’s potential to boost productivity, we must also remain mindful of its impact on the meaning people find in their work. Global employee engagement levels are already in decline, and if AI is implemented without intentional design, businesses risk creating future roles that lack challenge, purpose, and fulfillment. The result could be a workforce that is more efficient but less inspired and invested.

“I’ve seen the pictures—and you have too—of robots on Amazon lines, moving large packages from one conveyor belt to another, being able to track their movements precisely. They’re part of the supply chain now. They’re not human; they don’t talk, they don’t call in sick, and they show up every day. I think that’s resonating with leadership. One company said, ‘We’ll make the $70,000 investment—this pays for itself in a year or two. We don’t have to pay benefits.”

Professor Marc Miller

Short-term decisions are backfiring

OrgVue’s research reveals that many CEOs are experiencing AI regret, second-guessing decisions made to replace human work with artificial intelligence. In the UK, two in five businesses (39%) reported making redundancies as part of their AI adoption efforts. Yet, over half of those organizations (55%) now admit that those decisions were misguided.

Many companies have faced unintended consequences rather than unlocking the anticipated gains in efficiency and innovation, such as internal confusion, increased employee turnover, and a decline in productivity. These outcomes highlight a critical lesson: AI decisions must be guided by long-term thinking and organizational foresight, not short-term cost-cutting or hype-driven expectations.

AI risks increasing inequality and anxiety

Beyond the headlines, we also need to understand that displacement due to AI is rarely evenly distributed. Younger workers, lower-income employees, and workers of colour are disproportionately worried about the future. The promise of AI has, for many, become entangled with feelings of insecurity, inequality, and exclusion. 

This is especially important as AI adoption risks deepening existing inequalities. In contrast, in high-income countries, as many as 60 percent of jobs are considered automatable, compared to just 26 percent in low-income economies, leading to increased anxiety related to AI’s impact on skilled labor. 

These disparities are not just societal concerns. They have direct implications for how organizations adopt and scale AI. If left unaddressed, they risk breaking down trust between employees and employers, leading to increased fear and anxiety towards AI and undermining the goals AI is meant to serve. This is where HR’s role becomes critical.

Why HR needs to lead AI integration and capability efforts

HR is uniquely positioned to play a critical role in how AI is adopted in organizations. No other discipline holds the mandate to align technology with people or the responsibility to balance organizational priorities with workforce wellbeing. As AI becomes embedded in how organizations hire, manage, develop, and engage people, HR must lead its adoption, not just for productivity gains but to preserve the human essence of work.

HR’s role is to drive the implementation of AI solutions that improve efficiency and service delivery while safeguarding employee experience, trust, and inclusion. The challenge lies in ensuring that innovation serves people, not the other way around.

“It’s the human aspects—the organization has to be human-centered. It has to be the kind of environment that makes someone want to join the company. And HR sits right at the center of that through recruiting and branding.”

Professor Marc Miller

What a human-centered workplace looks like in an AI world

The term human-centered is often misunderstood as opposing performance or technology. However, a truly human-centered workplace does not reject AI; it integrates it thoughtfully to protect psychological safety, amplify purpose, and deepen connection. 

HR is the custodian of this balance. It must set the tone for how AI is introduced, communicated, and experienced across the organization, balancing decisions to drive business results with human implications. A truly human-centered HR function uses AI to enhance, rather than replace, the human aspects of work. This involves applying technology thoughtfully to reduce friction, support better decision-making, and personalize employee experiences, all while preserving human connection.

For instance, AI can efficiently manage repetitive tasks such as scheduling interviews or analyzing employee feedback data. By automating these routine activities, HR professionals can focus on high-impact, high-touch efforts like coaching leaders, facilitating inclusion dialogues, and shaping experiences that build a sense of purpose and belonging.

However, when AI is applied without consideration for the human experience, the consequences can be counterproductive. Some organizations, for example, have experimented with using AI to replace managers fully in the performance review process. These initiatives often backfire. Employees resisted being evaluated solely by algorithms and strongly preferred maintaining a human relationship with their managers. They see AI as a tool that should assist managers by reducing bias and supporting better insights, not as a substitute for human judgment and connection.

