Human Capital Intelligence - 4/3/2024
Forced retirement rethink | CEOs need to be reading | Mental health absences rise | Gamification gains in popularity | Businesses shift focus from labor to skills
Welcome to the latest edition of Human Capital Intelligence. As always, we would love to hear from you at ken@stibler.me with news ideas, feedback and anything else you find interesting.
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By Ken Stibler; Powered by Reyvisum Analytics
What’s Working
Traditional retirement becomes unsuitable, promoting a rethink for all generations
The traditional concept of retirement is undergoing a significant transformation, due to increasing longevity and economic volatility. This shift has profound implications for both businesses and employees. It necessitates a reevaluation of retirement strategies to ensure financial stability and workforce sustainability. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, has emphasized the urgent need to address the "retirement crisis," highlighting the disconnect between outdated retirement models and the current economic and demographic landscape.
For businesses, the changing retirement landscape presents challenges, and opportunities, in managing human capital and financial planning. Companies must adapt to an aging workforce by creating flexible work environments, rethinking career progression models, and providing adequate support to help employees navigate the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution retirement plans. Employees, on the other hand, face the dual pressures of insufficient savings plus the prospect of extended work life. This will require a more active role in planning for their future, and rethinking the concept of retirement as a more fluid phase of life.
Addressing the retirement crisis demands a collaborative effort among corporate leaders, policymakers, and individuals. Companies play a crucial role in providing tools and support for employees to navigate these changes, while policymakers must consider reforms to ensure the sustainability of public entitlement programs, and encourage private savings. Embracing flexible work, fostering financial literacy, and pursuing innovative retirement solutions, businesses can support their employees in achieving retirement.
Leadership mindsets shift amid accelerating change
Business leaders are being confronted with an unprecedented array of challenges that demand a swift adaptation of their leadership strategies. From inflationary pressures and geopolitical unrest to onslaught of emerging technologies, the landscape of global business is undergoing a profound transformation. To navigate rising complexity, leaders must embrace a mindset of continuous learning, dedicating time to stay informed and make resilient decisions in the face of rapid change.
The 27th Annual Global CEO Survey by PwC underscores the urgency of this transformation, revealing that a staggering 45% of US CEOs doubt their businesses' economic viability over the next decade. While the potential of AI to drive innovation and reduce labor costs is widely recognized, leaders must also contend with the intensifying competitive landscape that demands a proactive approach. Central to this effort is the cultivation of trust among stakeholders, which serves as the foundation for bold, fundamental changes in business models and technology integration.
To thrive in this era of accelerated change, leaders must develop a capacity for strategic agility, leveraging new tools to monitor the operating environment and adopting fresh mindsets to compete effectively. This requires a willingness to engage actively with disruption, transforming potential threats into opportunities for innovation.
Reading List
Mental health challenges lead to greater office absences
49% of HR leaders have observed an increase in mental health-related absences in the workplace, according to a recent study by mental wellbeing platform Headspace. The report also highlighted that while 44% of employees sought mental health support from their managers, only a quarter of HR leaders stated that managers are required to undergo mental-health-specific training. Furthermore, 43% of employees reported that their managers had negatively impacted their mental health by failing to respect work-life boundaries or treating team members unequally.
Changing nature of work leads to rise of ‘gamification’
As businesses grapple with rising employee disengagement, which hit a nine-year high in the US in 2022, some companies are turning to gamification to boost motivation and performance. By incorporating elements of fun, play, rules, uncertainty, and challenge into the workplace, gamification taps into employees' innate desires for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The gamification market is expected to grow by 27.4% annually between 2020 and 2025, with successful implementations already seen at major companies like Uber and Southwest Airlines.
Headline unemployment figures mask stark regional divisions in labor availability
The United States' job market has undergone significant changes since the onset of the pandemic, with the latest data revealing stark regional differences in labor availability and employment levels. While the national unemployment rate has recovered, and the total number of employed individuals has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, nearly one-third of US states still have fewer people employed compared to February 2020. California and New York have experienced the steepest declines, with Los Angeles County and New York City alone losing a combined total of nearly 400,000 jobs.
Softening labor market shifts focus from labor attraction to talent retention
The once-soaring recruiting sector saw investments cool off in 2023, dipping by 12.2% amid economic uncertainty and a softening labor market, according to a recent report by Hunt Scanlon. As the labor market stabilizes, companies are shifting their focus from attracting new talent to acquiring new skills to bolster their current workforce.
Stat of the Week
In Other News
Need development ideas? Consider job shadowing, McLean & Co. says. (HR Dive)
‘The entry-level job has largely disappeared’: How workers can attain the AI skills of the future. (WorkLife)
66% of women admit that they are not financially prepared for layoffs. (Employee Benefits News)
Stay Away From This Hiring Hack: Stealing Ideas From Interviewees Has Been Popularized on Social Media. (Inc)
Job seekers are relying too much on AI, say HR leaders. (WorkLife)
Private industry compensation costs averaged $43.11 per hour worked in December 2023. (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
How employers are helping prep the youngest generation of workers in AI. (WorkLife)
Gartner: 71% of finance leaders plan for raises to outpace inflation in 2024. (HR Dive)
Job scams target both recruiters and job-seekers. (HR Brew)
Fired Americans Say Indian Firm Gave Their Jobs to H-1B Visa Holders. (Wall Street Journal)
Legislative lowdown: Employers will be charged more to sponsor visas in 2024. (HR Brew)
How HR can better support hourly workers. (HR Brew)
Stellantis uses ‘mandatory remote work day’ to cut 400 white-collar jobs: ‘It was a mass firing of everybody that was on the call’. (Yahoo Finance)