Why HR Needs to Take AI Training Seriously in 2025
Work Trends | New Stardom
Photo by Austin Distel
AI is already shaping how companies hire, manage, and evaluate employees. But in many HR departments, the tools have arrived faster than the training. Teams are using systems they don’t fully understand, and that’s becoming a real problem.
A 2025 Gartner report on AI personalization predicts that over 20% of workplace applications will use AI-driven personalization by 2028 to adapt features and workflows to individual employees.
Here’s what HR professionals need to know, and why AI training should be a top priority this year.
How AI Is Already Shaping Hiring and Retention
Automated tools now sit at the center of recruitment in many companies. Platforms like HireVue, LinkedIn Recruiter, and Pymetrics are screening CVs, scoring candidates, and even running initial interviews. AI is also being used behind the scenes to flag potential attrition risks, track performance indicators, and suggest development paths.
The adoption is real. What’s often missing is context.
Many HR teams are using these tools without proper training, relying on systems they didn’t design and can’t fully explain. That’s where problems begin: algorithms trained on historical data can reproduce bias. Predictive scoring models often lack transparency. And when things go wrong, it’s not always clear how, or where, to intervene.
The tools are doing more than just supporting decisions. In some cases, they are the decision. Without internal understanding, HR loses the ability to question or adjust what’s being recommended.
How HR Can Close the AI Skills Gap
AI is no longer something that sits only with IT or engineering. It’s embedded across departments, including HR, and employees are now expected to interact with it in everything from hiring platforms to learning systems.
This gives HR a clear opportunity: to lead the organisation’s AI readiness from within. But that requires starting with HR itself.
It’s not about technical mastery. It’s about knowing how to evaluate tools, how to train others to use them responsibly, and how to spot when an algorithm is doing more harm than good. That kind of internal fluency can’t be outsourced to tech vendors, it has to be developed in-house.
Compliance Pressures Are Rising
With the EU AI Act entering enforcement in 2025 and new U.S. state-level laws in motion, compliance is no longer optional. AI systems used in recruitment, promotion, and performance review are now under regulatory scrutiny.
In New York, for example, employers must now audit automated hiring tools for bias and publish the results. In the EU, companies using “high-risk” AI, including in HR, must ensure explainability, human oversight, and documented safeguards.
HR professionals need to understand how these rules apply in practice. That includes knowing what counts as an “automated decision,” how to vet third-party tools, and how to document internal policies. Waiting until something goes wrong is no longer a viable strategy.
Using AI to Improve Employee Experience
While much of the focus is on risk, AI can also be used to improve day-to-day employee experience, if it’s used thoughtfully.
Some companies now use AI to personalise onboarding, recommend relevant training based on role and skill set, and offer real-time performance feedback. These tools can make support feel more responsive and remove unnecessary delays in feedback cycles.
But none of this works without oversight. If HR teams aren’t trained to assess whether the outputs make sense, or whether they reflect employee realities, these systems risk eroding trust instead of building it.
The advantage lies not in automation alone, but in how it's applied.
What HR Teams Should Actually Learn
A meaningful AI training programme for HR doesn’t need to be technical. It needs to be practical.
That means understanding:
The basics of how AI tools work, and where they tend to fail
How to test for and address bias
What regulations apply to automated decisions in employment
How to evaluate and hold vendors accountable
Where AI can genuinely support HR, and where it should be avoided
This is less about theory and more about real-world decision-making. Without that foundation, HR risks being left out of conversations it should be leading.
AI is changing how work gets done, but it’s also changing how people are evaluated, hired, and managed. That puts HR at the centre of the shift, whether it’s ready or not.
The companies that treat AI training as a strategic priority will be the ones setting standards, avoiding regulatory blowback, and building more resilient teams. The rest will be left reacting to tools they never understood in the first place. To get better insights on future work trends follow New Stardom.
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