You’d think by now we’d have cracked it. After all, we’ve had years of practice. Endless Teams calls. Countless Zoom meetings. Surely, by 2025, everyone in the workplace should know how to present a document on screen.Apparently, no. For a generation raised on smartphones and social feeds, the inability to navigate a simple screen share is oddly persistent.

We spend most of our waking hours at work. That’s far too much life to live with only half of who we are. It’s time to retire the idea that being ‘yourself’ at work is risky. The real risk is pretending for so long that you forget who that self really is.Somewhere along the line, we absorbed the idea that professionalism requires performance. Over time, this creates a quiet divide in our identity. Leaders have a role to play in this.

Strategy sets out the end goals. Every activity, no matter how large or small, must work towards those. And if some inevitable firefighting is needed along the way it should be addressed as part of that journey. Not as a separate action point. Another reason why there’s so much tactical activity at the expense of sticking to a longer-term strategy is the temptation to chase the data.

To retain people in 2025, we must stop confusing presence with participation. Leaders and their HR departments need to stop relying on reactive retention strategies like knee-jerk counter-offers, perks, or vague new job titles - and start building cultures where people want to stay. That begins with treating engagement not as an HR initiative, but as everyone’s responsibility. Attracting new members, requires little effort.