The year 2025 comes with its own unique challenges. With 40 years in the staffing industry, we at Corporate Job Bank are here to help business leaders, hiring managers, and recruiters enhance employee engagement. By learning these emerging employee trends, we hope to empower you to manage your workforce, create positive work environments, and improve your company goals.
1. Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Technological Integration
Arizona is becoming a hub for tech industries and innovation, making it an ideal region for businesses to embrace AI and automation. Phoenix, in particular, is one of North America’s top tech markets, with a 9 percent projected job growth in tech and influential companies like Intel making investments.¹
The Effects of Technology
Many industries today are slowly being transformed by technology. For example, accounting and finance were once centered on sheets and figures. Today, these fields have become more aligned with and more connected to other departments. Financial reports are no longer just confined to periodic reports. Instead, technology allows real-time reports, adjustments, and decision-making, enabling business leaders to quickly act on issues and find solutions.
In addition, technology has helped evolve administrative teams, call centers, and clerical jobs. AI’s ability to optimize operations, improve diagnostics, offer data-driven insights, and automate various functions has revolutionized the world of work today.
These changes have transformed many roles today, creating the need for more specialized expertise in many jobs. Organizations today will need to adapt to this evolving landscape and ensure that they find the right talent to maximize technology’s potential.
2. The Need for Upskilling and Reskilling
In Corporate Job Bank, we strongly believe in the power of our people and the professionals we place in different organizations. After all, they are the cornerstone of a thriving organization.
“From physically demanding and labor-intensive jobs in light industrial or admin work, accurate and meticulous expertise of engineers, accountants, and finance staff, to the visionary leadership of executives, we ensure valuable connections are made between our candidates and business partners.”
– Mario Valdez, Business Development Manager
Digital Transformation Trend
Today’s workforce needs constant learning opportunities to remain competitive in most roles, even beyond tech, robotics, data, or science. While some roles are still less reliant on technology than others, the trend is slowly moving towards technological transformation. Workers need to continuously evolve through upskilling and reskilling programs.
Administrative Functions
Administrative staff must learn modern tools such as:
- Project management software
- Cloud-based management systems
- Communication platforms
- Automation tools
- Data entry software
- CRM systems
- Scheduling tools
Accounting and Finance Sectors
Accountants and finance experts should be proficient in:
- Cloud-based accounting software
- Financial planning tools
- Tax compliance platforms
Furthermore, some jobs may require accounting professionals to learn about data analytics software, including basic programming and data visualization.
Related article: Level Up Your Team: 3 Upskilling Tips for Accounting Firms
Contact Center Services
Customer service workers should be familiar with:
- Customer relationship management (CRM) software
- Ticketing systems
- Communication tools
- Live chat platforms
- Customers’ evolving needs today
Manufacturing, Warehousing, and Logistics
Workers in this sector should be skilled in:
- Inventory management software
- Warehouse management systems
- Enterprise resource planning systems
- Logistics platforms
While the light industry focuses more on physical responsibilities, they should still be knowledgeable about automation, robotics, and data-driven supply chain management technologies. This will be crucial as your business adapts to more advanced systems for efficiency and accuracy.
The Role of Leaders and Employers
As an employer, you have the profound opportunity to empower your workforce through continuous career growth and development. Offer training programs that can help enhance your workforce’s skills and knowledge. Encourage learning by creating a culture of creativity and innovation, not instilling an environment that fears making mistakes. This can significantly improve employee experience and inspire them to become better contributors to the organization. Here are other practical strategies you can do:
- Implement feedback loops
- Recognize actions and reward your employees
- Allow failure and experimentation
- Provide mentorship opportunities and on-the-job learning
- Offer education reimbursement
Read more: Build a Rock-Star Accounting Team: Tips for a Winning Training Program
3. Inclusive Work Environments
Inclusivity is especially relevant to Arizona’s increasingly diverse population. As Arizona grows in diversity, companies have a unique opportunity to be leaders in building inclusive work environments.
The Emergence of the Younger Generations
From the boomer generation, the number of non-Hispanic whites has decreased, along with the increase in Hispanic, black, and Asian groups, making Gen Z the most racially diverse generation today. Moreover, Millennials, known for their ability to understand modern technologies and collaborative approach, are expected to make up 75 percent of the global workforce by 2025.²
This trend can be a significant factor in creating a more diverse workplace and society in the coming years. As we embrace this generational diversity and enable our workforce to foster collaborative environments, everyone can learn from one another and share their personal and employee experiences—fostering workforce diversity and understanding.
Our Task as Leaders
Leaders can help impact the younger generations in pursuing better workforce environments. Your support and dedication will be key to nurturing a more inclusive society.
Work is continuously evolving—new generations are impacting the workforce, flexible employment like hybrid work arrangements is being adopted, technology is becoming one of the main driving forces for businesses, and inclusive workplaces are being prioritized. Leaders must adopt an open mindset and a modern workforce approach.
