ADP’s 2026 HR Trends executive summary outlines a workplace shaped by AI, interconnectivity, and heightened expectations of fairness and trust, requiring leaders to balance innovation with compassion. On the people front, organizations are shifting toward skills-based job design as AI absorbs routine tasks, reframing AI as augmentation rather than replacement, and reaffirming responsibility for employee physical, mental, and financial well-being—while struggling to close gaps between intent and execution. Compliance pressures are intensifying as governments regulate AI use in employment decisions, expand pay-transparency rules (notably in the EU by 2026), revise tax treatments and leave laws, and create multijurisdictional complexity. Technologically, agentic AI is emerging as a core HCM capability, driving new data-management, security, and governance challenges and deepening the strategic partnership between HR and IT. Together, these trends demand human-centric, data-driven action to build resilient, intelligent workplaces.

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