Making human-centered work a strategic priority for HR

For HR to lead AI in a human-centered way, you need to embed five key principles within all HR activities. Each of these supports the broader goal: making sure technology supports people, not the other way around.

1. Build psychological safety into your AI strategy and address fear proactively

Across all AI efforts, HR should aim to create psychological safety for individuals. This means that employees feel that they have the space to voice their concerns, process disruption, and participate in shaping the future. HR can enable open dialogue and create forums for listening, allowing employees to express their fears and concerns. 

Transparency and proactive communication also play a critical role in building psychological safety. Research shows that only 32 percent of employees feel their organization has been transparent about how AI is used. This lack of openness undermines trust and reinforces anxiety.

Employees want to understand how AI is being used, who benefits from it, and what safeguards are in place to ensure ethical, fair, and inclusive practices. That’s why HR should avoid vague or overly technical messaging in employee communication and involve teams early through pilots and feedback sessions.

Also, executive leaders should openly discuss their plans for adopting AI and influencing jobs in the future, as well as their plans for reskilling or transitioning employees.

2. Build an AI-ready workforce

With 120 million workers expected to retrain in the next few years, HR must lead the development of new learning pathways and career transitions. It’s essential to go beyond the intent and principle of reskilling and be more specific in terms of:

• Which jobs will be in focus, and how the organization is segmenting and prioritizing workers who are currently in those jobs
• What skills will be required in the future, and what paths to develop these skills entail
• What the investments required to transition the workforce into these opportunities are, and if the organization is willing to invest these numbers into its workforce.

Upskilling and reskilling efforts haven’t always prioritized AI. According to a TalentLMS and Workable report, only 41% of companies include AI skills in their upskilling programs, and just 39% of employees say they use those skills in their roles. This gap highlights the need for a more holistic approach—one that goes beyond training to include opportunities for real-world application, alignment with business needs, and clear links to growth and recognition.

We discussed the future of the workforce and HR with Professor Marc Miller. See the full interview below:

3. Audit AI systems for fairness and inclusion

HR needs to partner with the Risk Management, Compliance, and Legal teams to conduct realistic audits of AI systems to evaluate them for fairness and inclusion. The results of these audits should show how AI initiatives are intentionally inclusive and highlight where AI initiatives might be unintentionally excluding specific groups.

For example, how AI is adopted can lead to exclusion and perceived unfairness. A global financial services firm adopted AI tools for client insights and productivity, which were rolled out first to senior consultants and head office teams, giving them a significant edge in performance and visibility. Meanwhile, regional teams and junior staff received delayed access and minimal support, limiting their ability to benefit from the same tools. This uneven implementation widened internal inequalities, creating a digital divide within the organization.

4. Redefine the value of work

AI can help eliminate low-value tasks. HR should use this opportunity to elevate roles focused on creativity, empathy, and collaboration, the parts of work that technology cannot replicate. HR should rethink work design and intentionally design for meaningful work that improves engagement, wellbeing, and job satisfaction. 

Meaningful work also balances the individual’s need to be challenged and feel like they are contributing to work that adds value to the business objectives and strategies.

AI offers a great opportunity to completely reinvent work design, and HR needs to lead the efforts to ensure the responsible adoption and implementation of these principles.

5. Create guiding principles for ethical AI use

Establish internal policies that prioritize consent, transparency, and data dignity. Data dignity means treating people’s data with the same respect as the individuals themselves, ensuring they have visibility, control, and fair benefit from how their data is used.

These principles should guide all decisions around AI deployment in the workplace. While most AI policies today focus on basic compliance, HR has an opportunity to go further by helping shape policies that are grounded in human-centered thinking, not just minimum standards.

The future of HR and work is more human, not less

There is a growing narrative that the future of work is digital, fast-paced, and AI-powered. That may be true, but it is incomplete. The future of HR must also be deeply human.

As technology becomes more powerful, HR’s responsibility is not to abandon the human side of their work but to amplify it. This means using AI to unlock time, insights, and possibilities; not to replace judgment, empathy, and connection. 

AI is an opportunity to elevate the human aspects of work, not replace them. HR is key in shaping authentic human-centered organizations, making sure that as AI is integrated, connection, thoughtful work design, and values like dignity and inclusion remain at the core.

