Artificial intelligence (AI) is being hailed in some quarters as the biggest step for change for society since the industrial revolution and the emerging technology certainly could revolutionize the human resources (HR) industry by automating repetitive tasks and improving the efficiency and accuracy of HR processes.
The Supreme Court issued a judgment in February that has employers on notice as a 6-3 majority opinion in “Helix Energy Solutions Group v. Hewitt” found that daily-rate workers, no matter their income level, are not exempt from overtime pay unless they are paid on a salary basis as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
In an era of rising inflation and tightening household budgets, it’s surprising that many employees fail to maximize their employee benefits.
In fact, a survey by Voya Financial in 2021 found that 1 in 3 employees do not understand the benefits they selected during the open enrollment, including half of all millennials.
The IRS offers several programs designed to give individuals tax advantages to offset health care costs including health savings accounts (HSAs) and health flexible spending arrangements (FSAs).
“Both a healthcare flexible spending account and a health savings account can cut your taxes and help you save money on medical, dental, vision and other qualified medical expenses. And while they are alike in some ways, each offers different features and benefits,” writes Kemberley Washington in Forbes Advisor.
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.
On one side of the American economy, tech companies almost daily announce new layoffs, while in other sectors, such as shipbuilding, companies cannot hire workers fast enough.
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.
Artificial Intelligence and the future of work is a hot topic, but when it comes to the future of leadership, automation and machines take a backseat to something much less esoteric: “human leadership.”
Gartner HR Research identified human leadership as the next evolution of leadership in a study released in June 2022.
