HR Daily Advisor is BLR’s FREE daily source of HR tips, news, and advice. HR Daily Advisor offers free webcasts, articles, and reports on topics important to HR and compensation professionals.
The report explores how businesses are addressing talent acquisition challenges, managing background screening, and training their workforce to adapt to dynamic market conditions.
This article was first published on July 31, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders.
One of the reasons companies care so much about employee retention is that it’s difficult, time-consuming, and costly to onboard new talent. Nevertheless, individual companies and departments don’t control the labor market, and they have to work with the world that exists, not the one they wish existed.
Increasingly, companies are turning to third-party providers of recruitment, hiring, and background screening services and tools to help them cope with high levels of turnover.
Survey Reveals Recruiting Trends
HireRight, a global provider of employment background checks, drug testing, and employment and education verifications, recently released its annual report on the state of the employment landscape. The new report, titled “Navigating New Territories,” explores how businesses are addressing talent acquisition challenges, managing background screening, and training their workforce to adapt to dynamic market conditions.
Here are the five key global takeaways from the report:
1. Speed has jumped to the top of the priorities list for employers in each region when choosing a background screening provider, with accuracy of results and cost making up the top three.
2. More companies in 2023 are using criminal checks, with 4-year-high adoption rates in each region.
3. Half of global respondents said their business uses an applicant tracking system (ATS)—up from two-fifths in the company’s 2022 Benchmark Survey.
4. Over half of respondents said recruitment carried on roughly as expected in 2022; two-fifths reported hiring more workers to meet increased demands on their business.
5. Remote working numbers are expected to remain stable in North America and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), but a slight decline is expected in Asia-Pacific (APAC) by the start of 2024.
Mandates for Employers
Despite an environment where employer sentiment is mixed in terms of whether we’re still in the midst of the Great Resignation, hiring effectively is always critical for companies of all types and sizes. It’s clear that trend will continue, along with increasing attention to ways companies can boost the odds that their new hire will be a good one.
The role of HR leaders has shifted from traditional practitioners to strategic partners.
This article was first published on August , 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders, and has been adapted for HealthLeaders.
Human resources (HR) leaders in healthcare can learn and take valuable information from HR leaders in other sectors. In this article, celebrate HR professionals who continue to help move the needle forward in the industry.
The past few years, HR leaders have played a critical role in helping their organizations navigate not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also an increasingly complex and competitive business landscape. Additionally, the workforce at large is changing with the shift to hybrid work, advances in technology, and talent seeking opportunities where they are recognized and engaged.
As a result, HR leaders have stepped up to meet these challenges, proving they more than deserve a seat at the table. In this week’s Faces column, we spotlight HR leaders we’ve previously featured, highlighting their insights on how HR leaders can continue to effectively demonstrate their value to their organization.
It starts with linking the organizational strategy with the people strategy, according to Susan Lowe, Chief People and Sustainability Officer at Fuel50, a skills-powered talent marketplace. “It is a critical driver of the overall success of the business,” Lowe shares. “I also think HR can make sure it has a good level of commercial acumen and use this when presenting business cases to leadership teams and the board. Equally, reporting on value delivered through metrics but also business case reviews. A lot of the work HR does to deliver value can happen in the background, so bringing this to the fore through reporting, ROI demonstrations and celebrating success also helps to ensure the value is directly attributed to the HR initiative and the leadership team sees and understands the impact.”
Eryn Marshall, Senior Director of Global Recruiting at Oyster, an employment platform dedicated to creating a more equal world by making it possible for companies everywhere to hire people anywhere, agrees, noting that HR leaders should take it a step further.
“Beyond standard metrics, what was the impact of the work the team did,” Marshall says. “Did you save the company money? Did you increase retention or time to fill open positions? Having the ability to measure those things and speak to what the leadership team needs is a key to HR’s success.”
For Lynee Luque, Chief People Officer at personal finance company NerdWallet, building a pipeline of talented employees and fostering a culture where they feel empowered to grow are key. “To achieve this, I believe it’s crucial to transform DEI efforts from being a separate initiative, into something that is fully integrated throughout the business, present in every aspect of the employee experience,” Luque says.
“Additionally, we can demonstrate our value by not only keeping up with the rapidly changing workplace landscape, but by staying ahead of it,” she continues. “It’s fitting that in my time at NerdWallet, the biggest shift in the space has been the shift to remote work. At NerdWallet, our remote-first ethos is founded in the idea of flexibility, and we’ve gone a step further. Empowering our Nerds to prioritize life outside of work as needed is important to us, we see several layers of benefits. For example, our remote-first culture empowers us to recruit and hire from a larger, more geographically diverse pool of talent, which supports our vision for DEI.”
Eric Cormier, manager of HR services for Insperity, a provider of HR solutions, says changing the perspective of HR is critical.
“Don’t make HR the party-planning group,” he explains. “Outside of that, companies can support the strategy HR brings to the table as we face one of the most interesting times for talent acquisition and retention and realize the value of having an HR advocate. Leadership could consider altering the business-like titles for their HR team to more approachable HR titles to help remove the negative stigma associated with the department. HR is not just about hiring and firing employees. Instead, it is about bringing the right people into the organization and how we strive to help teams achieve and excel together. Other times, some situations require us to work with an employee to turn them around, and if we can’t, then we are charged with having difficult conversations. Many leaders today realize HR is much more than disciplinary action.”
Ultimately, the role of HR leaders has shifted from traditional practitioners to a strategic partner, and this moment of transformation for HR will continue, according to Donna Flynn, Vice President of Global Talent at global office design company Steelcase.