The post Putting the ‘Human’ Back into Human Resources: How HR Can Protect the Human Side of Work appeared first on AIHR.

To support this, organizations have been adopting new ways of working that enable faster decisions and improved speed-to-market for their products and services. These modern organizational design models center around creating autonomous teams that promote transparency, accountability, and ownership. Yet, while many companies aspire to adopt these approaches, few implement them effectively.

In this article, we explore three modern organizational models that enable team autonomy as a way of working and highlight the role of HR in guiding organizations through this transition.

Contents
Why is there a growing need for team autonomy?
Understanding different levels of team autonomy
3 modern organizational models designed to enable autonomy as a way of work
Common pitfalls and challenges of autonomy-driven organization models
The role of HR in preparing the organization for the transition to increased team autonomy

Why is there a growing need for team autonomy?

Market disruptions, technological innovation, and shifting customer expectations have created a business environment where stability is no longer the norm. Organizations are under pressure to adapt more quickly, deliver value faster, and stay competitive in industries where change happens in months, not years. In response, many have explored new ways of working designed to support faster decision-making, greater flexibility, and more substantial alignment with client needs.

Yet despite significant investment and effort, many organizations struggle to move away from traditional and hierarchical operating models. McKinsey highlights that only 30% of organizational transformation programs achieve the expected outcomes, with failure often rooted in misaligned and outdated operating models.

These legacy organizational models are characterized by rigid hierarchies, functional silos, and slow decision-making that often inhibit autonomy with teams having to follow strict protocols to make decisions and get work done.

If organizations want to work more autonomously as part of their design, a new way of working is required, demanding a change in how leaders operate and how teams are structured. As the pressure to deliver business value intensifies, leaders must reexamine what and how they transform to organizational designs that promote team autonomy. Success will depend on adopting operating models that are adaptable, integrated, and purposefully aligned with the intent of fostering an autonomous way of work and culture.

Understanding different levels of team autonomy

With businesses shifting toward more autonomous ways of working, it’s essential to understand the different team structures that support varying levels of autonomy.

The following comparison outlines four common team models—ranging from traditionally managed teams to leaderless teams—highlighting how leadership roles, decision-making, and team dynamics evolve as autonomy increases.

	Traditionally managed teams	A designated manager or supervisor directs the team’s work, makes key decisions, assigns tasks, and holds accountability for outcomes.
	Self-managed teams	Self-managed teams have a degree of autonomy but operate within parameters set by the organization. They manage day-to-day operations, assign tasks among themselves, and are responsible for meeting goals, but they still have a team leader or report to management for strategic decisions.
	Self-directed teams	Self-directed teams organize around a set goal or objective and have a high level of autonomy to make decisions regarding work, roles and leadership.
	Leaderless teams	A group in which no single individual is designated as the formal leader. Instead, leadership responsibilities are shared among team members or emerge organically based on expertise, context, or need.

Note: The Blue dot depicts the positioning of the leader in the team. A form of leadership exists across all four of these team models. However, leaders’ roles differ significantly, as do the decision-making rights assigned to these individuals, whether formally or informally.

We discussed self-managed teams with Bex Hewett, Associate Professor in Human Resource Management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Watch the full interview here:

3 modern organizational models designed to enable autonomy as a way of work

Giving teams more freedom isn’t enough to build real team autonomy. Organizations need to set up the right structures that make autonomy sustainable. Recently, several organizational models have emerged that rethink how work gets done, who makes decisions, and how teams are supported.

Below, we explore three organizational designs that use autonomous work as a core principle. Each model supports autonomy in different ways, and the degree of self-management or self-direction varies depending on how the model is applied in practice.

Operating as a networked organization

Networked structures replace rigid hierarchies with fluid, interconnected teams emphasizing lateral collaboration. Practically, teams are organized into teams based on criteria such as specialization or location. However, multidisciplinary teams from across these various areas can deliver the work and fully leverage the organization’s resources when work needs to happen.

This model thrives in environments where cross-functional work is critical, such as design firms, consultancies, or global HR functions. Expertise moves dynamically across teams, often supported by communities of practice.

