A survey conducted by Human Resource Executive (HRE) in late 2022 revealed that the top five things keeping HR up at night includes hiring and retention, stress, culture, technology, and learning and development.

1. Hiring and Retention – In 2022 we experience the great resignation pushing hiring and retention to the top of HR professionals’ challenges. 47% of survey respondents stated that this is their most pressing challenge.
    
2. Stress – HR professionals are stressed out.  Only 4% of respondents said their stress has decreased over the past year…and that’s after dealing with the COVID pandemic at it’s highest levels. 29% said their stress level increased dramatically and 47% stated it increased somewhat. Organizations should be sure to invest in their employees’ health and wellbeing and preventing burnout.
    
3. Culture – Culture jumped from the number four slot in 2021 to number 3 in 2022 with 18% of survey respondents stating culture is their number one challenge. According to research by Mercer, 81% of employees are burned out. This puts those employees at risk of quitting or losing productivity.
    
4. Technology – HR is in need of technology but lacks the budget to meet their challenges.  According to ASE partner, McLean and Company, many organizations are seeing a lag in HR digitization, and nearly 40% say they lack the budget to make up so such lags.  More funding is needed in this area. According to the HRE survey, most organizations list learning and development tools, people analytics, and performance management as areas for improvement in technology with nearly 84% saying they have no budget to invest in those needs.
    
5. Learning and Development (L&D) – This area surfaced throughout the HRE survey. Nearly half of survey respondents said their HR departments weren’t adequately staffed, and the L&D function ranked second (only after general HR) for where more staff is needed.  Employee development is a crucial key to employee retention. According to the Josh Bersin Academy, “L&D departments that focus on employee growth are seeing four to five times higher employee engagement than their peers.”

Do these things keep you up at night?