In a year charged with political debates and celebrity headlines, HR still managed to land cover stories and cultivate social media hype throughout 2015. In fact, this year’s HR news and updates dramatically influenced hiring practices, employee benefits, and industry trends. If you were too busy implementing your corporate ATS or studying for your SHRM-SCP exam to catch all of the headlines, here’s your recap of the eight most impactful HR stories of 2015:
Back in 2010, Fitbit launched a business-to-business employee wellness program so that participating companies could give their employees free Fitbits in hopes of motivating them to stay active and healthy. However, according to mobihealthnews, it wasn’t until September of this year that the program became HIPAA compliant and was adopted by the massive retailer Target.
One month later, Reuters announced that Fitbit gained 20 new enterprise customers, including Barclays PLC and GoDaddy.com. With the Fitbit wellness program trend finally taking off, it’s clear that more employers are now understanding the benefits associated with healthy and happy employees. In fact, Business Insider reported that Appirio was able to lower its health insurance rates by five percent by adopting the Fitbit program.
If you’ve contemplated new wellness strategies and programs for your employees, you’re in good company. With proof that health is headed corporate, it’s the perfect time to consider what your employees need to be healthy and successful.
On September 8, 2015, Harvard Business Review published an article highlighting another rising trend in HR: the elimination of employee performance rankings.
After various articles and studies in 2014 revealed that employee ratings were associated with negative outcomes, around 30 large companies including Adobe, Gap, Accenture, and Cigna said goodbye to annual performance ratings in early 2015. Publishers like strategy+business explained that according to neuroscience, performance ratings and reviews lead to a “fight or flight” reaction, increased attrition, low productivity, and serious problems with collaboration.
If you want to avoid these outcomes, Strategy+business suggests creating performance reviews that utilize a structured conversational approach where supervisors have list of topics to talk openly and casually about with their employees. Now data supports what great managers already know--ongoing and honest communication is key in any workplace.
Do you remember seeing the hilarious commercials from General Electric this year? Those commercials were part of GE’s campaign titled “What’s the Matter with Owen?” which launched on September 6, 2015, during the Stephen Colbert Show.
The series of three commercials featured a new college grad, Owen, who tells his friends and family that he got a job as an industrial internet developer at GE. Sadly, his excitement is only met with confusion and condolences because everyone still thinks GE is only a manufacturing company. These entertaining commercials send the message that GE isn’t just a manufacturing company anymore; it’s now a digital industrial company as well. The company used social media to promote this message even further and allowed internet users to follow “Owen” on his first day on the job.
GE hoped that spreading this message would encourage more young professionals to apply for its positions. And according to Business Insider, it worked. Once the commercials launched, GE saws visits to its online recruitment site increase 66 percent month over month. GE’s success proves that an investment in recruiting campaigns and employment branding can pay off in a big way for companies and HR.
On August 4, 2015, Netflix announced that it would begin offering a new unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads. The policy made a big splash in the news, as it allows new parents to take as much time off as they need during the first year of their child’s birth or adoption. Employed parents still receive full salary pay and can choose to work from home.
Netflix says it launched the policy in order to cultivate a culture where its employees are free to make their own decisions as long as they are accountable for their actions. By offering a policy that’s very rare to find in the US, Netflix made a bold statement that employees should be entitled to substantial paid leave when they welcome a new child
With these actions, Netflix joins other top US companies in extending unique and highly coveted benefits to employees in an increasingly competitive environment for top talent. So while year-long parental leave might not be on the table for your company, offering other unique benefits that fit your candidates and culture can help your business compete for top talent.
Every year, Twitter releases #YearOnTwitter to online users in order to reveal the year’s Twitter trends and statistics. On December 6, 2015, Twitter released this #YearOnTwitter for 2015 and once again created a website to display all of the various data, information and lists.
If you’re not part of the Twittersphere, you may have missed the news that one of Twitter’s most trending news topic of 2015 was #jobs. The hashtag was so popular that it even beat #LoveWins, #ISIS and #PrayForParis on the top 10 list. With #jobs being the number one hashtag in the trending news category, it’s clear that a huge portion of our society is using Twitter to search for and communicate about jobs.
If you thought social media didn’t plan a role in recruiting and the job search, it’s time to think again. Our blog 3 Ways Twitter can Strengthen your Recruiting can teach you how to use Twitter more effectively so that in 2016, you can connect with all of those online job seekers tweeting #jobs.
A couple years ago in 2013, Pinterest allowed one of its employees to expose the company’s diversity challenges in a Medium blog post that encouraged discussion about the issue. Pinterest received a lot of praise for revealing these statistics and kickstarting an important conservation among Silicon Valley’s tech companies.
Pinterest began improving its diversity statistics very slowly afterwards, but it wasn’t until July 30th, 2015, that CEO Ben Silbermann and co-founder Evan Sharp decided to up their game and announced more ambitious hiring goals for 2016. The goals generally focus on hiring more females and job seekers with underrepresented ethnic backgrounds.
By remaining transparent and determined this year instead of simply giving up, Pinterest encouraged other large tech companies like Google and Facebook to reveal their diversity data and focus on building more diverse workforces. Now that more companies are acknowledging the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace, HR departments can expect that promoting these initiatives will be increasingly important in 2016.
On April 6, 2015, in partnership with Arizona State University, the Starbucks Newsroom announced that its College Achievement Plan (launched back in June 2014) will extend its tuition coverage to 100% for every eligible U.S. Starbucks employee.
Four months after making this change, QSR Magazine announced that the total number of Starbucks employees enrolled in the program passed 4,000 and is expected to reach 4,800 by the end of year.
The expansion of the program supports Starbucks’ innovative culture and, more importantly, displays the company’s commitment to growing its employees. By encouraging employees to pursue education, Starbucks is supporting its employees while also strengthening the workforce and improving retention.
With so many employees showing interest in the program, it’s clear that education is highly valued among many American workers. As competition for skilled and niche talent heats up with rising employment rates, companies will need to find more ways to retain and train for these types of positions.
One of the boldest HR statements of the year was made on the cover of Harvard Business Review’s July-August 2015 magazine issue. The cover features only one single prominent sentence, which reads: “It’s time to blow up HR and build something new.”
The featured spotlight “Rethinking Human Resources” introduces a series of articles relating to pertinent HR topics. In the first article, “Why We Love to Hate HR ...and What HR Can Do About It,” professor and author Peter Cappelli explains why many executives devalue HR and then offers strategies for reversing this trend. The next two articles, “People Before Strategy: A New Role for the CHRO” and “Bright, Shiny Objects and the Future of HR,” discuss other industry-wide issues and how they can be resolved.
HBR’s decision to dedicate an entire magazine issue to human resources reveals the critical role and need that HR plays in today’s organizations. By addressing some of the most prevalent HR problems and offering solutions, Harvard Business Review’s contributors encourage HR professionals to make an impact and prove their value to their employers.