For example, DEI, talent, or learning specialists might work across business units rather than be tied to a single function. While networked models boost agility and innovation, they also require clear decision rights and shared accountability to avoid ambiguity, coordination overload, and slow execution.

In networked organizations, teams are usually self-managed and sometimes self-directed, depending on how much autonomy individual nodes or groups are given.

Working in agile and tribe-based structures

Popularized by technology companies like Spotify, this model organizes work into small, autonomous teams (squads) grouped under broader goals (tribes) and supported by shared capabilities (chapters) and learning communities (guilds). It’s designed for rapid iteration, tight feedback loops, and customer-centricity.

In HR, an agile ‘People Tribe’ might include squads focused on onboarding, mobility, or performance. These squads test new ideas in sprints and iterate based on feedback. While agile boosts speed and employee engagement, scaling requires strong governance and team alignment to maintain cohesion.

Teams are generally self-managed in agile organizations. Some squads or tribes may operate as self-directed teams in more mature setups.

Organizing through holacracy 

Holacracy is a decentralized organizational model that distributes authority across self-managing teams known as circles. Each circle functions as a mini-organization with defined roles rather than job titles and is responsible for its governance and operations. Roles within circles have clear purposes and accountabilities, allowing individuals to hold multiple roles across different circles. 

Through structured governance and tactical meetings, circles can dynamically adapt their roles and processes, enabling the organization to respond quickly, reduce hierarchy, and foster agility and transparency.

Teams in holacracy are typically self-managed and often self-directed, with clear roles but distributed authority for decision-making and governance.

The comparison below shows the different features of the three organizational models side by side to help you understand which model could help you build team autonomy.

Common pitfalls and challenges of autonomy-driven organization models

While models such as networked organizations, agile tribes, and holacracy offer clear advantages in speed, flexibility, and ownership, they are not without challenges. There are several recurring pitfalls that can hinder success:

Autonomy without clarity

Empowering teams without clearly defined roles, responsibilities, or decision-making boundaries can lead to confusion, duplicated efforts, and gaps in accountability. Clarity is critical to prevent chaos in networked or holacratic systems, where roles are fluid and authority is distributed.

Hidden hierarchies and informal power structures

Even without a formal hierarchy, informal influence and legacy power dynamics often persist. These can undermine transparency and trust, particularly in holacratic environments where decision-making is meant to be decentralized. Leaders must actively address these invisible dynamics to enable distributed authority truly.

One-size-fits-all application

Not every team or task is suited to self-management. Highly regulated functions, crisis response teams, or roles requiring hierarchical oversight may need different structures. Misapplying models like agile or sociocracy across all teams without considering context can lead to friction or inefficiency.

Inconsistent implementation at scale

Modern organizational models often show early success in certain parts of the business but struggle when expanded across the entire organization. Agile squads, for example, may perform well in product or tech teams but face challenges when applied to functions like HR or Finance, where the nature of work and decision-making processes differ.

Organizations face fragmentation and misalignment without thoughtful coordination and a shared operating rhythm.

Leadership misalignment and resistance

Shifting to self-directed teams demands a fundamental rethinking of leadership. Leaders must transition from controllers to coaches, enablers, and system stewards. Many struggle with this mindset shift, which can lead to micromanagement, unclear direction, or undermining team autonomy.

The role of HR in preparing the organization for the transition to increased team autonomy

HR is critical in enabling organizations to transition toward more autonomous work. One key priority is reimagining organizational design and helping the organization choose a model that fits its purpose and context. HR must help organizations understand the benefits and limitations of these models and the implications of adopting these ways of work. 

Equally important is equipping leaders and teams with autonomy. HR should champion a mindset shift from control to enablement, thereby helping leaders adopt a coaching approach and empowering teams with the tools, rituals, and skills needed for self-management. 

To make these new ways of working stick, HR needs to evolve alongside the organization. Core practices like performance management, rewards, and talent development must be redesigned to shift ownership, accountability, and growth closer to the teams themselves.

For example, performance management needs to focus more on team outcomes and continuous feedback; rewards should recognize team contributions rather than individual successes; and talent development should support flexible, self-driven learning paths.

Practices like transparent governance, real-time feedback loops, and adaptive policies are critical in reinforcing these shifts, helping teams make decisions faster and adapt more easily while preventing the organization from slipping back into traditional, top-down ways of operating.

