HR Trends

Swapnil stops by to talk about keeping people at the heart of HR tech. She discusses how Unum’s Behavioral Health solution centers people by being a full lifecycle solution meant for those anywhere on the mental health spectrum. And she talks about the grit HR leaders will need as the new normal of work becomes more defined. Listen to learn more. 

Jess believes we currently have an opportunity to remake work on more equitable terms. Employers need to remove barriers for people – working moms being a prime example – instead of always demanding that people overcome those barriers. She believes gender and race pay gaps should be considered corporate criminal behavior. And why does she says technology by itself is not the solution? Listen to find out. 

The conference saw the release of new research from The Josh Bersin Company: The Global Workforce Intelligence Project. Kathi discusses such findings as the looming shortage of nurses, with insights on improving the employee experience to keep nurses in their jobs. And what creative solution is Amazon employing to help solve the shortage? Listen to find out.

Clare talks us through what's coming from our recent interviews  at the HR Technology Conference 2022 in Las Vegas. 

In the new world of work, “being human” has never been more important. Employers sit at the center of the families and communities they serve, and it's an exciting time to see how the prioritization of workers can help fuel humanity at scale. Listen as Jason and Polly discuss the importance of infusing humanity into the digital world of work, while proving that HR programs do what they set out to do. 

The swift rise in inflation and worries about a potential recession have taken a financial and emotional toll on employees. In this episode, financial and wellbeing experts — Martha Leiper, Carl Gagnon and Laurie Mitchell — share their insights about what’s driving inflation and the practical steps organizations can take to support the people that power their business. 

Key Takeaways

Several factors are increasing the inflation pressure on the economy. Many businesses are grappling with rising supply costs and shortages, as well as a tight labor market and wage inflation. And businesses are having to pass those costs to their customers. [7.12]

Workers are often not aware about their employer’s resources. Most employers offer some resources for emotional and mental health wellbeing and it’s important to build awareness around them before workers get to a place of severe stress. [12:48]

Know your risk tolerance. Take control of what you can. “A time of turmoil is not a time to panic and sell your investments, because you will be selling at low valuation. “If you’re close to retirement, you should be out of the more volatile securities,” said Martha Leiper. “But if you’re young in your career, don’t panic, these types of times tend to create good buying opportunities, and the markets will correct, and your savings will grow over time.” [13.59]

Diversify savings to ride economic cycles. Offer employees more saving options to respond to different needs, such as building an emergency savings fund, and asset diversification for their retirement plans. [17.13]

Engage employees in different ways. Find a balance in addressing the benefit needs of a diverse workforce. And offer workers easy options to engage, including in-person, phone and virtual. [22:09]

Design programs across the spectrum of total rewards. Employees want to engage, but they’re also concerned about their personal privacy. “Whether you’re dealing with financial or mental health — it’s about engaging the employees to use the tools that are there and being pleasantly surprised at what those tools can offer an employee,” said Carl Gagnon. [22:36]

Featured Speakers 

Martha Leiper
Executive Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, Unum

Martha Leiper is responsible for the investment and asset management strategies of Unum’s portfolio. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Chattanooga Food Bank and River City Company, and on the Investment Committee with the Chattanooga Community Foundation. 

Carl Gagnon
Assistant Vice President, Financial Wellbeing & Retirement Programs, Unum

Carl Gagnon is responsible for the day-to-day operations, regulatory oversight and compliance of the Unum global financial well-being and retirement programs, including the Defined Benefit, Defined Contribution and Non-Qualified retirement plans and various flex benefit programs offered within its international operations. 

Laurie Mitchell

Assistant Vice President, Global Wellbeing & Health Management, Unum

Laurie Mitchell took a slightly nontraditional career path for a registered dietitian nutritionist and has been leading comprehensive employer-sponsored population health and well-being strategy for more than 22 years. Her work focuses on actively engaging employees in their well-being through a mix of innovative programs, benefits, policies and health-forward environmental approaches. 

The pandemic didn’t create the need for workplace transformation, but it definitely accelerated it. Listen as two experts in industrial organizational psychology discuss the importance of creating an employee experience that fulfills the evolving needs of the 21st-century worker, and how purposeful employee listening can have a powerful effect on an organization’s ability to create a superior experience for their customers.

