Here’s what the past year taught us about AI, emerging hiring strategies, work wellbeing, and more.

Key takeaways 

• Generative AI is transforming hiring by personalizing the process for job seekers and helping employers scale skills-first strategies to expand talent pools and improve diversity.
• Work wellbeing benefits both employees and businesses. Indeed research found a correlation between high levels of employee wellbeing and higher company valuations, improved return on assets, and increased profits.
• Employers can attract and retain top talent by prioritizing pay transparency, flexibility, diversity, and authentic employer branding.

As the year comes to an end, we’ve rounded up 2024’s top insights from Indeed’s Leadership Hub to help talent leaders build successful strategies for the year ahead. Find out what Indeed researchers and experts have to say on essential topics such as AI, skills-first hiring, and work wellbeing. Then, dig deeper by exploring our most popular stories from the past year.

AI and the future of work

Employees and job seekers worry that GenAI might disrupt their roles, but experts believe it’s more likely to enhance performance than replace responsibilities. Savvy leaders will foster responsible experimentation with these tools to give their teams a competitive edge. 

“GenAI won’t completely take jobs away, but people who know how to use it will take jobs from people who don’t. So it’s really important for employers to provide AI upskilling. I encourage everyone to embrace experimentation, both individually and at scale.” 

— Svenja Gudell, Chief Economist at Indeed, in AI Anxiety? For Knowledge Workers, It May Actually Be Their Superpower

“What we hear from job seekers and employers is that they welcome any help to make the process better, as long as they stay in the driver’s seat and with a human making the final hiring decision.”
— Raj Mukherjee, Indeed Executive Vice President of Marketplace Product and UX, in Recruit Smarter, Not Harder, with the AI Efficiency of Indeed Smart Sourcing

“Flexibility is key [when designing AI policies]. I would caution anyone against being too restrictive. Over time, there will be a population of humans on Earth that will really only know AI as a partner in their day-to-day.”

— Lori Aiken, Vice President of Human Resources at Indeed, in How to Prepare Your Team for the AI Future

“Through Indeed, every worker in the world will have their own personal talent agent. This might have sounded like science fiction just a few years ago, but with the power of AI, it’s now possible. As a first step, we’ve been working on a new product called Pathfinder.” — Chris Hyams, Chief Executive Officer at Indeed, in Indeed FutureWorks 2024: CEO Chris Hyams Announces Pathfinder

Skills-first hiring

Traditional job requirements like degrees or years of experience often fail to reflect a candidate’s full capabilities. Skills-first hiring, also referred to as skills-based hiring, offers a more effective approach by prioritizing skills over credentials while acknowledging the need for formal education in some industries.

“Hiring managers who practise skills-first hiring find it twice as easy to find qualified candidates than hiring managers who do not. Skills-first hiring isn’t simply another recruiting trend; it’s a recruiting superpower.” 

— Abbey Carlton, Vice President of Social and Environmental Impact at Indeed, in A Beginner’s Guide to Skills-First Hiring

“What AI allows us to do is to help recruiters and talent professionals take a broader view of what a high-quality candidate looks like, and to do that in a really data-driven way so that it doesn’t feel like a risk to consider candidates they might not have considered before.”

— Hannah Calhoon, Vice President of AI for Indeed, in AI Has the Power to Unlock Skills-First Hiring

“It’s become clear to us that a person’s educational background is not the only indicator of success. We think about skills and potential — not only credentials.”

— Beca Driscoll, Talent Strategy Executive and Apprenticeship Program Director at Accenture, in Accenture Thrives Thanks to Skills-First Hiring

Work wellbeing

Indeed’s Global Work Wellbeing Report and the Work Wellbeing 100 reveal a strong correlation between employee wellbeing and enhanced business performance, including higher company valuations, improved return on assets, and increased profits. A critical step to consider when building work wellbeing is supporting underrepresented groups in the workforce, such as women.

“With over 250 million data points on wellbeing from more than 25 million survey participants, we’ve learned that, despite our efforts, the state of work wellbeing has not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. In fact, over the past four years, we have observed a concerning decline. This trend underscores an urgent need to redouble our efforts in fostering workplaces where employees can thrive.” 

— LaFawn Davis, Chief People and Sustainability Officer at Indeed, in Indeed’s Global Work Wellbeing Report 2024

“Truthfully, there are a lot of women suffering through things we don’t know about because, traditionally, work has not been a safe space for them to share.”

— Stacy Peters, Senior Manager of Operations in HR and Co-chair of the Women at Indeed IBRG, in Want More Women in the Workplace? Make It Easier for Them to Show Up

“Belonging means being treated like a human. Bringing your whole self to the workplace and having valuable social relations — and, who knows, even making friends at work.”

— Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Professor of Economics and Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre, University of Oxford, in FutureWorks 2024: Unlocking Profit and Performance with Employee Wellbeing

Better workplaces for better hiring

Better hiring starts with building better workplaces. It begins at the talent attraction stage with pay transparency and a thoughtful hiring process and continues at the acquisition and retention stages with flexibility, following through on DEI initiatives, authentic branding, and leading with empathy — especially during challenging times. 

“There’s this growing population of professionals graduating from university, and they’re very discerning. They know to ask questions like, ‘What’s your current DEI strategy?’ That’s something that used to be unheard of. Companies need to meet those evolving expectations.”

— Lori Aiken, Vice President of Human Resources at Indeed, in The Great Disconnect: What Job Seekers Want vs What Employers Offer

“For leaders in the ESG space, the work is already hard, and it’s going to get harder. We have a responsibility to do what’s right — not just for society and the planet, but for our businesses, our employees, and our investors. We can’t be deterred by political headwinds, no matter how gusty they may get. "When others bow to pressure, we have to stand firm in our convictions.”

— LaFawn Davis, Chief People and Sustainability Officer at Indeed, in What You Need to Know About ESG Backlash — And How to Resist It

“Employer brand strategy is an attraction strategy. It helps the organization to differentiate itself in the market, build credibility and trust with candidates, and ensure candidates have the clarity to make the right decision for themselves.”

— Eoin Driver, Vice President of Employee Enablement at Indeed, in The Great Disconnect: Closing the Gap Between Job Seekers and Employers

“When we think about how teams interact with one another and how we collaborate, the question I always invite leaders to explore within themselves is, are you communicating to be right, or are you communicating to connect? Be curious. Because when you can invite curiosity, you can open up dialogue and see each other as human.” 

— Rajkumari Neogy, CEO at ibelong and expert on psychological safety, in Navigating Politics in the Workplace During a Divisive Election Year