PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 314 - The Employer Health Care Benefits Update for 2018

HR Happy Hour 314 - The Employer Health Care Benefits Update for 2018

Host: Steve Boese

Guest: Shandon Fowler

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve is joined by Shandon Fowler, Founder and Principal of Four8 Insights, a benefits technology and communication consultancy based in Charleston, South Carolina to talk about important employer health care benefits issues, trends, and what HR and Benefits pros need to know in 2018.

On the show, Steve and Shan reviewed what the changes in the ACA and other regulations have meant for employers in 2017 and so far in 2018, how employers might be shifting (at least some) of the traditional employer-based health care benefits back to employees themselves, and what the recent Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway announcement about their intentions to form a 'new' kind of company to help provide health care and benefits to their 1.1M combined employees might mean for the future of employer-based health benefits.

Shan also shared he is the best selling author of an advice book for Grooms, (and is very popular in Slovenia), Malcolm Gladwell and the concept of the 'Risk Pool', and (shameless plug), why the HR Technology Conference is so awesome, (use my code STEVE300 for $300 off your registration).This was a fun show - thanks so much to Shan for coming on.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, your favorite podcast app, or the widget player below:

Thanks to HR Happy Hour Show sponsor Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com

Subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show wherever you get your podcasts - just search for 'HR Happy Hour'.

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1. Tariffs: I am not an economist, and I don't even play one on TV. But these blanket tariffs, (code for taxes), sort of feel wrong to me. It is super complicated for sure, but the idea that in 2018 we (America), wants to value one kind of industry over another, mostly based on some romanticized recollection of the past, is misguided. We will see how this pans out of course, and like lots of these kinds of things the impacts will likely be less dramatic in the real world than the current headlines suggest.

2. TECH: Yesterday I shared some data about the growth and marker share of the 'smart speaker' market - Echo, Google Home, etc. I am incredibly bullish on how these devices and voice assistants in general are going to impact workplace tech. In my down time I have been working on a little project for the Amazon Alexa platform that I hope to get launched in the next week or two. Stay tuned for that.

3. Winter: it is still snowing here in Western NY. That is not surprising so it can't really be described as disappointing. It is sad though. A few items below there's another observation about Rochester, NY that will make more sense when considering how long and cold and miserable the winters can be here.

4. HR Happy Hour: Lots of great stuff on the HR Happy Hour Show and the HHH family of shows. Go to the HR Happy Hour Show Page to get caught up, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We started the HR Happy Hour way back in 2009. Amazing it is still going strong after all this time.

5. Sports: I have never been less interested in my New York Knicks. Once franchise player (and hopefully savior), Kristaps Porzingis went down injured the team has become simply unwatchable. I think I can name more players on the US Olympic Curling Team than I can on the current Knicks. Dreadful.

6. JOBS: Writing this over a coffee as the monthly US Employment report hit the news. Wow - 313,000 jobs added in February 2018. That's a huge number. Unemployment rate held at 4.1% due to lots more people re-entering the labor force - makes sense since the economy is adding so many jobs. Have fun recruiting for those 'hard to fill' positions. Maybe, just maybe it's time to raise wages?

7. Location: On the same CNBC show that I caught the Jobs report update, one of the 'expert' analysts was discussing job and skills training, and the role of the private sector vs. the public sector with respect to re-skilling workers who are impacted by automation and shifting labor market needs. My ears perked up when explaining why companies need to 'own' training current and future workers he remarked, 'Let's say you own a company in Rochester, NY, (NOTE: Where I live). No one is relocating to Rochester, NY to take your open jobs. You have to re-train the people who are already there if you want to fill those jobs." Ouch. Probably more or less true. I am about 15 months from getting out of here myself.

8. Oscars: Trish and I did pretty well on our Academy Awards Predictions on the Happy Hour. Sufjan Stevens was robbed in the Best Song category though. (Embed below, email and RSS subscribers click through)

9. Social Media note of note: I have pared down my social media use to (mostly automated/scheduled) Twitter updates and (oddly enough) posting travel pics on the Chinese social media app WeChat. Over a decade on various social apps has me burned out from them. I have not logged in to Facebook in probably a year, (although links to the blog still post there) and stopped posting (and checking) Instagram last summer. Not that anyone cares. But once in a while someone tries to get in touch with me on one of those apps and I just wanted to let anyone who does care know that I don't see any those messages. I kind of feel like I'm not alone in drifting off in terms of social media use/addiction. Who knows, maybe blogs will stage a comeback!

10. FOOD: Shamrock Shakes are back. Enough said.

Have a great weekend!

REVISITED: Podcast - The Benefits of Hiring Disabled Candidates

Quick reminder and a re-visiting of an HR Happy Hour Show that we did towards the end of 2017 on an issue that continues to be in the news and is more and more important in a tight labor market - programs and processes that make employment opportunities more accessible to disabled candidates.