“CHROs and their teams are at the forefront of solving some of the biggest business problems today – redesigning work, redesigning offices to support new ways of working, actively supporting employee wellbeing, developing new models of leadership, advancing progress towards diversity, equity and inclusion goals, and making systemic changes to protect our planet,” Flynn shares. “At Steelcase we think about all these commitments we’re making as Caring for our People, Caring for our Culture, and Caring for our Planet. Companies that invest in their people are investing in their business.”
'In today's world of continued uncertainty, the most successful hiring teams are the ones taking an agile hiring approach that focuses on skills and potential versus just experience.'
This article was first published on July 31, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders.
While some companies continue to make progress in prioritizing DEI, others have cut budgets and laid off DEI leaders who were hired in waves after George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Workplace DEI efforts continue to become part of national political debates, including new anti-DEI policies that constrain companies’ abilities to move the needle forward in the field.
Still, research consistently shows that diverse companies are not only more innovative and profitable, but also attract top talent and retain them longer. Furthermore, for a majority of employed U.S. adults (56%), focusing on increasing DEI at work is a good thing, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
For companies who are going against the tide and looking to strengthen their commitment to diversity and inclusion through their DEI efforts, we recently tapped Julie Finkle, Vice President of Human Resources at the University of Phoenix, and Amanda Hahn, Chief Marketing Officer at HireVue, to gauge their insights about what it takes to create and sustain an effective DEI and belonging program.
Here’s what they had to say.
In what areas do employers make mistakes when beefing up their DEI programming?
JF: The first is to think that DEI is just about the numbers and the typical race/ethnicity categories. When you hire someone, you hire the entire person, not just their output. You cannot think that a person is just an employee, and worse yet, a commodity producing widgets. Every person is an individual and made up of a variety of elements and you need to ensure your policies, practices, and more importantly, your actual practices, speak to this.
Second is to tie bonus or incentives to DEI metrics. This can drive compliance rather than commitment and possibly not the best decision for the business. We need to make the expected behavior clear, then reward or showcase that behavior. Set the example and shout it from the rooftops.
Third is not measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of your programs. DEI programs are just words on a page unless you understand if what you’re trying to do is working. DEI programs should be considered iterative, and changes made as needed.
Finally, and in my opinion, the most critical mistake is not including the element of Belonging. Belonging is how employees feel about their company, their boss, their leadership, their peers, whether their organization cares for them as individuals. If employees feel they belong, they feel ‘safe’ and more connected to the work and the organization. Talk to and listen to your employees about not only what they say but what they don’t say in this area. Do they feel comfortable and safe to speak up in areas that can be improved, or do they bring forth suggestions or recommendations?
DEI and Belonging are extremely important to talent both internally and externally. Employees, even existing employees, can work just about anywhere. Employees are looking at what their company is doing, or not doing. More and more candidates are doing their research in this area. They look beyond the canned verbiage on your website (we are an equal opportunity employer, et cetera) and look at your LinkedIn posts, social media, Glass Door reviews, and more. They look for what employees are saying, and what is the company doing in the community.
When it comes to recruiting and hiring, what should companies focus on as it relates to DEI?
AH: Stop focusing too much on experience and education requirements. Faced with ongoing labor shortages, many employers are exploring alternatives to their traditional hiring habits. Our 2023 Global Trends Report found that nearly half (48%) of the leaders surveyed are adopting a skills-first approach to talent acquisition, forgoing educational and past work experience unless they’re actually relevant to the job at hand. In doing so, they’re widening their overall talent pool, increasing the number of qualified candidates they attract and charting advancement paths for employees based on less biased or fairer, objective data.
It’s also important to include validated technology in your hiring strategy. From AI to automation to robotic assistance, technology is transforming the modern workplace. It streamlines the most complex workflows and processes and takes on repetitive and time-consuming tasks. And it allows people to communicate, no matter where they are in the world. There’s a misconception that technology is replacing human roles. Instead, it’s fulfilling mindless work, boosting employee productivity, and allowing talent teams to focus on the most impactful parts of their job. Our report found that in the past year alone, two in three talent teams have implemented video or virtual interviews to boost hiring productivity. When asked what benefits talent teams saw from these changes in interviewing, respondents reported time savings, greater flexibility, and a bigger pool of diverse talent.
In today’s world of continued uncertainty, the most successful hiring teams are the ones taking an agile hiring approach that focuses on skills and potential vs. just experience. Hiring teams need to be adaptable and quick. This means acting efficiently, connecting with candidates authentically, and being open to unconventional hiring practices that align with their goals. Make sure that you are:
Prioritizing skills: adopting a skills-first approach to talent acquisition, rather than focusing entirely on education and experience.
Implementing hiring technology: taking full advantage of technology so employees can focus on work that is less tedious and more fulfilling.
In a time when employers are struggling to find quality candidates, fostering a diverse workforce will only benefit them. Especially since 50% of candidates want to work for companies with a proven DEI track record and strong DEI initiatives, according to our report.
'It's a symbiotic relationship; HR impacts business, and business impacts HR.'
This article was first published on July 27, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders, and has been adapted for HealthLeaders.
Human resources (HR) leaders in healthcare can learn and take valuable information from HR leaders in other sectors. In this article, meet Sharifa Parker, Vice President of People at Moogsoft, an AIOps software company dedicated to helping people and machines work in harmony.
They have 20 years of experience as a senior people leader in high-growth tech start-ups, helping to create and sustain high-performing organizations. For the last decade, Parker has been a key asset in growing Moogsoft’s people, shaping its culture, and collaborating closely with the company’s executive team to drive engagement that mirrors its mission.
