Human Resources
Key Questions HR Leaders Need to Address Now
Mar. 21, 2017
More than 400 HR leaders recently descended on Denver to attend the Mile High SHRM Conference, where leading practitioners and speakers shared inspirational stories on human resources.
As a speaker at the event, I led a discussion on “HR’s Changing Role” and shared insights into current and emerging issues in human capital management, employment trends, and the evolving role of HR.
According to the ADP Workforce Vitality report, employees who switch jobs after three to five years are poised for higher wage growth. With that work experience under their belt, those employees are highly marketable but not entirely committed to their current job.
In this jobswitcher’s market, HR leaders need to ask themselves the following questions.
- What are you doing to develop and retain key employees? Many of the HR professionals I met with said they are increasing training opportunities and changing flex time and telecommuting policies to develop and retain key employees. Other initiatives mentioned included offering retention bonuses and advancement opportunities in addition to evaluating benefits and conducting salary benchmarking.
- What are you doing to stay competitive with your total rewards strategy? Attendees said they were working on a variety of initiatives such as providing corporate contribution and employer match, paid tuition, pay adjustments and increasing transparency about salary in the interview process.
- What changes has your organization made or does it plan to make to your performance management process? The feedback from the audience showed growing momentum to overhaul performance management. The majority of the attendees said they are planning to simplify their performance management process and increase the frequency of performance conversations. Other changes included eliminating performance ratings and forced distribution of ratings as well as increasing manager training.
- What is your top learning priority for your organization in 2017? Many of the HR leaders at the conference said their organizations are planning to provide more leadership development training in the near future. Grovo, in partnership with Wakefield Research, surveyed 500 middle managers across the United States to get a clear, unbiased picture of the management training environment. The research shows that 87 percent of managers wish they had received more training after being promoted.
It’s becoming increasingly apparent that HR leaders see management training and leadership development as one of the most important strategies they need to work on to retain their top talent. You often hear that employees don’t quit companies, they quit bosses. By developing your managers to be better coaches and providing front-line, on-the-job training, you’ll increase the likelihood your employees will enjoy coming to work and put off any plans to leave!