HRE Column: HCM Trends and How HR Can Take Advantage of Them

Once again, I offer my semi-frequent reminder and pointer for blog readers that I also write a monthly column at Human Resource Executive Online called Inside HR Tech that can be found here.

This month, I take a look at the recently released Deloitte 2017 Global Human Capital Trends Report, which was also the subject of a recent HR Happy Hour Podcast we did with Josh Bersin.  This annual report, now in its 5th year, has emerged as one of the HR and HR Technology industry's 'must-reads', so for the benefit of HR Executive readers that may not (yet) have listened to the podcast, I tried to capture the content and the spirit of the conversation I had with Josh in the HRE column.

So in this month's HR Executive column I examine a a few of the themes or trends that were identified in the Global Human Capital trends Report, and how these trends will help inform and shape the design, development, and deployment of HR and workplace technologies in 2017, and beyond.  This was a fun podcast with Josh, and a fun exercise for me, and I hope you get some ideas and insights from this review as you plan out your year and make your workforce, workplace and HR technology decisions in 2017. 

From the HRE piece:

Recently, Deloitte released its annual Global Human Capital Trends Report, which, in just its fifth year of publication, has become essential annual reading for HR, business and HR-technology leaders. The report combines findings from a comprehensive survey of more than 11,000 respondents, interviews with multiple HR and business leaders, case studies from many leading organizations, and insights from Deloitte's human capital management analysts and consultants. The result is an insightful report that sheds light on trends, challenges, and opportunities for HR and business leaders who are all tasked with driving business results through their people.

I had one of the report's principal authors, Josh Bersin of Bersin by Deloitte, as a guest on my HR Happy Hour Podcast on the day the report launched to discuss some of the key findings. For the benefit of readers who have not (yet) had a chance to listen to that interview, I thought I would share some of it here.

Rethinking the Organization

Building the "organization of the future" was cited by 88 percent of Deloitte's survey respondents as being an important or very important challenge. What is driving this imperative for many HR and business leaders? Primarily, it’s the need for the organization to become more agile, to be able to adapt more quickly to changing market and competitive conditions, and to increasingly embrace new and more flexible forms and sources of talent. The catalyst for at least some of this need is the increased volume and importance of more flexible labor/talent arrangements, i.e. contractors, consultants and other “gig” workers. As these sources of flexible and contingent labor have continued to evolve, HR-technology solutions such as Upwork, Wonolo and Toptal have become increasingly important sources of talent that HR and business leaders are relying upon to execute their rapidly changing workforce needs.

But it is not just the increased reliance on contingents that's driving the need to rethink the organization. The way work gets done in organizations today -- increasingly, via short-term, purpose-built and cross-functional teams, and not in formal, functionally defined hierarchies -- is also forcing HR leaders to reconsider how the organization should be designed. The need for increased agility in the assembling and disassembling of these teams requires HR and talent leaders to have better insights into individuals’ skills, as well as any overall organizational skill deficiencies. The need for robust talent-management, workforce-management, learning and development, and organizational collaboration technologies to support these rapid shifts in organizational dynamics places primary importance on a close connection between business, people and IT strategy in order to ensure that the organization can react as the market demands.

The Employee Experience

On the podcast, Bersin told me "the employee-engagement market is over." On first blush, you might think that was an odd thing to say, given that employee-engagement levels remain persistently low, and most HR and business leaders have bought into the notion that increasing these engagement scores would be a good thing for retention, morale and productivity.

Read the rest at HR Executive online...

If you liked the piece you can sign up over at HRE to get the Inside HR Tech Column emailed to you each month. There is no cost to subscribe, in fact, I may even come over and re-seen you lawn, take the car for a wash, or help you plant your spring flowers. I especially like alstroemelias.

Have a great day!

LEARN A NEW WORD: 'Never Events'

You've probably heard stories over the years of some crazy, unbelievable, and even egregious mistakes made by medical professionals from time to time - things like operating on the 'wrong' body part, leaving a piece of surgical equipment inside the patient, or administering an incorrect medication or dosage that results in really, really bad outcomes. These kinds of mistakes happen, hopefully not too much, but they do, and health care providers have, over time, implemented structural and process changes to try and keep them from re-occurring.