Sharifa Parker
We recently connected with Parker to discuss how they got their start in the industry, their biggest influences, and how HR can most effectively demonstrate its value to leadership. Their advice? Rethink your position in the organization.
“Although the HR department may sometimes feel like an island, it’s important to remember that employee and company culture impacts every organizational initiative from product to marketing and communications,” Parker shared with HR Daily Advisor. “So, it’s a symbiotic relationship; HR impacts business, and business impacts HR. One way to tangibly demonstrate this relationship is to show interest in what the organization is accomplishing in other departments. HR leaders can do this by scheduling meetings with executives and crafting people strategies that reflect the organization’s values and direction.”
In our latest Faces, meet Sharifa Parker.
How did you get your start in the field?
Growing up, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Shortly after graduating college, I began working as an HR temp at Citigroup, where I began to learn the basics of HR. During my 5 years in that role, I garnered a great amount of experience and knowledge, introducing my passion for people and starting my career in the HR space.
After my time at Citigroup, I moved into the gaming tech space and started as a true HR generalist at Betfair, an online betting company. After spending 7 years with Betfair, I met Phil Tee, who was just starting Moogsoft and needed help growing the HR department and hiring a team. Today, we have employees across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Ten years later, I’m still here!
Who is/was your biggest influence in the industry?
My biggest influence in the HR industry was my first manager at Citigroup. When first starting out at Citigroup, I wasn’t aware of the sheer number of responsibilities the HR department has. He took me under his wing, allowed me to shadow him in meetings, and taught me a lot about the industry.
What’s your best mistake, and what did you learn from it?
My biggest mistake happened at Citigroup as I was shadowing my boss. After expressing my interest in interviewing candidates, she let me interview a prospect on my own. At the end of the interview, I offered them the job because I thought they were a perfect match. However, I hadn’t consulted with the hiring manager, and in fact, there were better-matched candidates. I was tasked with informing the person they didn’t actually get the job. Having to let someone down like that has stuck with me through the years.
What’s your favorite part about working in the industry? What’s your least favorite part, and how would you change it?
My favorite part of working in the industry is how varied the profession is. As I mentioned before, there are so many responsibilities HR deals with daily, from benefits and hiring to learning and development. This variety allows us to experience and get involved in so many different projects.
Sometimes it can be frustrating to ask employees and even managers to follow strict processes and procedures. Of course, there are always reasons for these processes, but communicating those reasons can be tricky. To improve communication across departments, I think leaders need to prioritize training about transparency and honesty in the workplace, even and especially when that honesty is leveraged during conversations with executives. I’ve tried to implement these values at Moogsoft, and it’s helped tremendously with change management.
It sounds like, through your experience, you really care about people, and you want to help them feel safe and comfortable, which is important in the industry. Please elaborate here.
The average person spends 90,000 hours working over a lifetime, which is roughly equivalent to 10.2 years, according to Andrew Naber, an industrial-organizational psychologist and data scientist. So, it’s safe to say our working conditions impact our mental well-being throughout life. I’m passionate about ensuring employees spend those 90,000 hours feeling valued, satisfied, and happy. Additionally, I want them to feel that work is a place where they can develop personally and professionally.
Where do you see the industry heading in 5 years? Or are you seeing any current trends?
Artificial intelligence (AI) has obviously been a hot topic in the tech industry for the past few years. And there have been many discussions about how AI is going to impact HR. Personally, like many other HR professionals, I don’t believe automation will ever completely replace the HR department. We often discuss the importance of “the human touch,” and while it may sound trite, it’s true: Nowhere is human nature more important than the HR department. I do see enormous progress being made in AI- and machine learning (ML)-backed human resources information systems (HRISs). Intelligent automation in the HR tech stack will certainly make a big difference in years to come, enabling HR professionals to focus less on rote tools-based tasks and more on human-first processes.
What are you most proud of?
Being able to help those early in their career develop into confident, well-rounded HR professionals. One of the things I really enjoy is taking everything I learned over the years and passing it along to those who are just starting out.
Do you have any advice for people entering the profession?
Get involved in all aspects of HR until you find the one you love. HR generalist roles are rising in popularity, so more likely than not, you’ll have the opportunity to try your hand at several responsibilities. But if that’s not the case, consider informing your manager you’d like to try new responsibilities. A well-rounded understanding of the profession is the best way to be a successful HR leader down the line.
Spend time getting to know your people and the business. This goes back to my earlier advice. When you demonstrate interest in other areas of the business, you cement yourself as a rockstar in HR.
It’s OK to say “I don’t know. Let me look into it.” No one has all the answers all the time. But as HR professionals, we often feel pressured to provide answers in the moment. It’s OK to inform your people that you’ll look into their question and provide a better answer down the line. In fact, they’ll probably have a better experience as a result and be thankful for your patience.
Challenge your managers. The workplace is a collaborative environment. In no department is this truer than in HR, in which management decisions impact every single employee. Don’t be afraid to give your opinion, especially if you have a different perspective from your leadership team. For example, Gen Z employees have been instrumental in pushing the needle toward more people-friendly practices.
'Consistently communicating with and being visible to important stakeholders will build the trust that is necessary to produce not only implementation but also adoption of HR initiatives.'
This article was first published on July 20, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders.
Human resources (HR) leaders in healthcare can learn and take valuable information from HR leaders in other sectors.
