January 2023 Edition

RKL’s Workforce Strategies team is here to help you navigate the complexities of today's HR environment with the updates, reminders and insights you need to maximize your most important asset — your people. We value your feedback, so let us know what you think of this newsletter!

Here are a few major HR trends that emerged over the past 12 months that will remain hot topics as we kick off a new year. We’ll certainly explore these themes in upcoming issues of the Workforce Minute, but for now, keep these priorities on your radar as you launch your new strategic plan or slate of initiatives for 2023.

• Employee feedback remains critical: If you want to know what your employees think, ask them! But don’t survey just for the sake of collecting information. Tell your employees how their feedback is being used to drive change. 

• Culture is still key: With the rise of remote work and flexible schedules, employers must be more intentional than ever about providing opportunities for their teams to connect, engage and feel valued. It’s not a one-size-fits-all proposition, so you have to figure out what works best for your workforce. Tap into the above trend and seek consistent feedback and input and let employees play a role in shaping the culture they want to experience. 

• Get your onboarding act together: A new hire’s first 90 days are key to determining long-term success with a company. After the offer is accepted, many companies fail to keep communication open, build excitement and appropriately support their new hires. You can read more about pre-hire communication efforts in “Around the Water Cooler” below, but employers can enhance their onboarding process by making it more personal, providing relevant support and resources, and leveraging technology. 

• Make wellbeing a constant focus: Many companies have a safety week or specific times throughout the year to focus on health. Between stress, burnout, financial challenges and more, today’s employees need more routine wellness support. Think beyond the one-off webinar or flier in the breakroom and consider ways to keep your employees’ wellbeing front and center year-round. This can be a sensitive and personal area, so consider collecting private or anonymized feedback to guide your planning.

Want to discuss any of these trends and how they apply to your organization? Contact the Workforce Strategies team today!

What’s on the minds of your HR peers? Check out this recent client FAQ from our Workforce Strategies Update event held last month in Lancaster, PA.

Q: We all know there are major challenges in our talent pools. What are some of the easy changes our company can make to identify our target candidates and keep them engaged throughout the hiring and onboarding process?

A: While total rewards remain a priority, today’s jobseekers are also taking into account factors about a company’s culture, such as mission/values, nontraditional benefits, work arrangements, schedule flexibility and more. Make sure you’re using a marketing approach and partnering with available internal resources to promote your employer brand and catch the interest of top talent.

• Know your audience: What are your target candidates reading? How are they getting their information? Where are they searching for jobs? What are their interests? Investing the time to better understand the candidates as people will also indicate where you can reach them and what tactics will grab their attention (i.e., video messages, social media campaigns or other visual elements).

• Mind your brand: Developing a strong employer brand can be low cost and high impact. Today’s candidates are searching for jobs like they choose a restaurant or hotel — by reading reviews and finding out as much as possible about the experience of working there. Consider giving jobseekers an online peek into your company culture through an onboarding handbook, overview of values or leadership Q&A. It’s also important to have a proactive strategy for soliciting reviews on sites like Glassdoor and Indeed.

• Keep the conversation going: Once the candidate accepts your offer, stay in touch and continue to build rapport before the first day. Communication efforts like a new hire box of branded products or video messages from company leadership can help set the tone of excitement and anticipation. You may also want to consider a company store credit to pick new swag or clothing options so they are properly outfitted as new brand ambassadors.

…the many benefits of an HRIS?

A Human Resource Information System (HRIS) provides a host of benefits, such as efficiency, cost savings, record retention and more. An HRIS also helps reduce the risk of fraud in a number of ways, such as eliminating the risk of manual entry into multiple systems, applying security protocols and making workflows more transparent. As distributed workforces become the norm, an HRIS also provides off-site employees with self-service tools and centralized online information for common HR needs and resources.

Pro tip: Make sure to activate all relevant modules in your HRIS — from application tracking to benefits administration to learning and development to off-boarding — for greater efficiency, effectiveness and return on financial investment.

Contact the Workforce Strategies team to learn more about the benefits of an HRIS and how it can free up your HR team to focus more on strategic, employee-centric objectives.

…there is a free website to verify employee Social Security numbers?

Social Security number verification is an important part of your hiring, onboarding and payroll processes. As your organization prepares employee W-2s, it is an opportune time to ensure that all Social Security numbers have been verified, either through the pre-hiring background check or the Department of Homeland Security E-Verify system. If any Social Security numbers have been yet been verified, the federal government offers a free website to do so — click here to explore it. Remember to maintain all completed verifications with confidential employee records.

…Pennsylvania’s e-TIDES system will shut down at the end of February?

The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (PA DOR) recently launched its new myPATH self-service platform for registration, filing and payment obligations for Pennsylvania taxes, such as sales tax, employer withholding, corporate taxes and others. The prior online filing system for business taxpayers, e-TIDES, will close permanently in the final week of February, so now is the time to ensure your organization’s new myPATH account is set up and ready to go for many upcoming tax due dates.

December 2022 saw the passage of three new federal laws dealing with workplace behavior and accommodations — here is a quick recap and additional reading to get employers caught up to start the New Year.

Speak Out Act: Signed into law on December 7, 2022, the Speak Out Act voids nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) related to workplace sexual harassment or assault. Forced arbitration agreements had been previously invalidated under another federal law enacted in February 2022. The Speak Out Act prevents employers from using NDAs to silence victims of sexual misconduct; these types of agreements are still permissible in conjunction with a claim or dispute settlement or the protection of trade secrets or proprietary information. Read more in this post from HR Morning.

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act: Signed into law on December 29, 2022, as part of the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) will require employers with at least 15 employees to expand existing reasonable accommodations policies under the Americans with Disabilities Act to include pregnant employees, those with pregnancy-related conditions and those who recently gave birth. Examples include light duty assignments, access to water at workstations and more frequent bathroom breaks. The PWFA will take effect on June 27, 2023, and brings federal regulations up to speed with at least 30 state-level laws affording similar protections. Read more in this SHRM post.

PUMP Act: Also signed into law as part of the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act, the PUMP Act fills the gap in a 2010 law that excluded 9 million women of child-bearing age from protections and accommodations related to breastfeeding. Effective April 28, 2023, employers must give mothers time and space to pump and store breast milk at work for one year after the child’s birth. Learn more about the expansion of this Fair Labor Standards Act protection here.  

Adley Satteson
Client Service Associate

Connect with Adley on LinkedIn

What is your area of expertise or focus?

The health care industry, employee compensation analysis, employee surveys, systems analysis, cross-functional teams, employee relations, people analytics and workplace burnout.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I most enjoy the variety of projects I get to work on, as well as my Workforce Strategies teammates, who are absolutely the best colleagues I’ve ever had the privilege of working with.

What are you watching/reading/listening to right now?  

I am currently reading the latest two-volume work by Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger and Stella Maris. He is by far my favorite living fiction writer and these recently published books are his first novels since 2006, when he published The Road.