Nine thought leaders map out everything you need

to knowand doin 2016 and beyond.

By Jennifer Benz, John Boudreau, Marcus Buckingham,
Peter Cappelli, Paul DeCamp, Ellen Galinsky,
Jeanne G. Harris, Chris MacDonald and
Danielle Monaghan

ts that time again. As one year slides into the next, HR professionals often
take stock of all that has passed and look ahead at whats to come. Whether
the introspection is personal or professional, the natural question that arises
is: What does it all mean?
We asked nine top business and HR thought leaders to shed some light on the
answer to that question. The essays that follow highlight the most important events
and trends that shaped the workplace and HR in 2015from the proposed overtime rules to performance management innovation to the evolution of workflex
and provide advice on how to respond to them in 2016 and beyond. Our experts
map out everything you need to succeed by competency in the new world of work.
Speaking of new worlds, we invite you to hop into our time machine and travel
even further into the future. What will HR look like in 2025? The five far-out job
descriptions youll find in these pages describe the vision of a group of top CHROs
and thought leaders as part of Project CHREATE (The Global Consortium to Reimagine HR, Employment Alternatives, Talent, and the Enterprise). This initiative
whose goal is to shape the future of the professionis supported by the Society
for Human Resource Management, the National Academy of Human Resources,
PricewaterhouseCoopers and HR People + Strategy.
One thing is clear: As the business world evolves to become more complex and
global, HR will not be about just HR anymore. The next generation of leaders will
need skills in marketing and brand management, information technology, finance,
corporate relations, and even community activism. And so, as the calendar flips to
another year, we wish you a very happy new HR.
The following individuals led the team that developed the job descriptions in this article:
John Boudreau, Deb Engel, Scott Pitasky, Jeff Pon and Ian Ziskin.
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December 2015/January 2016

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

Leadership and Navigation:

Its All About Teams
Effectively leading organizations means getting the right tools to the right people.
By Marcus Buckingham

n 2016, most CEOs will tell you that talent is their organizations most precious asset and that their culture is their
best competitive advantage. Yet for many companies there
remains a gaping hole between that rhetoric and reality.
This presents a tremendous leadership opportunity for HR,
the one team that touches all parts of an organization. HR professionals are in a prime position to assess what the most productive and engaged teams are doingand to build a culture
around them. Here are four ways to do that in 2016:
Serve the organization by serving the team leader.
Engagement is driven by team leaders. Yet in most organizations, HR measures engagement in an annual survey, with
team leaders getting their data months later. HR professionals
must put the right tools in the right hands, which means developing strong relationships with team leaders.
Engage in dynamic teaming. Teaming today is shifting
rapidly as new employment models emerge and more workers think
of jobs as short-term gigs rather
than lifelong journeys. Our tools
should reflect this reality, rather
than being deployed through
static, hierarchical boxes on an
org chart.
If we dont have the agility to
keep up with dynamic teams in
real time, were acting on data
thats out-of-date or irrelevant.
Gather real-time, reliable metrics. Most engagement
surveys ask a long series of questions that show no correlation
to retention or improved performance.
To address this disconnect, we must identify the questions that
drive the outcomes we want and put the data back in the hands of
team leaders to deploy right now. Mission Health and Hampton
Hotels are great examples of companies getting this right.
In addition, as many organizations are discovering, performance assessment is in need of an overhaul. General Electric,
Accenture and Deloitte this year joined a growing number of
companies in abandoning traditional annual performance
reviews. While theres certainly a need for innovation, doing

away with ratings altogether is not viable. Organizations will

always need a way to differentiate talent.
Yet we know that rating people based on goals produces bad
data. In fact, studies show that 61 percent of a performance assessment reflects the person assigning the rating rather than the one
being evaluated.
Fortunately, we can accurately assess peoples own intentions. To gather good performance data, regularly ask team
leaders a few questions about their plans for every team member: Who deserves a promotion? Who needs more training?
By aggregating the data, the organization will see, quarter by
quarter, what to do with each person.
Employ machine-learning algorithms. Once we have
the right methods in place, our systems should be smart enough
to learn, over time, the rating patterns of each individual. That
will help neutralize peoples inescapable biases.

