HR’s role is shifting. Are you prepared?  

Jumpstart with this 3-Step Guide.

This past June, Harvard Business Review published a notable and widely circulated article entitled “HR’s New Role.” It raised alarm bells for some and had others cheering as the authors outlined a new mandate for HR in a rapidly evolving business environment.  

The summary:  Talent cultivation and investments in employee well-being will separate the winners from the losers in the years ahead.  HR leaders who want to steer their organizations toward success need to build a smarter and stronger case for employee investments when approaching C-suite gatekeepers.

STEP 1:  Offer a C-suite Reality Check

Several respected surveys in recent years provide data illustrating the disconnect between C-suite executives’ perceptions of workforce well-being and the on-the-ground reality. You may feel the need to go gentle here, but the numbers speak for themselves.  

The most recent data, released in a report this June by Deloitte in partnership with the independent research firm, Workplace Intelligence, does the heavy lifting for you.  The findings reveal that: 

• 70% of executives believe well-being improved for their workers over the past year.

Reality Check:  Just over 30% of workers say their well-being improved over the past year in the following areas:  physical (34%), mental (32%), financial (35%) and social (31%)

• 90% of executives believe that working for their company has a positive effect on employee well-being, skills development, career advancement, inclusion and belonging, and their sense of purpose and meaning. 

Reality Check:  Only 60% of workers agree.

• 82% of executives believe their company is advancing human sustainability (a term coined by Deloitte to capture the degree to which an organization leaves its people better off with greater health, skill, employability and connection to purpose.) 

Reality Check:  Only 56% of workers agree.

Bringing this survey data to your organization’s leadership team should, at the very least, provoke reflection and spark questions specific to your workforce.  This is exactly where you want to land as you proceed to step two.

STEP 2: Purpose-Build Your HR Dashboard

Take a look at the data you’re sharing with your leadership team on a regular basis and ask this question:  To what extent does this information demonstrate the value of our workforce talent and the costs associated with under-investing in it?

Put another way, use your dashboard to help leadership understand and consider:

• Turnover levels and their true cost
• The reasons employees are quitting
• Indicators of employee morale such as net promoter scores and new hire failure rates
• Indicators of employee well-being such as absenteeism
• The factors affecting employee well-being and morale

Sounds challenging?  It can be.  

When HR outsources its employee-support programs, like EAPs, this data may not be readily available.  HR must seek vendors who offer actionable insight and data that goes beyond utilization rates.  The right vendor can be a soup-to-nuts partner when developing and populating a purpose-built dashboard.  

STEP 3: Engage the Right Partners

Building a compelling case for employee investments (one that will convince C-suite gatekeepers) requires data that few vendors in the HR space can provide.  If your vendors offer utilization data and stop there, it’s time to seek new partners.

The right partner will:

• Offer in-depth data and insights and offer strategic partnership to your HR team.
• Have experience using insights to build workforce investment cases to CEOs, CFOs and CHROs.
• Provide synthesized data, aligned with your dashboard, on a quarterly basis.

Here at WorkLife Partnership, we specialize in providing outstanding services to employees and unparalleled data to HR teams.  We’ve seen our data on employee engagement, morale and well-being help HR teams steer their organizations toward stronger workforce practices and business success. Want to learn more?  Please contact us.