Here's just a bit from a long piece that ran the other day on USA Today - Willing and able: Disabled workers prove their value in a tight labor market

With the low 4.1% unemployment rate making it tougher for employers to hire and retain workers, more are bringing on Americans with disabilities who had long struggled to find jobs. Many firms are modifying traditional interviews that filter out candidates with less-refined social skills and transferring some job duties to other staffers to accommodate the strengths of people with disabilities.

"There’s a growing cadre of companies that look at people with disabilities as an untapped talent pool,” says Carol Glazer, CEO of the National Organization on Disability. “When people spend their entire lives solving problems in a world that wasn’t built for them, that’s an attribute that can be translated into high productivity in the workforce.”

The piece, (and you should really read the entire thing), highlights some examples from employers such as CVS, Microsoft, and PwC and how they have adapted job roles and functions, recruiting and screening processes, and manager education in order to make more employment opportunities available to disabled workers.

Additionally, I want to re-share and point you to a HR Happy Hour Show we did on this topicin December 2017. Our guest was Dan Peltz, Founder and Director of Shift NJ - an organization that helps candidates of all ability levels to connect with employers and find meaningful work. 

Shift New Jersey was created to empower individuals. Dan and the team individuals of all ability levels maximize their potential through employment, skills training, counseling, and case management. They assist adults in preparing for college, employment, and independent living by helping them develop the vision, mindset, action steps, skills, and experience necessary to become successful.

On the show, Dan described how Shift NJ works with candidates and employers to find employment opportunities, help build skills and capabilities of candidates that may have some challenges in finding positions, and how they support both the individuals and the organizations to make these programs and placements work for everyone.

Additionally, Dan shared examples of how large employers like Amazon are working with agencies like Shift NJ to place more candidates into open roles, and how they are proactively seeking to expand their candidate pools.

Finally, Dan shared how HR leaders in any location can get started with these programs and how they benefit the organization and community overall.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or by using the widget player below:

This was an interesting and important show - hope you can take some time to listen if you missed it the first time. Learn more at the Shift NJ site .

Have a great day!

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 313 - The HR Happy Hour 2018 Oscars Preview and Predictions Show

HR Happy Hour 313 - The HR Happy Hour 2018 Oscars Preview and Predictions Show

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish return with their Annual Academy Awards Preview and Predictions Show, a tradition on the HR Happy Hour from at least 1983. Steve and Trish break down all the important Oscar categories - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Leading and Supporting Actor and Actress, and share some commentary, opinions, and predictions on who will walk away with the statues on Sunday night.

In addition to sharing who we think will walk away as winners, and who deserves to be recognized, we also shared our top snubs as well as which actors, actresses, and movies don't belong in the Oscar mix.

Steve also shared he was recording from some mysterious, undisclosed location, (sounded like he was in a closet), we teased a new show coming soon to the HR Happy Hour Podcast Network, we talked about how a great actor or actress can elevate kind of average material, and what makes for a truly memorable movie and movie-going experience.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or by using the widget player below:

This was a tremendously fun show, it is every year, and thanks to our loyal HR Happy Hour listeners for hanging out with us as we talk about something other than HR for a change.

Thanks to show sponsor Virgin Pulse - www.virginpulse.com.

Subscribe to the HR Happy Hour wherever you get your podcasts - just search for 'HR Happy Hour'.

PODCAST: #HRHappyHour 312: HR Tech Startup Spotlight: Disco

HR Happy Hour 312 - HR Tech Startup Spotlight: Disco

Host: Steve Boese

Guests: Justin Vandehey, Veronica Belmont from Disco

Listen HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve kicks off a new series, the HR Tech Startup Spotlight with Justin Vandehey and Veronica Belmont from Disco, an AI-based engagement and recognition platform based team collaboration tools like Slack and MS Teams,

On the show, Justin and Veronica shared the story of Disco, how the idea to create a new kind of employee engagement and recognition based on collaboration tools that employees were already using to get work done came to be, and how making recognition easy, real-time, in context of normal workflows, and tied back to company values is proving to be so powerful.

Disco has been developed in a way where it can be enabled and adopted inside organizations so easily and in a grassroots kind of manner that it served to democratize HR tech, in a way that legacy platforms for recognition and feedback can't really match, which is really novel and cool.

Additionally, Justin and Veronica shared the benefits adopting organizations are seeing from Disco, how HR leaders can leverage the solution in their organizations, the benefits of an integrated recognition solution, and how some customers are driving improvements in engagement and business outcomes like NPS and customer satisfaction from leveraging increased and measurable recognition programs,

We also learned a new term 'Fart App', Steve previewed next week's HR Happy Hour Oscars Show, and that Veronica has a highly coveted 'first name only' Twitter handle.

You can listen to the show on the show page HERE, or by using the widget player below:

This was a fun show, thanks to Justin and Veronica for joining us.

Learn more about Disco at http://justdisco.com.

Thanks as always to HR Happy Hour Show sponsor Virgin Pulse, learn more at - www.virginpulse.com

And subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show wherever you get your podcasts.