Highlights from Lattiverse 2025

On June 3, hundreds of HR leaders gathered in San Francisco for Lattiverse, the seventh edition of Lattice’s annual conference.

Whether it’s navigating AI or reimagining performance management, this year’s Lattiverse explored what it means to lead HR in an age of constant change. In a day full of programming, industry leaders shared their hard-won lessons, tested frameworks, and real-world use cases to help HR teams stay human (and strategic) through it all.

Missed the event? Check out the Lattiverse Presents series to access highlights from the day on demand.

People and AI, Succeeding Together

Kicking off Lattiverse 2025, CEO Sarah Franklin and the Lattice leadership team set the tone with a clear and compelling message: HR isn’t just a steward of culture, it’s the architect of business success. With hundreds of HR leaders in the audience, Franklin spoke directly to the transformation underway in the workplace, where AI is no longer a future concept but an active partner in driving clarity, connection, and growth.

The keynote also marked the official unveiling of a host of new Lattice features, including Lattice’s AI Agent Platform. You can read more about all the products announced here.

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Leading Through Uncertainty With Empathy

Perhaps the most emotionally resonant theme of Lattiverse 2025 was how to lead through change. In Managing Change Like a Human and What’s Next for DEIB?, HR leaders acknowledged the toll of uncertainty on themselves and their teams.

With restructures, layoffs, and executive orders putting pressure on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEIB) programming nationwide, the past year has demanded clarity, compassion, and courage. Panelists shared real strategies for communicating change, scripting messages with empathy, and creating space for emotional processing. They also reminded attendees that HR professionals are humans, too, and need room to process their own reactions before guiding others.

“You need to process change. We’re employees, too — we need to sit with that. There is going to be some kind of emotional impact, and you need to take care of yourself first,” said Morgan Williams, CEO of PeakHR.‍‍

Generational Shifts and HR’s Cutting Edge

Lattiverse wasn’t just about reflecting on the state of the workplace today, but preparing for what it will look like tomorrow. Case in point, in Next-Gen HR and The 4-Day Workweek: What It Really Takes, speakers discussed how expectations are changing around flexibility, feedback, and workplace culture.

One key theme: Gen Z craves transparency, autonomy, and values-driven leadership. They’re not just looking for free snacks or unlimited PTO. They want clarity on how their work matters, how they’re being evaluated, and how the company lives up to its mission. And of course, the topic of return-to-office (RTO) mandates came up more than once.

"Rising and recent grads want to be in the office. They’re dying to be in the office. But they don’t want to be there five days a week," said Heather Redisch, Founder of the Talent Maven and Adulting 101 Masterclass.

In The 4-Day Workweek: What It Really Takes, leaders from Connect&Go and ThredUP also shared how implementing a four-day workweek wasn't about a gimmick — it was a rigorous operational shift grounded in trust, feedback, and DEIB considerations. Leaders learned that pilot programs, regular check-ins, and clarity around expectations were essential to making it work.

AI, Automation, and the Human Element 

Even outside of the keynote, multiple sessions made it clear that AI isn’t just a tech trend; it’s reshaping HR roles, workflows, and mindsets.

In Future-Proofing HR Careers With AI and AI Upskilling: Turning Skepticism Into Success, speakers shared how they're using AI to automate admin work, personalize policies, and inform strategic decisions without losing the human touch.

Anisha Thomas, head of people at Inscribe, used ChatGPT to plan a company-wide offsite, saving both time and money. Chuck Marcelin, director of HR at Hudson Valley Property Group built AI-powered workflows to analyze workforce data to flag burnout and skill gaps. Meanwhile, teams at MasterClass and Ethena emphasized that AI enablement isn't about technical mastery, but behavioral shifts — inviting experimentation, building psychological safety, and embedding fluency into existing programs.

The takeaway? AI can’t replace HR’s core strength, empathy, but it can supercharge it.

Engagement and Clarity Amid Uncertainty

Economic uncertainty, budget cuts, and change fatigue have made engagement and alignment more elusive, but no less important. Panelists in Engagement? In This Economy? and Rolling Out Goals That Actually Stick challenged the idea that engagement and performance are separate priorities. They're two sides of the same coin.

At Betterment and Sparrow, teams ensured every engagement initiative tied back to business outcomes. At Pursuit, people leaders reimagined goal-setting to be flexible, cross-functional, and deeply human. That means acknowledging mid-quarter changes, canceling goals when needed, and making space for employees to participate in setting their own direction.

For HR, addressing employee needs can be daunting — especially when your survey responses end up calling out a long list of big changes. In cases like those, Deborah Hanus, CEO of Sparrow recommended prioritizing the actions that will drive the biggest impact first.

"You’re not going to be able to action every piece of feedback. But our goal, as leaders, is to create goals that will positively impact the most amount of people possible," Hanus said.

Award-Winning HR Takes Center Stage

Back in 2022, we launched the People Success Awards to honor people leaders around the world for building great workplace cultures, fostering community, and empowering employees to grow and do their best work. For a full listing of winners and highlights, visit our recap of the awards ceremony.

This year in San Francisco, we celebrated a fresh class of award winners, including recipients in each of the following categories:

• ‍The Retainer award went to Valimail‍
• The Innovator award went to Huge‍
• The Growth Accelerator went to Strive Health

Awards weren’t just issued to teams but to individuals for going above and beyond. These individual awards included:

• ‍People Success Visionaries of the Year included Gary Chow, Head of People Operations and Systems at Lyra Health, and Karishma Barua, VP of HR at Fairmarkit‍
• The Fractional Leader of the Year Award went to Lori Osborne of Mindful First HR
• The LattiChamp Award went to Kaitlin Graves, VP of People at PageFreezer‍
• The Resources for Humans Community Member of the Year Award went to Rachel Denyer, co-founder at PeopleStorming.

Those were just the winners unveiled in San Francisco. We’ll be announcing additional People Success Awards winners at our London event on June 10.

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