💡 Rethinking Talent Supply, Micro-Behavior Analytics, 4 eLearning Challenges Solved - Oct 15, 2025

On today’s agenda:

💡 Rethinking talent supply

🚀 eLearning challenges solved

📡 Micro-behavior analytics

💼 The jobless growth era

THE HR SPOTLIGHT

💡 Rethinking Talent Supply: How HR Can Build Skills Resilience in a Cooling Market

The job market may be cooling, but the skills race is heating up. Hiring may have slowed, yet demand for niche expertise hasn’t hit pause. So, how can HR teams future-proof their talent supply before the next hiring wave hits? Let’s unpack it.

🌪️ The reality check

Even as job postings decline, the scramble for specialized talent—think AI engineers, data scientists, and cybersecurity pros—continues. 78％ of organizations say they can’t find applicants with needed systems or resource management skills. Meanwhile, Harvard Business Review notes that “soft skills are becoming the new hard skills,” as automation reshapes job value.

Translation? The market’s cooling—but the skills gap is running hot.

🧭 The HR game plan: Build skills resilience

• Map mission-critical skills. Use data tools to track which skills are rising or fading.

• Grow from within. Cross-train, rotate, and micro-upskill your existing talent.

• Build agile learning paths. Offer quick, accessible learning sprints.

• Co-create talent pipelines. Partner with schools, bootcamps, or vendors with “upskill clauses.”

• Measure, refine, repeat. Track learning ROI and adjust every quarter.

In short: stop chasing candidates, start cultivating capabilities. Because in 2025’s talent economy, resilience is the new recruitment.

🚀 4 HR Challenges and How to Handle Them with eLearning

The fields of HR and L&D are constantly evolving, with new challenges, such as high employee turnover and employee resistance to training, emerging every day.

Download this guide to learn how you can leverage eLearning technologies to overcome these and other common challenges so you can drive business success. 

🏙 Akron Shines as Spotlight City — Axios

• What’s unfolding: Akron has been named Ohio’s first “Spotlight City” under the Work for America initiative that connects displaced federal workers to municipal roles and innovate public hiring.

• Why it matters: For HR leaders, this is a test bed in workforce reinvention—how cities reframe hiring and tap hidden talent pools could offer models you can borrow for your org’s talent challenges.

• What’s unfolding: Goldman Sachs warns that the U.S. may be entering “jobless growth”— with GDP rising thanks to AI and automation, while employment stagnates or even declines in many sectors.

• Why it matters: HR pros must grapple with a mismatch: productivity gains without headcount growth. The urgency is real to reskill for AI-complementary roles or risk talent gaps in tomorrow’s mission-critical skills.

• What’s unfolding: Amazon will hire 250,000 workers for the 2025 U.S. holiday season—full-time, part-time, and seasonal roles.

• Why it matters: For talent teams, this underscores the need for robust contingent labor pipelines, streamlined onboarding, and retention tactics beyond the holidays.

COMPLIANCE CORNER

• What’s unfolding: Starting November 1, new SNAP rules kick in across Oregon — tightening work requirements, slashing utility-related benefits, and removing eligibility for many immigrants.

• HR implications: If your workforce includes low-income or immigrant staff relying on food support, expect financial strain, stress, or turnover. Assess EAPs and prepare communications or support when notices come out.

• What’s unfolding: California Senate Bill 590 would broaden paid family leave eligibility beginning July 1, 2028, allowing workers to care for a “designated person” beyond traditional family ties.

• HR implications: CA-based orgs need to anticipate future leave demands under revised criteria. Review leave policies now, plan budget impacts, and align internal communications well before the 2028 rollout.

• What’s unfolding: A federal judge dismissed a proposed nationwide class action under the PUMP Act against McDonald’s, though plaintiffs may refile against franchise operators in KS and NY.

• HR implications: The ruling underscores risk for franchises and individual employers. Review lactation policies now, ensure private spaces + break compliance — don’t wait for litigation to drive change.

BREAKROOM

📬 Missed Monday’s issue ‘Audit-Proof Hiring’? Read it »