Executive Summary
It has been a turbulent start to 2025 as U.S. employers scramble to adapt to new executive orders, sweeping changes at federal agencies and a growing patchwork of workplace regulations at the state and local levels.
To understand how businesses are navigating these disruptions, Littler surveyed nearly 350 in house lawyers, business executives and human resources (HR) professionals—36% of whom hold C-suite positions at their organizations. Respondents are based across the U.S. and represent a range of company sizes and industries, including technology, manufacturing, retail, healthcare and hospitality.
The findings illustrate that topics dominating the headlines—including immigration and inclusion, equity and diversity (IE&D)—are creating significant challenges for employers both from a workforce management and legal perspective. These hurdles loom even as expectations of looser regulations in other areas might afford employers some relief.
IE&D SCRUTINY AND IMMIGRATION POLICY EMERGE AS TOP CONCERNS
With the Trump administration's focus on immigration and IE&D, these are the areas where respondents most expect policy changes will impact their businesses. But the gravity of these impacts may be surprising.
Nearly 85% of employers, for instance, say that changes to workplace regulations and policies surrounding IE&D will impact their businesses during the first year of the Trump administration, followed by changes in the areas of immigration (75%) and LGBTQ+ protections (58%). All other areas we asked about drew selections from fewer than half of respondents.
The business impact carries over to prospective litigation as well: Two of the top three areas of concern are litigation relating to discrimination and harassment claims (63%) and IE&D practices (45%, up from 24% last year). Large organizations—those with over 10,000 employees—are particularly concerned, especially about IE&D-related litigation (60%).
Despite these challenges, 45% of respondents say their organizations are not considering new or further rollbacks of their IE&D programs in response to executive orders issued by the Trump administration. Just over half (55%) are considering changes to some extent, with only 7% doing so to a large extent—generally in keeping with the findings of Littler's 2025 Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity C-Suite Survey Report, which was released in February.
On the immigration front, while employers brace for an expected increase in audits and raids from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), they could risk underestimating the impact of Trump's policies on legal immigration, which declined by about 40% during the president's first term. This could have costly consequences for employers, 58% of whom expressed concern about potential staffing challenges resulting from the administration's immigration policies.
FEDERAL AGENCY ENFORCEMENT EXPECTED TO LOOSEN, BUT STATES CONTINUE TO DRIVE EMPLOYMENT LAW CHANGE
This year's survey shows that while employers anticipate heightened legal and regulatory scrutiny in some areas, they expect less scrutiny in others amid the federal government's shifting priorities.
Under a more management-friendly National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), for instance, employers' level of concern about NLRB enforcement fell considerably, with 56% now anticipating an impact on their businesses over the next year, down from 73% in our 2024 survey. Additionally, fewer than half of respondents expect changes to workplace policy and regulation related to wage and hour / pay practices (43%) and artificial intelligence (AI) use in the workplace (42%) during the first year of the Trump administration.
This is understandable, given that the NLRB's new acting general counsel has rolled back several memoranda issued by his predecessor, while recent executive orders rescinded Biden-era guardrails around AI and minimum wage increases for federal contractors.
State and local policymakers, however, are expected to fill the gap. More than 8 in ten respondents anticipate an increase in legislation and regulation at the state and local levels that will impact their workplaces in the year to come. If 2024 is any indication, this new legislation and regulation could involve AI use in the workplace, bans on employer-sponsored "captive audience" meetings, and increases in minimum wage and paid sick leave, among other key issues.
CHANGING WORKPLACE POLICIES: AI, IN-OFFICE WORK AND EMPLOYEE ACCOMMODATIONS
Two important workplace trends covered in the last few iterations of this report—AI usage and the lasting cultural impacts of the pandemic—continue to evolve in the current landscape.
Nearly a third (31%) of all employers surveyed—and 47% of technology organizations—are increasing or plan to increase their use of AI in the workplace in light of today's more lax enforcement regime and/or anticipation of less-stringent regulation from the Trump administration. That's a stark pivot from 2024, when Littler's 2024 AI C-Suite Survey Report found that 73% of executives said their organizations were decreasing their AI usage in HR functions due to regulatory uncertainty. At the same time, 31% of respondents in this year's survey say their organizations still do not have any policies or guidelines to oversee employee use of this technology.
As for employee work schedules, nearly half of respondents whose organizations have positions that can be performed remotely say they have increased in-person work requirements over the past 12 months or are considering doing so. The impact of this ongoing shift appears mixed: On one hand, about half of organizations that have increased their in-office presence say the change has led to subjective improvements, such as improved culture and workplace collaboration. On the other, about a fifth (18%) say they have seen no positive impacts from more in-person work, double the share of respondents that say they have seen no negative impacts.
As plans to increase in-office work advance, employee accommodation requests are also rising, often related to remote work or employee mental health. Amid this influx, half of all respondents and 61% of large employers express concern about workplace accommodation lawsuits over the next year.
In the report that follows, we'll address these and other issues in more depth—including analysis of the rise in religious accommodation requests, shifts at federal agencies like the NLRB and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and use of non-compete agreements.
Click here to tread the full report.
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