With this year coming to a close, Fast Company enumerated three major workplace trends in 2024. It also discussed some of the most significant office-related storylines it is closely monitoring in 2025.
Return to office. Fast Company has been closely following the push for employees to return to physical offices for more than three years. However, the conflict between what most employees want—flexibility and a hybrid schedule—and what some company bosses want—in-office collaboration and a return to pre-COVID office norms—remains an issue. Even though everyone desires to move away from this debate, Fast Company said that more firms will probably amend their policies in 2025, particularly as large companies like Amazon require employees to go back to the office five days a week.
Even with added in-office pressure, many firms will still commit to some iteration of hybrid work.
Although, in certain instances, RTO office mandates might be created to get employees to quit their jobs. As reported by NextGen on Nov. 22, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who are going to head the new Department of Government Efficiency, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal saying that they hope requiring federal workers to come into the office full-time would result in resignations. “Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home,” they wrote.
Artificial intelligence (AI) impacting jobs and hiring. In 2024, Fast Company also looked closely at the issue of employee being worried about the different ways AI will impact their careers. Workers are already experiencing the effects of AI. A November study highlighted a 21% reduction in job posts “for automation-prone jobs related to writing and coding compared to jobs requiring manual-intensive skills” since ChatGPT was initially introduced.
However, several experts are optimistic about the positive effects of AI to limit the number of rudimentary
tasks and create new jobs. “It is normal to worry about the loss of jobs that comes with a new technology,” noted futurist Frank Diana. “But there has always been fear around new technologies, and almost without fail, the new technology has led to more jobs than the previous technology ever allowed.”
According to Fast Company, hiring is an area where AI is already changing things up. Although many firms have long utilized AI to screen candidates via applicant-tracking systems, more are likely to employ AI to recruit new employees in 2025.
As reported in NextGen on Nov. 1, a recent survey by Resume Builder shows that over half (51%) of firms currently use AI in their hiring processes. More firms are expected to get on board with the technology. By the end of 2025, 68% of firms will use AI to recruit new talent. Bigger companies are also more likely to adopt these technologies.
Adam Charlson, a managing partner at Focus Search Partners, warned about letting AI take over the hiring process. “AI can quickly sift through a vast pool of résumés and pinpoint those that best match the keywords in a job posting,” he stated. “But can AI alone truly determine the best fit for a position? The short answer is no. While AI can do a lot, it doesn’t replace a human when it comes to hiring.”
Backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In 2024, many firms—such as Walmart, Lowe’s, Ford, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Jack Daniels and Toyota—cut back their DEI programs as a response to conservative activism, according to Fast Company.
Anti-DEI sentiment seems to be reaching some workers as well. In a November 2024 Pew study, 23% of workers described focusing on DEI as “a bad thing” compared with 16% in 2023.
However, all is not over for DEI, according to Out & Equal’s Erin Uritus and Witeck Communications' Bob Witeck. “The truth is that we are not witnessing a sea change in the marketplace or an erosion in public attitudes,” they noted. “Most businesses understand that DEI is good for workers and good for business.”
With the upcoming Trump administration, there will probably be more pressure placed on DEI programs. Fast Company wrote that in 2025, its staff will carefully monitor how companies committed to increased workplace equity rebrand or shift their DEI initiatives.