The Hu­man Re­source (HR) in­dus­try in T&T is un­der­go­ing a pro­found trans­for­ma­tion shaped by dig­i­tal dis­rup­tion, evolv­ing em­ploy­ee ex­pec­ta­tions, and so­cio-eco­nom­ic shifts. In an ef­fort to guide the de­vel­op­ment of ev­i­dence-based strate­gies for the sec­tor, the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lu­cent Re­search Lim­it­ed, com­mis­sioned a land­mark na­tion­al study. Draw­ing on in­sights from 191 HR pro­fes­sion­als across pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, this re­search pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment of the cur­rent land­scape and fu­ture out­look of HR in the coun­try.

Tal­ent ac­qui­si­tion and work­force chal­lenges

Re­cruit­ment chal­lenges dom­i­nate the HR land­scape in T&T. More than half of the re­spon­dents in­di­cat­ed on­go­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in at­tract­ing tal­ent, with soft skill de­fi­cien­cies, lack of ex­pe­ri­ence, and tech­ni­cal in­ad­e­qua­cies cit­ed as the main bar­ri­ers. These chal­lenges are per­va­sive, af­fect­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions re­gard­less of size or sec­tor, and re­flect struc­tur­al mis­align­ments with­in the labour mar­ket.

The study re­vealed that em­ploy­ers ex­pect these re­cruit­ment is­sues to per­sist. Pro­posed so­lu­tions in­clude en­hanc­ing em­ploy­er brand­ing, lever­ag­ing dig­i­tal re­cruit­ment plat­forms, form­ing stronger part­ner­ships with ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, and pro­mot­ing more flex­i­ble work arrange­ments.

Re­ten­tion, up­skilling, and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion

Em­ploy­ee re­ten­tion presents a mixed pic­ture, with the pub­lic sec­tor and larg­er or­gan­i­sa­tions fac­ing the great­est chal­lenges. No­tably, de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties emerged as the most ef­fec­tive re­ten­tion strat­e­gy. This sug­gests a grow­ing em­pha­sis on long-term tal­ent de­vel­op­ment and in­ter­nal ca­reer mo­bil­i­ty.

How­ev­er, while dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is gain­ing trac­tion, progress is un­even. Large firms and tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven in­dus­tries are lead­ing the charge with for­mal digi­ti­sa­tion plans and reskilling pro­grammes. In con­trast, small­er or­gan­i­sa­tions lag be­hind; on­ly 33% re­port­ed hav­ing for­mal dig­i­tal strate­gies. Al­though the val­ue of dig­i­tal pro­fi­cien­cy is wide­ly ac­knowl­edged, dis­par­i­ties in train­ing ac­cess raise con­cerns about the eq­ui­table dis­tri­b­u­tion of up­skilling ini­tia­tives.

Di­ver­si­ty, in­clu­sion, and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al per­for­mance

T&T’s HR pro­fes­sion­als over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port di­ver­si­ty in hir­ing prac­tices. How­ev­er, ef­forts to fos­ter in­clu­sive ad­vance­ment—en­sur­ing eq­ui­table op­por­tu­ni­ties for pro­mo­tion, lead­er­ship, and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment—are less con­sis­tent. Sec­tors such as health­care and ed­u­ca­tion were iden­ti­fied as trail­ing in these ar­eas.

De­spite this, there is strong be­lief in the busi­ness case for di­ver­si­ty. Re­spon­dents cit­ed im­proved in­no­va­tion, en­hanced or­gan­i­sa­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion, and stronger re­ten­tion as key ben­e­fits. Mid-sized firms, in par­tic­u­lar, recog­nised the per­for­mance-en­hanc­ing val­ue of a di­verse work­force.

Em­ploy­ee well-be­ing and men­tal health

Well-be­ing is in­creas­ing­ly on the HR agen­da, but sig­nif­i­cant gaps re­main be­tween aware­ness and ac­tu­al sup­port. While 80% of re­spon­dents not­ed the pres­ence of men­tal health re­sources in their or­gan­i­sa­tions, on­ly 68% felt their or­gan­i­sa­tions gen­uine­ly val­ued em­ploy­ee well-be­ing.

Tra­di­tion­al ser­vices such as coun­selling were seen as less ef­fec­tive than em­bed­ded sup­ports like sched­ul­ing au­ton­o­my, men­tal health days, and re­al­is­tic work­load ex­pec­ta­tions. HR pro­fes­sion­als stressed the need for long-term, struc­tur­al re­forms rather than tem­po­rary or sur­face-lev­el ini­tia­tives. The pub­lic sec­tor and large en­ter­pris­es showed the most pro­nounced dis­con­nect be­tween well-be­ing aware­ness and per­ceived sup­port.

Hy­brid work and work-life bal­ance

The pref­er­ence for hy­brid work is near­ly uni­ver­sal. A strik­ing 80% of HR pro­fes­sion­als ex­pressed sup­port for a blend­ed work mod­el. Re­mote work, in par­tic­u­lar, re­ceived the high­est sat­is­fac­tion rat­ings, es­pe­cial­ly among staff in small­er firms.

