The top three challenges Human Resources departments across America face right now are employee turnover, employee engagement, and succession planning. All three present interesting challenges, but can be overcome if HR leaders take on the challenges with creative solutions. Let’s take a look at how HR departments can change their views on these issues to ease concerns in the new year. Consider these three New Year’s resolutions from your HR department in 2016:
- Employee Turnover- 40% of employers surveyed in Globoforce’s 2015 Employee Recognition Report are concerned about personnel leaving the organization. Mitigate that fear by creating an environment that will be harder for employees to leave. Use common sense employee benefits like workplace flexibility and reasonable amounts of vacation time. Allowing employees to be in the office when they can, and home when they have to be, creates an environment of logical treatment of employees that makes them feel good and like their employer cares about the other elements of their life. Additionally, promoting healthy workforce habits like an afternoon walking club elongates employee tenure for similar reasons.
- Employee Engagement- When approaching employee engagement look at the whole employee. They are people before they are your employees. They are parents and spouses and siblings and have hobbies and responsibilities outside of work. Meet them on their terms, providing the recognition and rewards that drive them because it fits their life. Employee engagement is the single most concerning issue for HR leaders. However, the good news is that the percentage of HR departments that listed engagement as their number one concern has dropped 8 percentage points since 2013. This is most likely attributable to the growth of employee engagement programs.
- Succession Planning- 35% of HR departments are concerned about succession planning. This is a major task for HR and it can be hard to predict. However, you can take the stress out of it by thinking of this as an extension of a hiring plan. Turnover happens, think of this as preparation for the inevitable, rather than a major problem.
Are you an HR professional? What New Year's resolutions are you making in 2016?
