HR Lens

[2026 HR Trend ①] HR’s Operating Model Must Change Before AI

This is the first article in the 2026 HR Trend series. In one sentence, the 2026 HR trends released by SHRM are not a message to simply “adopt AI.” More precisely, they point more directly to the need for HR to redesign its operating model as AI, hiring difficulties, changing skills, and rising employee expectations arrive at the same time.

If many organizations through 2025 focused on AI experiments, automation tools, and recruiting-system improvements, the question for 2026 is somewhat different. Has this technology produced real performance? Has the way employees work become clearer? Are managers giving better feedback? Has hiring become fairer and more accurate? SHRM’s 2026 HR Trends, Talent Trends, and State of the Workplace materials raise these questions from several angles.

The research base is also broad. SHRM’s 2026 Talent Trends summary addresses recruiting and retention based on data from more than 2,000 HR professionals, while the State of the Workplace summary presents employee experience and burnout issues based on responses from more than 1,800 HR professionals and more than 2,000 workers. This article should therefore be read less as a set of individual predictions and more as a reading of the operating signals repeatedly appearing in the public summaries.

The challenge of AI is not adoption rate but performance and control

SHRM expects AI to remain a central HR agenda item in 2026. The mood, however, differs from the early optimism. Pressure is growing to verify what effects AI has on cost reduction, productivity, and workforce decision-making.

At this point, HR’s role is not simply to introduce tools. SHRM notes that 89% of CEOs expect AI in 2026 to redefine how their organizations create and capture value. Because expectations are high, HR must design standards for AI use, the scope of data use, bias checks, and lines of decision accountability together. As recruiting AI screens candidates, performance-management AI suggests feedback, and HR analytics tools predict turnover risk, the question “who makes the final judgment?” becomes increasingly important.

Therefore, the core keyword for AIHR in 2026 is not automation but explainability. HR must build an organization that does not simply accept AI outputs, but can review AI-generated judgments and explain them to employees.

Performance management is moving from annual reviews to real-time feedback

Another strong signal from SHRM is the change in performance management. As AI coaching and People Analytics spread, an annual-review-centered approach is losing persuasiveness. In an environment where work moves faster and roles change frequently, evaluating people all at once against goals set a year earlier cannot keep pace with learning on the ground.

Future performance management must operate more frequently, more specifically, and with more data. Managers become people who adjust priorities, behavioral standards, and growth direction during the flow of work, not people who assign scores during review season. To support this, HR must revise feedback questions, manager training, performance data, and the way performance connects to rewards.

The important point is that AI coaching does not mean replacing managers. Rather, the quality of managerial judgment becomes more visible. AI may recommend feedback wording, but the leader remains responsible for deciding what conversation is needed in what context.

Before recruiting automation, skill criteria must be redefined

SHRM’s 2026 Talent Trends sees hiring difficulties as still widespread. Difficulty hiring full-time employees, skill shortages in critical roles, and retention problems are not issues that will disappear quickly. The notable direction here is skills-based hiring and internal talent development.

Many companies place hope in recruiting automation, but SHRM’s concern is more fundamental: algorithms alone do not complete good hiring. In its public summary, SHRM states that about 70% of HR professionals still face difficulty hiring full-time employees, and 42% experienced difficulty retaining full-time employees in the past 12 months. Hiring difficulty is therefore not simply a matter of job-posting exposure or screening speed, but of job requirements and retention strategy.

HR must first rewrite what capabilities are actually required for each role. It must examine whether degrees, tenure, or specific industry experience are truly essential, and change interview questions, assignments, and scorecards toward skill verification. It is also important that, as SHRM notes, 41% of HR professionals train existing employees for hard-to-fill roles. Internal mobility and L&D paths are no longer separate tasks for the training department; they become part of the recruiting strategy.

The workforce structure is shifting from full-time-centered to mixed

SHRM presents a workforce structure that mixes freelancers, independent contractors, gig workers, small project teams, and AI agents as an important change. This can be seen as workforce fragmentation and the spread of fractional work. SHRM’s 2026 HR Trends page notes that 72% of CEOs expect increased use of independent contractors, gig workers, and freelancers in 2026.

This change is not unfamiliar to Korean companies. External experts for projects, short-term contracts, platform workers, and automation tools are already entering simultaneously. The problem is that systems are not keeping up with this speed. Who is a member of the organization? What information can they access? How is performance evaluated? How far do security and compliance responsibilities extend?

An HR operating model is no longer sufficient if it manages only full-time employees. On the assumption that internal employees, external experts, and automation tools work together, roles, authority, accountability, and reward criteria must be reorganized.

Employee experience and rewards again become a matter of the psychological contract

SHRM’s State of the Workplace material treats rising employee expectations, burnout, and employee experience as important challenges for 2026. At the same time, HR Trends mentions side jobs, polywork, side hustles, financial pressure, and changes in rewards strategy.

This does not simply mean adding more benefits. Employees may be asked to deliver more performance and adapt more, while feeling that the stability and growth opportunities provided by the organization are shrinking. If this gap widens, it leads to lower engagement, burnout, turnover, and weakened culture.

Total Rewards is therefore not a matter of a wage table or benefits package, but a task of redesigning the psychological contract between employees and the organization. Compensation, growth, flexible work, well-being, manager quality, and the meaning of work must be connected together.

Five things HR departments should check first in 2026

If SHRM’s 2026 trends are translated into practical tasks for Korean companies, they can be summarized in five questions.

First, are the purpose of use, owner, and review criteria documented for each AI tool? Second, does performance management operate as a continuous feedback structure rather than an annual review? Third, have hiring criteria changed to verify actual skills rather than education and experience? Fourth, is there a clear authority system for internal employees, external workers, and automation tools working together? Fifth, does the employee experience and rewards strategy address both heightened expectations and burnout risk?

The 2026 HR trends are not a list of new buzzwords. AI realization, redesigning performance management, skills-based hiring, real-time upskilling, mixed workforce structures, employee experience, and Total Rewards ultimately converge in one direction: HR must move beyond being a function that operates systems and become a function that designs how the organization works.

2026 HR Trend series articles

This hub article is the starting point of a series that reframes SHRM’s 2026 HR trends as HR operating agendas for Korean companies. The following articles divide each issue into detailed topics.

Read the HR Trend series together

This article is part of the 2026 HR Trend series. Reading AI adoption, accountability lines, performance management, recruiting, upskilling, mixed workforces, Polywork, and employee experience together provides a more three-dimensional view of changes in the HR operating model.

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