Despite high-profile layoffs and an increased unemployment rate, the current job market may be tight but still robust, as candidates continue to seek new opportunities. Benefits and compensation continue to be not only a hot topic but also top of mind for talent as they navigate the job landscape.
According to Robert Boersma, Head of Strategy North America at international job search website Talent.com, although it may seem like an employer’s market, it won’t be for long as employee benefits play a critical role in attracting and retaining the right talent.
“A comprehensive benefits package that focuses on employees’ healthcare, professional development as well as work-life balance will play a vital role in setting an organization apart,” Boersma shared with HR Daily Advisor. “Talent.com’s recent survey suggests that American employees value insurance benefits (54%) the most apart from the annual salary increase. This is followed by flex working hours (49%) and more vacation days (38%).
Robert Boersma
“Additionally, many recent research reports highlight a sense of employee burnout, and them desiring a better work-life balance,” Boersma continued. “In order to boost employee productivity, we will see organizations take measures to address this burnout, if not as an immediate implementation of a four-day work week or continued remote working, then testing various forms of flexibility including variations of hybrid model, Summer Fridays, Nine-day fortnight, and company time-off.”
In our latest Faces, meet Robert Boersma.
How did you get your start in the field?
I started my career in Calgary, Alberta, recruiting within the oil and gas sector—mostly high-volume trades roles in remote locations (the traditional meaning of remote, not “remote”). The online job search world was beginning to become very interesting. It was a whole niche world I knew nothing about as I started to manage our job board relationships (what is CPC?). When oil prices crashed heavily in 2014 (long story short: overproduction), I started to see the impacts on people within my industry, leaving many workers without employment or in need of retraining to find new roles. Additionally, the company I was working for was acquired twice within 2 years, leading to consolidation and layoffs. This negatively impacted the jobseekers I was working with and my coworkers. This is when it became apparent that there was room for improvement in how people connect with new work opportunities.
This led me to joining Talent.com (formerly neuvoo) as one of its first employees, and I have committed to helping solve the challenges facing both jobseekers and employers. Working is a huge part of life, like it or not, and the current systems of connecting with it are wearing out.
Who is/was your biggest influence in the industry?
My first major influence is Lucas Martinez, who is currently our CEO at Talent.com. Lucas is the one who sparked my interest in the industry and was the account manager at my previous company. He opened my eyes—in fact, our whole TA team’s eyes (shoutout to Kathy and Deanna)—to the online recruiting world. He lifted the veil and taught us how things really work behind the scenes. From simple tricks like how to use job titles that aggregators can understand to teaching us how to track our cost per application (CPA), Lucas made us think about our TA strategy like marketers. I haven’t met anyone since who is as passionate about the industry.
Since then, I’ve been lucky to have exposure to many brilliant people in the online job search world—many at Talent.com and many in other places. I have to say that my latest fandom is for the work that Andrew Flowers is doing at Recruitonomics. The way they look at economic data and make it digestible in recruitment terms is very cool. Andrew has been featured in Talent.com’s webinars and e-books.
What’s your best mistake, and what did you learn from it?
A valuable mistake that I made was, as I moved into more executive jobs, I was allowing myself to get too far distanced from our customers. When I was working in sales or managing our customer service team, I was constantly being brought back to their recruiting reality (a reality that used to be my own). As the first year passed in my VP operations job, I realized that it had been about that same time that I talkedto a customer. I think it is inevitable that as responsibilities change, so will your ability to talk consistently with your clients, but looking back now, it’s something I would work much harder on maintaining. As I start to set up our new sales strategy department, I find myself playing catch-up to getting back to understanding the real pain that recruiters are facing so that we can provide them with real solutions.
I saw a LinkedIn article once that stated that everyone in your organization needs to be a salesperson, the CEO, product, finance, HR, etc. Of course, this is hyperbole, but the sentiment that the closer you can be to your customers, where your revenue comes from, the more valuable you’ll be to any organization.
What’s your favorite part about working in the industry? What’s your least favorite part, and how would you change it?
There are two main things I love about the online recruitment industry. One is the idea of someone finding a job on Talent.com. Finding a job is hard and rewarding! Recruiting is also hard and rewarding! The second thing is that there’s so much laneway for improvement in our space. It wasn’t very long ago that people looked for jobs in newspapers, so when I see how far technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and search/matching are coming and all the cool things giants like Google, Amazon, and Netflix are doing, I am inspired to be somewhere that we can still apply a lot of this learning.
I think it might be fair to say that Netflix is better and faster at matching you with the perfect series to binge than many jobsites are at matching you with jobs to apply for. One of the things that is a major frustration for candidates and a barrier for employers is the long application processes that jobseekers are asked to endure. This would be the thing in my industry I would change first (and we are trying). No one wants to spend 20 minutes logging in and pasting their résumé word for word into a company’s applicant tracking system (ATS). Making the job application process simpler would be a very welcome change for both jobseekers and recruiters alike. Luckily, parsing systems is getting much smarter, and people are getting less patient, so either way, companies will be incentivized to trim these processes down.
It sounds like, through your experience, you really care about people, and you want to help them feel safe and comfortable, which is important in the industry. Please elaborate here.
I do care! Like I’ve said before, working is a major part of life for most people. Many build their identity around their job. They meet their friends through their job and sometimes even their spouse (me included). Oh, and they make money. Your job is likely the biggest economic decision you make in your life, but it’s also a social decision, a lifestyle decision, and a personal decision. This is why I start with the people around me—my coworkers. Whether it’s people I directly manage or those I hardly know, I want people to leave a conversation with me feeling good about themselves, good about the work they do, and excited about the industry/company. This principle is the same one we try to apply on our website. We want to make sure jobseekers on our site feel comfortable, that the listings they’re seeing are legit, and that they are safe trusting us with their data. Without trust, you have nothing. My favorite saying goes, “Trust arrives by walking and leaves in a Ferrari.” So, in our industry, where the topic is so personal, it’s critical to make people feel safe, comfortable, and heard.
