Welcome to this week’s issue of Talent Edge Weekly—the weekly newsletter for human resources practitioners, bringing together insights about work, the workplace, and the workforce from various sources.

If you find value in this issue or any of its resources, please share them with your network by using the social media icons at the top of the newsletter.

Have a great week, and I look forward to sharing more ideas in next week’s Edge!

Brian 

Brian Heger is a human resources practitioner with a Fortune 150 organization and has responsibilities for Strategic Talent and Workforce Planning. To connect with Brian on Linkedin, click here.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

• 2022 HR Trends Report | McLean & Company | A 51-page report covering four main HR trends in 2022 based on six priorities. 

• Three Resources for Developing Aspects of HR Strategy and Priorities | BCG, Gartner, and SAP | I reshare three different resources that HR Leaders and their teams can use as they refine 2022 priorities.

• How Internal Talent Marketplaces Can Help Overcome 7 Common DEI Strategy Pitfalls | Deloitte Blog Capital H | Addresses how firms can use internal talent marketplaces (ITM) to enable DEI outcomes. I provide a bonus article that includes 9 considerations for thinking beyond technology when implementing an ITM.

• Predicting Employee Telecommuting Preferences and Job Outcomes Amid COVID-19 Pandemic | Current Psychology | Investigates how various motivational and personality factors influence one’s telecommuting preferences and how this, in turn, impacts worker engagement, job satisfaction, and perceived productivity.

• ‎Podcast: Should Employers Rethink What They’re Offering Workers? | Knowledge@Wharton and Peter Cappelli | A 22-minute podcast where Wharton’s Peter Cappelli explains what we’re getting wrong about the Great Resignation and how the pandemic has rewired worker preferences.

THIS WEEK'S EDGE

2022 HR Trends Report | McLean & Company 

This 51-page report covers four main trends for HR in 2022 based on six priorities:  1) Recruiting,  2) Providing a great employee experience,  3) Developing leaders, 4) Controlling labor costs, 5) Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and 6) Enabling innovation. Compared to 2021, recruiting remains the top priority, and employee experience has jumped from the fifth to the second priority. One part of the report looks at the average distribution of how HR is allocating its time across HR activities. HR spends the most time on talent acquisition (TA)—the only activity that saw a significant increase (25 percent) compared to the previous year. The increase in recruiting activity reflects multiple factors, such as changes in the labor market and employee preferences, to name a few. Could firms offset some of this recruiting activity by unlocking capacity within their internal workforce?  Page 11 notes how organizations of all sizes saw their HR to FTE ratios decrease in 2021; the ratios in 2021 for small, medium, and large organizations are 1:31, 1:56, and 1:97, respectively. And while the ratio for medium and small organizations is expected to stay flat in 2022, it is expected to increase in large organizations to 1:127. Unfortunately, the report requires a direct download, so I can only provide the link to where it can be accessed. In case you missed it, here is Gartner's Top 5 Priorities for HR Leaders in 2022.

Three Resources for Developing Aspects of HR Strategy and Priorities | BCG, Gartner, and SAP 

As HR leaders finalize and/or get ready to share their 2022 priorities with various stakeholders, I wanted to reshare three resources that can guide these efforts. 1) This Gartner resource provides a template to a) identify a shortlist of metrics to describe the HR function’s target state, b) document and monitor key assumptions, c) identify key initiatives and milestones required to move to the end state, and d) craft a concise statement that captures the essence of the strategy. 2) This 40-page BCG report segments 32 HR and Talent practices into three categories of urgency based on organizations’ current level of capability and each topic’s future importance. HR leaders can use this reference when framing their HR priorities. 3) This 16-page SAP Thought Leadership paper includes 100 questions (spanning eight talent categories) to help HR teams think critically about their organizations’ talent priorities. It provides criteria for selecting key performance indicators (KPIs) that can show progress toward addressing these questions. Each of these three resources provides incremental value when forming elements of HR strategy and priorities.

How Internal Talent Marketplaces Can Help Overcome 7 Common DEI Strategy Pitfalls | Deloitte Blog Capital H 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are top priorities for many organizations. Simultaneously, firms increasingly show interest in exploring artificial intelligence solutions for driving more fair and efficient talent practices. This Deloitte article addresses how firms can use internal talent marketplaces (ITM) as one enabler to achieving desired DEI outcomes. An ITM is an AI-enabled platform that allows organizations to connect talent to opportunities across full-time and part-time roles, short-term assignments, projects or gigs, volunteering, and mentoring, among others. Most ITM platforms use skills to match talent for these various opportunities. As it relates to DEI, the argument for ITMs is that it helps democratize opportunities by making workers aware of opportunities, enables managers to identify ‘hidden internal talent,’ and more. And while ITM’s show promise for enabling DEI and aspects of talent management, firms need to think beyond technology when planning to activate an ITM. With this in mind, here is an article by PepsiCo’s Allan Church and Natalie Cori—How to Tame the Talent Marketplace—covering nine things for firms to consider. As mentioned in the article, “turning on talent marketplace is like turning up a dimmer, not flicking on a light switch.”

Predicting Employee Telecommuting Preferences and Job Outcomes Amid COVID-19 Pandemic | Current Psychology

While a segment of practitioners doesn’t prefer the writing style and format of academic journal articles, it is important to use available empirical studies to guide workplace strategies and practices. And with remote and hybrid work continuing to receive much attention, this article provides empirical research on the topic. This study investigated how various motivational (i.e., autonomy and self-regulation) and personality (i.e., conscientiousness and extraversion) constructs influence one’s telecommuting preferences. The first study developed and correlated three profiles with work engagement, job satisfaction, and perceived productivity using these motivational and personality factors combinations. The hypothesis was that one of these profiles would score high on all the variables and show a preference for working on-site. It was also hypothesized this profile would score higher on work engagement, job satisfaction, and perceived productivity than the other two profiles. Results show that, contrary to the researchers’ expectations, profile 1 (high conscientious, autonomous, and medium-high extravert, self-regulated) preferred to work onsite rather than remotely. However, in line with expectations, this profile reported high work engagement, job satisfaction, and perceived productivity compared to other profiles. Similar results were confirmed in a second study. The study reinforces how multiple factors impact one’s preference for remote work. For another academic study on the effects of camera usage in virtual meetings, check out this article in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

‎PODCAST: Should Employers Rethink What They’re Offering Workers? | Knowledge@Wharton and Peter Cappelli 

As the pandemic pushes on, it continues to reshape what people value and prefer in their work and workplace. This shift has forced organizations to stay informed about the needs and expectations of their workers. However, as noted in various reports, such as those from McKinsey and Mercer, there is often a disconnect between what employers think workers want and what workers actually prefer. In this recently released 22-minute podcast, Wharton’s Peter Cappelli explains what we’re getting wrong about the Great Resignation, how the pandemic has rewired worker preferences, and why it’s time for employers to reconsider how they do things. You can also check out an informative article on this topic by Peter, titled Let’s Stop Guessing: Here’s What’s Truly Changing About Work, which reinforces a few of the insights from the podcast. While the article is from October 2021, it provides insights into how today’s workers have experienced the pandemic so far, job seeker behavior throughout the pandemic, and myths and facts about today’s labor market.

MOST SHARED RESOURCE FROM LAST WEEK

New CHRO Playbook: Getting Off to a Strong Start as a New Chief Human Resources Officer | Spencer Stuart| Covers an 8-point plan for accelerating the transition of newly appointed CHROs.

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​Talent Edge Weekly is a free weekly newsletter that brings together the best talent and strategic human resources insights from various sources. It is published every Sunday at 6PM EST.