Half of your employees are looking to leave. Yes, we said half.  50%. This is according to the 2023 Global Workplace Status report.  Is your organization a victim of this statistic? You might not know until it’s too late.

From "Bare Minimum Mondays" to "Put Your Boss on Blast on TikTok Fridays," there's a bold new trend called loud quitting. Instead of resorting to quiet disengagement, employees are now using social media as a platform to voice their frustrations and announce their resignations in a very public manner. This new trend affects workplace morale, productivity, and employer reputation. 

First there was Quiet Quitting, now there is Quiet Constraint – corporate America's current hidden threat at work. According to data from Kahoot!’s recent Workplace Culture Report, over half (58%) of employees say that they withhold valuable knowledge they could share with their colleagues. The Gen Z generation exhibited this behavior more than any other generation, with 77% of Gen Zers reporting that they silently sit on beneficial information in the workplace.

According to FlexJobs’ 2023 Work Insights Survey of over 5,600 people, 96% of workers believe a remote or hybrid work arrangement is best for their mental health. Only 4% of workers thought being in an office full-time is best for their mental health. A decreased stress level was the top reported health benefit of remote work.

About half of workers are not fully engaged in their jobs, according to a study conducted by Gallup. This means they are only doing the minimum required to get by – not good for employers. This drop in employee engagement has happened two years in a row. But why?

ChatGPT, and now GPT 4, and other similar artificial intelligence tools (AI) are proliferating through the marketplace.  Unlike other disruptive technologies that would create new jobs to support it, AI may have the opposite effect.  A study by Goldman Sachs reported that 300 million jobs may be lost due to AI.  It may also be a wage suppressant.

A large share of workers say they aren't taking vacations, often due to the high costs, according to research by Eagle Hill Consulting. 39% of U.S. workers report that they have not taken a vacation during the last 12 months. Nearly half of workers (45%) state the reason as being it’s too expensive. This is another effect of inflation.

Over the years, HR has evolved from personnel to human resources to business partners to HR consultants and more.  However, often HR remains very transactional, with minimal involvement in strategic planning and decision-making.  In part, that is the design of HR as the facilitators of people within an organization to constantly putting out fires as legal compliance grows.  But in 10 years from now, will HR change from transactional to more strategic roles?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the way Human Resources (HR) operates. As the HR landscape becomes more complex, HR practitioners need powerful tools to manage and support employees effectively. AI can offer HR practitioners an efficient and effective way to automate and streamline various HR processes. By leveraging AI, HR practitioners can reduce the time and resources required to manage HR processes while improving the employee experience.

One area that has plagued our nation’s recovery from the pandemic has been the sluggish labor force participation rate (LFPR).  According to recent analysis by the Federal Reserve, the February 2023 LFPR was 0.8 percentage points lower than its February 2020 level. This gap in participation amounts to 2.1 million individuals who are not part of the labor force.

A Stanford professor of organizational behavior makes an interesting observation about certain employer lay off practices. He believes when certain industries start laying off employees in anticipation or reaction to a perceived business downturn that in many are just copying off one another rather than reducing their workforce by necessity.

Are your employees passionate about a cause or do they want to volunteer at their kids’ reading day for an hour?  Then it’s time you look at offering VTO – Volunteer Time Off.  It is proven to improve employee engagement and productivity.  It is also great for your brand.

If you have a teenager in your home, you’ve likely heard many of their terms….and maybe had to ask them what it means or secretly google it.  This year, Gen Z will turn anywhere from 11 to 26 years old.  This means many of them are now bringing their slang to the workplace.

There has been a lot of discussion recently around ChatGPT and how it affects HR and the workplace.  So, as an experiment I tried it.  I asked ChatGPT to write me 500 words on the effect of ChatGPT on HR.  This is the unedited response it generated:

We are officially in a post pandemic workspace now.  What does that mean?  We probably are managing remote teams, figuring out smarter ways to work, and meeting more efficiently.