10 of the Most Important HR Best Practices You Need to Follow in 2025

It’s no secret that employee engagement and wellbeing are critical for business success. According to the Gallup 2024 State of the Global Workplace Report, low employee engagement costs the global economy a jaw-dropping $8.9 trillion per year. Get your human resources practices right, and you’ll naturally improve employee engagement with strategies that positively impact your team.

As an employer or human resources professional, it’s important to know what HR best practices will benefit you and your employees for the year ahead. Get it right, and you’ll be rewarded with higher employee engagement, improved productivity, and increased employee retention.

As a strategic leader at your organization, it’s up to you to align HR goals with the overall business goals so everyone is on the same page. We’ve considered some of the best practices for HR professionals and business leaders to keep in mind throughout the year.

HR Best Practices vs. HR Activities: What's the Difference?

Before diving in, it’s important to clarify the distinction between human resources practices and activities. Both are needed for an HR department to reach its potential and for an organization to optimize its human capital investment.

HR best practices involve the strategic operations of HR. They form the foundation and guidance for managing the company’s employees and should coordinate with the executive business plan. Some examples of human resources best practices include:

• Setting the mission and goals of the HR department
• Planning, organizing, and managing the HR department
• Measuring the outcomes of programs

In contrast, HR activities are the daily activities that implement the strategies determined by HR practices. They allow the mission and goals of the HR department to be carried out. HR activities may include:

• Payroll
• Recruitment and hiring
• Training and development
• Compensation and benefits
• Employee and labor relations
• Retention
• Health and Safety
• Surveys
• Employee attendance and time off
• Overtime

Essentially, HR practices look at what an organization wants to do and why. HR activities address how.

When HR practices and activities align, HR departments can thrive, and your company benefits. Optimum human resources management involves an understanding and integrated approach to HR practices and activities.

The 10 Most Important HR Best Practices

Eager to find out how you can improve your human resource processes? These are 10 of the most important HR best practices to make room for this year.

1. Implement Supportive Remote Working Policies

The 2024 State of the Global Workplace report from Gallup notes that employee wellbeing has slipped globally—particularly in younger workers—and loneliness has become a growing issue for many. One in five workers who participated in the report claimed that they experienced loneliness, with 25% of fully remote employees reporting higher levels of loneliness.

If your business continues to adopt a hybrid or remote working policy, then make sure you have support for those not in the office. Our guide on managing remote employees sheds light on the policies you need to implement to keep them engaged and feeling involved.

Investing in the right tools and equipment for them to use, encouraging social interaction within the team and checking in regularly can help alleviate some of the issues these workers face. Create an HR strategy focusing on these needs to motivate remote employees.

2. Carefully Manage Return-to-Office (RTO) Policies

While many people continue to work remotely or enjoy a hybrid approach, human resource management practices in 2025 will likely involve return-to-office policies. RTO was one of the biggest policy topics in 2024 and will continue to dominate throughout the rest of the year.

When it comes to the sentiment around RTO our 2024 report noted:

• 42% of workers felt that they were being made to return to the office for visibility
• A third of managers have admitted that tracking employees was a key goal for their business’ RTO policy
• Over half of US workers (52%) prefer to work remotely
• 22% of HR teams admit that they don’t have metrics to measure the success of a RTO policy.

If your business is leaning towards a return-to-office policy, it’s important you clearly communicate your reasoning for this. While you have every right to ask employees to return to the office, keep in mind that people can be as productive from their home. If your reasons aren’t clear, there may be some negative reactions.

Connection is the biggest driver for encouraging people into the office, so carefully manage your RTO policies by pushing this sentiment. Organize opportunities for your team to socialize, encourage mandatory attendance for all-hands meetings and make the office itself a pleasant environment to work in. It’s also important that you remain flexible. Let people decide which days work best for them or allow them to get into the office later or leave earlier to navigate commute times.

3. Invest in the Right Technology

The best HR strategies are backed by comprehensive HR technology. Once you’ve determined your primary requirements—for example, get your payroll in order or have a greater oversight of recruitment—you’ll want to ensure the platform includes standard HR features, such as:

• Payroll
• Reporting and analytics
• Employee records
• Workflows and approvals
• E-signatures
• Applicant tracking system
• On and offboarding
• Time tracking
• Employee satisfaction
• Performance management

Finally, you’ll want to ensure your HR technology helps your HR department and employees as well.

4. Streamline Recruitment and Hiring

Companies seeking to hire high performers are turning to innovative human resource processes to streamline hiring. There are many ways to assess whether someone will be a good choice for the company, both as a high performer and as a cultural fit.

While not every innovative hiring process will be right for your team, you can learn from companies that have created HR best practices around hiring and provided data for the rest of us.

Here are a few examples of best practices to consider:

• Advertise effectively: Job postings should include more than a list of desired skills; they should also explain why a candidate would want to work for your organization and what makes you stand out from the competition.
• Develop inviting internships: Paid internships can be a good way to evaluate potential hires and save money on recruitment costs.
• Video interviews: Video interviews save time and allow you to quickly assess a candidate’s enthusiasm and passion before bringing them in for an in-person interview. Be sure to ask the right questions to get the clearest answers.
• Choose the right candidates: Asking the right reference questions will help you avoid hiring poor performers and instead focus on candidates who will add value to the company.
• Improve the process: The right applicant tracking system can streamline the hiring process and improve its effectiveness by helping you track candidates and identify the best referral sources.

When posting the perfect job ad, include information about your organization—what technology you use, what kind of products you create, your mission and vision, and more.

Including this contextual information can encourage more candidates who believe in your organization’s mission to apply. The best candidates can always learn additional skills—you want engaged employees from day one.