So while you have probably heard about these kinds of mistakes, what you may not know is that in the medical field these kind of mistakes have a definitional term. They are called 'Never events' - "Adverse events that that are serious, largely preventable, and of concern to both the public and health care providers for the purpose of public accountability".

Naming and categorizing these events into the 'never events' bucket has helped health care providers better understand the problems, as well as devise interventions to (hopefully), prevent them from happening in the future. Said differently, once a 'never event' is detected, a different, more rigorous, and more repeatable set of protocols kick in. 

I confess to have never, (no pun intended), heard of the term 'never events' until I read this piece from Slate that is advocating for local law enforcement agencies to adopt the 'never event' approach to solving some of their most challenging problems. And while I don't know anything about law enforcement, or health care, ( or much of anything else really), I kind of like the notion of adapting the approach that the medical field is taking towards these preventable events to other fields.

Would having a list of 'never events' in your business processes, or perhaps stated as the list of behaviors that are so egregious that they simply will not be tolerated, be of benefit beyond literal 'life and death' professions like health care and law enforcement?

I think it would be an interesting exercise to determine what some of the 'never events' might be in any context, if only to think about ways to create structure/environment and design processes to ensure these never events either don't happen at all, or at least can be reduced significantly. Even in an individual, personal context, this might have value.

I will start.

One of my 'never events' could be to have an unreturned or unacknowledged business email with 24hrs of receipt, (I know I am already in trouble).

How might I change my structure and process to ensure this 'never event' does not occur?

I could put on a permanent email auto-responder stating my commitment to answer within 24hrs, setting a clear expectation for myself and the email sender. I also could block times on my calendar each day to dedicate to processing email. And finally, if it gets really bad, I could hire an assistant to triage my email, respond on my behalf as needed, and only forward to me the most important emails, the ones that truly require rapid response.

I am going to think about those things this week. I encourage you to think about your own 'never events' too - in your business, your HR department, and even personally. 

Some things should never, ever happen. Until we recognize which ones, it is hard to stop them from happening again and again.

CHART OF THE DAY: The World Economy in One Chart

You may have seen this chart passed around a week or two ago when it was published on Visual Capitalist, but as I was digging through my 'Read Later' pile over the weekend I felt like it was too good and interesting not to share.

So without further delay,  visual look at the global economy, represented by country contribution to global GDP, and then as you DEMAND, some free comments from me after the data.

(Email and RSS subscribers may need to click through to see the chart, and clicking on the chart will bring you to a much larger version)

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

Really interesting and cool chart, right? Three quick observations from me about what 'normals' like us should be thinking about when looking at the data.

1. Go USA! Ok, not trying to be too much of a cheerleader here. But while many other economies (namely China, but I will get to that in a second), have emerged on the world stage in the last twenty or thirty years, the USA still accounts for a shade under a quarter of World GDP. This is important for organizations, particularly US-based or centric organizations to remember even as they make their plans for international expansion. It probably would be a mistake to concentrate too much time and energy on markets that either are relatively small, (say the Netherlands or Spain), or not expected to grow as rapidly in the next ten years, (Germany or the UK).

2. Don't sleep on China, (and to a lesser extent Japan and India). I know that it can be hard for many US businesses to wrap their minds around places like China and Japan. It is hard to to business there. The language and cultural barriers are more significant than say in Western Europe. It may take longer to establish a presence there. But make no mistake, future growth is being defined by what is happening in Asia - not in Western Europe. It may take a little more time, but the organizations that can make the investments, get in front of their competition, will be better equipped to capitalize in the parts of the world that are growing the fastest. 

