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HRD

Covers HR strategy, policies, operating practices, data, cases, and decision-making insights related to HRD.

  • [2026 HR Trend ⑤] Real-time upskilling: HRD must design the flow of work

    [2026 HR Trend ⑤] Real-time upskilling: HRD must design the flow of work

    This is the fifth article in the 2026 HR Trend series. If the fourth article argued that skills criteria must come before recruiting automation, this article addresses the next question. If it is difficult to hire enough of the needed skills from outside, what must HRD change?

    The answer is not to open more training courses. Upskilling in 2026 is not a training calendar, but a matter of work flow. Organizations need a system that helps employees identify and practice the skills they need at the moment they take on new work, at the moment goals change, and at the moment customer requirements shift.

    Upskilling becomes a talent acquisition strategy, not a training schedule

    The SHRM 2026 Talent Trends summary, based on a sample of more than 2,000 HR professional respondents, addresses hiring difficulties, retention, and skills shortages together. According to the public summary, about 70% of HR professionals struggle with full-time hiring, and 41% train current employees for roles that are difficult to fill.

    These figures show how HRD’s role is changing. Upskilling no longer means only the annual operation of courses by the training department. It becomes a talent acquisition strategy: how to develop internally the roles that are difficult to fill through external hiring. Therefore, training plans cannot be separated from recruiting plans, internal mobility, and performance management.

    Real-time learning begins where work changes occur

    The same Talent Trends summary explains that 42% of HR professionals experienced difficulty retaining full-time employees during the past 12 months. If it is hard both to hire and to retain people, organizations must create more sophisticated pathways for employees to move from their current work to the next role.

    Real-time upskilling is not about making every employee log into a learning platform every day. It is about pointing out needed skills at the point where work changes. Moments such as assignment to a new project, job rotation, development of promotion candidates, adoption of AI tools, and changes in customer response methods become the starting point of learning.

    HRD must move from course designer to workflow designer

    SHRM 2026 HR Trends connects AI use in 2026 to cost reduction, productivity improvement, and better workforce decisions. In addition, the sample of more than 2,000 HR professional respondents in 2026 Talent Trends shows hiring difficulties and skills shortages together. Applied to HRD, this perspective means AI does not remain merely a tool for recommending training content. It can become a signal for identifying which skills employees lack, what work experiences they need, and what feedback is being repeated.

    Therefore, HRD must move from course designer to workflow designer. Managing only course titles, training hours, and satisfaction scores is not enough to solve skills shortages. Core skills by role, work assignments, manager feedback, peer coaching, and internal project placement must be connected into one learning pathway.

    If performance management and upskilling are separated, learning will not lead to execution

    SHRM’s 2026 trend commentary suggests that AI coaching and People Analytics can change the flow centered on annual performance reviews. As seen in the third article, performance management in the age of AI coaching moves toward more frequent connections among goals, feedback, and development. Upskilling must also sit within this flow. If training completion records remain but are not connected to performance goals, learning will not lead to execution.

    Managers are closest to seeing what skills employees need. HRD should not translate this signal only into training courses, but connect it to work assignments and feedback loops. For example, if data analysis capability is lacking, the design should not end with taking an online course; it should include actual report writing, review, and improvement assignments.

    Korean companies should look first at skills application indicators, not training completion rates

    For a long time, HRD in Korean companies has treated training hours, completion rates, satisfaction, and statutory training compliance as important management indicators. These indicators are still necessary, but they are insufficient to explain the skills transition of 2026. What matters is whether employees used what they learned in their work.

    First, core skills by role must be defined. Next, each skill must be converted into behavioral criteria that can be observed in work. Then, over 30, 60, and 90 days after training, organizations should examine how actual work outputs and manager feedback have changed. HRD’s performance should be verified not inside the classroom, but in the workplace.

    The task for HRD in 2026 is not to secure more training content. It is to design the organization’s flow so that changes in work become the starting point of learning. Real-time upskilling is not a training program; it is a redesign of how work is done.

    2026 HR Trend series articles

    The upskilling article connects internal development and workflow design after hiring difficulties.

    Read the HR Trend series together

    This article is part of the 2026 HR Trend series. Reading across AI adoption, accountability lines, performance management, recruiting, upskilling, hybrid workforce models, Polywork, and employee experience gives a more three-dimensional view of how the HR operating model is changing.

    References

    This article was written based on SHRM’s 2026 Talent Trends, 2026 HR Trends, and 2026 State of the Workplace. It used the survey scopes confirmed in public summaries, including the sample of more than 2,000 HR professional respondents in Talent Trends and data from more than 1,800 HR professionals and more than 2,000 workers in State of the Workplace. Only figures and wording available in public materials were used as evidence in the body, and non-public content from member-only detailed reports was not cited.

