HR Trends: 7 Strategic Shifts Every HR Leader Should Know

Human resources (HR) professionals have become more strategic and proactive. Not because they planned to, but because the environment demands it. The nature of work continues to shift as organizations navigate economic pressure, emerging technologies and rising expectations. HR teams are no longer just responding to change; they’re being asked to anticipate it, guide it and help the organization move through it with confidence.

As a result, HR sits at the intersection of business performance and workforce experience. Leaders are expected to drive efficiency, manage risk and support growth, while also maintaining trust, engagement and clarity for employees. This dual responsibility has put HR squarely at the center of competing priorities—making balance a strategic necessity, not a nice-to-have.

To be successful, HR leaders and teams will need to focus on aligning business goals with employee expectations. In our report, HR’s New Balancing Act: 7 Trends to Watch in 2026, we examine how HR plays a central role in moving the organization forward. Here’s a look at the trends that will shape the year ahead.

Trend 1: AI Will Continue to Elevate the HR Function

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here, and it’s making a major impact on the HR function. The technology enables teams to act more strategically and efficiently. While there are many use cases, AI is expected to make the biggest impacts in these areas:

• Detecting payroll anomalies

• Making the hiring process less manual and more efficient

• Ensuring employees start strong with a better onboarding process

To elevate the HR function with AI, leaders should take a thoughtful, intentional approach that’s rooted in outcomes. Start by identifying high-effort, high-impact areas where AI can reduce risk or save meaningful time, such as payroll accuracy or candidate screening. Many human capital management (HCM) solutions already include built-in AI that may be underutilized, making an audit of existing tools a great first step. From there, HR should look to apply AI where it supports better decisions and smoother experiences. The goal isn’t automation for its own sake. It’s enabling HR to work smarter and focus on work that moves the business forward.

Trend 2: Hiring Teams Will Shift from Speed to Impact

Despite a shift in the employee-employer dynamic, employers are still dealing with a hiring problem. Our fifth-annual HR Leaders Report found that sixty-two percent of HR leaders think they have a talent crisis.¹ In many cases, leaders point to outdated or unclear hiring practices as the root cause, which makes it a self-inflicted issue.

Addressing this challenge requires more than filling roles faster. It requires rethinking how hiring success is defined. This could include evaluating current performance metrics and considering a shift, such as:

• Time-to-fill to time-to-fit: Ensuring that you’re making the right hire, not just moving quickly through the process

• Cost-per-hire to quality-of-hire: Placing an emphasis on staying power over optimizing savings throughout the process.

• Vacancy rate to talent adaptability: Finding talent that can grow and adapt to help your organization succeed.

This shift reframes hiring as a long-term investment rather than a short-term fix. HR teams will balance speed and fit by prioritizing hires who can grow with the organization, not just fill an immediate gap. As business needs evolve, hiring processes that emphasize adaptability and alignment will better support sustained performance and retention.

Trend 3: HR Will Prioritize Upskilling to Close Internal Skills Gaps

Sometimes top candidates aren’t new hires; they are internal employees who have honed their skills and are ready for what’s next. As roles evolve and technology reshapes how work gets done, organizations are increasingly finding that the talent they need already exists internally. Top performers want to grow in their roles, and if they align with the organization’s goals and culture, it’s wise to keep them in the fold.

In our second-annual Business Owners Report, a survey of 2,000+ business owners, respondents said professional development improves skillsets, productivity and efficiency, as well as retention and engagement.² When development is aligned with real business needs, upskilling becomes a strategic lever that supports both employee growth and organizational resilience.

HR teams may want to consider prioritizing upskilling efforts that focus on:

• Closing self-inflicted skills gaps: Helping employees adapt to new tools, technologies and ways of working as business needs evolve

• Personalized learning paths: Using learning management systems (LMS) and AI-enabled tools to tailor development to individual roles and career goals

• Retention through growth: Providing clear development opportunities that keep high performers engaged and invested in the organization

Together, these efforts position upskilling as one of HR’s most direct ways to influence performance and retention. Rather than reacting to skills shortages after they appear, HR teams can proactively prepare employees for what’s next. Organizations that invest in internal development will be better equipped to adapt to change, preserve institutional knowledge and reduce reliance on external hiring.

