Strategic Human Resources Briefs

The current reality is that many organisations have moved ahead with well-being programs but are much more hesitant about developing their response to serious mental health issues. Ignoring this issue is no longer a viable option in a world of talent shortages and will only result in a waste or dismissal of the valuable talent provided by potentially up to a third of possible candidates for promotion and professional development. By engaging with this issue and believing they can make a positive

You’ve read the management books. You’ve heard more than enough about engagement, empowerment, teamwork, and so forth. But there’s just one problem: In the day-to-day rush of running your business, keeping your staff motivated takes a backseat to your daily work, management crises and making your numbers.

Retirement planning is complex. There are calculations required and data is needed. How many calculations and how much data depends on the type of planning one wishes to do. Most people do not know how to do these calculations on their own and may not know how to find the right data. Fortunately, there are many tools and software packages available to help.

Most every executive knows the importance of recognizing their employees when they do good work. Yet when you ask their employees how much recognition they receive, according to Maritz, only 12 percent say they are recognized in meaningful ways where they work when they do a good job.

Are millennials misunderstood? Over a decade of research from the Case Foundation has found that the characteristics with which millennials were previously branded—a quiet, inactive, insular group that did not engage with social causes and were often considered self-centered, lazy, and too concerned with their devices to think about anyone else—are false. Instead, millennials are thinking, acting, and living their lives like no other generation before them.

Managers need to be skilled at the basics of effective recognition and to use that skill in a timely, sincere and specific manner on a daily basis as their employees have performed well. Managers have to lead the charge in proactively helping to make your workplace a culture of recognition in which the behavior is part of the common practices of the organization.

Research indicates that there are huge gaps in long-term care planning. The need for help, and possibly a lot of help, later in life, has a huge impact on multiple generations of many American families. Society of Actuaries’ research studies show that while many people are aware of the risk, few do advance planning for managing it.

If you get employees involved in planning recognition activities, you’ll often end up with better activities that are more valued by your employees.

Employees are struggling to select their benefits. Jargon, lack of communication and poor understanding are some of the issues that plague workers when deciding on 401(k)s, health plans and other benefits, says Rebecca Ray, executive vice president of human capital at the Conference Board.

Rising labor costs and a dwindling number of available workers have compelled companies to seek new options such as gig hiring when it comes to recruiting.