A final word

As organizations adapt to the new challenges of the hyper-turbulent world of work, the ability to build true team autonomy is becoming a defining advantage. HR is responsible for this shift, designing systems, structures, and leadership practices that support flexibility, faster delivery, and greater responsiveness.

To sum up, building true team autonomy isn’t a one-time effort; it’s an ongoing commitment to rethinking how work gets done at every level of the organization.

The post Enabling Team Autonomy: What HR Needs to Know About Modern Organizational Models appeared first on AIHR.

Our latest HR Trends report revealed that disengagement costs businesses $8.8 trillion in lost productivity. This shows a clear need for a more effective approach that focuses on what truly matters to employees and moves away from surface-level perks that generate short-term excitement but fail to foster lasting engagement.

Beyond the lost productivity, employee engagement models and approaches often neglect the needs of the frontline worker. Historically, this has been due to perceptions of “being hard to reach,” time constraints, and a lack of access to technology.

In this article, we examine engagement through the lens of frontline employees and propose a needs-based model and approach to driving frontline employee engagement.

Contents
The importance of frontline employee engagement
How well do employee engagement models apply to the frontline workforce?
What does the frontline really want from work?
Adopting a needs-based approach to frontline employee engagement
How can HR adopt the model for their frontline employee engagement strategies?

The importance of frontline employee engagement

Frontline workers account for over 2 billion employees worldwide, accounting for nearly 80% of the global workforce. Yet, many employee engagement models fail to address their unique needs, often relying on engagement models developed for office-based workers.

Traditional engagement models emphasize career development, learning opportunities, and flexibility. Although these factors remain important for the frontline, other factors, such as fair pay, safety, and security, are more critical in the life of a frontline worker. 

For example, an insurance organization had to implement “safety and panic buttons” for traveling sales individuals due to rising safety concerns when entering the homes of new potential clients. Similarly, most mining operations focus on physical safety, given the high levels of danger associated with the role. Yet, these factors are often not emphasized when approaching employee engagement strategies.

Organizations that neglect to apply relevant and targeted frontline engagement strategies risk higher turnover, reduced productivity, and lower customer satisfaction.

How well do employee engagement models apply to the frontline workforce?

Before developing a more frontline-focused employee engagement model, let’s summarize some well-known employee engagement models as a starting point.

Each model has strengths and limitations, but many fail to capture frontline realities fully. For instance:

• Safety and security—top concerns for frontline workers—are rarely central to these models.
• Career growth is often a primary engagement driver in these frameworks, yet frontline roles frequently offer limited advancement opportunities.
• Fair pay and benefits, essential to frontline engagement, are often dismissed as “hygiene factors” rather than recognized as fundamental drivers of motivation and retention.

Engagement in the frontline cannot be an afterthought. Organizations must rethink how they apply these frameworks, ensuring they reflect the priorities of those on the ground.

What does the frontline really want from work?

We had the opportunity to interview Dr Cristian Grossman from the frontline employee app provider Beekeeper about their recent research report on the pulse of the frontline worker. They engaged with more than 8,000 frontline workers to explore what is important to them and what are the main barriers to frontline employee engagement.

We summarized their findings below, and you can listen to the full interview here:

Factors such as managerial support, access to tools, and clear communication are essential drivers of engagement for the frontline.

Workload management and adequate staffing and scheduling also impact frontline engagement. In industries such as retail and healthcare, where there are extensive skills shortages, this becomes even more important as the lack of available people often leads current employees to work additional shifts or do more than what is reasonably expected.

Most organizations depend on managers to communicate between the head office and frontline environments. Yet managers are overburdened with administrative tasks, spending nearly 60% of their time on repetitive processes, leading to disconnected and inconsistent communication.

Technology and tools remain misaligned with frontline realities. While corporate employees benefit from AI-powered efficiencies and streamlined digital tools, many frontline workers still rely on outdated methods such as paper forms and manual scheduling. 

