The clock is ticking toward 2026. While many are thinking about new gym memberships, savvy HR leaders are planning their strategic resolutions for the business.
For years, HR has been fighting to get out of the admin quicksand of compliance, paperwork, and daily fire-fighting. It's an exhausting cycle that leaves little time for the work that truly matters: building culture, developing talent, and caring for your people.
Instead of a long list of 15 priorities, here are three high-impact resolutions to make 2026 your most impactful year yet. These goals will improve your employees' lives and drive tangible business outcomes like lower turnover and higher engagement.
Goal 1: Re-imagine "Well-being" (Hint: It’s More Than Just Health Insurance)
The old model of employee well-being is broken. For decades, a standard health plan and maybe a dental policy were enough. In 2026, that approach is a liability.
Today's workforce demands holistic support covering their physical, mental, and financial well-being. Research from SHRM consistently shows that employee well-being is directly tied to retention, engagement, and organizational performance. Multi-level well-being strategies now outperform traditional, single-focus initiatives.
A 2025-2026 trend report from Robert Half highlights that while salary gets a candidate's attention, it's the benefits package that closes the deal. Employees aren't just looking at deductibles anymore. They're asking about family-caregiving benefits, financial wellness tools, and mental health coverage.
Start by finding out what your employees actually want. Anonymous pulse surveys are essential. Go beyond "Are you satisfied with your benefits?" Ask specific questions like "What one benefit, if offered, would make the biggest positive impact on your life?" You may find that your younger employees are drowning in student loan debt, while your working parents are desperate for dependent care support.
The single best way to meet diverse needs is through choice. Lifestyle Spending Accounts (LSAs) are becoming a game-changer for 2026. An LSA is a non-taxed, employer-funded account that employees can use for wellness-related expenses you define. This means employees can spend their well-being dollars on what matters to them, whether it's a gym membership, a meditation app, financial planning services, or even pet insurance.
The catch? Offering more choice can create more confusion. The key is consolidation. Platforms like Bennie consolidate all these benefits into one simple app, driving up utilization while streamlining your admin experience.
Goal 2: Embrace AI to... Be More Human
"AI in HR 2026" is a top search term for a reason. Gartner reports that harnessing AI is a primary goal for CHROs. It is important to note that AI and automation aren't here to replace strategic HR professionals. They're here to liberate them.
Research shows that HR teams spend 30-60% of their time on repetitive, administrative tasks. That's hundreds of hours a year spent on manual data entry, compliance paperwork, and answering the same benefits questions repeatedly. A 2025 report from Resume.org, noted that 37% of companies expect to have replaced some jobs with AI by the end of 2026. But the real story is what that enables. The most valuable skills in this new world are human-centric: adaptability, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.
Get your team together and map out where the time goes. Benefits enrollment? Answering "What's my deductible?" 50 times during open enrollment. Onboarding? Manually sending paperwork. Payroll? Entering data from one system into another.
Then audit your tech stack for integration. You may have great systems, but if they don't talk to each other, you've just created three times the manual work. In 2026, integration is everything. Look for platforms that create a single source of truth, where an update in one place automatically flows to all the others.
The best use of AI in HR is providing a better employee experience. Think about it: an employee has a benefits question at 8 PM on a Tuesday. They have to email HR and wait. Services like Ask Bennie provide 24/7 benefits support powered by smart technology and backed by human experts. Your employee gets immediate answers. Your HR team gets hours back every week.
Goal 3: Turn Your Managers into "Retention Rockstars"
We've all heard it: "People leave managers, not companies." In 2026, this is more true than ever. You can have the best benefits and the best tech, but if an employee's direct manager is untrained, overwhelmed, or not empathetic, they will leave.
The research from Gallup is undeniable. Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores. Companies that invest strategically in employee development are twice as likely to retain their employees and report 11% greater profitability. In one survey, 21% of employees who voluntarily left their jobs said that more positive interactions with their manager could have convinced them to stay.
And yet, most companies promote their best individual contributors into management roles with little to no training on how to actually lead people.
Stop focusing 100% of your manager training on compliance and legal topics. Those are necessary, but they don't build leaders. Your 2026 curriculum must focus on empathy and emotional intelligence, giving and receiving feedback, recognizing burnout, and career pathing. These are the skills that matter.
Don't just give managers more responsibility, give them better tools. Is your performance review process a 10-page bureaucratic nightmare? Simplify it. Do your managers have easy-to-read dashboards showing their team's engagement? Give them the data they need to have meaningful conversations.
Make development a constant, not a "once-a-year" webinar. Encourage managers to share articles, create peer-mentorship circles, and build their own leadership development into their personal goals.
Make 2026 Your Most Strategic Year Yet
Setting HR goals for 2026 doesn't have to be complicated. By focusing on re-imagining well-being, using AI to be more human, and turning your managers into retention leaders, you'll build a foundation for a healthier, happier, and more productive workforce.
These aren't resolutions to write down and forget by March. These goals have the potential to be the building blocks for making HR the strategic driver of the business that it was always meant to be.
Ready to tackle Goal #1? See how Bennie can help you build a modern, flexible benefits strategy that your employees will actually love in 2026.