5. Offer Effective Onboarding, Training, and Development

You’ve taken the time to find employees to hire—now you need to convince them to stay. Most new hires know whether they’ll stick with your company for the long haul or hit the road within their first 44 days on the job.

New hires’ biggest complaint? Not enough training, direction, or access to the tools they need to succeed.

• Invest in training and development: Bring on interns to reduce training costs and then hire them full-time if they are a good fit. Keep your employees' skills current to stay ahead of industry progress and increase employee engagement.
• Focus on skill-specific training: Align employee training with work requirements and company objectives.
• Younger employees value learning: Offer opportunities for growth and development to reduce employee turnover and keep young employees engaged.

Investing in employee training and development is a smart move. This HR best practice helps you improve your workforce, keep up with industry advances, and increase employee engagement.

6. Handle Layoffs with Compassion

This is probably the toughest place to implement HR best practices because terminations are always highly charged. When peoples’ livelihoods are affected, it’s difficult to

When layoffs are on the horizon, it’s crucial to follow HR best practices:

• Show empathy, not sympathy: Inform the employee of the reason for their termination with empathy.
• Maintain your resolve: It’s important to remain consistent, even during emotional interactions or difficult conversations.
• Conduct an effective exit interview: The exit interview should be used to gather information that can help the company improve and retain employees in the future. To be sure you’re gathering actionable feedback, make sure you’re asking the right exit interview questions.

7. Build an Inclusive Company Culture

Trust is imperative, 86% of workers and 74% of leaders agree. Organizations that foster an environment of open feedback and communication help employees feel trusted, respected, and valued.

To be a high-impact HR department, your HR best practices should:

• Promote collaboration and idea sharing: Focus on creating an environment that promotes collaboration and information sharing. Employees informed about business operations are better able to share their ideas and contribute to company decisions that impact their careers.
• Maintain openness and transparency: When companies and leaders are honest and open with their employees, it promotes a culture of trust between both employer and employee.

As an HR department, you should avoid focusing on efficiency and cutting costs above all else, as this could be less effective in the long run. Instead, promote practices that get the balance right for creating transparent environments and encourage information sharing.

8. Offer Compelling Benefits

According to a BambooHR survey, 56% of workers reported new or improved benefits being introduced by their employer. If you’re bringing in updated or new benefits in 2025, make sure you are transparent about your benefit plan and how it accomplishes company goals.

Choose benefits that show you value employees

Learning from other human resource processes can give you great insight into where to focus the company budget for employee benefits. It also helps you understand which benefits may help retain the best employees. You can provide medical and dental coverage, health and fitness centers, subsidized tuition, or additional benefits that show you value your employees.

Use benefits to solve workplace issues

Google is a great example of a business using benefits to solve workplace employment issues. To encourage its employees to remain with the business it brought in its Stay and Thrive coaching and advocacy program in the US, matching more than 500 Google employees with VPs and Directors to support career growth. If you want to hire and keep the best employees, you need strong employee retention plans to show you value your team members and want them to stay.

9. Focus on Compensation and Salary Transparency and be Competitive

If you want great employees, you need to have great compensation plans. But transparency and communication can be key. Creating a positive, loyal, and satisfied workforce and a happy working environment can be as simple as clearly communicating company policies involving:

• Benefits
• Flexibility
• Fair compensation

However, above-average employees deserve above-average compensation, and you want to show your employees you value them and the work they do.

Therefore, some of the best HR practices for compensation include:

• Varied compensation options: Upping your compensation offer doesn’t always mean adding more numbers. You could offer other types of compensation, such as additional vacation days, company discounts, work schedule flexibility, stock options, or profit-sharing.
• Compensation transparency: A winning compensation strategy for HR comes down to two elements: transparency and communication. It’s a subject that can conjure up strong feelings, but 59% of employees believe being transparent with salary means communicating the complete compensation package. For overall company policy, 42% of employees believe their organization isn’t transparent with salaries. In short, following pay transparency practices attracts a larger, more compatible pool of applicants and boosts employee satisfaction.

Whatever your compensation strategy, it should be based on the productivity and contributions of the employees, and the managers in your organization should be prepared to communicate about it.

10. Resolve (and Avoid) HR Compliance Violations

The best way to handle compliance issues is to avoid having them in the first place—but we know that’s easier said than done. However, here are some human resource practices that can help to prevent compliance issues:

• Use HR software. One great way to avoid compliance errors is to use HR software to simplify your HR compliance practices. This will help you find and correct mistakes quickly and avoid future compliance issues. For example, BambooHR practices Defense in Depth and Zero Trust, ensuring all company and employee information is secure and compliant. Additional measures like annual third-party SOC I and II security audits and third-party penetration tests ensure your organization is up-to-date with data compliance laws.
• Designate a point person for your HR team. One of the best ways for HR teams to stay up-to-date with compliance and maintain the best HR practices is to designate a point person for your HR team responsible for keeping up with new regulations and changing labor laws. They are also responsible for conveying this information to the HR department, ensuring everyone is on the same page regarding legal considerations.

Hiring, employee classification, and wage requirements require constant attention to stay compliant. Utilizing your point person and HR software can help you stay one step ahead of any upcoming changes to HR.

Next Steps: Choose a HR Partner that Empowers You to Meet Best Practices

HR best practices adapt and change depending on the world around us. Keep in mind the needs for your employees for the year ahead and put practices in place that work to enhance their experience in your business and get you the best results.

The first step to implementing the best human resources practices is to use the right platform to manage your activities and processes. For effective human resources management, your platform should align with your business needs and empower employees to do their best work.

BambooHR has helped 30,000+ companies not only follow HR best practices but also empower employees to do their best work. Our comprehensive platform includes everything you need to streamline human resource processes, boost employee engagement, reduce turnover, and provide a high-quality employee experience.