3. Perspective is really the biggest takeaway from a chart like this I think. We can, here in the US, get really full of ourselves,(see above), and it is a good reminder that even as the largest economy, more than 75% of economic activity is happening elsewhere. Insert your own country in the above sentence and the percentages get even more sharp. Places that we think of as economic leaders like Germany and the UK contribute less than 5% each to global GDP, while seemingly set up for being surpassed soon by places like India and South Korea. None of us are all that big a deal.

Anyway, that's it from me for a busy Monday - have a great week!

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 277 - The Deloitte 2017 Global Human Capital Trends Report

HR Happy Hour 277 - The 2017 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Report

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Josh Bersin, Bersin by Deloitte

Listen to the show HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, we are joined by Josh Bersin, of Bersin by Deloitte, a leading consulting, research and advisory company to talk about some of the key findings and insights from the just released Deloitte 2017 Human Capital Trends Report.

This annual report, now in its fifth year, looks at the key challenges, trends, and opportunities for HR and business leaders and serves as an educational resource and guide for HR leaders to help them think about their human capital challenges and how they might respond to these challenges.

This year's report shared 10 Key Human Capital Trends and on the show, Josh talked about three of them in more detail - The Organization of the Future, The Employee Experience, and Diversity and Inclusion - all major themes of the report and ones that many organizations are tackling in 2017. Josh shared some insights from the research, (over 10,000 respondents), as well as from case studies, inteviews and additional research in these areas. Finally, Josh shared his recommendations for HR leaders on how to best utilize the information in the Global Human Capital Trends Report and how it can help guide conversations, prioritization, and HR strategy.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or by using the widget player below, (email and RSS subscribers click through)

This was a fun and interesting show, thanks to Josh for taking the time to join us.

Get the Deloitte 2017 Global Human Capital Trends Report here - highly recommend it to help understand and plan for the challenges ahead.

Remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, Stitcher Radio and all the podcast apps - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to subscribe and never miss a show.

One type of consumer debt is at a record high, and it could impact your Employee Benefits strategy

Quick shot for a busy, 'Did I just read the wrong Best Picture winner?' Monday.

From our pals at Bloomberg, reporting on the recently released Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit out of the Federal Reserve of New York.

Total U.S. student debt hit a record $1.31 trillion last year, the 18th consecutive year Americans' education debt rose, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Outstanding loans taken out for higher education have doubled since 2009, data show. No other form of household debt has increased by as much since then. In fact, of the six major categories of consumer debt tracked by the New York Fed, only student loans and auto debt have increased since year-end 2008 (total auto loans are up 46 percent). Total household debt has fallen by 1 percent

There are some more interesting nuggets on what is happening with student debt in the New York Fed report, including the fact that among the five major types of household debt (mortgage, home equity, student, auto, and credit card), student loan debt has the highest percentage (11.2%) classified as 'seriously delinquent', i.e. over 90 days late.

Finally, this chart from the Bloomberg piece illustrates how much faster student debt has risen compared to the other forms of household debt since 2008:

Add all of this up and it points to an environment where student loan debt loads are increasing, former students are having a tougher time keeping current on repayments, and many if not most of your newest employees are walking into their brand new jobs in a state of financial difficulty. 

A number of organizations have responded to these circumstances by offering student loan repayment assistance or contributions as a part of their benefits offerings. According to Time.com, Chegg, Penguin Random House, and Aetna are among the companies that have implemented schemes that contribute to employee's student loan repayments. And a number of technology/services offerings from providers like Gradifi, Student Loan Genius, Tuition.io, and SoFi are marketing these programs and schemes to employers.

It seems pretty likely that the student loan debt crisis is not going away any time soon, (has any college or university ever cut tuition prices?), and that candidates increasingly burdened by debt will begin to actively seek employment opportunities that both recognize and can offer assistance to them in this area. 

Sure, offering student loan payment assistance as a new benefit will come off as just a 'cost', at least in the sort term. But looking at it from a wider angle, it could be an important differentiator in candidate attraction and employee retention. 

And it could be that along with the other early adopter companies mentioned above, you can finally get in front of a trend for once, instead of having to chase it three years from now.

Happy Monday - have a great week!