Episode details:
What is industrial organizational psychology? It’s the study of how business shapes humans and humans shape business — or how to maximize systems and experiences across all parts of the talent lifecycle to encourage people to be their best at work. [3:30]

Why is the employee experience so important right now? A huge portion of the workforce is now actively thinking about what’s important to them at work, what motivates them, what brings them joy and satisfaction. Employers need to understand these desires — in terms of culture, environment, career development, etc. — so they can keep the employees they have and attract those outside the organization who are looking to make a change.  [6:00]

Is this all because of the pandemic? The big trends affecting the workplace now — with people wanting more flexibility, inclusion, diversity and autonomy — have been bubbling up for years. What the pandemic did was drive the need for solutions. [7:30]

Where does the customer come in?  The experience you provide your employees directly affects the experience they provide for your customers. Investing in employees and listening to them helps you embed your mission as their North Star, and results will follow. [10:00]

What does “employee listening” really mean? Employee listening is the process of collecting, paying attention to and responding to feedback from your employees. Employees will only invest their time in providing feedback if it is acknowledged and if you respond by taking what actions you can. You must also be sure to communicate the actions you’ve taken. [13:30]

What are some best practices for implementing an employee listening program? Generally, employee listening takes the form of employee surveys. You need balance the frequency of your surveys with your ability to take action. As your process matures, you can increase the frequency, or add in feedback from the entire employee journey. Be sure you understand your infrastructure for feedback and taking action, as well as your culture. These will determine how quickly you can effect change. [18:00]

Featured speakers

Anna L. Hulett, Ph.D.
XM Scientist, Qualtrics

Anna Hulett is an Industrial Organizational (IO) Psychologist with over 10 years of experience leveraging data-driven insights to understand the interdependencies between business strategy and the employee experience, ultimately empowering clients across industries and organizational contexts to build a better workplace. Anna’s expertise in employee listening design and analytics, paired with her experience in strategic human capital management, allows her to provide comprehensive employee experience solutions across the employee lifecycle.

Dora Clements, J.D.
Vice President of Digital Transformation, Unum Group

Dora Clements is leading change efforts for both the Unum and Colonial Life brands — and is specifically focused on improving the customer experience through delivering digital-first experiences inclusive of customer portals, process optimization and automation. Dora has been with Unum Group since 2013, supporting business and technology in various roles in the client administration space, including managing operational teams, supporting admin platform development, and leading transformation efforts.

In the first episode of season two of the HR Trends podcast, Clare Morin speaks to Brian Kropp, Chief of Research and Distinguished Vice President at Gartner, and Polly Nicholas, Senior Vice President and Head of Solutions at Unum Group, about the fundamental shifts happening in HR and how business leaders who respond to the holistic needs of their employees will win the talent and retention game. 

Key takeaways

As the line between work and home have become blurred, it’s caused a reconsideration of the place of work in an employee’s life.  (7:55)

This requires a different approach and a new type of leader.  (9:35)

This shift can also be seen in what employers and employees want in terms of benefits. (11:40)

Supporting employees in this broader, more holistic way is also better for business. “When organizations are more effective at meeting the mental health needs, the family needs, the community needs of their employees,” says Kropp, “Those employees perform at a higher level, are less likely to quit, they are more engaged with their work, they sleep better at night, and the list goes on and on.  By improving the lives of our employees, we help the performance of our organizations.” (13:15)

Employee leave programs are becoming focused around personas. “Even the leave and time off conversation used to be this big block of people who just needed to take time off. And tomorrow, it’s about a persona,” says Nicholas. “And it’s how we begin to shift thinking about leave policies and compliance, to what does a person need who’s planning a leave? What does a person need when they have a very unplanned event and there’s an emergent moment happening? How are those needs different? And how are we surrounding them, and back to Corie Barry’s sort of scaffolding, how are we surrounding them because there’s this opportunity to offer solutions that do just that.” (28:20)

 External shocks -- the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and the war in Ukraine -- have turned ideas about good management on their head. “The focus up to now has been on efficiency, on stripping costs as much as possible,” explains Kropp. “When we have a management strategy that is maximizing efficiency, we also have a strategy that is unwittingly maximizing fragility. It’s like inflating a balloon with as much air as possible right up to the point where it breaks. That strategy is fine if there’s nothing in the environment that can cause a balloon to break. What we’ve realized is there’s lots of things in the environment that can cause the balloon to break.” (31:00)

Featured speakers: 

Brian Kropp 
Chief of Research and Distinguished Vice President, Gartner

Brian Kropp oversees the lines of business that support Chief Human Resources Officers and their leadership teams. He works with this cadre of leaders to develop strategic plans that will attract and retain top talent. Dr. Kropp has authored more than 40 research studies at Gartner, led more than 200 strategy sessions with executive teams at Fortune 100 companies and more than 300 Executive Education sessions across the globe.  

Polly Nicholas
Senior Vice President and Head of Solutions, Unum Group

Polly Nicholas is the Senior Vice President and Head of Solutions at Unum Group. With more than 20 years of experience driving growth and operational improvement and a passion for connecting people, purpose and results, Nicholas leads Unum’s rapidly expanding solutions businesses, attracting new clients and expanding the support provided through a suite of technology-first solutions including Unum Total Leave™, Behavioral Health and Unum HR Connect solutions. Prior to Unum, Nicholas held leadership roles at global firms Alight Solutions and Aon Hewitt.

