What’s sticking with us as we head into 2025 ⬇️

After interviewing 59 HR leaders in 2024, here’s what’s sticking with us as we head into 2025:

1️⃣ Remote vs. Hybrid vs. In-Person

It’s wild we’re still debating this. Here’s my take: people want autonomy and flexibility.

But here’s the nuance: The decision is up to each founder or CEO, and if they truly believe in-person, hybrid, or remote is their “edge,” I respect that. What doesn’t sit well with me?

• Flip-flopping policies: Going all-in on remote, then suddenly demanding RTO without explaining why.

• Contradictory practices: 80% of employees come in <1 day/week, but managers need to be in 2-3 days.

Whatever you choose, go all-in and design your Employee Experience (EX) accordingly. Half-measures aren’t cutting it.

Examples of companies that are doing it right:

• Brené Brown’s Team: She believes her work is too nuanced and complex to thrive without true in-person connection. Her team operates on a hybrid schedule—two in-office days a week, focused on creative meetings, and three remote days. "People are lonely because they’re disconnected," she says. Remote setups don’t fully address this. One of her summer interns echoed this sentiment: “I learned something hard about myself this summer. I will never work somewhere that’s remote."

• Atlassian's Team: Fully distributed, perfecting asynchronous work. As a company that builds tools to make this easier, it's no surprise that they're thriving in this setup. It takes effort, but they’re intentional about the details and it pays off.

The takeaway? Pick your edge and commit. Saying “remote didn’t work” or “in-person didn’t work” often just means you didn’t truly design for it.

2️⃣ Rethinking Performance Reviews

HR leaders are experimenting—and it’s inspiring to see. Traditional reviews? They’re losing relevance. Here’s what’s emerging:

• David Hanrahan: Piloting “Team Performance Reviews” to focus on collective success.

• Jessica Johannson: Using Organizational Network Analysis to uncover top performers and identify influential connectors within organizations.

• Tracy Letzerich: Replacing reviews with ongoing feedback journals, encouraging continuous growth and dialogue.

The goal? Making performance measurement objective and meaningful.

It's asking managers and employees questions like:

• “If this person was leaving tomorrow, would you fight to keep them? Rate 1-5.”

• “Who inspires you? Who makes the biggest impact on your work?”

But again, it’s not about following a trend; it’s about designing what fits your culture and values.

3️⃣ Running People Teams Like Product Teams

It's clear that Jessica Zwaan has rubbed off on us. Something I can't get out of my mind: what if the employee journey was designed like a product? Think of a product that wowed you from the first click to unboxing. That’s the mindset the best HR leaders are adopting.

Jessica’s framework breaks it down like this:

• Core Product = The Job: Contracts, paychecks, tools—fairness and clarity are non-negotiable.

• Actual Product = Employment: Onboarding, policies, benefits—the structure that enables success.

• Augmented Product = EX: Career growth, inspiring leadership, DEIB, and community—what makes work meaningful.

💡 Here’s the catch: When the augmented experience fails, everything suffers. Retention drops, engagement declines, and even the core product loses value.

Ask yourself:

• Does your employee journey inspire, like your favorite products?

• Where does your “product” fall short—and how will you fix it?

4️⃣ The Future: AI Agents in HR

2023-2024 was all about generative AI. 2025? AI agents.

Imagine this:

1. Take any process your team owns—onboarding, performance reviews, or feedback loops.

2. Break it down into 10-15 steps.

3. Build "Lego pieces" for each step—modular AI bots that handle specific tasks within the process.

Here’s the magic: Once those individual bots are built, you can connect them all into one cohesive AI agent. The agent seamlessly orchestrates the entire process, prompting human intervention only when a decision or adjustment is needed.

This is already starting to happen in other industries. HR is next.

What’s sticking with you as we head into 2025?

🎟️ Boston, We’re Coming For You: MPL Live on March 6th!

We followed the data and are bringing MPL Live to Boston on March 6th.

I’m not sure how we tapped into the Boston people leader community, but it’s clear you’re our people.

Boston ranks as a top 3 city for MPL followership (😮), and we owe so much to the incredible HR leaders here who’ve been with us from the start.

• Katie Burke

• Dena Upton

• Jennifer Paxton (her/hers)

• Adrienne Barnard

• Tracie Sponenberg

…and so many more. (The Boston people leader bench runs deep!)

Here’s what to expect at MPL Live Boston:

• A live podcast recording featuring some of Boston’s top CPOs

• Rapid-fire speed networking to connect with your peers and discover their “People Superpower”

🎟️ Tickets are on sale now, with early bird pricing at just $99—but it won’t last long! Whether you’re a die-hard MPL fan or just curious to meet some of the best in HR, this is the event for you.

👉 Buy Your Ticket for $99 👈

Also… I’ve never been to Boston before, so hit me up with your favorite spots to eat and hang.

See you next week!

P.S. If you like MPL, help us grow the show by giving us a 5 star rating on Apple or Spotify ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.