If we dont have the agility to

keep up with dynamic teams in
real time, were acting on data
thats out-of-date or irrelevant.
We can even apply algorithms to measure individuals
strengths, thereby ensuring that all training and coaching
fits each persons particular style and talents. Facebook has
adopted an approach like this and infused it through the company at the team leader level.
To build high-functioning organizations, we must identify the
best teams and build more just like them. If HR professionals can
do that, they will lead their organizations to greatness in 2016.
Marcus Buckingham is founder of engagement and performance
solution company TMBC, a best-selling author, and a leadership
thought leader.

December 2015/January 2016

HR Magazine

29

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

Relationship Management: The New Flexibility

You may think of employees as resources or capital, but above all they are people. Plan
your business accordingly.
By Ellen Galinsky

orkplace flexibility is one of the defining issues

of our day. To attract and retain the best talent, companies must think of employees as
whole people. Doing so is also key to strengthening our relationships with and engaging our employees. In
an era when job-hopping has become the norm, thats critically
important. Here are four trends HR professionals should consider heading into 2016:
Flexibility is no longer seen as a perk but more as a
solid business strategy. Todays workers see flexibility as
essential. According to data from the Families and Work Institute (FWI), 88 percent of employees report that having flexibility
is extremely or very important in considering a job offer.
Employers are listening. In 2015, hardly a day passed
when companies werent upping
the ante for parental leavefrom
Accenture announcing that new parents wont have to travel for a year
after their childs birth to Microsoft increasing its fully paid parental leave to 12 weeks. And Netflix
topped them all by announcing fully
paid parental leave for a year.
There is a business payoff for
providing these benefits. In March,
mobile telecom company Vodafone
announced that all 30 of its global
companies would offer at least 16
weeks of paid leave to new mothers
and enable them to work 30 hours a
week at full pay for six months after
returning. According to research
Vodafone commissioned from KPMG,
global businesses could save up to $19
billion annually by following Vodafones lead. The company also reports
that it is seeing improvements in
engagement and applicant quality.
Providing flexibility is not
a check-the-box solution. While
some companies pay lip service to
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December 2015/January 2016

flexibility by providing some kind of policy to check the

box, our studies show that these practices will only improve
engagement, job satisfaction and retention if they occur
within a culture of flexibility. That means managers and HR
must actively support flexible solutions, showcase examples
of success and model the behavior they wish to see.
Flexibility is just one part of an effective workplace. In studies of the U.S. workforce, FWI determined
six factors that are critical to predicting engagement, retention, job satisfaction and health: 1) workplace flexibility
and a culture that supports it; 2) opportunities for learning; 3) autonomy; 4) supervisor support for success; 5) a
culture of trust; and 6) satisfaction with earnings, benefits
and advancement. We call the employers with all six characteristics effective workplaces. Thats
the type of environment HR must strive
to create.
HR needs to provide real choices.
Flexibility is not just a womens issue,
although it often arises during the debate
over womens roles. For example, the
news that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer
planned to take a very short leave after
delivering twins spurred discussion
this year about how female executives
should manage work and home.
However, it should also be noted that
most employees dont have the financial
resources that Marissa Mayer hasand
that needs to be addressed. FWI research
indicates that what all employees need are
real choices. When low-income employees
work in flexible and effective workplaces,
the payoff for companies can be more
powerful than it is for more-advantaged
employees. As HR professionals know,
when our employees win, we all do.
Ellen Galinsky is president and co-founder of
the Families and Work Institute in New York
City.

JOB OF THE FUTURE:

Virtual Culture

ARCHITECT

Culture advocate.
Brand-builder.
Connector of employees
purpose with the companys
purpose.
Communicator of values,
norms and beliefs through
virtual and personal means.

December 2015/January 2016

HR Magazine

31

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

Consultation:
Preparing Your
Company for the
New Overtime Rules
How to guide your business on the biggest
potential regulatory change of the year.
By Paul DeCamp

hen the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)

released its proposed overtime regulations in
late June, it sent shock waves through the HR
world. Now its time to master the skill of
consultation by guiding others on what to expect in 2016.
In short, the DOL plans to more than double the minimum annual salary for executive, administrative and professional overtime exemptions to $50,440 from $23,660. The
threshold for highly compensated employees would rise to
$122,148 from $100,000. Both amounts would be adjusted
annually thereafter. The department
plans to issue a final rule sometime in
2016, with an effective date 60 to 120
days after publication.
If the final rule resembles the proposed one, these regulations will not
affect all businesses evenly. If your
company operates in lower-wage
markets, such as the South, the Midwest and rural areas, you will likely
bear a heavier burden. The same is
true in industries with many managers who earn less than $50,000, such
as retail, restaurants, health care and
manufacturing.
In many companies, the reclassification may result only in operational changesthat is, modified job
duties, schedules and staffing levels,
for example. Employees reclassified
from exempt to nonexempt will likely
see their scheduled hoursand overall
paydecline as employers rearrange
work schedules to avoid incurring
high overtime costs. In the long run,
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December 2015/January 2016