How can HR most effectively demonstrate its value to the leadership team?
HR can effectively demonstrate value to leadership by focusing on programming that aligns with the overall company mission and ensuring that they are seen not only as enablers of compliance but also as professional partners who are co-responsible for business success. As discussed in my best mistake, being disconnected from what’s really driving the business is often what loses trust and, unfortunately, sometimes reduces HR credibility. Additionally, communication with leadership and staff is key. Consistently communicating with and being visible to important stakeholders will build the trust that is necessary to produce not only implementation but also adoption of HR initiatives.
Where do you see the industry heading in 5 years? Or are you seeing any current trends?
We saw the pandemic overhaul the employment industry as we once knew it, and employees are not eager to go back to their pre-March 2020 routines. Flexibility and a transition to hybrid/remote work are two trends that I think are here to stay. Employees are working to live instead of living to work and want to maintain the level of flexibility they had while working remotely. Many organizations are opting for a blended solution, and I believe we will continue to observe an increase in the adoption of hybrid work setups by companies, providing employees with the advantages of remote work such as flexibility and independence, as well as opportunities for face-to-face interaction and collaboration within an office.
Salary, equity, and transparency is another huge trend that I expect we will continue to see in the coming years. New York City, Colorado, California, and Washington have all enacted laws requiring organizations to share salary ranges in job descriptions, which will aid in putting all jobseekers on a level playing field through reducing wage disparities and pay inequalities. Talent.com did a survey exploring the views of New York City residents on pay transparency, which showed that almost 35% of jobseekers reported experiencing pay discrimination, with over 50% of those affected being women. The wage gap clearly still exists, and as more states enact legislation requiring salary transparency, it will become an expectation from jobseekers.
What are you most proud of?
Are you surprised by this one? I am proud of Talent.com. I am proud of the culture we have built, starting here in Montreal at our head office. When I hear from staff that their spouses are jealous of their job, I think, “Yes!” I am proud of how far the company has come and those people who have grown with it from a small start-up to a growing force. It’s just so cool to see. Personally, I am proud of the contributions I make to the environment in our office. I hope to be a bright point in people’s day.
Do you have any advice for people entering the profession?
My advice for people entering the world of HR/recruiting is to listen. Listen deeply, then listen again. Ask “how” and “why” questions. HR sets the tone for the workplace, and it all starts by understanding what people want and expect. Expectations are a funny thing; they can represent minor things but have real impact. Encouraging open communication and building rapport with the people around you are the first steps to being a great recruiter or HR person. People take jobs because of money, but they leave them because of bad managers. Recruiters need to recruit people who stay, and HR needs to create a sticky place to work. Leading by example is the best first step to achieving this, and it all starts with something free: listening.
Given the often high costs to retrain or upskill career transitioners, some believe the viability of a back-up career is fading.
This article was first published on July 20, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders.
While many people dedicate their entire careers to a specific vocation or skillset, the reality is that most people are not so thoroughly specialized that they are limited to the skills required for their current job or career. For example: an accountant might also have a knack for carpentry, a truck driver might have a side-hustle as a music teacher, an IT professional might design apps as a hobby.
Career Leverage or Fading Opportunity?
Having marketable skills outside of one’s primary vocation can act as a form of diversification or backup plan. If career choice one goes south for whatever reason, there’s at least something to fall back on without having to start from scratch. But given the often high costs to retrain or upskill career transitioners, some believe the viability of a back-up career is fading.
“Back-up careers have had a reputation for staying power—largely, they seem stable or ‘safe’ enough to weather economic changes,” says Megan Carnegie in an article for BBC Worklife. Carnegie adds that, “While it’s true that many of these jobs do have endurance, pursuing a new career often requires retraining or re-education—which takes time and money. This has always been the case, of course, but now, current economic conditions are making these additional costs more difficult to shoulder.”
Impact on Employers
The impact of this trend on workers is pretty straightforward and generally negative. Fewer career options and closed doors are almost always a bad thing. But our focus is primarily on the other side of the employment relationship: the employer. How does the decreasing availability of back-up careers impact employers?
On the one hand, it might mean that it’s that much easier to retain staff as well as to set more employer-friendly policies. If workers have fewer alternatives, employers have more leverage.
But just because employees are “stuck” in a career doesn’t mean they’ll be happy, engaged, or productive in that career. How much of a benefit it is to employers to better retain employees who may be disgruntled and simply don’t want to be in that role is debatable.
Utilizing generative AI tools can help in learning and development tasks and enhance the value of training for your employees.
This article was first published on July 18, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders, and has been adapted for HealthLeaders.
Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots—or generative AI—have rapidly transitioned from science fiction to trendy novelties to genuinely useful tools within a few short decades.
Today, AI chatbots have become ubiquitous in our homes, the businesses we frequent, and countless other aspects of daily life. Professionals across various industries are exploring how AI chatbots can simplify their lives and enhance their effectiveness, and the training industry is no exception, including learning and development (L&D).
However, simply having access to powerful tools like ChatGPT or Bard doesn’t guarantee users know the best ways to leverage them.
Here we take a look at some prompts and use cases for AI chatbots in L&D.
