The third day of this year’s Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo concluded with a palpable sense of relief, as a session focusing on topics beyond Artificial Intelligence was met with enthusiastic applause. This sentiment was not an indictment of technological advancement, but rather a reflection of the evolving priorities within the human resources landscape. Attendees expressed a clear desire to delve deeper into the foundational human aspects of work, moving beyond the surface-level discussions of AI implementation to explore the critical interplay between technology, organizational strategy, and the employee experience. HR teams, managers, and employees alike are grappling with the relentless pace of change, the pressure for increased productivity, and the constant influx of new information. While explicit conversations about engagement, performance, development, and recognition might have been less frequent, these core elements were intrinsically woven into the fabric of nearly every discussion, underscoring their pivotal role in shaping how individuals experience and thrive within their work environments. This report distills five key takeaways from the symposium, offering insights into the strategic imperatives for organizations navigating the future of work.
The Strategic Imperative: Value Creation Over Mere Time Savings with AI
A central theme emerging from the Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo was the critical distinction between time saved by Artificial Intelligence and the actual value created for an organization. The opening keynote, "Productivity Isn’t the Prize—Expanding What’s Possible for Your Organization," delivered by CV Viverito and Arj Bagga, addressed the widely promoted promise that AI will automate routine tasks, freeing up human capital for strategic initiatives, innovation, and enhanced customer experiences. However, the presenters cautioned that this shift is not an automatic outcome.
The reality, as observed by many attendees, is that freed-up time often gets absorbed by an increased volume of emails, more meetings, or simply the next item on a perpetually growing to-do list. While AI can indeed create organizational capacity, the crucial question remains: who is strategically deciding how that capacity is best utilized? The pressure to demonstrate a return on investment in AI can lead to premature workforce reductions before the fundamental redesign of work processes has been thoughtfully undertaken.
Gartner research provides compelling data to support this caution. A significant finding indicates that 97% of organizations struggle to achieve their desired cost savings solely through productivity gains driven by AI. Furthermore, the research predicts a concerning trend: 30% of employees whose roles are terminated and replaced by AI are expected to be rehired by 2029, often at a higher cost. These statistics highlight a critical sequencing problem: organizations are making hasty workforce decisions before deliberately redesigning the work itself to leverage new capabilities effectively.
The keynote offered a valuable framework for prioritizing these efforts: Value, Speed, and Capacity. The recommended approach is to start with value, concentrating AI investments in areas that can deliver the most significant strategic impact. Following this, organizations should build for speed by shortening the time between identifying a business problem and implementing an improved solution. This involves actively engaging individuals closest to the work in the redesign process, testing focused solutions, iterating based on learnings, and then, finally, deciding how to best deploy the newly created capacity. Ultimately, while AI can generate capacity, it is organizational leadership that determines whether this capacity accelerates growth and drives strategic objectives.
The Need for a Holistic View in Talent Decision-Making
The symposium underscored a persistent challenge for leaders: the fragmentation of data that hinders robust talent decision-making. In a session co-hosted by Quantum Workplace and Scooter’s Coffee, titled "Cut Through the Noise: Turning Scattered Signals into Confident People Decisions," a common leadership dilemma was presented. Consider a scenario where a critical leadership position becomes available. Two internal candidates emerge: one with a strong performance history, extended tenure, and completion of a formal leadership program; the other with less formal experience but demonstrated informal leadership qualities.
While the initial inclination might be to select the candidate with the more traditional qualifications, the inclusion of additional signals—such as peer feedback, recognition received, and engagement levels—can dramatically alter the decision. The less experienced candidate might, upon closer examination, reveal themselves to be a more effective leader, trusted by colleagues, a willing sharer of expertise, and someone who fosters retention among their peers. This highlights that strong individual performance does not automatically translate into superior leadership capability.
The core issue is that many organizations possess these vital signals, but they are often siloed within disparate systems, failing to reach the decision-makers who need them. This data fragmentation leads to leaders relying on the most readily accessible information rather than the most insightful. Scooter’s Coffee provided a practical case study, demonstrating how integrating survey data, talent reviews, and retention risk indicators empowered their leaders to gain a more comprehensive understanding of future talent needs. This allowed for more focused development efforts and proactive responses to organizational changes affecting critical talent segments.
The overarching takeaway is the necessity of starting with the decision, rather than with the data. By adopting a more connected approach, organizations can identify key questions their leaders are grappling with—such as "Who are our high-potential employees and what support do they need?" or "Which teams are at risk of losing critical skills?"—and then leverage platforms like Quantum Workplace to synthesize relevant signals from across systems. This integration provides a more complete picture, enabling leaders to interpret insights, identify gaps, and formulate effective actions. The ultimate impact of a holistic view is the empowerment of leaders to make better decisions and take timely, appropriate actions.
Redefining Performance in the Evolving Workplace
The traditional approach to performance management often prioritizes process completion over actual performance improvement. A performance review might be conducted on schedule, with high participation rates, yet fail to clarify priorities, enhance feedback quality, or boost team effectiveness. While completion rates indicate adherence to a process, they do not necessarily reflect whether the underlying objectives of performance management—driving better results and fostering development—are being met.
The symposium emphasized that true high performance must encompass three critical dimensions: output, collaboration, and innovation. Simply achieving a strong result is insufficient. An individual might produce impressive work but do so by alienating colleagues, disregarding valuable input, or creating additional review cycles for others. Therefore, collaboration and innovation are indispensable components of a comprehensive performance definition. Rewarding output alone can inadvertently discourage the very behaviors organizations claim to value.