the regulations will transfer working hours and pay from the
workers who face reclassification to other employees or new
hires. Make no mistake: This will lead to many unhappy peoplewhich will in turn spur more employment litigation of
all types, not merely wage and hour claims.
To prepare for the coming changes, focus on these three
priorities:
Assess the scope of the issue for your organization.
Identify all exempt workers with a salary below $50,440.
Then, to the extent that your company relies on the highly
compensated employee exemption, do the same for everyone
earning between $100,000 and $122,148 per year.
Develop a strategy for managing conversions to
nonexempt status. For workers who earn close to the new
minimum salary, it may make sense to raise their salaries to
$50,440. If thats not feasible, work with your operations
team to plan on paying them as nonexempts. Start by asking
these questions:
How many hours do these employees currently work? If
you dont know, consider tracking their time.
Will post-conversion pay and working hours replicate
an employees current situation, or will you need to restrict
schedules at or near 40 hours?
Will you base the new hourly rate on annual salary
divided by 2,080 (40 hours a week 52 weeks) and just
eat the overtime expenses? Will the hourly rate assume an
employee will work a certain amount of
overtime?
Will you need to reassign certain
tasks to other workers?
Ensure that your approach is consistent across the organization. These
decisions should not be one-off calls
made by managers.
Communicate with employees.
Your workforce is probably already
abuzz about this issue. Those in the
reclassification zone may feel anxious
about what they perceive as a demotion.
Reassure employees that no final rules
are out yet and that you will continue
to monitor these developments. That
will go a long way toward alleviating
their concerns and maintaining positive
morale in 2016 and beyond.

Paul DeCamp is a shareholder in the

Washington, D.C., region office of Jackson
Lewis P.C. and previously served as
administrator of the U.S. Department of
Labors Wage and Hour Division.

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

HR Expertise: Facing the Future of Work

A look at tomorrows HR today.
By John Boudreau

s this years headlines proved, there is no shortage of criticisms of HR. Whether the reproaches
came from the popular or business press, it seemed
everyone wanted to share why they think HR is
hated, unnecessary or ill-equipped for the challenges ahead.
But wouldnt you rather hear about the future of our profession
from the people who are actually leading it?
Thats what Project CHREATE (The Global Consortium
to Reimagine HR, Employment Alternatives, Talent, and the
Enterprisechreate.net) sought to do when it began in 2013.
Through interviews, focus groups and research reviews, more
than two dozen top HR executives revealed this year how
they think HR should evolve over the next decade. The group
included CHROs representing many industries in the public
and private sectors, including Disney, Gap, LinkedIn, Shutterfly, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM),
Starbucks and others.
As it turns out, HRs toughest critics may be themselves.
Our own leaders often rated HRs effectiveness lower than
those outside the field. Even some of the worlds most accomplished CHROs indicated an urgent need for HR to improve its
ability to keep up with the demands of a
rapidly changing world. The project team
identified five forces shaping the future
of workand how HR leaders must
address them.
Exponential technological
change. The rapid adoption of sensors, autonomous vehicles and artificial
intelligence will trigger a fundamental
rethinking of work. HR leaders must be
equipped to manage flexible and transient workforces that can adapt to continual change, including frequent job loss
and obsolescence of skills.
Social and organizational reconfiguration. The democratization of
work will shift power away from traditional hierarchies toward more-balanced
organizations. As work relationships
become less employment-based and more
project-based, HR will need to source
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HR Magazine