Getting Started
AI chatbots are renowned for their ability to set reminders, provide weather updates, and even tackle graduate-level exams at prestigious universities. However, they can also be used for more open-ended tasks such as idea generation and brainstorming.
“When it comes to self-directed learning, AI presents some interesting options for the employee keen to hone a new skill,” explains Mark Tippin, Director of Strategic Practices at Mural. “With little more than the name of a concept, like ‘agile methodology’ ChatGPT and other large-language-model-based AIs can open a world of conversation.”
Tippin likens the process to the kind of information exchange we’re all familiar with in an office setting where we might chat with a colleague who knows more about a particular subject. “Not everything you’ll read is guaranteed to be accurate,” Tippin cautions. But, he adds, “The way in which the results begin to provide some scaffolding becomes very helpful in supporting your approach to the topic.”
If you’re interested in learning more about “agile methodology”—for instance, when writing prompts—you might start with something simple like “Can you tell me what the generally accepted tenets of agile methodology are?”
You would then be presented with a list of things you may already know, like “customer satisfaction” or “iterative and incremental development.” But you might also find information that could prompt further inquiry, like “self-organizing teams” or “continuous improvement.”
“In essence you’re quickly mapping what you know into a larger context, creating your own learning scaffold,” Tippin says.
Even if the chatbot itself doesn’t have a wealth of information to share on a complex topic, these tools can be great for providing direction on further research. “I’ve found that ChatGPT is fantastic at providing new opportunities for learning and development through the quick identification of authors, speakers and thought leaders on a given topic,” Tippin notes.
For instance, you might ask, “Who has written peer-reviewed articles that are well regarded on the topic of self-organizing teams?” This will quickly return a list of names you could use to continue your research. Among them, Tippin says, you’d likely find people like Alistair Cockburn, Linda Rising, and Mary Lynn Manns.
Dynamic, Interactive Training
Generative AI tools can also be useful as “force multipliers” in the sense that they can achieve many of the benefits of having multiple human trainers without needing to actually have multiple human trainers. A great example of this is training programs that can dynamically adapt to a learner’s progress and adjust training materials and methods accordingly.
MedCerts training programs, for example, had traditionally been scenario-based and fixed to data already existing in the system. But, while highly complex, the programs were “constrained by the programming and the decision tree and database supporting those interactive elements,” says Dana Janssen, Chief Product Officer at MedCerts, which provides online training for allied healthcare and IT careers.
With ChatGPT, MedCerts students can now engage in dynamic role-playing and training that adapts to their responses in a way that couldn’t previously be achieved, Janssen says. In addition, each interaction between the student and the training scenario adapts through machine learning (ML), providing a larger pool of scenarios to leverage. Subsequent responses then become something different from what was originally programmed.
“The data pool becomes larger with infinite interactions between the bits of information, driven by algorithms but only within the pool of data it is allowed to search,” Janssen adds. “Over time that pool becomes larger because the responses students supply are added.”
He also says MedCerts is integrating ChatGPT elements into its nursing assistant training and its modules for mental health technician training and expects this to be available to customers in fall 2023.
Greater Engagement
AI represents new and exciting technology. The novelty alone makes it an engaging option for employee training. Trainees may be excited to participate simply for the opportunity to interact with AI technology. But there are many more ways AI can help make training more engaging.
One example is the ability to incorporate gamification into corporate training efforts. Gamification refers to the practices of applying gaming concepts to other contexts, such as training. For example, language learning applications like DuoLingo use progressively more difficult lessons, various challenges, point-based reward systems, and other gaming concepts to help teach learners different languages.
“With gamification, quizzes, simulations, and virtual reality training modules can become more involved, which allows employees to learn faster in the least period of time,” says Kathryn Boudreau, Operations and HR Manager for CallerSmart. “Create automated voiceovers for learning materials, HR onboarding videos, and illustrations to make learning more engaging.”
Opportunities Are Virtually Endless
The opportunities for L&D professionals are virtually endless (pun intended). Here are some ideas for basic prompts you can experiment with when planning and preparing L&D programs and materials to help you see just how powerful, flexible, and productive these tools can be:
For research:
What are the current industry trends and best practices related to XYZ?
What are the key challenges or gaps in employee knowledge or skills the training should address?
Are there any relevant case studies or success stories that can be incorporated into the training content?
Creating training outlines:
What are the main learning objectives or outcomes that a training program on XYZ should achieve?
What are the core topics or modules that should be covered in the training?
How can the training content be organized to ensure a logical flow and effective training experience?
Creating training materials:
Using the following content (provide one to two paragraphs of copy), create some options for PowerPoint® slides that best summarize the information.
What interactive elements could be incorporated to best engage the audience?
Creating evaluation materials:
Given these training objectives, provide suggestions for questions to gather feedback from training participants.
Given this content from the training program, provide some ideas for pre- and post-training assessments or surveys that would be most suitable to gather feedback.
Creating training exercises:
Provide some ideas for hands-on activities, simulations, or role-playing exercises that could be incorporated into a training program to reinforce learning and encourage practical application.
Provide some real-world examples or case studies that can be used as exercises to bridge theory with practical application.
These prompts are really just the tip of the iceberg. Keep in mind that as you generate responses from whatever tool you’re using, you’ll likely come up with additional questions to help drill down into the information to make it more meaningful and relevant to whatever type of training you’re developing.
Generative AI tools have been attracting a lot of attention in recent months and for good reason. There seems to be no limit to the tasks these tools can perform, and new applications continue to be discovered. Take some time to experiment with these tools to learn how they could augment your L&D tasks and enhance the value of training for your employees.
