Top 7 HR Issues We’re All Facing Today
We asked our customers and community about this in a recent study, because we figured if anyone is going to share vulnerably immediately, it’s going to be human resources professionals. We got tons of responses, which helped us filter out the minor gripes and the repetitive work, focusing on the biggest issues every HR professional faces.
It has to be said, after reading through the myriad responses, I am even more in awe of HR leaders (and I used to be a Chief People Officer!) Let’s go over the top HR issues we’re all facing right now.
HR does it all!
But before we do that, a bit more detail about the responses we received.
There were over 220 total responses, broken down into nearly 40 categories! Some of the concerns we saw were implementing performance management, career development, figuring out remote work, competencies, skills matrices, compensation, ongoing learning and development, and communication with the C-suite.
Here’s an example of a thread that offers more clarity on one of these HR issues. Specifically, disciplinary action and culture issues.
Original post:
“I can’t give information, but when a valued employee really messes up, nothing illegal or immoral, it is difficult to decide how to address and repair the damage and how to move forward. Sometimes, firing isn’t the answer.“
Response:
“Thanks for sharing, I feel you on this. I think that most of the time, firing is not the answer, especially because people talk and then the org or team gets a reputation that it’s not safe to make mistakes. I’m curious how the expectations and agreements were set up from the beginning and if there were any obstacles to the employee speaking up and asking for help?“
And another that discussed both cultural issues and employee off-boarding:
Post:
“I’ve been doing exit interviews, and while most of them have been easy and joyful, the harder ones are the ones that stick with me, the employees who felt that they’ve been wronged and hurt by our organization. I keep thinking about how what I see from my perspective is sometimes so far removed from their day-to-day experience in the organization. I didn’t even know some of the things that have been unearthed in these interviews had been happening. It’s something I hope to plan to rectify moving forward.“
Response:
“I commend you for prioritizing proactive feedback to reduce the number of exit interviews you get in the first place. I understand the struggle of obtaining solid participation numbers when it comes to feedback. Creating a culture of continuous feedback is a company-wide effort that needs to be initiated and backed by leadership. Sending you a DM. 🙂”
What HR issues really keep Human Resources professionals up at night?
With all these responses, we were able to chart all the most common issues HR teams deal with, including the top seven.
To make sense of the data, we consolidated the forty themes and charted the data above. These are the top seven concerns of HR professionals:
- Talent Acquisition and Retention
- Performance Management
- Culture and Morale Issues
- Returning To Office (Health & Safety)
- Building the HR Function
- Remote/Hybrid Work
- Employee Wellbeing
Talent acquisition and retention
No surprise here, as this has long been an ongoing concern. With remote work becoming more normalized, employees are moving to parts of the country that have a significantly higher quality of life at a fraction of the cost of living. One example is The Great Exodus from regions like Northern California.
During the fourth quarter of 2020, roughly 114,600 people left the Bay Area, up 29.7 percent from the same period in 2019. – Mercury News
There was also The Great Resignation, where thousands of people left their jobs, leading monthly resignations in the US to spike by 25%. This is related to increased access to a global talent pool, but also to unexpected factors like burnout. In a recent fireside chat we had with TrueCar Chief People Officer John Foster, he shared that burnout has a lot to do with control (click the link directly above and watch at 39:26):
When people are talking about this Great Resignation […] that’s sometimes a break because you have control. You can choose to say, ‘I’m not going to do this anymore. I can choose to go somewhere else.’ – John Foster, TrueCar CPO
Despite how the media frames these phenomena, for people teams, there is nothing great about exodus or resignation. The stakes have never been higher to build a strong employer brand, create opportunities for internal advancement, and build a robust culture where people can thrive.
Performance management
Many of these comments had to do with successfully rolling out performance management software or the implementation of related processes. Issues like performance reviews, engagement, culture and morale, psychological safety, and team communication all fall into this category.
Performance management is an essential responsibility for HR, but rolling it out organization-wide can be complex. Establishing standard processes that give a fair, objective assessment of every team member’s performance has to go beyond the typical quarterly performance review. Between the sheer amount of data needed and the stakes involved, it’s no wonder that performance management is a top HR issue right now.
