Your 2017 Human Capital Strategy on a Platter

The top five workforce management trends for 2017?  According to a new report from The Workforce Institute at Kronos, just published on cio.com, here’s what you can expect this year.

1. The year of the middle manager
   Organizations spend a lot of time and money developing a strategic vision and equal effort engaging employees, but this leaves out a critical part of the equation: middle management.  Employees join companies, but leave managers, so smart companies will invest in front-line managers as a means to engage and retain workers.
2. Focus on the employee experience to drive engagement
   Leading companies work hard to deliver superior customer satisfaction, and they will take a similar approach to their workforces, looking for ways to make the employee experience easier, rewarding, more transparent and fulfilling.
3. Achieving agility
   The global economy is in flux – just look at the U.S. Presidential election and Brexit. In addition, key political elections will take place in 2017 throughout Asia and Europe that could usher in labor laws that companies must react to.  The key here?  Companies need to be nimble and able to quickly react.
4. Using people data to solve people problems
   Technology will enable organizations to look more closely into the workforce data they already capture — i.e. people data — to make better employee and business decisions that solve challenges related to turnover, retention, engagement, customer and patient satisfaction, and productivity.
5. HR gets more strategic
   The human resources function has evolved from the transaction-driven personnel department of decades past into a strategic business partner.  However, many HR leaders still spend more than a third of their time on manual tasks.  The solution? Leverage technology to automate transactions.

BE AWESOME.  Want to get ahead of the curve and position yourself as an employer of choice in our hot job market?  Develop a plan now to invest in front-line manages, simplify the employee experience, be ready for anything, analyze your data, and automate transactions.  Be the benchmark, not the bench marker and success will be yours.