Emerging Workplace Challenges in 2025

Your workplace has seen some massive changes in the last 20 years. Cubicles turned into open plan offices, then into everyone’s spare bedroom or kitchen table when the pandemic hit. Important communication came through phone lines, then faxes, then email, then Teams and Slack messages.

Leaving the office at 5 p.m. was once all you needed to do to disconnect from work, while now you’re bombarded by notifications after hours unless you turn your phone off.

2025 brings its own host of workplace challenges that will force similar changes. Some are completely new, while others are the result of earlier trends stabilizing and maturing. Your HR team will have to lead the way in navigating these challenges throughout the year.

Here’s your guide to doing that.

Key takeaways:

• AI and automation will bring increased productivity, but organizations still struggle to deploy them at scale.
• Remote and hybrid work are the new normal, bringing employee engagement and company culture challenges.
• An increased reliance on digital communication channels can create excess noise and tank productivity.
• Despite declining investments in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, challenges in this area are increasing in 2025.
• Ethical challenges and regulations will get more complex, making compliance more challenging.

The impact of AI and automation on jobs

Since ChatGPT launched to the public in late 2022, AI has become a massive industry, with a market size of $279.22 billion in 2024 according to Grand View Research data. Implementing AI has also become a top priority for organizations worldwide, with nearly half of U.S. organizations having started this work in 2025, according to Gallup.

Despite the emphasis on AI adoption, most organizations haven’t made much real progress. 67% of employees say they never use AI, and 75% believed AI would reduce the total number of jobs available in the U.S. in 2023—a significant barrier to adoption.

Leaders face multiple workplace challenges with AI. They need to stay ahead of a technology that seems to change drastically every month. They need to upskill their workforce to use this technology appropriately. And they need to do all this while reassuring their employees that no one will lose their job just because they implement AI tools.

How to stay ahead of this challenge

• Reskill and upskill employees: Eliminating routine, administrative tasks with AI and automation allows employees to refocus their energy towards essential work that can’t be automated. You can support this shift through reskilling and upskilling.
• Reinforce the value of each employee: AI brings a fear of being made redundant, and your messaging around these tools needs to combat this. Reassure employees that their contributions are valuable and irreplaceable as you encourage them to adopt AI.
• Fully implement AI tools before testing new ones: Many organizations, in their rush to get ahead of the AI trend, have adopted a number of tools that, months later, aren’t being used. Before adopting a new tool, make sure you’ve fully rolled out existing tools, so you’re actually getting a return on your investment.

Remote and hybrid work fatigue

In 2020, every company that could switch to full remote work did. Tools like Zoom, Slack, and Miro were instantly and widely adopted by thousands of organizations that might never have even considered them before. Opinion pieces from leaders in tech and similar industries claimed that remote work was the future of work, and many claimed they’d never go back to the office.

But what does this actually look like in 2025? Hybrid work is far more common than fully remote work, and it’s even outpaced fully on-site models. According to Gallup, 52% of employees with remote-capable jobs are hybrid employees, with only 27% being fully remote and 21% being in the office full-time.

Remote work, even if only a few days a week, creates real wins for both employees and organizations. Flexible work schedules and locations give people better work-life balance, give you access to a bigger talent pool, and open up completely new opportunities for collaboration.

Sure, there are adjustments to make. You might commute to the office only to join a meeting where everyone else is working remotely. Managers sometimes find it takes more intention to stay connected with their teams.

The key is having the right approach. When companies set up remote and hybrid work thoughtfully, they build a stronger company culture, boost employee engagement, and make onboarding new employees more effective than ever.

How to stay ahead of this challenge

• Implement company culture days: Whether your organization is fully remote or hybrid, you still need opportunities to rally around a common goal, cause, or mission. Go out of your way to schedule events that bring as many employees together in one place.
• Encourage employees to fully switch off: Remote work can blur the line between your workday and your time off. Ensure employees know they can switch off by encouraging them to turn off notifications and fully disconnect when their day is done.
• Create more value for in-office days: No one wants to spend a significant amount of their day commuting only to arrive in an empty office. Designate specific days of the week as in-office team days and consider adding perks to your office that will make it an attractive place to work.

