From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

HR Brew

Sam Blum

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Amazon, Salesforce and Crypto.com among companies to lay off workers in 2023

A look at a few companies that beefed up payroll during a pandemic boom that are now conducting layoffs.

Over-hiring during the height of the pandemic is still causing layoffs in 2023

Voluntary separation, explained 

An employment lawyer explains the ins and outs of the workforce reduction tactic. 

What is a voluntary separation, and how does it differ from a traditional layoff?

‘If HR is harsh, if HR is petty, if HR is political, if HR is not to be trusted, then replace HR with the CEO…HR is a manifestation of what leadership believes their relationship with employees should be,’ said one former VP of HR.

Why bad HR is a reflection of bad leadership

The top of a globe with a phone, notebook, laptop, glasses, iPad and coffee cup floating above it

Morning Brew Creative Studio

Hiring is a marathon, not a sprint. But today’s recruiting market has a lot of complex hurdles along the way. Having the right tools available is like having the right shoes when you’re running: It makes all the difference.

We teamed up with HiBob to address the challenges in the hiring process head-on and tell you about the solutions that can solve them, from open role to onboarding.

 Businesses are operating under economic uncertainty.

According to the data, the economic downturn started in 2022. But figuring out where we are now? That’s a whole lot less certain. And this lack of knowing makes planning pretty dang difficult.

 Create (or improve) visibility into the candidate pipeline. No matter the economic conditions, businesses need to be efficient, agile, and adaptable—and a blurry recruiting process will hinder that.

The “black box” of hiring can’t exist in today’s market. Fortunately, 

HiBob’s Hiring and Workforce Planning solution

 provides transparency into the entire hiring process, with actionable insights that help you adapt as business needs evolve.

 Tech disruption is changing jobs and skill sets.

Generative AI is evolving rapidly and impacting business needs along the way. As this tech gets integrated into the products and services companies use on a regular basis, the fundamental nature and workflow of millions of jobs are changing.

Overall, the market is…confusing. Some industries are seeing low unemployment while others are enduring budget cuts, layoffs, and other belt-tightening measures. But one thing is true across the board: Finding skilled talent ain’t easy.

 Get data-backed insights and leverage them. And not just one-off metrics—TA teams need meaningful, continuous insights that connect recruiting efforts to hiring and business outcomes.

With HiBob, this data is at your disposal. You can refine where, how, and who is hired, giving you actionable insights to drive strategic value and impact across your company.

 Inflation, market volatility, and geopolitical instability are sending salaries haywire.

On one side, high-demand skills require increased salaries. On the other, economic instability is forcing companies to cut costs and maintain efficiency as much as possible. And these two market realities have a lot of tension between them.

 Ramp up the flexibility. As business needs and goals change, agile companies will find it easier to maintain a healthy pace of growth.

Use the aforementioned insights and visibility to understand what skills are required, what skills aren’t, where there’s room to spend, and where you’ll need to make cuts.

To be adaptable, you need adaptable systems. HiBob was built with flexibility, so your planning and hiring grows 

 Changing expectations and increased opportunities.

With the rise of remote opportunities, employees and candidates have unprecedented access to the global market. And expectations are higher than ever. Traditional compensation and 

 aren’t enough—employees expect their employer to care about their well-being, provide flexibility, and offer perks that are relevant to their lives.

Candidates have expectations in the recruiting process, too. They want a smooth, transparent, and efficient process. They want a genuine look at the work, environment, culture, and growth opportunities within the company.

Take the unified systems, leave the fragmented silos.

Integrated systems don’t just make for better employee and 

. They support TA teams (and the business) in a major way. Continuous process efficiency saves valuable time and money throughout the planning and hiring life cycle.

HiBob’s holistic solutions have all the connectivity you need to deliver engaging, streamlined, consistent experiences 

 to onboarding and beyond. And they’ve got the back-end analytics (like quality-of-hire metrics) that help you optimize your hiring efforts and ROI.

Hiring is a high-stakes race, especially in today’s market. Fortunately, you don’t need to run 50 miles a week to prepare for it. With the right tools around you, you’ll know where you’re pacing well and where you have opportunities to ramp up the efficiency.

Hibob

Hibob_Branded_Article_April_24

Hiring hurdles…and how to clear them

Top tips for talent acquisition teams

An illustration of reporter Courtney Vinopal's headshot.

Courtney Vinopal

US job postings are declining overall, but the drop in demand for HR employment has been particularly precipitous.

 from the previous year as of June 29, according to Indeed’s job postings index, which measures the average number of seasonally adjusted job postings on a given day, using a seven-day trailing average. By contrast, job openings for HR roles had declined by 45% year over year. While job openings overall remain 27% above their pre-pandemic level, HR jobs are only about 9% above their February 2020 baseline.

The decline in available HR jobs is in part a knock-on effect of a broader pullback in hiring, according to two economists who spoke with HR Brew. But it may also be tied to technological advancements in the industry that have allowed companies to streamline their HR processes, Julia Pollak, chief economist with ZipRecruiter, said.

Nick Bunker, Indeed’s director of North American economic research, said in a June 22 press call the decline in HR job openings may be “a consequence of a general pullback in hiring demand, in that you're not going to want to hire folks who either are recruiters or…their main job is to hire folks, or to staff workers, if you're not adding more people to your headcount.”