Read more: 5 Effective Approaches to Connect with the Younger Workforce
Shaping Workforce Through Diversity Hiring
Fostering diverse teams is a key driver of innovation. Aside from being valued as one of the key reasons candidates join an organization, data shows diversity is not just a mere trend. To meet the growing demand of the workforce—especially diversity—employers, decision makers, hiring managers, and recruiters must optimize and align their hiring methods. Here are some key strategies that can empower your hiring strategies:
- Widen your talent pool – Partner with staffing agencies, especially those who work with people from diverse backgrounds.
- Hire based on skills – Focus on skills, expertise, work background and relevance, licenses, certifications, and potential. Remove identification such as names, gender, and ethnic background to avoid unconscious bias.
- Use structured interviews – Standardize interview questions and establish a scoring system to ensure consistency and fairness.
- Educate leaders – This will further empower your leaders in managing and nurturing diverse teams.
4. Creating Sustainable Organizations through the Workforce
Sustainability is not just about green initiatives, social causes, and environmental impacts. Today’s organizations must focus on their workforce to remain sustainable. This creates resilience and ensures a business can withstand any challenges.
Redefine Recruitment Through Skills-Based Hiring
According to ADP, skills-based hiring has helped 90 percent of companies find the right employee, compared to those focusing more on degree and educational attainment.³ However, large corporations in the US don’t utilize this strategy enough.⁴ Only 1 out of 700 applicants are assessed through their skills and competencies in the US today.
Technical and soft skills are fundamental elements in building a resilient organization. As an employer, ensure that your work models, hiring methods, and workplace culture are deeply anchored in prioritizing skills. Furthermore, skills-based hiring can improve retention rates by 20 percent.⁴ This highlights the impact of hiring based on skills rather than just looking at a candidate’s degree.
Read more: How Company Culture Drives Growth Beyond Metrics
Importance of Employee Well-Being
Achieving work-life balance is very important to employees. This is why remote work has become a fundamental appeal for most candidates, especially younger generations. Aside from its flexibility, it allows employees to focus on their physical and mental health. To improve employee engagement, businesses should focus on what employees need.
According to the American Institute of Stress, 83 percent of US workers suffer from stress, 76 say stress affects personal relationships, 50 percent are not engaged with their organization, and 39 percent say workload is their main cause of stress.⁵
Remember, your employees are the main drivers of innovation and productivity. So, make sure to improve employee experience and increase employee engagement. Here are a few things you can provide your employees to improve their overall health:
- Provide flexible work hours, compressed work schedules, hybrid work arrangements, or staggered shifts.
- Offer mental support like counseling, employee assistance programs, or additional paid and sick leave.
- Give gym memberships, wellness programs, or in-office fitness like yoga and meditation sessions.
- Assign reasonable workloads and provide employees with the necessary tools to perform their tasks.
- Encourage employees to take time off when they need it to reduce burnout.
- Acknowledge employee contributions and reward them for their hard work. This can boost morale and improve employee loyalty.
- Promote respect, open communication, and positivity within the workplace.
Build the workforce for the future with Corporate Job Bank.
As we enter the job market in 2025, we encourage business leaders and employers to embrace the future of employee management through understanding market shifts, employee demands, and technological advances.
Corporate Job Bank was named Top Workplace by AZ Central in 2024 and ranked #1 by Ranking Arizona for 24 years in a row. As a Masis company, we spearhead changes and ensure our business partners find the best candidate for their business. Celebrating our 40th year means 40 years of successful job placements across multiple industries—thanks to the dedication of the employees and clients we commit to serve.
Be part of our growth, along with the numerous businesses we satisfy to this day. We understand what you need. Contact us today.
References
- “Top 10 Essential Tech Skills Phoenix Employers Seek in 2025.” Nucamp, 17 Dec 2024, www.nucamp.co/blog/coding-bootcamp-phoenix-az-top-10-essential-tech-skills-phoenix-employers-seek-in-2025
- “Generational Differences in the Workplace.” Purdue Global, https://www.purdueglobal.edu/education-partnerships/generational-workforce-differences-infographic/. 21 Dec. 2024.
- “UNVEILING THE NEXT ANYTHING.” ADP, 2024, https://www.adp.com/-/media/adp/resourcehub/pdf/guidebooks/adp-mid-funnel-2025-hr-trends-guide-20241108.pdf?rev=e3666cb7e8364d93bb4e40d394f0cff4&hash=E6F18AE96ABCB6828332E56A5B9112D2. 21 Dec. 2024.
- Sigelman, Matt et al. “Skills-Based Hiring: The Long Road from Pronouncements to Practice.” Harvard, 2024, https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/Documents/research/Skills-Based%20Hiring.pdf
- “Workplace Stress.” American Institute of Stress, https://www.stress.org/workplace-stress/. 21 Dec. 2024.