  • [2026 HR Trend ④] Skills Criteria Must Change Before Recruiting Automation

    [2026 HR Trend ④] Skills Criteria Must Change Before Recruiting Automation

    This is the fourth article in the 2026 HR Trend series. If the previous articles covered AI accountability lines and the redesign of performance management, this article is about recruiting. The central question for recruiting in 2026 is not ‘How fast can we screen with AI?’ but ‘By what criteria should we evaluate people?’

    Recruiting automation can speed up resume review, candidate classification, and interview question generation. But if job requirements are outdated and skills criteria are vague, automation will not solve recruiting problems; it will make organizations repeat the same problems faster.

    Hiring difficulties are not a problem of screening speed, but of criteria

    The SHRM 2026 Talent Trends summary includes a sample of more than 2,000 HR professional respondents and addresses hiring difficulties and skills shortages together. According to the public summary, about 70% of HR professionals still struggle with full-time hiring, and 42% experienced difficulty retaining full-time employees during the past 12 months.

    These figures show that recruiting is not simply a matter of job-posting exposure or resume review speed. If the people needed are scarce in the market and even hired employees are hard to retain, the recruiting criteria themselves must be reviewed. The issue becomes less about ‘finding good people quickly’ and more about ‘accurately defining the skills our organization needs.’

    Automation can repeat vague requirements faster

    SHRM 2026 HR Trends raises the concern that recruiting problems cannot be solved by automation and algorithms alone. Even if AI quickly summarizes applications and ranks candidates, if the input job requirements and evaluation criteria are vague, the results will also be vague.

    For example, a job posting may say ‘communication skills,’ but in practice it is often unclear whether that means customer response, stakeholder coordination, document writing, or conflict mediation. AI can make such expressions look cleaner, but it cannot define on behalf of the organization the performance behaviors it wants.

    Skills criteria must change job requirements, interviews, and internal development together

    The SHRM 2026 Talent Trends summary states that 41% of HR professionals train current employees for roles that are difficult to fill. If hiring difficulties continue, it becomes hard to secure needed capabilities through external hiring alone, and internal development and recruiting criteria must move together.

    Skills-based hiring is not simply about reducing education or experience requirements. It means defining the skills actually required for job performance, deciding how to verify those skills, and connecting missing skills to pathways for development after hiring. So, job requirements, interview questions, work-sample assessments, onboarding, and training plans must use the same language.

    Recruiting teams and HRD must use the same skills language

    If roles are divided so that recruiting teams screen candidates and HRD handles training after hiring, skills criteria become disconnected. Skills considered ‘essential’ during recruiting may be interpreted differently in onboarding and training, or capabilities that training aims to develop may not be reflected in hiring criteria.

    What recruiting operations need in 2026 is a shared skills language used by both recruiting teams and HRD. Organizations must distinguish core skills by role, skills that must be confirmed before hiring, skills that can be developed within three months after joining, and skills that should be cultivated over the long term. Only then can recruiting automation connect to workforce planning rather than remain simple filtering.

    Korean companies should review role-based skills maps before applicant scorecards

    In Korean companies, recruiting improvement often begins with replacing the applicant tracking system, introducing AI resume screening, or improving interview evaluation forms. But what is needed before that is a role-based skills map. For each role, companies should separate the skills currently needed from those that will become important and decide what evidence will confirm each skill.

    First, job-posting qualifications should be broken down into skill units. Second, interview questions should be checked to see whether they verify actual skills. Third, internal and external candidates should be comparable using the same skills language. Fourth, missing skills should not be treated only as recruiting failures; companies should judge whether they can be supplemented through onboarding and training.

    The success or failure of recruiting automation is not determined only by the sophistication of algorithms. The criteria to be automated must be accurate. The starting point for recruiting in 2026 is not faster screening, but more precise skills criteria.

    Read the HR Trend series together

    This article is part of the 2026 HR Trend series. Reading across AI adoption, accountability lines, performance management, recruiting, upskilling, hybrid workforce models, Polywork, and employee experience gives a more three-dimensional view of how the HR operating model is changing.

    What HR should look at next

    The point is not to add one more policy. The work ahead is to turn this issue into a clear operating standard for the organization.

    A practical starting question is enough: which decision will this change actually alter — hiring, performance management, learning, or rewards? The clearer that answer becomes, the closer HR work moves from reports to real standards used in the field.

    References

    This article was written based on SHRM’s 2026 Talent Trends, 2026 HR Trends, and 2026 HR trend commentary. Only figures and wording available in public materials were used as evidence in the body, and non-public content from member-only detailed reports was not cited.

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

    [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.

    So, 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 read 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.

    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.

    What HR should look at next

    The point is not to add one more policy. The work ahead is to turn this issue into a clear operating standard for the organization.

    A practical starting question is enough: which decision will this change actually alter — hiring, performance management, learning, or rewards? The clearer that answer becomes, the closer HR work moves from reports to real standards used in the field.

    References