December 2015/January 2016

and engage talent in diverse work arrangements that include

more part-time, freelance and crowdsourced workers.
A truly connected world. The world will be increasingly
linked through mobile devices and the cloud, allowing work
to be done anywhere, anytime. It will be up to HR to manage
newly defined talent systems that support a distributed global
workforce.
An all-inclusive global talent market. Work will be
seamlessly distributed around the globe, and women and nonwhite ethnicities will become talent majorities. Moreover,
as people live longer and healthier lives, their work lives will
extend as well. In response, CHROs must lead organizations in
segmenting their workforces and directing tasks to the best talent, whether inside or outside the company. Theyll also need to
address cultural preferences in policies, work design, pay and
benefits.
Human/machine collaboration. Advances in analytics, algorithms and automation will improve productivity and
decision-making. The challenge for our leaders? To successfully migrate tasks from people to machines or robots and use
big data to find the optimal human/machine balance.
These are not roles traditionally associated with HR, yet its critical that our
leaders take them on by 2025. The SHRM
Competency Model represents substantial
progress toward preparing HR leaders to
succeed. At the same time, we must keep
thinking beyond our conventional notions
of HRs goals and responsibilities. Thats
the only way to ensure that our leaders are
poised to tackle the demands of tomorrows world as well.
John Boudreau is a professor at the Marshall
School of Business, and a professor and
research director at the Center for Effective
Organizations, at the University of Southern
California.
This article was adapted from an essay that
appeared in the fall 2015 issue of People +
Strategy, published by HR People + Strategy,
titled HR at the Tipping Point: The
Paradoxical Future of Our Profession.

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

Critical Evaluation:
Put Your Analytics into Action
Forget the quick fix and focus on building HRs analytic capability.
By Jeanne G. Harris

etrics and big data have transformed many

business functions, from marketing to operations. As a result, business leaders have high (but
thus far largely unmet) expectations for how
analytics should revolutionize HR as well. In 2016 and beyond,
rising to the challenge will require HR professionals to develop
their own quantitative skills and to work collaboratively with
data scientists, IT staff and technology vendors. Indeed, forging strong partnerships will be key to adopting a data-driven
approach to HR management.
Many HR departments have taken small
steps in the right direction by buying more
data, purchasing software, hiring quantitative analysts, incorporating social media
into recruiting efforts,
piloting big-data projects or sending a few
people to seminars. While those actions can be a good start, they
are just thata beginning from which HR professionals must
build in order to truly develop their analytic capability. Analytics is a muscle we build, says Elpida Ormanidou, vice president
of global people analytics at Wal-Mart. You cannot buy yourself into an analytics capability.
Of course, the companies that lead in HR analytics, including Google and Wal-Mart, do make healthy investments in analytical technology and hire teams that have the specialized skills
required to understand it. But theyve also invested the time and
effort required to craft sound long-term strategies
around their data. Heres what HR should do in
2016 to help their organizations get real value from
HR analytics:
Develop your companys analytical literacy.
Hiring for specialized skills can help bridge a shortterm need. But HR practitioners and business decision-makers need training to become both data-literatethat is, able to find, manipulate, manage and

interpret relevant dataand numerate, or conversant in a range

of quantitative disciplines. These skills are the prerequisite to
asking smart questions and evaluating possible answers.
Use diverse teams to solve major talent challenges. Analysts love an audacious challenge, so charge them with attaining
bold outcomes rather than posing narrow questionsand encourage them to work with others to realize those outcomes. Contrary
to the stereotype of an analyst working alone, leaders at British
Airways, Monster, Wal-Mart and other enterprises have found
that teams with diverse skills and backgrounds tend to generate
better, more-innovative solutions. Bringing
together analysts from
several quantitative disciplines with business
decision-makers and
HR practitioners has the
added benefit of generating useful knowledge
transfer for both analysts
and HR.
Focus on big results, not analysis. Reports and even
new insights dont solve problems. HR needs to go more than
halfway to bring insights, ideas and solutions to the business,
Ormanidou advises. Getting the insights is the easy part. Our
biggest challenges are how to communicate and operationalize
those insights. HR professionals must be accountable for outcomes, working alongside business managers to craft innovative
strategies that put insights into action.
Buying a new software solution is easy, but it is time for HR to
forget about quick fixes. Only by building a real analytic capability can HR professionals become the proactive, datadriven critical thinkers and business leaders that their
organizations need.

In 2016 and beyond, rising to the

challenge will require HR professionals
to develop their own quantitative skills
and to work collaboratively with data
scientists, IT staff and technology vendors.

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HR Magazine

December 2015/January 2016

Jeanne G. Harris is on the faculty of Columbia University

and co-author of Analytics at Work (Harvard Business
School Press, 2010) and Competing on Analytics
(Harvard Business School Press, 2007). She is former
global managing director of IT and analytics research at
the Accenture Institute for High Performance.

