News & Events

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI) there is no shortage of hyperbole with the emerging technology put by many somewhere between the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel.

It’s not just the fringe beating the drums for AI with Accenture in March releasing a report that says that generative AI “will transform work and reinvent business” and that “everything from science to business to society itself will be transformed. The positive impact on human creativity and productivity will be massive.”

HR Leaders in the past might have felt like the wedding guest stuck at the table in the back by the banquet kitchen door or the “adult” assigned to the “kid’s table” at Thanksgiving – sure, you were in the room, but you might have felt more like an afterthought than a focal point.

In today’s business world, however, senior HR can (and should!) play a pivotal role in shaping an organization’s success.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) “2023 State of Mental Health & Well-Being in the Workplace” research shows that nearly half of U.S. workers say they have little energy to participate in nonwork activities at the end of the workday, with younger generations disproportionately affected.

Most of today’s workforce are too young to remember early 1960s teen heartthrob Neil Sedaka, but they likely know that his signature song “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” continues to ring true in any decade.

Sedaka’s sad song may be at the top of some Spotify playlists as big-name employers are “breaking up” with employees during a wave of mass layoffs centered around the tech industry in the U.S.

“Tech jobs feel like they're vanishing quicker than steam from a pot of boiling water lately,” reported USA Today.

The massive tech worker layoff, which started in 2022 and has extended into 2023, has led to more than 200,000 employees being let go and has many examining its effect on the U.S. job market.

“More than 66,000 workers in U.S.-based tech companies have been laid off in mass job cuts so far in 2023, according to a Crunchbase News tally, and the year is just getting started,” reported Keerthi Vedantam for CrunchBase. “Last year, more than 140,000 jobs were slashed from public and private tech companies as they were forced to confront rising inflation and a tumultuous stock market.”

It’s never easy to make HR predictions for the coming year but the crystal ball is particularly cloudy in 2023 due to the chances of the U.S. economy entering into a recession between now and December.

HR compliance checklists come in all shapes and sizes with the spectrum covering an alphabet soup of acronyms from COBRA to FMLA to ADA to FLSA.

The Society for Human Resource Management offers its members a whopping 39 compliance checklists that fall among 13 different categories.

“Ensuring your company is compliant with tax and labor laws helps create a safe and secure workplace for employees, provide fair compensation and ensure your company keeps up with its tax obligations.

Dusting off the year-end HR checklist is a good sign for most small and medium-sized business owners as 2022 has been one of the most challenging years ever and cannot come to an end quickly enough.

It’s no secret that small business owners must wear many hats from CEO to sales to marketing to HR and all the way down the line to being the warehouse and logistics honcho who knows where the extra toilet paper is stashed.

Sartorial success, however, is often hard to pull off with not every hat a comfortable fit – Texans understand this every time they get a glimpse of any “dollar store cowboy” in an oversized 10-gallon hat.

“It’s a reality that we all deal with as we work to grow our businesses. We have to perform several different functions as effectively as possible. One day you might be working on your marketing plan. The next day, you might be negotiating with vendors. After that, you might find yourself being your own accountant,” Jeff Charles shared in Startup Advice.

Businesses that are not preparing for the possibility of a recession within the next year are gambling because experts put the odds of an economic downturn as a true coinflip.

“The median probability of a recession over the next 12 months is 47.5 percent, up from 30 percent in June, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists completed last week,” reported CNBC on July 20, 2022.

In March, those odds were just 20 percent. The latest survey was conducted July 8-14, with 34 economists responding about the chances of recession.