We hope you are reading this month’s HR News Roundup from the beach, the cabin, or some other vacation spot. This issue features items on managing a multi-generational workforce, ageism, projected pay raises for 2025, tips for giving feedback, tips for hiring a more diverse workforce, and more HR news we found noteworthy.
(Please note – we try to find non-pay walled articles, but some sources may require registration.)
Leading the Multigenerational Workforce
SmartBrief, Indiana Lee
Tensions between generations have made headline news in recent weeks. Gen-Xers, who were born between 1960 and 1985, are being overlooked in favor of younger peers, and Gen-Zers have caused a ruckus by quiet quitting their way out of roles.
While the differences between generations are primarily overstated, you should be aware of these patterns as a leader in the business world. Understanding the pressure that your team faces is crucial if you want to build buy-in amongst employees and help folks navigate the stressors they face.
What Biden’s Age Discussion Means for Workplace Ageism
WorkLife, Cloey Callahan
While employers have tried to make progress towards rooting our ageism in workplaces over the last decade, it’s far from eradicated. And the continued spotlight on President Biden’s age, does resurface the question: how old is too old to work?
Of the over 1,000 people surveyed, 73% believe age discrimination in the workplace is common, both for older and younger workers. Overall, age-based discrimination in the workplace has touched 36% of adults.
“Age discrimination is a common topic within job search, but does not get the same visibility as other types of discrimination,” said Marc Cenedella, CEO at Ladders. “You rarely hear people speaking out against it.”
Employers Planning Lower Pay Raises in 2025
SHRM, Katherine Mayer
Roughly half (47%) of U.S. organizations report that their salary budgets for the 2024 cycle are lower than the previous year, according to a new report from consulting firm WTW, which surveyed roughly 31,000 organizations. The overall median pay raise for 2024 fell to 4.1%, compared with 4.5% in 2023. Meanwhile, preliminary data from Empsight, a New York City-based human resource consulting firm specializing in compensation, found that salary increase budgets for 2024 are 4%, while median merit budgets are 3.5%.
Employers—at least so far—are pegging overall salary budget increases even lower, WTW found, with organizations predicting a 3.9% jump in 2025. Empsight similarly projects that total salary increase budgets will be 4% for 2025, while median merit budgets are projected to be 3.5% for 2025.
Why HR is spending less to attract employees but more to keep them
Human Resource Executive, Dawn Kawamoto
For talent acquisition leaders, the slowdown in salary increases bodes well for significant savings as they recruit candidates. However, employers may still have to spend big to retain employees. According to a global survey by recruiting solutions provider Hudson RPO, those who are thinking about leaving their current employer say they would reconsider the move for a minimum 30% salary increase.
However, even with that salary hike, only 44% of survey participants would ultimately stay with their current employer if they were unhappy with their job. According to Hudson RPO, a bad boss (35%) is the main reason employees want to bolt to another employer.
Overcome Your Fear of Giving Feedback
Harvard Business Review, Deborah Grayson Riegel
Giving performance feedback is a part of every people leader’s job. And yet, in my work with these leaders and teams, I’ve found that they often have negative mental models of what a feedback conversation is supposed to look like. Those pre-conceived notions can act as a barrier to giving timely, helpful, and honest performance feedback. Part of my job as a coach and facilitator is to help challenge people’s mindsets about what makes giving feedback so hard.
How to Hire People Who Work Differently: 21 Tips for a Diverse Workforce
Training Magazine, Gina Brady
Increasingly, the public supports companies based on how those companies treat people. While still concerned with results and products, the public also increasingly cares about business practices. Younger generations are pressuring companies to be publicly authentic and to do work ethically. As a result, companies are pressured to be more diverse and equitable.
To leverage this growing demand for a more diverse workforce, companies must consider what it takes to build and maintain a diverse staff.
Rapport: The Hidden Advantage That Women Managers Bring to Teams
HBS Working Knowledge, Kara Baskin
When it comes to building good rapport, the gender makeup of managers and their teams matters, Tamayo’s research shows. Overall, cisgender men manage other men well, and cisgender women manage other women well. When the gender of managers and workers is mixed, however, women outshine men. That is, men are worse at managing women, whereas women are adept at managing both women and men, research shows.
That’s because ultimately, women are more effective at building rapport among mixed-gender teams than men, and doing so often leads to higher productivity and stronger sales, according to Tamayo’s recent working paper, Rapport in Organizations: Evidence from Fast Food.
PTSD Ripples Through Communities After Mass Violence
MedPage Today, Nicole Lou
The psychological harm from mass shootings spilled beyond direct survivors and into their communities, a cross-sectional study found.
Among survey participants — residents of six U.S. communities affected by recent mass violence incidents (MVIs) — 23.7% met criteria for presumptive past-year post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 8.9% met criteria for current PTSD, based on their survey responses.
And these were not just people who said either they or a close friend or family member were on site at the shooting: though most PTSD cases occurred in those with this high exposure to the MVI, respondents with no direct exposure still met the criteria for past-year and current PTSD in 21.0% and 8.9% of cases
HR News Roundup: Quick Takes
- 5 Keys for You to Become a Master Meeting Moderator
- Retention Continues Upward Surge as Employees Stay at Their Jobs in 2024
- 3 Key Moments in New Hire Onboarding That Can Drive Employee Retention
- Corporate DEI Isn’t Dead. But What Will it Look Like in 2025?
- Being Transgender [Worker] in an Election Year
- How Do I Respond to Requests for References?
- Having Media Literacy Is a Business Competency
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Is Often Misunderstood
- 3 Types of Skin Cancer That Should Be on Everyone’s Radar
- What Being an Olympic-Level Athlete Taught This CEO About Leadership
- This Is How CEOs Can Embrace the Olympic Spirit
- What Does Project 2025 Mean for Employers? Discrimination Edition
- How to Write a Professional Business Text Message
- Nurses report less violence in workplace, yet numbers remain high
- The Astronaut Analogy: Limiting Your Work Hours for Maximum Value
- What Happens When Technology Fails? 4 Tips for HR
- CrowdStrike, Payroll and HR Systems: Important Lessons from a Close Call
From the Lighter Side …
- Kevin Piette was a young French tennis player 11 years ago when a motorcycle accident left him a paraplegic.
Instead of giving up the sport he loved, he returned to tennis as a Paralympian and became an exoskeleton ‘pilot’ for a company developing a robotic walking device. Watch as he carried the Olympic Torch last Tuesday to inspire all people to get involved in sport. (link to Facebook) - Tom Waddington is on a quest to row across the Atlantic Ocean all by himself. See one of the amazing experiences he had early in his journey. You can follow his trip and learn more about why he is undertaking it at Mind Oar Matter.
- Want some tips for longevity? 115 year old Elizabeth Francis of Louisiana offered a few tips on her birthday. She was born in 1909 and “has seen the end of both world wars, lived through 20 different US presidencies and survived two of the deadliest pandemics: the 1918 flu outbreak and Covid-19.”
- Students at St. Wilfrid’s Catholic School in Sussex, England have earned a reputation for producing excellent music videos to mark the close of each academic term. This year, they enlisted their headteacher Michael Ferry to do a version of Fatboy Slim’s song Weapon of Choice. The original video starred Christopher Walken. Good sport Mr. Ferry did an excellent dance routine that has been going viral – check out the frame-by-frame comparison video.
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