JOB OF THE FUTURE:

Data, Talent & Technology

INTEGRATOR

Forecaster of skills, driven

by technology.
Adopter of productivity
technology.
Talent data and
analytics modeler and
decision-maker.
Coder who can adjust
algorithms.
Connector who joins
technology, automation and
human contributions.

December 2015/January 2016

HR Magazine

37

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

Global and Cultural Effectiveness:

Recruiting Is Social and Talent Is Local
The world is changingand HR needs to change with it.
By Danielle Monaghan

Prediction is very
difficult, especially if its
about the future.
Niels Bohr

ith this quote as a caveat, lets look at what

global people trends lie ahead in 2016
namely, the rise of social and mobile recruiting
worldwide and the clarion call to build global
talent pools for highly skilled labor. Understanding these developments is critical to cultivating ones competency in global
and cultural effectiveness.
Mobile recruiting is poised to become a primary
global recruiting strategy. For years, weve been hearing
about the importance of building recruiting tools that have
full mobile capability, but this has not yet become mainstream. According to data from Jobsite, Beyond and others,
roughly three-quarters of job seekers are now using smartphones and other devices to research companies, review
career resources and apply to jobs. Moreover, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the tech-savvy Millennial generation will make up half the workforce by 2018, driving
demand even higher.
Even setting aside the Millennial demographic explosion,
the groundswell for mobile recruiting tools
is here. For example, the use of such devices
to research and apply for jobs is becoming
popular among midcareer professionals in
such emerging markets as India, China and
Vietnam. Thus, 2016 may be the year when
mobile job-apply capability evolves from
nice-to-have to must-have around the world.
Are you ready?
Continued globalization and a widening skills gap will require global talent
acquisition strategies. U.S. companies have
been using this approach for hiring senior
technologists for some time, and now India

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HR Magazine

December 2015/January 2016

and China are marshaling their own troops in the war for talentby aggressively recruiting Indian and Chinese returnees
as well as foreign nationals.
To compete, more companies are hiring skilled workers
wherever the talent resides, even if it means dealing with complex immigration and taxation laws. I predict this practice will
become even more critical in 2016, as tech innovations lead to
more new job types and roles and as expertise may not be readily available in the country where a company is headquartered.
Social professional networks will become a significant source of hire. As candidates around the world become
immensely more findableand more comfortable being
foundrecruiters will begin deploying social-centric search
strategies.
Meanwhile, job seekers are quickly learning that social
monitoring can go two ways. Many are using social tools to
learn more about the reputation of a companyor even a managerby reaching out to their networks or perusing rating sites
such as Glassdoor. The days when people blindly applied to
open positions (the so-called spray and pray method) may be
coming to an end.
Social recruiting is quickly taking hold throughout
North America and Asia and in India, the United Kingdom and Germany. More companies will be creating
social recruiting teams within both their HR and marketing functions, and these teams will be focused on having
timely, authentic and targeted interactions with potential
candidates.
While many companies still shy away
from creating a cohesive social recruiting
strategy, mainly out of fear of the unknown,
this is a trend with legs. If your company is
not willing to engage with what job seekers
of the future want, prepare to be left behind.
Danielle Monaghan is head of talent acquisitionconsumer at Amazon in Seattle and a member of
the Society for Human Resource Managements
Global Special Expertise Panel. Originally from
South Africa, she worked in China for many
years in HR positions with Microsoft and Cisco
Systems.

JOB OF THE FUTURE:

Global Talent

SCOUT, CONVENER AND COACH

Talent scout and talent

matcher.
Life coach.
Talent developer.
Expert in new work models
(free agents, contractors,
etc.).
Optimizer of relationships
among workers, work and
the organization.

December 2015/January 2016

HR Magazine

39

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

Ethical Practice:
HR Must Champion a Principled Culture
An ethical culture makes it easier for employees to do the right thing.
By Chris MacDonald