That’s why many organizations turn to performance management platforms like 15Five to ease the load. But participants also voiced concerns about executive buy-in for these tools. Here is the response and advice that was shared:
“Executive sponsorship and involvement is critical for success in any company-wide software rollout. I would say the “must do” prior to rolling out is to get executive buy-in, including a company-wide announcement by your executive sponsor to explain why you are doing this, to set expectations around key dates, and to ask for feedback/questions.“
Culture and morale issues
Company culture and employee morale go hand-in-hand, which usually means a problem with one will cause problems with the other. HR teams can have a lot of influence on company culture, helping leaders iron out vague ideas and impressions to turn them into a solid culture that keeps everyone pushing forward together.
But culture isn’t a “set-it-and-forget-it” sort of thing. You have to go out of your way to maintain it, or the hiccups and speed bumps your organization hits along the way might seriously damage it. That’s where HR might struggle to get the buy-in and resources they need to build up company culture and keep it healthy.
And if it goes on too long, HR professionals then run into morale issues, too. Whether it’s due to a wave of layoffs, the organization’s failure to hit important milestones, or even a sequence of important employees leaving, a string of negative events can seriously impact morale. Preventing that—and turning things around when it happens—is an important issue for HR to deal with.
Ongoing learning and development
Building up the talent your organization already has can save on hiring, ensure your leadership team is full of people with years of institutional knowledge, and unlock skills you’d never have guessed you already had access to.
But it’s a challenge. You need resources, buy-in, and expertise to build a talent development strategy that actually works. HR teams aren’t usually the ones doing the actual teaching—especially when dealing with more technical topics—but they might still be expected to provide the curriculum and the source of that learning.
HR teams need to demonstrate that this strategy gives the organization a decent return on its investment, too, to combat the temptation to just hire new people when skill gaps emerge.
Remote and hybrid work
This one is not a surprise either and, as I’ve shared, is related to that top concern of talent acquisition and retention. We even made this a theme in the community with round-tables on dynamic work and community members sharing their post-pandemic remote and hybrid work policies.
In 2020, many companies found themselves forced to embrace remote work, with varying degrees of success. Fast-forward a few years and as offices reopen hybrid work is becoming the new, new normal for many. Some organizations have stuck to full remote work, while others have brought everyone back into the office full-time, like Amazon and Zoom.
This has meant workplaces have had to set their own, completely distinct policies, and we are seeing a whole slew of emerging issues that tech alone can’t solve. Creating competition between the here’s vs the there’s, uneven odds of getting promoted, and cultural dilution are just a few of these challenges. And, of course, HR teams are at the forefront of dealing with these challenges. But there’s also a huge opportunity for innovation in the field of HR and the need for strategic initiatives.
Employee wellbeing
HR professionals are often the first to rush in when they hear that someone in the organization doesn’t feel like they’re valued, respected, or appreciated. That call to help is what makes them great at what they do, but it can also lead to some serious burnout when it’s answered constantly, and you might not always have the right solution to their problem.
You’ll often find yourself juggling broader, organization-wide initiatives for improving employee wellbeing and spot-fixes with specific individuals or teams. That’s a lot to manage, and it comes on top of all the other tasks you might be responsible for.
Caring deeply about people’s well-being is why you pursued this career in the first place. But like many of the participants said, it’s alright to admit that it can be taxing.
Building the HR function
Many human resources professionals are so bogged down in administrative tasks like payroll and managing benefits that they struggle to get ahead of employee attrition, and they are not seen as true partners to the rest of their organization’s leadership. Get ahead of these issues by becoming a strategic business partner and plan a people strategy to ensure a strong employer brand and high performance and engagement.
One of the main concerns we hear from HR leaders is they are too busy to be strategic. When two hundred people say that forty distinct concerns related to their roles keep them up at night, that’s a pretty strong indicator that this issue is real. When you can’t find the time to focus on your broader HR strategy, it’s harder to get buy-in from stakeholders for what you see as essential initiatives
The bottom line
We’ve created many actionable resources like webinars and playbooks to elevate HR to a strategic business function. Because that’s what HR is. They are not ancillary. They are most valuable when they lay out and execute the frameworks for how to pair people performance with business performance.
Perhaps the next time someone asks you what is keeping you up at night, you can respond with, “Nothing at all.”
This article has been updated in 2025.