The increasing capabilities of AI further amplify the need to redefine high performance. With AI making it easier to generate more polished and voluminous work, leaders must clearly articulate the qualitative standards behind this output. This includes assessing the accuracy of the work, the employee’s ability to explain and stand behind it, its effectiveness in solving the intended problem, and its utility to those who depend on it.
Consequently, the measurement of performance must align with this redefined standard. This involves incorporating clear criteria for collaboration and innovation, establishing mechanisms for ongoing feedback and recognition of these behaviors, and ensuring that performance conversations focus on development and impact, not just task completion. The ultimate goal of a redefined performance process and criteria is to empower individuals to understand what truly matters, make better decisions, and achieve genuine improvement. If the process does not contribute to these outcomes, its timely completion becomes a hollow achievement.
Cultivating Critical Skills for Future Success
The skills required for success in today’s dynamic work environment have undergone a significant transformation. Roles are in flux, AI is fundamentally altering how work is executed, and employees are increasingly tasked with navigating ambiguity, complex technologies, vast amounts of information, and cross-functional collaboration. Gartner research indicates that the number of skills required for an average job is growing by 4.8% annually, with a startling prediction that 34% of the skills relevant in 2025 will be obsolete by 2030.
The challenge for organizations lies in identifying which emerging skills are most critical to their future strategy and which existing skills are too vital to lose. Attempting to track every conceivable skill can lead to an unwieldy and ultimately ineffective list. A more strategic starting point is to align skill development with the organization’s overarching strategy. Identifying the skills that directly support strategic objectives—whether they are related to digital transformation, customer-centricity, or innovation—provides a clear focus for talent development efforts.
Gartner has identified three interconnected skill sets that are increasingly crucial:
- AI Fluency: Understanding how to effectively leverage AI tools and platforms.
- Human Skills: Critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, emotional intelligence, and communication.
- Contextual Understanding: The ability to apply knowledge and judgment within specific organizational and industry contexts.
Technology becomes significantly more potent when complemented by human skills that provide context, foster relationships, and exercise judgment—qualities that AI currently lacks. These human skills warrant the same deliberate investment as AI fluency. Furthermore, organizations must safeguard the experiences that cultivate these essential skills. Certain routine tasks, while seemingly mundane, offer valuable opportunities for repetition, pattern recognition, problem identification, and the development of sound judgment.
A cautionary note from the opening keynote resonated strongly: "As AI takes work away, we have to make sure it doesn’t take the learning with it." Before automating any task, organizations should ask:
- What learning opportunities might be lost?
- How can we preserve or replicate these learning experiences?
- Is the task essential for developing critical judgment or foundational understanding?
A robust skills strategy is characterized by deliberate choices about what to build, what to protect, and what can be safely phased out, all grounded in the intended value the organization aims to create.
Empowering Managers: The linchpin of Organizational Change
Managers were a central focus at the Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo, recognized as the crucial link between strategic intent and daily employee experience. They are tasked with translating organizational strategy, stabilizing teams amidst uncertainty, coaching new behaviors, acknowledging progress, and helping individuals find their footing in a constantly evolving work landscape.
These expectations are escalating as the pace of organizational change accelerates. Employees are experiencing a growing number of enterprise changes annually, a trend that places immense pressure on managers. In 2025, the average employee navigated 22 enterprise changes, a significant increase from 10 in 2022. This doubling of change requires managers to guide their teams through more than twice the disruption while simultaneously maintaining performance levels. It is unsurprising that 79% of CHROs report that managers are overwhelmed.
This pressure extends beyond managers, impacting HR teams and employees who are also absorbing continuous change while facing ongoing demands for productivity improvements. At such a rapid pace, individuals have less time and space to process new expectations, adapt thoughtfully, and sustain high performance.
Managers often bear the brunt of systemic friction originating elsewhere in the organization—competing priorities, outdated policies, communication breakdowns, and inconsistent role modeling frequently stem from leadership levels above them. While a manager can excel at active listening and clear communication, they cannot unilaterally resolve every systemic issue.
Therefore, support for managers must emanate from multiple sources:
- Senior Leadership: Clear communication of vision, consistent messaging, and visible support for change initiatives.
- Peers: Opportunities for managers to share best practices, challenges, and solutions with one another.
- Systems and Processes: Tools and frameworks that simplify management tasks, provide relevant data, and streamline workflows.
With this comprehensive support, managers can dedicate their energy to the unique aspects of their role: acknowledging employee concerns, communicating known information, articulating the purpose behind change, and breaking down the next steps into manageable actions. Crucially, they also need a clear channel to escalate issues that fall outside their purview.
Senior leaders bear the responsibility of owning the conditions through which managers lead. If they expect managers to champion change, they must also ensure that the organizational environment and support structures enable them to do so effectively.
The Human Contribution: The Engine of Value Creation
The human contribution in the modern workplace is not merely what remains after technology has performed its function; it is the essential element that transforms technological capability into tangible value. This includes judgment, context, creativity, the ability to forge connections, and the willingness to take ownership of decisions.
While technology can aggregate information, reduce friction, and facilitate access to support, it is human expertise that interprets the meaning of that information, prioritizes what is most important, and determines the most effective course of action. The opportunity for HR professionals lies in bridging the gap between technology and human capability. This involves empowering leaders to make more informed people decisions and to implement strategies that foster an environment where teams can truly thrive. The future of work hinges on this symbiotic relationship, where technology enhances human potential, and human insight guides technological application.