s employers struggle to compete in a global economy, many are experiencing new pressures that
make it harder to consistently do the right thing. An
August New York Times expos described a crushing work environment at Amazon, spurring controversy about
how far a company canand shouldpush its employees to
meet its goals. And while some recent headlines have touted
some companies unlimited vacation policies, others have
depicted an epidemic of overworked employees rarely in a position to take any time off at all, let alone unlimited time.
Meanwhile, straight-up corporate malfeasance is also alive
and well, as demonstrated by the recent Volkswagen emissions
scandal. Global CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned after the
companys employees were found to have deliberately installed software to give falsely low emissions
readings on diesel cars.
Were these employees entirely devoid of any sense
of right and wrong? How much can we blame individuals vs. a cutthroat business environment?
While there are no easy answers, its clear that HR
can play a crucial role in creating and maintaining a
culture that encourages people to do the right thing.
As HR professionals know, a culture is a shared
set of beliefs, practices and traditions that gives
employees a sense of how things are done around here.
But what sets an ethical culture apart? There are four key
characteristics:
An ethical culture embodies a clear set of values that are
embedded in the way business gets done and that are repeated,
explicitly, as often as possible.
Ethical issues are always open for discussion.
Through training and open communication, an ethical culture prepares employees for making good decisions.
It empowers employees to have the courage to act
ethically.
HR teams often are already in charge of ethics training and
writing key policies, including the organizations code of ethics
and conflict-of-interest policy. Even HR decisions and practices
that dont bear the label of ethics can set a tone for principled
behavior.

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HR Magazine

December 2015/January 2016

Every HR decision is an opportunity for the company to do

the right thing as well as to be seen doing the right thing. This
starts, of course, with equity in hiring. When a senior managers
son gets the job instead of the best-qualified candidate, it sends
a powerful signal. Ethics in HR also extends to the details of
benefits programs, to the openness of employee communications, and ultimately to fairness in discipline and firing. Its up
to HR professionals to ensure that all employees are treated
in a humane manner, whether that means protecting them
from bullying supervisors or ensuring that they arent working
around the clock. HR must balance organizational success with
employee advocacy.
HRs greatest impact may be in determining the ethical char-

HRs greatest impact may

be in determining the
ethical character of the
individuals who are hired
and retained.
acter of the individuals who are hired and retained. Putting the
right individuals on the teamthat is, hiring those with the values we wantis crucial. So is getting rid of the bad apples, even
if they happen to be star performers.
As scandal after scandal suggestsand dont expect there
to be fewer such episodes in 2016ethical breaches can often
evolve into legal troubles, resulting in lawsuits, loss of stock
value and even jail time. Yet as executives engage in their shortterm pursuit of quarterly profits, they often lose sight of the role
culture can play in keeping the company out of hot water. It is up
to HR professionals to remind them.
Chris MacDonald is an associate professor and director of the Jim
Pattison Ethical Leadership Program at Ryerson Universitys Ted
Rogers School of Management in Toronto. He teaches courses on
ethics and critical thinking.

JOB OF THE FUTURE:

Social Policy and Community

ACTIVIST

Talent and community

engager.
Corporate social
responsibility leader.
Producer of synergy among
various social goals of the
organization.
Influencer beyond the
organization who shapes
policies, regulations and
laws that support the
new world.

December 2015/January 2016

HR Magazine

41

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

Business Acumen: Building a Better HR

Embrace HRs evolution by learning the language of finance.
By Peter Cappelli

n the past year, weve seen articles proclaiming that its

time to blow up HR in order to rebuild the field to be
more focused on the bottom line. HR is in part unpopular because it makes people behave and enforces policies
about how every employee, including executives, must interact
with others.
Nevertheless, its hard to deny that HR is often perceived
by corporate leaders as being out of step with the rest of the
business. Indeed, according to an article in the fall 2015 issue
of People + Strategy, business leaders both inside and outside
the field consistently rate HR as
moderately satisfactory at best in
terms of skills and
effectiveness.
The most frequent and persistent criticism is that
HR cant connect
to the language of finance, which defines
how business operates. Every HR professional can ensure that this doesnt hold true
for himself or herself by developing business
acumen. Whats the best way to do that?
Here are three tips for sharpening your
strategic skills in 2016:
Recognize that good HR is about
making choices. There is no single bestpractice model. Rather, your policies should
be predicated on what works well for your
particular business. It makes sense for some
companies to outsource their hiring, for others to avoid the use of incentive pay and for
still others to refrain from using employees
at all for certain tasks. Knowing what to do
when is the keyand that requires understanding business strategy. This is the first
step to figuring out the different ways companies can compete and succeed.

