From San Diego to wattsnext: Insights from SHRM 2025!

I just got back from the SHRM 2025 Annual Conference & Expo with over 25,000 HR professionals from around the globe, based in San Diego, and I wanted to take a moment to share some of the key takeaways and insights I gained during the event. At wattsnext we pride ourselves being at the cutting edge of global HR related business trends to educate our clients about HR for the modern world! 

Not surprisingly A.I. was the theme of most key notes at the conference and what clearly stood out was Australian SMEs are a long way behind when it comes to adopting and investing in A.I. and the gap is widening. 

Some high level lessons I would like to share: 

1. AI + HR is the Future (and it’s already here)
The biggest themes this year was how A.I. is transforming HR. From recruitment, record keeping and role definition to employee engagement, A.I. is streamlining HR processes and allowing us to offer more personalised experiences for employees. I got to see firsthand how tools and A.I. agents are helping HR teams become more efficient and effective, and I’m excited to bring some of these ideas back to our wattsnext clients. Of course, emotional intelligence, people management soft skills, re-skilling workers, storytelling, conflict mitigation, sustaining our culture and human judgement will remain in high demand and we should continue to hone these HR skills.

2. Abolishing traditional roles and functional structures

We can’t keep looking in the rearview mirror and rely on historical, expensive roles and functional structures that have worked for decades. We must assess all current roles in our businesses and reduce our cost bases. At wattsnext we have seen a huge spike in resizing projects, and this has been mirrored across the modern world! Instead of automatically and blindly replacing historical roles that have served us well, we must consider embracing change:

• Can it be offshored cheaper?
• Can we outsource the function to an expert?​
• Does the role need to be full-time​
• Are fractional high-level skills available for a lower cost?
• What can AI remove from this role?​
• Can an AI agent automate some of the workflows?

3. Managing the ratio of employees to AI agents

The corporate vice president of HR and A.I at Microsoft (Christopher Fernandez) candidly painted the future of work to be about solving the ratio of employees to A.I. agents. How many A.I. agents can your best employee create and manage? Today we are at 1:1 with employee to ChatGPT but this will soon be one to many (human led AI agents or digital colleagues) and eventually evolve to human-led and A.I. agent operated work environments where humans set the direction and A.I agents (digital colleagues) run the business processes and workflows, checked, and overseen by human employees. He strongly suggested our best employees of the future will be the ones who can grow and develop A.I. talent. Stating all forward-thinking business owners should be building or buying a set of A.I. agents before the end of 2025 or risk being left behind!

4. Change management will be a huge focus across the next 5 years

We need to be building and maintaining trust with our human teams so we can lead and manage the A.I. driven change will be critical skills for all business owners. Leaning into traditional communication frameworks and building trust through human connection must be our focus, because change management can’t be successful without authenticity and trust. We need to be brave and consider how do we create a better experience OF work through this constant evolution and rapid change.

5. Leadership lessons from Joe Biden the 46^th president of the United States

I was very grateful to hear a US president speak live for the third time at SHRM in San Diego (previously I had heard Clinton and Bush speak at previous conferences). This year  ‘Sleepy Joe’ as he is affectionately known, spoke to us live about leadership and he was charismatic and a brilliant presenter! The top 5 leadership lessons I took from his 90-minute unscripted presentation were:  

1. Question judgement but NOT motive when it comes to your employees, never assume their intent.

Connect with your team as humans first and in conflict, always lead with dignity and respect.

1. Bravery lies in every heart, one day it will be summoned: have the tough conversations!
2. Great leaders see every individual employee’s value.
3. Share credit and recognise those with the ideas (leaders don’t need to be the hero) 

One thing we cannot shy away from as leaders and business owners is how overwhelming and downright terrifying the A.I. fuelled future of work is. It is imperative that we to pull our heads out the sand and lead the change. We need to get on the front foot and back our teams to trial and test new ways of working.

A simple but practical methodology when considering AI in your business, is ask yourself these three questions:

1. Will it free up time for high value & meaningful work in my team?
2. Will it provide more space to coach, mentor create and connect?
3. Are we setting our employees up to use this new technology confidently & ethically?

wattsnext???
SHRM 2025 was a great experience and the best of the eight SHRM annual conferences I have attended throughout the last decade, I can’t wait to share what I have learnt. We’re already looking at how we can incorporate some of these insights into our own wattsnext strategies and programs to keep improving our work environment and people practices. We have always experimented internally to see what could work for our clients and it has never been more important than this moment in time. 

I’ll be sharing more updates soon, stay tuned for what’s coming next as we continue to explore the rapidly evolving future of work!