Communication breakdowns in a digital workplace

How many communication channels do you need to monitor to stay up-to-date on your projects? Project management tools, chat apps, emails, and virtual meetings generate enough updates that anyone can struggle to stay in the loop. These tools make communication easier and smoother, but can completely clutter your day with noise.

While these communication channels are essential for enabling remote and hybrid work, they make real communication—and staying productive—a challenge. A single Slack notification, received at the wrong time, can make a task take 50% more time to accomplish and generate 50% more errors.

How to stay ahead of this challenge

• Give every channel a specific purpose: Tools like Slack and Teams allow you to clearly communicate what each channel should be used for, but you need to apply this approach to all your communication methods.
• Encourage employees to use focus blocks: Deep work and notifications are completely incompatible. Give your employees a way to block notifications and clearly communicate when they need to focus. That can be a sign they put on their desk, a status they use in digital tools, or even just a rule about not disturbing someone with headphones on.
• Audit your channels and messages: Communication channels become unwieldy when organizations rarely look back on the way teams communicate. Regular audits will allow you to identify problems and work on potential solutions proactively.

Ethical challenges and compliance complexities

Ethics are essential to your company culture. They inform your values, lay the foundation for your mission, and attract top talent who’ll stay with you for the long haul. But as the challenges to those ethics get more complex, organizations are faced with tough decisions. Few leaders are lawyers or philosophers, making navigating these challenges more difficult.

How important is data privacy to you and your organization? Is organizational transparency a priority? What do you believe the role of AI should be in your workplace? In some cases, the challenge lies only in adapting to evolving compliance requirements from your jurisdiction. In others, it’s about making tough calls when no answer seems like the right one.

How to stay ahead of this challenge

• Rely on the experts: When it comes to compliance, your legal team should be your first and last stop for an expert opinion. For ethical concerns, don’t hesitate to bring in other experts who can help you work things out.
• Stay up to date: Laws and regulations are constantly evolving, but your jurisdiction sees no difference between willful and accidental non-compliance. Keep yourself in the loop.
• Treat your employees as a focus group: With tough ethical questions, your employees can offer a wide range of positions and opinions. From there, you can weigh them against each other to help your decision process along.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) struggles

Companies like IBM, MLB, and Warner Bros might be rolling back their DEI initiatives, but that doesn’t mean the challenges these initiatives were meant to address have been solved. Especially in times of global instability, these programs are important.

The impacts of inequalities like wage gaps, unconscious biases, and unfair hiring practices are magnified in times of uncertainty. That means organizations need to continue to invest in DEI programs while facing additional market pressures and increasing challenges in other areas.

How to stay ahead of this workplace challenge

• Go beyond the surface: Too many organizations deploy surface-level initiatives that don’t create any lasting change. Treat DEI as an investment, and make sure that investment pays off in the long term with deep, actionable strategies.
• Empower employees: Often, employees from groups most affected by DEI challenges are best placed to advise you on what can be done to help them. Give them channels for communicating these needs and the ability to do something about them.
• Don’t chase trends: If DEI matters to your organization, you need to commit to it consistently. Avoid chasing DEI trends just for the sake of a little extra publicity. Make a plan, adjust it as needed, but stick with it.

Employee mental health and wellness concerns

During the pandemic, every organization saw the need for wellness and mental health support. Times were unprecedented. Day-to-day conveniences were unavailable. Social contact was difficult or impossible. Many organizations rolled out mental health benefits and initiatives aimed at reducing the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of employees.

So what does 2025 look like?

Addressing mental health, work-life balance, and burnout is still crucial. Markets are getting more difficult, leading to employees feeling like they might not have a job tomorrow. The cost of living is increasing, and the stress associated with that doesn’t disappear in the elevator ride up to the office.