To close out the first season of the HR Trends podcast, Clare Morin welcomes futurist Ravin Jesuthasan, co-author of the new book Work without Jobs, and Greg Till, EVP and Chief People Officer of Providence Health Systems. They discuss how the pandemic has accelerated ten years of transformation in two years, and what the future holds for workers and employers.  

Key Takeaways

• The pandemic put the tech-fueled transformation of the workplace on hyperdrive. “Alvin Toffler wrote about in 1970 that we’d soon all be living in electronic cottages, liberated from the offices,” Jesuthasan says. “Yet as of March 2020, only 6% of jobs were being done remotely full time. That number went to 56% overnight.” (4:40) 
• The new focus is on flexibility, resilience, and agility. “We talk about these black swan events as though they’re the rarest of beasts, but we’ve had at least three major shocks the past 20 years—we had 9/11, we had the financial crisis, and COVID. [There’s a need] to be prepared for both shocks and opportunities, that’s what we see as really being at the heart of this pivot toward agility.” (8:30)
• Predictive hiring lets you get ahead of the labor market. “We can predict our hiring needs based on patient volumes and revenues with about 90­­–­95% accuracy,” says Till. “It typically takes five months to fill an ICU nurse role, and we can open up the requisition five months in advance of someone leaving.” (14:30)
• Reducing the dull and the dangerous through automation. Nurse scheduling, which would take a human hours to complete, can be done in about ten seconds using artificial intelligence and machine learning – while considering employee preferences and accommodating flexibility. It’s saved Providence Health an estimated $130 million. (15:00)
• Fluidity will create a more human-centered enterprise. “We’ve gone from very structured approaches to work, where people/humans were cogs in the machine,” says Jesuthasan. “Tight and precise job definitions, job architectures that were tied to the way processes were executed, one-to-one relationship between person and role.”  (18:31)
• Businesses shouldn’t be intimidated by the scale of possible change. “Don’t let it be daunting,” says Till. “A lot of things in Ravin’s book—in healthcare, because we’re highly regulated, we can’t implement wholesale.  We’re taking some really pragmatic aspects of a visionary philosophy and applying it in reality. Saving 130 million dollars and staffing more effectively to meet our community’s needs.” (28:00)

Featured speakers: 

Ravin Jesuthasan
Global Leader for Transformation Services, Mercer

Ravin Jesuthasan is the global leader of Mercer’s Transformation Services business. He is recognized globally as a thought leader, futurist and author on the future of work and workforce transformation. Ravin has led numerous research projects for the World Economic Forum including many of its groundbreaking studies on the transformation of work and the global workforce. 

 Greg Till
Chief People Officer
Providence Health Systems

Greg Till is the Chief People Officer of Providence Health Systems. In this role, Greg and his team aim to transform healthcare by bringing their innovative vision for the future of work to life. Using modern technology, unique partnerships, and grounded in Providence’s mission, Greg’s HR team has been able to effectively predict and shape labor needs, optimize workforce utilization, and significantly lower costs, while improving employee experience and strengthening the culture. 

On the heels of the Supreme Court’s stay of the private employer vaccine mandate, OSHA has withdrawn its Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) while it works on a permanent rule. In the meantime, employers remain responsible for keeping employees safe from COVID-19 at work. Ellen McCann joins guest host Nate Smith to discuss this latest development.

OSHA withdrew the ETS but has not abandoned the idea of an employer mandate. On January 25, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced it was withdrawing its ETS, thereby making the litigation in the 6th Circuit moot. Instead it will focus on crafting a proposed permanent rule, based on public comments and likely what it has gleaned from the January 13 Supreme Court ruling that stayed the ETS. 

What might the permanent rule look like? OSHA asked some specific questions in its request for public comments, which may provide some clues about what the agency will consider when crafting the permanent rule. 

Does this change the CMS health care mandate? No. That mandate, which was issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) not OSHA, goes forward, although it is still being challenged in a lower court. 

Are any state or local laws affected by the OSHA decision? Since OSHA withdrew the ETS, it has no impact on state or local laws. . Employers should be aware of the patchwork of city and state laws out there — both requiring and prohibiting vaccine mandates.

What should employers do next, in the midst of all this confusion? Employers should bear in mind that there is still a “general duty” clause under the Occupational Safety and Health Act which requires employers to provide their employees with a safe work environment. They should work with their counsel to determine how to fulfill this responsibility.

Featured speaker

Ellen McCann
Assistant Vice President, Unum Group Solutions

Ellen McCann is an acclaimed national speaker on leave management issues including FMLA and ADA. She is also a certified trainer for SHRM and CE credit. As a former Legal Counsel for Unum’s Employment Law Group, Ellen has advised companies on all employment-related legal issues. In her current role, Ellen serves as a leading expert in applying benefits and benefits technology to power modern solutions to more effective employee leave programs, stronger regulatory compliance and enhanced digital HR transformation.