Here are four mistakes to avoid in employee evaluations to ensure that the conversations you have with your employees are effective and productive.
This article was first published on July 17, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders, and has been adapted for HealthLeaders.
One of the most important ways management can communicate with an employee is through an official employee evaluation.
It’s easy to give an employee kudos on a job well done after they’ve turned in a big project, or casually bring up an area you’d like to see improvement in. It’s easy to feel like you have a grasp on the day-to-day actions of your employees if you’re an involved manager. But a formal employee evaluation is a great space to pause and take in a birds-eye view. It also helps everyone get on the same page with expectations. How are they doing overall within their position? What were some of their largest achievements over the past few months? What are the strengths and weaknesses they bring to the company? Basically, how are things really going?
As we approach the midyear point of 2023, you may be preparing for a round of employee evaluations. While these conversations may seem simple, there’s actually an artform to having them effectively. Here are four mistakes to avoid in employee evaluations to ensure that the conversations you have with your employees go smoothly and are truly productive.
Not Creating a Plan
An employee evaluation should have a formal structure, and requires forethought. Make sure to let your employee know well in advance that you’d like to have an evaluation so that they have time to gather their thoughts and look back over their job performance. Meanwhile, you should be doing the same thing. Employee evaluations are led by management, not the other way around, and directing the conversation will take a solid amount of planning. Brush up on your own script and what you’re hoping to get across, and give the evaluation plenty of time on your calendar. If you think everything’s going fine; I should be able to just wing it, the conversation won’t be nearly as helpful as it could be. Remember—the entire point of evaluations isn’t to just check them off your to-do list. They’re supposed to have a point. You can always go down rabbit holes with the employee if something unexpected is introduced to the conversation, but having some type of plan going in to refer to and keep you on track doesn’t hurt. By having a formal plan, you’ll also make sure that all of your evaluations are fair. Going in to one evaluation casually singing an employee’s praises while going into another one with a formal list of things the employee needs to work on will sow seeds of resentment among your team, and that’s the last thing you want.
Having a Speech Instead of a Conversation
Employee evaluations are manager-led, and you should come to the table with concrete thoughts you want to get across. That being said, an evaluation needs to be a two-way street in order to be effective. Make sure to ask your employee questions about how they think things are going. They may bring valuable insights to the table that you hadn’t even thought of. For instance, maybe they’ve really been interested in leaning into one aspect of their job that you hadn’t considered before, or maybe they’re struggling on an issue and a colleague has been helping them a ton without your knowledge. By getting the employee’s perspective, you’ll have a more holistic understanding of on-the-ground operations and show the employee that you’re interested in what they have to say. Although employee evaluations aren’t meant to be feedback to the company (there should be separate avenues for that), what your employees have to say in your evaluations can really help you manage and function better as a business.
Providing Overly Vague Feedback
Feedback should be as pointed as possible, even if it feels awkward or uncomfortable. If you’re trying to cushion the sting of critique, you may be tempted to cushion it with filler words or broad goals. But feedback is only useful—and therefore, only worth your time—if it’s clear. Instead of saying something like “I’m hoping to see a bit more commitment from you the next couple of months”, just get to the point and say “I noticed you’ve been clocking in 15 minutes late nearly day. Is there a way we could rework your schedule or problem solve to make sure you’re able to start on time?” Getting a bit more commitment could mean any number of things, and the employee could interpret it entirely different than you intended it! The opposite is true as well—the best positive feedback is crystal clear. By giving direct, straightforward encouragement on specific details, you’ll encourage a repeat performance in the future. If you’re vaguely saying “yeah, good job”, the employee might not understand what exactly they’re doing that you approve of and want to see more of.
Forgetting to Document What Was Discussed
Lastly, it’s essential to document what occurred in an employee evaluation. This is for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, you want to have something to refer back to at their next evaluation. Did the employee implement the changes you discussed? Did they work on the goals you set forth? Did they actually take the conversation to heart? Secondly, if something negative were to happen and the employee was let go, it’s important to have documentation showing that issues had been previously discussed and weren’t just sprung on the employee suddenly. Or if the employee comes to you requesting a raise, having their employee evaluation on hand may be helpful to confirm or deny their account of their job performance. Even if the discussion was completely smooth and went perfectly, having some documentation to show when you spoke, how long you spoke for, and what was covered is a good idea. Even better, consider taking things a step further by creating a recap document to send to the employee. It can include what you discussed and what some concrete action steps they could take are.
'You don’t have to love all aspects of HR, but I think most of us in the industry would be hard pressed to not find a couple parts to love.'
This article was first published on July 13, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders, and has been adapted for HealthLeaders.
After completing undergrad at the University of St. Thomas, HR wasn’t the end-goal for Amy Spartz when she initially started her career.
“When I set out, I had a new baby, and just really needed a job,” she told HR Daily Advisor. “After reaching out to as many people as I could within my network, I came across an individual who thought I would do well in the field of HR. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right – and he was! Now that I’m here, I’m glad the job search led me down this path.”
More than 20 years later, Spartz has no intention of going anywhere. Over the course of her impressive career, she has held several executive positions including a human capital partner with Optum Health and senior vice president at ECMC Group, a student loan services organization. Additionally, Spartz and her husband own three restaurants.
Currently, Spartz serves as Chief People Officer at Gravie, a health benefits company. Gravie was launched a decade ago and Spartz joined not long after in 2015. The Minneapolis-based company’s flagship product, Comfort®, provides zero-cost coverage on the most common healthcare services including primary, preventive, and urgent care and generic prescriptions.
