Hey HR Pros,

As 2025 comes to a close, HR leaders are navigating one of the most transformative years yet—where AI, trust, and transparency have redefined what it means to lead.

In today’s edition, we unpack how to guide teams through job security fears, standardize interviews without losing humanity, and explore how agentic AI is reshaping workforce planning. Three reads, one theme: HR’s evolving role as the calm, strategic center in times of change.

📰 Upcoming in This Issue

• 🧩 How to Create a Consistent Interview Experience (and Stop Hiring on Gut Feel)

• 💬 How to Lead When Employees Fear Job Loss

• 🧠 Deloitte: Agentic AI Is Rewriting Workforce Planning

✨ Helpful HR Tech Resource

• 🎁 🛠 Useful HR tools & offers curated for The HR Takeaways readers

📣 Trending HR News

• Liberty Mutual hit with $103M jury award over age discrimination claims (Business Insurance)

• Florida AG sues Starbucks for 'systemic discrimination,' says workers punished for being White (Yahoo)

• PepsiCo plans layoffs amid declining sales (MSN)

🧩 How to Create a Consistent Interview Experience (and Stop Hiring on Gut Feel)

Unstructured interviews cost more than time — they hurt your brand. According to AIHR, 72% of candidates share bad interview experiences online, damaging employer reputation and future hiring success.

The solution? A structured interview guide that standardizes questions, scoring, and candidate communication. When built right, it reduces bias, boosts confidence, and saves hours of post-interview confusion. AIHR’s free template helps HR teams design fair, repeatable interviews that still feel human — not robotic checklists.

Key Takeaways:

• 📋 Consistency Builds Credibility: Using the same structure and questions ensures fairer comparisons and fewer biased decisions.

• 🧠 Rating Beats Gut Feeling: Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) make defensible hiring choices and reduce subjectivity.

• 💬 Candidate Experience Matters: Negative interviews push away 36% of candidates, making professionalism your hidden superpower.

• 🔁 Treat It as a Living Tool: Regularly update guides and train interviewers to keep the process fresh and relevant.

👉 Read the full 4,061-word article by AIHR here

🚦 Stop Letting Payroll & HR Slow You Down

If you’re managing HR for a growing company, you know the pressure — payroll errors, compliance worries, disconnected systems, and not enough time to focus on your people.

Paycor simplifies it all with an all-in-one HR and payroll platform built to scale with your business.

Paycor automates payroll, streamlines HR, and delivers real-time insights — so you can stop reacting and start leading. It’s powerful technology made practical, intuitive, and people-first.

Key Takeaways of Paycor’s features:

• 💼 Automated payroll and tax filing with built-in compliance support

• 📊 Real-time workforce analytics to make smarter people decision

• 🔗 Seamless integrations with accounting, benefits, and time tracking

• 💬 Expert support and HR guidance when you need it most

Say goodbye to manual work and compliance stress — and hello to a smarter way to manage your workforce.

👉 Watch 2-min Paycor Demo Video and see how modern payroll works

💬 How to Lead When Employees Fear Job Loss

When job insecurity rises, fear takes over — performance dips, communication shuts down, and engagement fades. With 54% of U.S. workers reporting higher stress from job insecurity (APA, 2025), leaders can’t afford silence.

Harvard Business Review reminds HR leaders that employees don’t need certainty — they need clarity, connection, and calm. Address fear directly, name what’s known and unknown, and co-create next steps. Leadership in uncertainty isn’t about reassurance; it’s about honesty and empathy that restore trust and stability.

Key Takeaways:

• 🗣️ Acknowledge the Fear: Naming emotions reduces distress and opens space for real conversations instead of quiet anxiety.

• 🕰️ Shrink Uncertainty: Use “knowns and unknowns” with timeframes — clarity beats over-promising every time.

• 🤝 Co-Create Next Steps: Involve your team in shaping short-term actions — shared agency mitigates fear.

• 🌿 Model Calm: Your emotional tone sets the team’s temperature — calm is contagious, not innate.

👉 Read the full 2,800-word article here

🧠 Deloitte: Agentic AI Is Rewriting Workforce Planning

Agentic AI isn’t just changing how we work—it’s rewriting how we plan work.

Instead of spreadsheets and static forecasts, companies are using AI agents that autonomously predict demand, allocate skills, and rebalance teams in real time.

Deloitte predicts that 25% of organizations will pilot agentic AI in 2025, growing to 50% by 2027. These systems don’t wait for annual planning—they adapt daily, sensing business shifts before we do.

For HR, this means the era of “headcount planning” is ending. What’s next? Dynamic talent ecosystems where AI co-manages decisions, and humans steer strategy.

Key Takeaways:

• 📊 Dynamic Planning Unleashed: Agentic AI transforms annual headcount forecasts into real-time systems that sense and rebalance workforce needs.

• ⚙️ Adoption Is Accelerating: Deloitte projects 25% of firms will pilot agentic AI in 2025, scaling to 50% by 2027.

• 🏥 Healthcare Gets a Lift: AI agents could help offset a projected 10M worker shortfall in healthcare by dynamically reallocating staff.

• 🧭 Human Oversight Matters: Even as AI makes autonomous decisions, leaders must uphold ethics, data integrity, and trust at every level.

👉 Read the full 4,860-word article here

The bottomline

AI may power the systems, but people still power the results. Whether it’s building trust through transparency, designing fairer interviews, or preparing your workforce for an AI-augmented future—this is HR’s moment to lead with both empathy and evidence.

Stay curious, stay human, and remember: the strongest strategies begin with listening.