Bridging the gap: C-Suite and HR priorities for success in 2025

Kate Bravery

Senior Partner, Global Talent and Assessments Leader
Gordon Frost

Global Rewards Solution Leader

The New Shape of Work interview series addresses the challenges and uncertainty in the current business environment with a focus on how to transition to a more agile workforce for the future.

Join Kate Bravery and Gord Frost and they share a preview of the results from both Mercer’s 2024-2025 Global Talent Trends survey report and 2025 Executive Outlook survey. In the episode we cover the evolving landscape of human resources, focusing on the critical role of employee engagement and retention. We cover the importance of harnessing data-driven insights to create a thriving workplace culture that attracts top talent. We also discuss the similarities and differences in the priorities of HR, CEOs and CFOs as they look at the path forward in 2025.

Interesting moments:

A gap between C-Suite and HR

There is a gap between what the C-suite and HR prioritize for success in 2025. HR’s top priority: improving managers skills, especially around goal setting feedback performance management. C-suite’s top priority: rolling out new HR technology or optimizing existing platforms.
C-suite value drivers

CFOs believe that future value is going to come from AI. They are much stronger in their support of AI than CEOs. While CEOs are still placing bets on agility and AI, they also believe that making sustainability a key part of their competitive advantage will pay dividends.
Skills and AI

AI is going to change the nature of work and the fundamental way that jobs get done. But, to achieve the benefits of AI you need to think about how it changes the skills you need, who we compete with for those skills, and what to pay for those skills. The skills work should be done first or in tandem with AI implementation for the best outcome.
Employee experience

When we look at the companies that have grown fastest, or the companies that have more people who say they're thriving, they are the ones listening to their people, caring about their culture, and measuring their outcome in terms of how it impacts the employee experience.