Dive Brief:
- Talent acquisition, healthcare and diversity and inclusion make up HR's most difficult strategic challenges in 2020, according to XpertHR's fourth annual survey of more than 700 HR professionals.
- Thirty percent of respondents polled identified recruiting and hiring as their biggest hurdle across the board. And of that percentage, 51% considered finding high quality candidates extremely hard — twice the number of respondents who said they felt the same way in 2017.
- Significant portions of respondents named employee engagement, morale and satisfaction, retention and managing work-life balance as top challenges.
Dive Insight:
Talent shortages and record-low employment make finding the right candidates to fill job openings exceptionally challenging. Kronos and The Human Capital Institute reported in April that the competitive labor market is making the recruiting and hiring processes longer and costlier. In fact, half the HR leaders polled said they're even revising their recruiting strategies to meet these challenges. Until the talent market shifts, this is likely to remain a challenge.
The XpertHR report noted that the definition of diversity has expanded to include more groups beyond those based on race, gender, age and religion. To be diverse, the report said, is to include people from "differing work experiences, sexual orientation, educational status, marital status, socioeconomic status, physical characteristics, life experiences, background and upbringing."
As HR grapples with this expansion, it may want to consider measuring how well its D&I programs work. A Boston Consulting Group study found that 98% of companies have D&I programs, but 25% of employees — including nonwhites, women, workers identified as LGBTQ and others — said they do not experience any benefits from these programs.