Yet, a gap ex­ists be­tween em­ploy­ee pref­er­ences and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al prac­tice. Just over half (53%) of re­spon­dents felt their or­gan­i­sa­tions ac­tive­ly sup­port work-life bal­ance. Larg­er en­ti­ties and pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies were again cit­ed as the least ac­com­mo­dat­ing. While dig­i­tal tools have fa­cil­i­tat­ed flex­i­ble work arrange­ments, they have al­so blurred the lines be­tween work and per­son­al life, lead­ing to con­cerns about the abil­i­ty to dis­con­nect af­ter hours.

HR tech­nol­o­gy and AI in­te­gra­tion

AI in­te­gra­tion in HR re­mains in its ear­ly stages. Just over 50% of sur­veyed or­gan­i­sa­tions have adopt­ed AI tools, with small­er and tech-ori­ent­ed firms lead­ing adop­tion. The most com­mon use cas­es in­clude re­cruit­ment, per­for­mance eval­u­a­tions, and em­ploy­ee train­ing.

Al­though HR pro­fes­sion­als are op­ti­mistic about the po­ten­tial for AI to in­crease ef­fi­cien­cy and re­duce ad­min­is­tra­tive bur­dens, they face sev­er­al bar­ri­ers.

On­ly 14% of HR pro­fes­sion­als felt ad­e­quate­ly trained to use AI tools, and cur­rent train­ing pro­grammes skew heav­i­ly to­ward tech­ni­cal and an­a­lyt­i­cal skills, with lim­it­ed em­pha­sis on the soft skills re­quired to lead AI-dri­ven trans­for­ma­tion.

Ethics, trust, and gov­er­nance in HR tech­nol­o­gy

The study re­vealed both ex­cite­ment and cau­tion re­gard­ing AI. While 76% of re­spon­dents held a gen­er­al­ly pos­i­tive view of AI’s po­ten­tial, con­cerns about job dis­place­ment, da­ta pri­va­cy, and al­go­rith­mic bias were wide­spread. Alarm­ing­ly, on­ly 18% ex­pressed full con­fi­dence in the da­ta se­cu­ri­ty of AI sys­tems used in HR.

A re­mark­able 92% of re­spon­dents sup­port­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of eth­i­cal and gov­er­nance frame­works to guide the re­spon­si­ble use of AI in HR. This un­der­scores a strong de­mand for hu­man-cen­tred AI prac­tices and ro­bust ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms.

Gen­er­a­tional and sec­tor-spe­cif­ic in­sights

Gen­er­a­tional per­spec­tives and sec­tor-spe­cif­ic dy­nam­ics played a cru­cial role in shap­ing HR out­looks. Younger HR pro­fes­sion­als were more like­ly to cham­pi­on dig­i­tal tools and hy­brid mod­els, while se­nior prac­ti­tion­ers showed greater con­cern over AI-re­lat­ed risks. Pub­lic sec­tor or­gan­i­sa­tions, large firms, and tra­di­tion­al in­dus­tries were more like­ly to re­port chal­lenges re­lat­ed to agili­ty, in­clu­siv­i­ty, and in­no­va­tion.

A sec­tor at a cross­roads

The HR in­dus­try in T&T stands at a crit­i­cal junc­ture. The find­ings from the HRMATT–Lu­cent Re­search study high­light an ur­gent need for strate­gic, in­clu­sive, and fu­ture-ready HR prac­tices. Ad­dress­ing per­sis­tent re­cruit­ment and re­ten­tion chal­lenges, ac­cel­er­at­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, sup­port­ing em­ploy­ee well-be­ing, and em­bed­ding eth­i­cal guardrails for AI use are para­mount for long-term suc­cess.

By fos­ter­ing part­ner­ships across gov­ern­ment, acad­e­mia, and the pri­vate sec­tor, T&T can cul­ti­vate a dy­nam­ic and re­silient work­force fit for the fu­ture. HR pro­fes­sion­als must con­tin­ue to evolve as strate­gic en­ablers, tech­nol­o­gy stew­ards, and cham­pi­ons of in­clu­sive, peo­ple-cen­tric work­places.

The Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT) is the lead­ing voice of the HR pro­fes­sion lo­cal­ly. HRMATT Says is a col­umn meant to ad­dress is­sues and con­cerns of pro­fes­sion­als and the gen­er­al pub­lic, fo­cused on hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment. To­day’s ar­ti­cle is writ­ten by Lu­cent Re­search Lim­it­ed man­ag­ing mirec­tor Ra­mon Gre­gio. Learn more about HRMATT by vis­it­ing our web­site: www.hrmatt.com. Fol­low us on Face­book, LinkedIn, In­sta­gram and Twit­ter. Con­tact us at: 687-5523 or via email: sec­re­tari­at@hrmatt.com