The background
When I began my pre-journalistic professional career 30 years ago in Florida, the human resources department at the large insurance company that hired me was a staid mainstay of every large organization. Of course, that was the mid-1980s, and the desks at the company were equipped with typewriters and Rolodexes, not personal computers. We dialed extensions to reach each other across departments rather than emailing. Instead of Google, we had the Yellow Pages. And if someone wasn’t available, the highest-tech tool was a pink message pad and a pen to take a message. On the human side, even my oldest managers were in the same baby boomer generation that I was, albeit on the opposite end of the generation. 

 

By comparison, the pace of organizational change and technological innovation in every sized workplace today is downright dizzying, as a panel of human resource experts we spoke with were quick to point out. In fact, this was one of the more predominant themes that our panel brought out as we discussed issues top of mind for HR pros and consultants in Greater Des Moines. Here is a look at some other things that came out of our discussion.

We asked: What’s an important emerging HR trend you see?
“PTO may be a thing of the past. It’s just going to be time off. Executive or exempt level employees, you get paid regardless  – you are checking your emails while out of the office, you are doing business.” 

HR vice president, Mercy Medical Center – Des Moines

“The whole issue of coaching and team development, that’s not going away. The whole issue about how organizations function as teams and the aspect of making sure that they function effectively will continue to be important.”
Kevin Pokorny
principal, Pokorny Consulting

“(Work-life fit is a trend) that I think is only going to pick up speed, and it’s going to be important for us to think about the environment we’re creating for our employees and how they strike that balance ­— along with certainly meeting the needs of the business as well.” 
Beth Raymond
senior vice president, human resources, Principal Financial Group

“When recent grads were surveyed, what they said was most important to them was job stability, not crazy perks. So that I think is indicative of (the recent recession) or even seeing your parents go through the recession.” 
Christy Smith
vice president of HR operations, Merit Resources

Tool or tech frenzy?
The panelists also considered the double-edged sword that communication and Web technology has created by making us constantly, instantly available, 24/7. 

 

Pokorny, who is currently president of the Des Moines West Side Chamber, is working with some mentoring programs for younger members through the chamber. “One of the issues they’re faced with is, how do I get rid of this (smartphone)? How do I shut it down? The technology creates a “frenziedness,” Pokorny has found, as he hears about both the good and bad effects it can have on users. 

 

Elsberry said he’s attended executive meetings with fellow Mercy executives where participants are required to put their cellphones and laptops away for several hours. “You get so much more accomplished during those three hours than you probably did all day when you had 
a laptop sitting in front of you,” he observed. 

 

Smith said an area in which technology is having a very positive benefit in the human resource industry is in in providing HR professionals with “real-time, targeted, defined strategic plans related to how we’re building our workforces.” She added,“In our world it’s really helping our clients to do that.” 

 

For example, Merit Resources provides “dashboard reporting” for all its clients, to include a snapshot of recruiting and retention numbers as well as information related to engagement scores or pre-assessments for talent acquisitions and databases of resumes for top candidates. 

 

“We work with our clients and say, ‘What are your strategies for the next three, five, 10 years? And then we take a look at what systems they need to have in place to be ready for that. And we can use the data to help them see what they’re doing and if it’s effective, or if there are better areas where they can spend their time.” 

Choices and incentives

With a range of different generations now populating the workplace, employees want choices, but those choices are very different depending on their generation, Smith said. 

 

“So we’re trying to offer as many different benefit plans so they can make their choice. But then what we’re trying to do on the offset of that strategy is really ensure the risk is in how you manage your own health care, as opposed to in the cost upfront,” she said. 

 

Mercy’s Elsberry agreed that employees are going to have to share more of the health care costs. Additionally, “they’re going to have to be more involved in terms of their own health,” he said. “Within an insurance plan, you’re going to have to have incentives in there for them to stay healthy. Because the healthier your population, you’re going to have lower costs and premiums won’t go up as much as in the past. So if they do biometric screenings, have an annual physical, they get $250 off, something like that.” 

 

Principal has offered health screenings and biometric testing to its employees for nearly 10 years now, Raymond said. Those who don’t opt to participate in the screenings —  and that’s only about 10 percent of employees — lose out on a more than $500 discount on their health premiums. 

 

“Then we use that information collectively to see those top risk factors so that we know how to educate, what kind of programs we should put together from a plan design perspective,” Raymond said. “It’s good for the employee to get that information, but it’s really good for the employer to get that information, because you can really leverage that for design and to figure out ways to really support your employees so that overall they’re not paying more for premiums.” 

The changing face of vacation
Elsberry noted that one speaker he heard recently at a conference remarked that vacation is no longer about vacation, it’s about “me-time.” 

 

For instance, Elsberry said, “when you go on vacation, you’re not totally disengaged from work, but you designate, ‘I’m only going to spend from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. doing work, and the rest is family time.’ ” 

 

Vacation time looks much different than it did five, 10 or 15 years ago, Principal’s Raymond said. The idea of clearing your schedule and completely disconnecting for a week or more is disconcerting for most people now. “With technology, people can work anywhere now — and people feel they won’t have a life when they get back if they totally disconnect,” she said. 