The frontline is now starting to experience, I would say, a renaissance, getting tools suddenly developed only for them. But those are, in many cases, only point solutions, or the type of tools that desktop workers use themselves because they’re the ones that are conceiving the solutions and say, “Hey, if I’m already using this tool from a legacy vendor in the desktop world, why not just try to put it out there, right? It has a mobile app, it should work.” Well, it turns out that creating software for the frontline is almost a different discipline than creating software for the desktop.

Dr Cristian Grossman, CEO at Beekeeper

Employee retention remains a challenge, with nearly half of frontline workers in this study changing jobs within a year. Pay and work-life balance are listed as the top reasons for leaving, but culture and career progression also play a decisive role in job mobility.

It is also important to create a culture of appreciation, where recognition is embedded in everyday interactions rather than reserved for structured reward programs. Frontline employees don’t just want praise for outcomes; they seek acknowledgment of their effort and contribution. 

Building on these insights, the models highlighted previously, and the implementation of various employee engagement strategies in frontline environments, we position a different focus for frontline employee engagement.

Adopting a needs-based approach to frontline employee engagement

To ensure its relevance to the frontline, we developed our model based on basic human needs applicable to the frontline workforce. Human needs are fundamental requirements that drive behavior, motivation, and wellbeing. Models such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Self-Determination Theory, and Alderfer’s ERG theory are good examples of human needs models.

In our model, we highlight the drivers or factors that need to be in place for engagement to occur. We define engagement as the extent to which employees are willing and committed to contribute within reason to the goals of the organization over time. In our model, if the needs are met, engagement will occur.

We highlight the needs of frontline workers in terms of three levels:

• Individual needs in job: These refer to needs that the individual has specifically related to the content of their job.
• Individual needs from manager: These refer to needs that frontline workers have from their direct managers.
• Individual needs from organization: These refer to needs that frontline employees have in terms of the broader organization and environment.

Let’s break the model down.

Individual needs in job

At the individual needs level, we identify four needs:

Individual needs from manager

The next level describes what individuals need from their managers. These activities fall within the scope and control of the manager:

Individual needs from organization

At an organizational level, there are also needs that have to be met. Specifically, at this level, we look at policies and environmental factors that are only within the control of leaders:

When considering frontline engagement, organizations must take a holistic approach that considers needs at all these levels. When measuring engagement and planning engagement interventions, these factors can be used as a guide for the elements needed for the organization to be an environment where frontline employees can be engaged.

How can HR adopt the model to their frontline employee engagement strategies?

We firmly believe that even though employee engagement is a business responsibility, HR must play a key role in facilitating and ensuring these elements are in place. Specifically, related to our model above, HR can contribute in the following ways:

Workforce planning

HR is responsible for a robust, data-driven approach to workforce planning. This can help ensure adequate workload management.

For frontline employees, effective workforce planning goes beyond just staffing numbers—it directly impacts engagement, job satisfaction, and retention. When scheduling and workload distribution are managed thoughtfully, employees are less likely to experience burnout and more likely to stay motivated. 

Work design

HR needs to design jobs for the frontline workforce that promote autonomy and challenging work and balance the skills required for success with how employees are recruited and developed.

Compensation practices

HR can ensure a fair and transparent compensation policy and practice through continuous benchmarking and fair pay.

Specifically, HR can implement comprehensive benefits packages for frontline employees that prioritize medical care, social support for their families, and housing.

Manager development

Given managers’ important role in frontline engagement, HR needs to support the development of the right managerial competencies to keep the frontline well-managed.

Specifically, HR should also scope out the expectations from managerial roles, allowing enough time to effectively manage the frontline without being overburdened with administrative processes.

A culture of recognition

HR can foster a culture of recognition within the workforce and reinforce these mechanisms through policies and practices related to recognition. Similarly, HR can guide managers in using informal recognition and praise, building a culture where frontline employees feel seen and heard.

Wellbeing

Robust wellbeing programs can significantly increase the engagement of the frontline. HR can provide these employees with sufficient access to relevant wellbeing services while also promoting proactive wellbeing management.

Final words

The frontline is an important part of the workforce and the lifeblood of many economies around the world. Ensuring that this workforce segment is engaged will require a different approach from organizations and HR, requiring a sharp focus on and prioritizing the things that really matter to the frontline employees.

The post Frontline Employee Engagement: Taking a Needs-Based Approach appeared first on AIHR.