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Overloaded HR Is Facing More Than Just Burnout
Inside: Deloitte Survey — AI Demographics & the Next Workforce
The HR Takeaways
September 23, 2025
Hello HR Pros,
This week’s stories spotlight the biggest pressures reshaping how we hire, lead, and sustain our people. From the return of in-person interviews to predictions of a 3-day workweek, the ground beneath HR is shifting fast.
Add in the rising toll of political polarization inside offices and the demographic squeeze colliding with AI acceleration, and one thing is clear: the future of work is accelerating, and HR leaders are right at its center. Let’s dive in ✨
📰 Upcoming in This Issue
⚖️ Overwhelmed HR Teams Face America’s Culture Wars
⏳ AI and the 3-Day Workweek
🧠 Deloitte Survey: AI Demographics & the Next Workforce
👥 Do We Need to Interview Candidates In Person Again?
✨ Helpful Links
🎁 Top rated HR tools & offers curated for The HR Takeaways readers
🌍 Comparison of the best global payroll providers in 2025
📣 Trending HR News
Mature economies face a demographic squeeze: fewer entrants, more retirements, and shrinking participation rates. By 2030, 1 in 6 people will be 60+, with US participation projected to drop to 61% by 2033.
In parallel, AI is accelerating. Agentic AI is set to transform how tasks are organized and supervised, raising questions about role design, oversight, and accountability.
Tension points are real: many fear AI will erode entry-level jobs, even as others see it as a powerful upskilling engine. Older workers want hybrid human–AI collaboration but often feel underprepared.
The path forward blends human–machine teaming, on-the-loop oversight, protected early-career learning, and scaled knowledge transfer.
Key Takeaways:
🧭 Design Human–AI Teaming: By 2027, half of firms will pilot agentic AI—leaders must reset roles and workflows for agility.
👀 Keep Humans On-the-Loop: A majority of workers see oversight as critical; leaders must balance speed with accountability and quality.
🧪 Protect Early-Career Learning: 67% of executives worry AI could erode entry-level roles, making structured onboarding and AI coaching essential.
🧓 Transfer Wisdom at Scale: Intergenerational mentorship, powered by AI matching, can preserve tacit knowledge before retirements accelerate.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan joins Bill Gates, Jensen Huang, and Jamie Dimon in predicting AI will shorten workweeks to three or four days.
Automation gains are already proving the case: Exos saw burnout cut in half and productivity rise 24% after testing shorter schedules.
But alongside optimism comes a harder truth—some roles will vanish entirely, especially entry-level coding and administrative jobs. The promise of balance collides with the reality of disruption.
As leaders embrace AI’s potential, they’ll need to manage both the freedom it creates and the displacement it causes.
Key Takeaways:
📉 Shorter weeks, fewer roles: AI may reduce workdays for many employees while fully erasing roles that automation can efficiently replace.
🚀 Productivity already proven: Early four-day trials, like Exos, cut burnout by 50% while boosting productivity by 24%—a powerful precedent for change.
🧩 Leaders split on impact: Some see a “golden era” of abundance; others warn of a white-collar jobs crisis—HR must prepare for both.
🎯 HR’s balancing act: The challenge isn’t just adopting AI—it’s redesigning roles, reskilling talent, and ensuring fewer hours don’t mean diminished opportunity.
🔍 The Hidden Costs of Payroll Errors (and How HR Teams Can Avoid Them)
Just last quarter, an HR manager I know faced a payroll mistake that cost their company over $45,000 in IRS penalties. It started with one missed filing deadline but snowballed—weeks of HR rework, shaken employee trust, and compliance flags in their audit.
And it’s not just “disorganized” teams—these mistakes hit busy HR pros all the time. Once they do, the cost in money, time, and trust is massive.
That’s why more HR teams turn to payroll services like OnPay, which offer features designed specifically to eliminate payroll risks:
✅ Automated Payroll Runs: Ensures payroll accuracy, eliminating costly manual-entry errors.
📅 Automatic Tax Filing & Compliance: OnPay files federal, state, and local taxes on time—preventing surprise penalties and regulatory issues.
⏰ Time-Tracking Integration: Direct integration with your existing time systems reduces discrepancies and improves payroll accuracy.
📑 Employee Self-Service: Allows employees easy access to pay stubs, tax forms, and payroll history, reducing HR admin burden and building trust.
Political tensions are spilling into the workplace, leaving HR leaders overwhelmed and on the defensive.
Recent fallout from the killing of activist Charlie Kirk shows how quickly employee speech can escalate into corporate crises. Companies from Microsoft to Delta have already disciplined workers for social media posts, reflecting a new reality: the line between personal and professional is blurrier than ever.
For HR, this means balancing free expression, company reputation, and employee trust—all while handling layoffs, AI adoption, and compliance pressure. The burden of “culture keeper” has never felt heavier.
Key Takeaways:
🔥 Speech becomes corporate risk: Social media makes employee opinions public at scale, forcing HR to manage reputational fallout in real time.
🛡️ Policies under pressure: Banning politics outright is unrealistic; HR must design nuanced social media rules that balance free expression with brand safety.
🧭 HR role expanding fast: Today’s HR leaders juggle politics, DEI, AI adoption, and compliance—often with shrinking teams and rising expectations.
⚠️ Emotional strain on HR: Navigating culture wars while setting aside personal beliefs adds pressure, making burnout and decision fatigue real risks.
AI-assisted cheating is reshaping interviews; even Google and Deloitte now prioritize onsite screens.
Vlastelica estimates 80% of the push back to in-person is fraud risk, 15% realistic preview/selling, and 5% soft-skills beliefs—often biased.
Onsite curbs fraud and builds connection, but slows scheduling and raises costs.
Most orgs aren’t ready; six fixes follow: retrain interviewers, upgrade candidate experience, pre-hold calendars, verify identity, elevate Talent Advisors, and use AI for guides—not judgment.
TA’s job now: lead the middle funnel and align interviews to the human-first work we still need.
Key Takeaways:
🔍 AI risks redefine interviews: Leaders must recognize fraud as a systemic risk and redesign interviews for authenticity, fairness, and accuracy.
🧾 Tradeoffs demand clarity: In-person formats reduce impersonation and build trust but require HR to balance higher costs and scheduling complexity.
🛠️ Preparation is everything: Organizations should retrain interviewers, enhance candidate experience, and add identity verification before scaling in-person practices.
🎯 Elevate recruiter role: Talent teams need to act as strategic advisors, blending AI for structure with human judgment on soft skills.
The bottomline
Across hiring, workweeks, culture, and workforce design, the signals are loud: HR is under immense strain. But within that strain lies opportunity.
The leaders who will thrive aren’t the ones chasing every change—they’re the ones who can cut through complexity, balance disruption with stability, and build workplaces where people and technology advance together.
The evolution of work isn’t a distant horizon. It’s unfolding now, and HR’s role in shaping it has never been more critical.
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