Each year is a unique opportunity to look back at what has happened (what’s so), is happening (so what), and envision the future (now what).

These reflection questions highlight that this is a great time to be in HR because HR is increasingly the epicenter of business success.

What’s So?

In reflecting on HR today, two exceptional conferences capture what’s on the minds of many HR professionals.

The World Federation of People Management Associations (WFPMA) sponsors a bi-annual congress pulling together the leaders of the HR associations around the world. In Singapore (May 2025) they held their first in-person workshop since COVID. Figure 1 shows the topics for the 29 workshops.
 
A second multi-day conference called Horizon Summit was held this November in Amsterdam and offered 39 workshops (see Figure 2).
   
Similar topics show up in daily posts (e.g., Nicolas Behbahani), weekly updates (e.g., Brian Heger), and monthly curations (e.g., David Green). The posts and the summit workshops suggest that the HR field is filled with great insights (theory/ideas, research/evidence, and practices/solutions).

So What?

To advance HR, we have proposed a human capability taxonomy that organizes HR work into four domains (figure 3).
 
Applying this taxonomy, the 29 workshops from WFPMA and the 39 workshops from Horizon Summit can be classified into four domains (figure 4 and figure 5).
   
The current state of the HR field focuses more on the talent domain of human capability—which goes by many terms (human capital, competence, skills, employee, labor, people, team member, or staff)—but all are focused on individuals. Current topics gaining more attention include genAI (seems like “all AI all the time!”), mental health, future of work, analytics, and transformation or agility. As noted in these workshops and posts, a great deal of innovation has occurred and is occurring in the HR space.

What’s Next?

Based on our research and looking ahead, I suggest a meta-theme (creating stakeholder value through human capability, see Figure 6) with four agendas.

Next Agenda 1: Advance that HR is less about HR and more about creating stakeholder value.

Today, much of the HR work focuses on HR practices and processes. I propose that going forward, stakeholder value for all humans who interact with the organization should gain increasing attention. I envision more focus on how an HR practice would positively impact employee performance or sentiment, executive ability to deliver strategy, board ability to oversee strategy and succession, customer share, investor confidence, and community reputation. Business conversations that include HR participants begin, focus on and demonstrate value to these stakeholders.

Next Agenda 2: Offer a complete human capability agenda and assessment.
As noted in Figures 4 and 5, the predominant focus of human capability has been and is on talent. While agreeing that talent impacts stakeholder value (see Organization Guidance System on talent), our research found that attention to organization has more impact on all stakeholders than talent (or leadership and HR function) (see Figure 6)
 
The research in Figure 6, and other studies, suggests that more attention should be paid to creating organizational capabilities going forward.

Next Agenda 3: Prioritize using analytics and AI.
With so many HR initiatives being pursued (figures 4 and 5), there is an increasing need to prioritize which initiatives deserve the most attention. Often prioritization comes from personal experience, popular views, or surveys.

Going forward, analytics can empirically predict where to focus to deliver the most value to stakeholders. This is more than a sample of HR or business leaders reporting what they think matters and more actual empirical evidence showing where to prioritize which initiatives in human capability have the most impact on stakeholder value. Evolving innovations in AI can provide new ways of accessing information that improves decisions to increase stakeholder value.

Next Agenda 4: Upgrading HR professionals.
For HR to create stakeholder value through human capability, HR professionals need development both at work (assignments, roles, responsibilities) and through forward-focused development efforts. A host of training programs on the tools, practices, and policies of HR abound, but learning how to turn HR efforts into stakeholder value through human capability solutions based on data will likely be forthcoming.

Conclusion

HR continues to contribute not just to business financial results, but stakeholder value for all humans who interact with the organization. Indeed, the best is yet ahead.
 

Author Bio

Dave Ulrich is Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and Partner, The RBL Group.

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