Horizon Scanning: Are you prepared for the evolving HR landscape of 2025 and beyond?

Autumn is a good time to take stock, review, and reset priorities as we head towards the end of 2025 and prepare for the year ahead.  The global HR and employment landscape continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace. If you are tasked with setting HR and compliance strategy, the latest edition of our Horizon Scanning report is your essential guide to the key global HR and employment law trends. Our 2025/26 edition covers: 

• 12 pivotal trends reshaping global employment, summarised below.
• AI’s revolutionary impact in the workplace in our feature analysis. Our international legal experts explore the pressing legal and compliance challenges, governance frameworks, and evolving regulatory trends across key jurisdictions.   
• EU regulatory developments impacting HR strategy. 
• country-by-country guide to upcoming changes across EMEA and Asia-Pacific with a ‘traffic light’ analysis to prioritise key issues. 
• sector specific commentary on the commercial trends affecting your business. 

 
What are the key global trends reshaping the HR and employment landscape? 

Employers are navigating a complex landscape where global workplace trends are increasingly interconnected, which brings both challenges and opportunities.  AI is the common thread across these trends – transforming employee wellbeing tools, driving restructuring, influencing workplace activism, modernising unions and creating more inclusive workplace environments, particularly for neurodivergent talent. 
In our latest report, we examine the following pivotal trends: 

1. Is it the end of the road for DEI? The DEI landscape has become increasingly polarised, with many organisations recalibrating their approach – some scaling back initiatives, others redefining their scope or rebranding DEI programmes. We analyse how the approach varies at an international level and the challenges for global businesses when deciding whether and how to adjust DEI commitments.
2. Pay: an era of greater transparency. Driven by regulatory changes and generational shifts in employee expectations, pay transparency has emerged as one of the most significant global employment trends and a vital aspect of the “S” in ESG. Europe is leading the way with transformative measures under its Pay Transparency Directive, but global developments in the US, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East also reflect this general trend. 
3. AI and the digital evolution in the workplace. AI continues to radically reshape the workplace in recruitment, learning and development, workforce planning and employee engagement. However, the global regulatory landscape remains complex and challenging, with many businesses questioning how to future-proof compliance strategies in light of a constantly developing regulatory landscape.  
4. Focus on wellbeing to attract talent. Employee wellbeing has become a critical talent attraction and retention tool. Workplace protections across the globe are seeking to address declining mental wellness, such as a regulatory obligation in Australia to manage psychosocial risks in the workplace. However, our report highlights a disconnect between employers publicly supporting wellbeing yet failing to provide needed resources and support. 
5. The evolving work relationship. The workplace flexibility debate continues with a rise in return to office mandates across the globe and an increasing employer focus on qualitative output.  Challenges arise when applying a return to office mandate globally and we foresee litigation to come on this topic. The role of the physical office in business strategy will become increasingly important for workplace culture and employee engagement. 
6. A rise in global redundancies and restructuring. Many organisations are streamlining costs and optimising performance in response to challenging economic pressures. We foresee periods of intense restructuring ahead, a slowdown in hiring and potential redundancies. Regulatory developments are also emerging, for instance in the UK, which will impact employers planning restructures. Elsewhere, for instance Germany, the focus is expected to be less on workforce reductions and instead on transforming the workplace in the face of digitalisation and AI. 
7. Workplace activism. This continues to be a defining aspect of the workplace, as employees remain impacted by what goes on around them. 2024 was a volatile year with changing political landscapes, global conflicts, trade wars and economic pressures. Employers are taking varied approaches to activism – some embracing it as a positive force for change, others restricting it due to concerns about corporate reputation and productivity.
8. Navigating the multi-generational workforce. Today's workforce is diverse and multi-generational. Each generation brings differing viewpoints, motivations and needs. Challenges will therefore arise as employers seek to balance those differences. A common global theme highlights that many individuals within the younger generations view work as a source of income, and are "working to live" instead of "living to work". 
9. Increasing worker protections. Employment law developments across the globe reflect a trend towards enhanced employee protections and suggest a potential shift in the balance of power in the employment relationship. Our report analyses the growing trend towards alternative engagement models and an increasing focus on protections for freelancers. 
10. Greater employer collaboration with the collective worker voice. Regulatory developments across the UK and Europe may lead to proactive industrial relations strategies, and increased employer engagement and collaboration with trade unions, worker representatives and other employee forums. 
11. Business immigration & global mobility. Business immigration is rapidly evolving due to digitalisation of border controls, a global clampdown on immigration, and prioritisation of highly skilled workers. Some jurisdictions have significantly tightened sponsorship requirements and imposed higher compliance measures. Other jurisdictions are becoming immigration destinations and seeking to attract global talent. 
12. HR data – a common denominator. Most employment trends have significant implications for HR data as organisations increasingly rely on sensitive employee data to underpin decision-making and operational strategies. AI is the most prominent driver of data complexity with the use of AI tools becoming more widespread. The enhanced obligations that these practices trigger bring challenges for employers. 
     

This summary shows that the global employment landscape continues to be characterised by increased complexity, heightened employee expectations, and the need for more sophisticated approaches to workforce management. 

Please click the following link to download a copy of our report and get in touch if you have any questions or would like further information on the topics covered in Horizon Scanning 2025/2026.