How to stay ahead of this challenge

• Make work-life balance a priority: This means reinforcing its importance in your culture, your mission, and your values, but it also means putting processes in place to protect that balance.
• Ask employees what they need: Not all employees have the same needs. Some would be most helped by just an extra half-day off once a month, while others could benefit from support in paying for mental health and wellness services.
• Make wellness part of your benefits: Your benefits package shouldn’t only cover healthcare needs and retirement. Try offering benefits for improving wellness and mental health throughout your organization.

The skills gap and workforce preparedness

According to research from the World Economic Forum, 1.1 billion people will need reskilling (learning new skills to perform a different role) by 2030. Their Future of Jobs Report named broadening digital access (think AI and robotics), increasing cost of living, and climate change mitigation as the most transformative trends driving this need. Clerical and secretarial work is expected to decline, while roles like Big Data Specialist, Fintech Engineer, AI and Machine Learning Specialist, and Environmental Engineer will be more common.

Whether you’re in an industry affected by this growth or not, you have employees in your workforce right now whose skills might be replaced by AI tools and similar technology. Additionally, there may be essential skills your organization is currently lacking. Both of these problems can be fixed with reskilling and upskilling.

How to stay ahead of this challenge

• Listen to employees: Often, your employees will already have an idea of the skills they want to build. Pay attention to this and you’ll find ways to align their wishes with your objectives.
• Make upskilling part of your benefits: Employees are usually pretty responsive to opportunities for development if they’re included as a perk in their benefits. You can offer discounts on popular e-learning platforms, time off for pursuing professional development, or even host upskilling sessions with experts you invite to the office.
• Bring in experts: Speaking of experts, the right consultant can help you identify existing and future skill gaps in your organization and make a plan for filling them.

Workplace cybersecurity threats

Cybersecurity is an essential part of running a business, whether you’re in a high-tech industry or not. Remote and hybrid work increase cybersecurity risks, since employees need to connect remotely with devices that hold sensitive information, sometimes on unsafe networks. The cost of a single attack can be astronomical, and threats are only going to increase as technology like AI and automation becomes more widespread.

Protecting your organization from cyberattacks is rapidly becoming just as important as having a legal team.

How to stay ahead of this challenge

• Have a clear cybersecurity policy: Striking the right balance between convenience for employees and security for the organization is essential.
• Don’t skimp on cybersecurity Having a full IT department might seem like an excessive expense for smaller organizations trying to stay agile, but having a team of in-house experts is essential for protecting yourself from cybersecurity threats.
• Raise awareness: In many organizations, cybersecurity is a yearly affair, with employees rarely involved in the day-to-day tasks involved in this practice. That means you have to continually communicate the importance of cybersecurity to them through various mediums.

The role of sustainability in workplace operations

The age of growth at any cost is over. ESG (environmental, social, and governance) is becoming an essential framework for guiding an organization’s sustainability. This framework involves significant work for your organization, for both maintaining compliance and improving practices over time.

At the highest level, ESG can make the difference between a successful funding round and a dwindling war chest. But for any organization, the importance of integrating environmental priorities, socially conscious programs, and stringent governance needs directly into its mission and its values.

It makes the difference between a mission that’s just a vision statement in a Google Doc and one that’s lived, day in and day out.

How to stay ahead of this challenge

• Educate your leaders: Not all leaders are so well-versed in ESG, but they’re the ones with the most responsibility regarding this framework. Without the right education, they can’t drive that mission.
• Seek out audits and ratings: ESG rating agencies can give your organization an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses, while third-party auditors can help you find gaps in your policies and practices.
• Make your mission a reality: Investing in sustainable workplace operations makes your mission real.

Overcome 2025’s challenges

In 2025, your organization faces a host of complex challenges. Your ability to adapt to these challenges through proactive leadership can make the difference between a period of massive growth and barely limping to the next quarter.

The growing role of AI in day-to-day operations, the difficulties of maintaining hybrid work throughout your organization, communicating accurately across proliferating channels, and other challenges will push your leaders to their breaking point. 

With the right approach, help from trusted experts, and a solid understanding of your mission, you can build the plan you need to turn 2025 into a year you’ll look back on as a massive turning point.