Trend 4: Analytics in the Flow of Work Will Accelerate Decision Making

In today’s HR environment, data is plentiful and overlooked. The challenge isn’t collecting information—it’s making it usable at the moment decisions are made. When put to good use, this data can set up an HR function for success.

Think about the employee lifecycle and all the data that’s involved: Onboarding data, skills and learning insights, workforce trends, key performance indicator (KPI) stats and more. Too often these insights live in dashboards or reports that require extra effort to access and interpret.

When analytics are embedded directly inside the systems HR already uses, leaders are able to act on information in real time. Consider the following:

• Payroll and pay insights: Flagging anomalies and trends directly within payroll workflows

• Recruiting analytics: Viewing candidate quality, bottlenecks and hiring trends inside the applicant tracking system

• Skills and learning insights: Identifying development progress and gaps within learning management systems

• Workforce and performance indicators: Monitoring key metrics where managers make day-to-day decisions

Moving forward, successful teams won’t treat data as something to analyze later; they’ll use it to act in the moment. When insights are available where work happens, HR teams can make better decisions without slowing down.

Trend 5: Simplifying Benefits Enrollment Will Be a Strategic EX Priority

The current state of benefits enrollment leaves much to be desired. Consider that:

• 35% of HR leaders say vague benefit plan details leave employees unsure about their choices.¹

• 26% say a lack of clear, timely communication leaves employees in the dark on how the enrollment process works.¹

• Our Voice of the Workforce Report found 72% of employees say that selecting benefits is a stressful experience.³

This level of confusion creates friction for both employees and HR teams: driving questions, errors and missed opportunities to communicate value. As expectations rise, organizations will look for simpler, more personalized ways to help employees make confident benefits decisions. Simplifying enrollment won’t just improve the employee experience; it will reduce administrative strain and allow HR to focus on higher-impact work.

Trend 6: Organizations Will Need to Enhance Cybersecurity Efforts

Cyber threats loom over every organization, regardless of size or industry. This risk affects HR departments specifically, because people data is valuable. Payroll information, social security numbers and sensitive personal data are all in the realm of HR, making the threat immediate and pressing.

HR teams can bolster security readiness and support the organization by:

• Partnering closely with IT

• Ensuring employees complete ongoing awareness training

• Reviewing and refining role-based access policies

• Staying informed about emerging threats

Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility, and HR plays a central role in protecting the organization’s most sensitive data. By collaborating across teams and reinforcing strong data practices, HR can help reduce risk, strengthen compliance and support operational resilience. As stewards of employee information, HR teams aren't just supporting security efforts: they’re helping safeguard trust.

Trend 7: Aligning Business Strategy and Workforce Experience

Sixty-five percent of HR leaders believe that the balance of power has shifted from the employee back to the employer.¹ As a result, there will be a heightened focus on cost-cutting measures and efficiency throughout the organization. For HR teams, this shift introduces new pressure to justify decisions through business outcomes while still protecting workforce stability.

Yet, HR departments still need to prioritize employee experience (EX), retention and a productive workforce. These priorities aren’t competing goals, but without intention, they can easily fall out of alignment. HR teams must take an active role in shaping how business decisions are communicated, implemented and experienced by employees. Making sure the workforce is informed of major decisions, and that their voices are heard when making those decisions, is imperative.

Change will inevitably come to many organizations, departments and HR professionals this year. The best way to prepare for what’s ahead is to remain flexible as new challenges emerge.

HR will need to balance efficiency with experience, innovation with intention and business needs with human impact. Teams that approach these moments proactively—using data, technology and communication to guide decisions—will be better equipped to find opportunity. HR’s role isn’t just growing, it’s becoming central to how organizations move forward.

Want to dive deeper into the top HR trends of 2026? Click here to access the full report!

Sources:

¹ isolved’s “Elevating HR in the Age of AI” HR Leaders Report

² isolved’s “Business Owner Imperative: Aligning Tech & Talent in Turbulent Times” Business Owners Report

³ isolved’s “Voice of the Workforce” 2024-2025 Report