Learn enough finance to understand the factors that

drive shareholder value. It isnt enough to understand how
to calculate a rate of return on investment. You must be able to
articulate arguments in terms of return on investment. Learn
enough cost accounting to grasp how the metrics you collect
about engagement, retention, benefits, etc.lead to improved
organizational performance and a stronger bottom line.
Become fluent in the language of numbers and balance sheets.
Choose your continuing education options wisely. Many
courses in HR dont reflect the issues of today. Some classes are
based on 30-yearold texts. While
books and curricula have all been
updated, the old
corporate model,
in which employees were hired for
life, remains at
their core. Many
are disproportionately focused on compliance, job analysis and training programs.
While those topics still have a place in HR,
todays professionals must also learn how
to partner effectively with vendors, manage
organizational change, shape corporate culture and navigate the conflicting demands
around executive compensation.
So instead of detonating HR, lets
embrace the evolution of its mandate. Its
growing just like all the other functions of
business in our rapidly changing world. And
that cant happen without a little pain along
the way. But the investment of time and
effort will be well worth it in the long run.

Instead of detonating HR, lets embrace the

evolution of its mandate. Its growing just like
all the other functions of business in our rapidly
changing world.

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HR Magazine

December 2015/January 2016

Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor

of Management at The Wharton School and
Director of Whartons Center for Human
Resources.

JOB OF THE FUTURE:

Organizational

ENGINEER

Expert in new ways of

working.
Facilitator of virtual team
effectiveness.
Developer of all types of
leadership.
Expert at talent transitions.
Master of task optimization
and organization principles
such as agility, networks,
power and trust.

December 2015/January 2016

HR Magazine

43

What HR Needs to Know in 2016

Communication:
Spreading the Word About Benefits
In light of stagnant wage growth, benefits have become a crucial retention tool.
By Jennifer Benz

ts increasingly difficult for many organizations to retain

their best and brightest employees as the economy strengthens and millions of new jobs are being created. In fact,
according to a recent Towers Watson survey, more than
half of employers reported difficulty holding on to skilled workers. With low wage growth expected again in 2016WorldatWork expects an average salary increase of 3.1 percentsmart
employers are emphasizing the value of benefits as a means of
getting their talent to stay put. By learning how to share information about benefits clearly and effectively, you can cultivate your
competency as a strong communicator.
Thats not always easy. The past five years have brought perhaps our biggest challenge, the Affordable
Care Act (ACA), which
is possibly the most
complex benefits legislation ever passed. As
if that wasnt enough,
retirement plans are
also evolving to build in automation and encourage lifetime
participation.
Meanwhile, HR leaders are managing the most diverse
workforce in U.S. history while considering new ideas about the
nature of work. Its understandable that benefits communication
has not been at the top of HRs priority list.
Yet now more than ever, your employees need that help.
As an issue brief from the Employee Benefit
Research Institute states, There is strong evidence workers simply lack the ability to navigate the complex and technical nature of health
care. The data backs that up: Aflac finds that
54 percent of employees dont want more control over their health insurance options because
those decisions are too daunting.
At the same time, U.S. employees are in
financial distress. The majority are living paycheck to paycheck, and the average retirement
account balance wont even cover a years
expenses.
Something must change. In 2016, its time

to develop creative and even aspirational strategies for informing

our workforces about their benefits.
Many savvy employersparticularly those in industries
competing for top talentare already making strides in creating plain-language, personalized, visually engaging messages.
The result? Happy, informed workers; higher productivity; and a
stronger bottom line.
I see a not-too-distant future where companies of all sizes
make substantial investments in year-round multichannel benefits education that can help all of their workers build lifelong
health and financial security. Although this work wont be easy,
it can transform organizations and the people who drive them.
The great news is
that we can all learn
from the employers that
are communicating
effectively. The formula
is remarkably simple:
Build engaging channels that support frequent communication. For most, that means creating a dynamic,
branded, user-friendly, mobile-optimized website outside the
corporate firewall. My work in guiding organizations toward
better benefits communication has shown time and again that
this is the single most important investment organizations can
make. It provides easy access to benefits information for employees and family members, 24/7, in the palms of their hands.
Once you have that in place, use all of the
other channels available to youe-mail, posters, print materials, webinars and meetingsto
push people to that site and remind them about
the valuable programs and resources available
to them.
With HR leading the charge, we can
realize a future that includes employeefocused communication that rivals consumer
marketing.

Its time to develop creative and even

aspirational strategies for informing our
workforces about benefits.

44

HR Magazine

December 2015/January 2016

Jennifer Benz is founder and CEO at Benz

Communications in San Francisco.