 

Similarly, paid time off policies may be a thing of the past because of technology, Elsberry said. “It’s just going to be time off. Executive or exempt level employees, you get paid regardless — you are checking your emails while out of the office, you are doing business. So maybe there’s no “you’re going to accrue four weeks of PTO” — you’re just going to take time off when you need to take time off. You’re getting paid regardless, and you are doing that work while you are out of the office.” 

Work-life fit
The way that millennials have grown up, combining work with play, has really led to a blurring of lines, so much so that the discussion is no longer around work-life balance, but work-life fit, the panelists said. 

 

“When you really look at the millennials, I think that’s really where work-life fit is changing even more to say, how does work fit into a lifestyle, which is a very different thought process,” Raymond said. “That gets to, how do they work and play, almost simultaneously?”

 

The connotation of the term “work-life balance” is that people can reach some point where everything feels in sync, she said. “I think it creates an expectation that when you don’t feel your life is in sync that you’re not doing something to get it there. Work-life fit, I think, you’re always going to have a little more in one spot than another, so it gives you a little bit more flexibility to think about your life without judgment.” 

Next big concerns with health care?
Regardless of their size, companies are still actively working on their health care strategies, Merit’s Smith said. 

 

“Our smallest companies are trying to figure out how to stay competitive in the benefit arena in terms of recruiting and retaining top talent,” she said. “The midsized companies are gearing up for 2016 compliance, and our large companies are really working aggressively on compliance.” 

 

The biggest challenge that Merit Resources has found, particularly for its smaller clients, is the way they track the health insurance data to ensure they’re really monitoring who is eligible for participation, she said. “From the Merit perspective, we do all the work behind the scenes to ensure all the affordability provisions are met and that the other pieces of ACA compliance are intact,” Smith said. “But individually, some of our businesses are so small that they use paper time cards, or they use a system that doesn’t track hours the way we need to.”

Where are the training gaps?
“For us, we’re seeing a lot more (gaps) around leadership,” Raymond said. “I think many of us (at Principal) are taking a step back and saying, ‘They may have great technical skills, but they may not be right in a leadership role.’ That’s going to gain a lot more focus than you’re even seeing today. A lot of people are putting time and effort into that so they have the right leaders going forward.” 

 

Merit Resources’ Smith said she and her colleagues see that same gap among their clients. “A part of it for us is that when you have small to midsized businesses that go through a recession, a lot of times the first thing that is cut is talent development,” she said. “What I’m encouraged by is that we are seeing more emphasis by business owners and CEOs on HR as truly that strategic partner, and that training and talent development is not optional. We have to equip our managers to be great leaders, because if they aren’t, it really adversely impacts the ability to be productive and maximize profitability.”

 

Whenever Pokorny works with clients, the gap that “always comes to the forefront is people’s inability to communicate and relate effectively,” he said. “This is not rocket science. And it all gets down to human behavior and how is it I can effectively relate in the context of a working relationship, and that flows out to issues of teams, projects, everything else. These critical skills are still lacking, and technology isn’t helping us to do that, but it’s not keeping us from doing it, either.” 

Key takeaways

 

ADDRESSING THE TALENT GAP
Often, talent development and training are the first budget items cut when there’s an economic downturn. Business owners and CEOs need to view the human resources department as a strategic partner and recognize that training and talent development are not optional. 
– Christy Smith 

Human resources issues revolving around gender orientation, religious and cultural affiliation will become increasingly prevalent, and employers in Greater Des Moines are going to see an influx of more diverse workers who are now coming through the middle school and high school system.
 – Kevin Pokorny 

HEALTH INSURANCE
Employers increasingly are going to have to pay attention to the health of their workforce and offer incentives and programs to help them to stay healthy, as a means to keep insurance premium increases in line. Biometric screenings are an important tool that more and more Greater Des Moines employers are using as a tool to help workers monitor their health status.
 – Kevin Elsberry 

Sending employees to the health insurance marketplace at healthcare.gov may one day be a viable option, but for now employers have little choice but to offer health insurance as a benefit to remain competitive.  
– Beth Raymond 

USE OF BIG DATA
Companies need to take advantage of real-time data reporting capabilities or third-party services available to them to strategically plan their benefits programs.
 – Christy Smith 

Self-service online human resource portals for updating or changing personal information are a great time-saving tool for both employees and organizations. “It saves so much time and effort from the HR standpoint because they can go in and do address changes, 401(k) distributions, change of beneficiaries, or view that information without having someone help them.” 
– Beth Raymond

PEOPLE SKILLS
Customer service — both external and internal — is a skill set that’s lacking in many organizations and an area that needs more training attention. 
– Kevin Pokorny 

Businesses need to recognize the impact that an effective internal communication strategy has on recruiting and retaining top talent and creating environments where people can be their best. A communication strategy should be built into every program that is being initiated. 
– Beth Raymond

RETIREMENT READINESS
Eliminate inertia of employees who procrastinate in signing up for 401(k) benefits by enacting provisions in plans that automatically enroll the employee unless they opt out. You also can set up auto-escalating contributions so that employees don’t have to think about increasing their contributions every year. Employers should also step up to stretch the matches that they’re offering to create a more competitive benefit package. 
– Beth Raymond