This month’s roundup of HR News focuses on leadership and management, navigating the 6-generation workforce, and more news of note. 4 Reasons Why Managers Fail Swagatam Basu, Atrijit Das, Vitorio Bretas, and Jonah Shepp – Harvard Business Review The job of the manager has become unmanageable. Organizations are becoming flatter every year. The average manager’s number of direct reports has increased by 2.8 times over the last six years, according to Gartner research. In the past few years alone, many managers have had to make a series of pivots — from moving to remote work to overseeing hybr ..read more

Which comes first – happiness or success? Best-selling author and speaker Shawn Achor offers a talk on how we may have things backwards. Happiness is the joy you feel moving towards your potential. Shawn Achor We haven’t featured an inspirational video in some time, but we think this one is really worth your time. It’s about happiness and success,  Shawn Achor is a best-selling author and speaker known for his advocacy of positive psychology. Here’s a brief biography from his website that show just how popular his ideas are: After spending twelve years at Harvard University, Shawn ..read more

If you are planning employee newsletters, intranets, or other communications, we’ve compiled a list of May events with links to helpful resources from event sponsors or topical experts. Some links include tool kits and social media messages related to the event; others offer valuable information on the topic. Here’s our pick of May dates & events that you may want to check out and promote to your employees. Mental Health Awareness Month May is Mental Health Month, and Mental Health America has designated the 2024 as “Where to Start”, sayng that: “The world is constantly changing – for b ..read more

Employee mental health continues to be a front-burner issue in the workplace. We discuss what employers can do to help their employees navigate persistent post-pandemic mental health challenges. Four years ago in March, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic. Some nine months later, the first health care workers received vaccines, In year two, as vaccines were widely distributed, employers began grappling with the challenges of bringing employees back to the workplace, and families with the challenges of re-acclimating their children to the classroom. Everybody w ..read more

Your employees may not trust you. Here’s what HR can do Tom Starner, Human Resource Exeutive As global uncertainty continues to affect organizations and their workforces, trust in the workplace is needed more than ever—but leaders appear to have significant work ahead of them when it comes to building that trust, according to a new study. PwC’s 2024 Trust Survey found that just 67% of employees say they trust their employers, despite 86% of business leaders believing they are highly trusted by their employees. Likewise, 86% of executives say they “highly trust” their employees, yet only 60 ..read more

April is National Alcohol Awareness Month, a good time to think about your drinking and the impact on your overall health and well being. If you’re sober-curious, we have some resources to help. Gallup has tracked Americans use of and attitudes towards alcohol for more than 8 decades. In its most recent report, it found that 62% of Americans currently say they drink alcohol, a rate which is consistent since 1939.  On average, U.S. drinkers report they had four drinks in the past week.  Of those who do drink, alcohol misuse remains a significant problem. The National Institute on Al ..read more

Our current HR News Roundup features items on conflict at work, leadership, how to avoid viral layoffs, accommodating cannabis, retirement wave & more. Conflict debt: What it is and why it’s crushing teamwork today Jonathan Kirschner, Human Resource Executive What is conflict debt? Conflict debt, just like financial debt, is the accumulation of unresolved conflict over time. Since the start of the year, leaders and their teams have been dealing with an unpredictable economy, an unstable geopolitical environment and an unbroken chain of crises. Layered on top of these challenges is a ret ..read more

Planning upcoming employee communications? See our list of key March dates & events, along with links to helpful resources. Welcome to Spring month, the start of a fresh new season that we will usher in on March 19 regardless of what’s going on in the weather. The days grow longer and brighter, with the promise of a newly-budding earth. March is also a month when many of the world’s major religions mark holidays or observances: Ramadan begins on March 11, Holi is March 25,  and Easter is March 31. Here are a few other noteworthy observances in the month of March: National Nutrition ..read more

Which came first – Valentine’s Day or American Heart Month? It doesn’t really matter, they really go hand in hand. The single best thing you can do for a loved one this Valentine’s Day is to look after your own heart health – and to encourage your loved ones to look after theirs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Million Hearts – a national effort to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes in the U.S. by 2027 – encourage Americans to know their blood pressure, and if it’s high, to make control their goal. Here are some important stats that they offer about the scop ..read more

This issue of HR News Roundup features items on threats to workplace DEI initiatives, flagging employee engagement, stress, the downward spiral in employer-employee loyalty, dementia in older workers, and more. Be sure to check out news from the lighter side and posts you might have missed. In New Workplace, U.S. Employee Engagement Stagnates Jim Harter, Gallup In 2023, employees in the U.S. continued to feel more detached from their employers, with less clear expectations, lower levels of satisfaction with their organization, and less connection to its mission or purpose, than they did fou ..read more