Amy Spartz
Gravie has grown tremendously over the past few years, tripling its workforce to more than 300 people. When it comes to recruiting, even when you’re experiencing exponential growth, Spartz noted that one of her best mistakes is “underestimating the time and number of resources needed to prepare.”
“I wish I had started preparing earlier, hired recruiters earlier, got great tools in place earlier – you name it, I should have started it earlier,” Spartz says. “At Gravie, we have a big mission and vision we’re striving toward that demands innovative, critical thinkers. Additionally, at the rapid rate of growth we’re experiencing, we’re making a concerted effort to maintain and foster the exceptional culture our founders set out to create.”
In our latest Faces, meet Amy Spartz
Who is/was your biggest influence in the industry?
I’m inspired by my colleagues at Gravie, our company’s vision of a health plan people will love, and the culture our co-founders have created. Before coming to Gravie, I was running my own consulting practice and loved it so much that I decided I would never work for someone else again. But after hearing the vision for Gravie, I was sold. And the way we approach people management has been so different and refreshing.
What’s your favorite part about working in the industry? What’s your least favorite part, and how would you change it?
I love people, and that’s what I get working in the HR industry – I get to know so many facets of all the people around me. You don’t have to love all aspects of HR, but I think most of us in the industry would be hard pressed to not find a couple parts to love. It’s fulfilling work to see people thrive in their jobs when they are authentically supported, and their needs, especially as it relates to benefits, are being met on and off the clock.
My least favorite part of my industry is when someone takes something that’s been happening for years, rebrands it, and then shouts it from a mountaintop like they’ve discovered something new. Quiet quitting? Please, Gen X invented that years ago. It’s just been rebranded. Instead of focusing on clever names for issues that have always existed, we should focus on the root of the actual problem and address it directly. Quiet quitting is really employee engagement, so tapping into your employees’ passions, energy and focus on the problems becomes the opportunity.
It sounds like through your experience you really care about people, and you want to help them feel safe and comfortable, which is important in the industry. Please elaborate here.
Safety is one thing, and comfort is another. Sadly, workplace safety has evolved into something really threatening and all leaders (not just HR) need to be proactive about security – physical and mental, industry, cyber – and plan for those things every year. In contrast, being comfortable isn’t something individuals should expect at all points in their career. If you aren’t pushing yourself or being pushed, you could be holding yourself back and refraining from taking risks that may really help you grow and develop new skills and interests for the future.
How can HR most effectively demonstrate its value to the leadership team?
In collaboration with a supportive CEO, HR leaders should work to identify the handful of most critical issues that will help drive the business toward its definition of success. You probably can’t be all things to all people, so focus on doing a few initiatives well.
Where do you see the industry heading in five years? Or are you seeing any current trends?
People and businesses are both complex. Finding ways to attract, motivate and retain talented people will most likely always be the focus of our industry. But we’ll be using AI, data science, and all sorts of other new tools to keep innovating on how we do that work. It’s also interesting to see the juxtaposition in the industry as the use of technology progresses alongside a trend of more “vintage” ideas and terminology. Maybe we’ll all go back to referring to ourselves as “personnel.”
What are you most proud of?
Besides my daughter, I’m proud of the fact that the hardest job I’ve ever had is my current one, and that I’ve continued to challenge myself throughout my career. From the top of the organization, it’s been made clear that my role is central to our company’s success over the next few years. That’s incredibly motivating!
Do you have any advice for people entering the profession?
My advice for emerging HR leaders would be to observe and learn, think critically, and speak your mind. Take risks and know you’ll make mistakes – but try to anticipate the ones you can; don’t be reckless. Learn from those mistakes and talk openly about them. Adjust your strategy and try again.
Research reveals 35% of U.S. workers believe their job will become increasingly reliant on automation in the near future.
This article was first published on July 12, 2023, by HR Daily Advisor, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders, and has been adapted for HealthLeaders.
Recent research suggests workers have mixed views on the potential impacts of automation on the workforce.
Automation in the workplace isn’t anything new. From the breakthroughs of the Industrial Revolution to today’s advanced robotics and computerized processes, automation is fully embedded into the American workforce. But broadly speaking, employee views of automation are mixed. Up to a point, automation can make their lives and jobs easier, but if automation gets too effective, it can potentially render their jobs obsolete.
Research Reveals Interesting Variations
New research from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) helps us understand the breakdown of those sentiments. The research reveals over one-third (35%) of U.S. workers believe their job will become increasingly reliant on automation in the near future.
The data was collected in March and April 2023 in response to the rising popularity and increased sophistication of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, as well as the development of new state and federal regulations.
Key findings include:
Nearly 10% of U.S. workers experienced an impact from workplace automation.
Nearly one-quarter (23%) of U.S. workers are concerned their job will be replaced by workplace automation in the next 5 years.
Female workers are less concerned their jobs will be replaced by workplace automation and less convinced their jobs will become more reliant on it than their male counterparts.
Most employees (57%) are confident their organization could/can train them to properly use workplace automation effectively.
Half of U.S. workers (50%) believe the automation of specific job tasks or duties would give them more time to focus on other areas of their work.
The positive news for employers is that over twice as many workers believe automation will make their jobs easier (50%) than those who fear their job will be replaced by automation (23%). But that’s still a significant proportion of the labor force that has genuine anxiety over the impact of automation on their livelihoods.
Employers looking to increase the prevalence of automation in their operations should therefore consider embracing meaningful transparency and communication with staff.