As of May, there were 9.8 million open jobs in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—higher than prior to the pandemic, when job openings hovered at around 7 million—but still 14% lower compared to the same period last year. Fewer Americans are 

As the economy cools, employers might be asking themselves, “Do we need quite as many HR people, if we're going to have fewer jobs, and employee turnover is starting to go down?” said Jay Denton, chief analytics officer for LaborIQ, which provides labor market analytics to HR professionals. The process of hiring and onboarding workers has “cooled off from how hot it was the last couple of years.”

Within HR, recruiting has been one of the subsectors hardest hit by the slowdown. Demand for recruiting jobs fell at 1.5 times the rate of the broader HR function between February 2022 and 2023, according to LinkedIn data.

Though industries like tech, banking, and housing have been disrupted over the past year, Denton said overall employee count has continued to grow in industries such as health care and government, which may in turn spur demand for more HR professionals. He suspected HR pros who are currently job hunting may be more willing to consider positions at small- or medium-sized firms that weren’t able to compete with larger companies when demand for workers was at a fever pitch.

Technology complicates long-term outlook. 

ZipRecruiter’s Pollak offered a somewhat less rosy hypothesis that HR jobs are on the decline: Companies simply don’t need as many of these workers, thanks to advancements in technology like artificial intelligence and automation.

“It's increasingly possible to have those functions sort of digitized and standardized and outsourced,” said Pollak of HR. As vendors emerge who can “run HR for multiple organizations and a fraction of the staff, this is a field that's becoming a lot more efficient.” At the same time, companies may be holding off on hiring people for HR roles and instead 

HR startups saw big business in 2022, the 

 in February, with the valuation of companies like 

 doubling, even as tech companies laid off workers. In some cases, companies have started investing more in HR technology to account for fewer staff, the publication noted. Jasper Helling, SVP of people operations for buy now, pay later firm Sezzle, told the Information his firm plans to increase its investment in HR tech by 14% this year after laying off 20% of its workforce in 2022.

“We don’t need internal recruiters anymore,” Helling said.

In fields like recruiting, some employers are torn between making the process more human, versus more efficient and digitized, Pollak said. She predicted companies who continue to care about the employee and candidate experience will continue to invest in top HR talent.

Still, “the long-term outlook for this industry is that more and more roles will be automated,” she said.

A sign advertises positions for recruiters on a table at a job fair.

HireVue

HireVue_OwntheTopic_HR_2023

Why the number of available HR jobs is declining

Job postings for HR roles are down 45% from last year, according to Indeed data. 

HR jobs are on the decline, and technology might be partly to blame

Kristen Parisi

When James Cameron developed the idea for 

, he probably wasn’t thinking about using sophisticated AI to scan résumés and fire people, but IRL, AI is less bloodlust-y and more administrative.

As conversations about generative AI and 

 how the technology will change the hiring process. While the results may seem alarming, one expert said the future is more about learning how to work with AI, instead of it replacing HR pros.

ResumeBuilder surveyed 1,000 people involved in the hiring process, and found that AI is expected to have a larger role in hiring, with 43% of companies saying they’re already using AI to conduct interviews or plan to start by 2024.

Beyond the interview process, 15% of respondents said they’ll allow AI to make job candidate decisions without human input.

 While more than one-half of respondents feel that AI will eventually take over as hiring managers, Gerald Kane, professor of management information systems at the University of Georgia, told HR Brew, “for average hiring processes, I think it’s an extraordinarily bad idea.” AI is only as good as the data it has access to, and therefore is rife with potential problems like inserting biases like sexism into the hiring process. He argues that humans will remain a necessary part of the equation.

Kane said that there may be a few rare instances where AI could help screen out less talented or less qualified candidates. “AI does a really good job of assessing structured tasks like programming,” he explained. “There’s a lot of research that says in some ways that AI are going to be better programmers than people because it’s just a very well-defined environment.”

 Kane argued that hiring managers and AI will work together to make quicker decisions. “AI will not replace managers, but managers who use AI will replace managers who don’t use AI,” he said.

AI is just the latest technology that workers are learning to use, Kane said. He compared it to the internet, email, and social media as just another advancement that will impact the way people do their jobs. “The only way to make sure that you remain employable is to stay adaptable and to understand these technologies,” he said.

That said, don’t rely on the Terminator to send rejection emails any time soon.

The Terminator with his hand outstretched saying, "talk to the hand."

PwC_NativeAd2_Sep23

Artificial intelligence will decide on job candidates

It may be necessary in some instances, according to a University of Georgia professor.

One in 7 employers will let AI make the call on job candidates, ResumeBuilder survey finds

Adam DeRose

More than 21,000 people in the HR space attended the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) Annual Conference and Expo in Las Vegas from all across the globe. Another 3,000 pros joined the conference virtually.

, music sensation Janet Jackson, and a bevy of HR professionals and people pros to network with and learn from during the multiday extravaganza celebrating all things work.

SHRM23 sessions were too many to count, but pros could follow tracks such as strategic HR, DE&I, or “HR department of one” to curate their experience based on their needs. The conference featured 11 different tracks.

 Clinton headlined the conference’s main stage Monday morning. The 42nd president touched on the Family and Medical Leave Act, which he signed into law in 1993. Washington celebrated the measure’s 30th anniversary 

During the session, the former commander in chief called for an update to this signature piece of legislation. He suggested lawmakers work on a phase-in component in order to help small businesses adjust to the requirement. Emily Dickens, SHRM’s chief of staff and head of public affairs, 

 the advocacy group is lobbying for paid leave legislation, in addition to updates to immigration and the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Regarding the worker shortage and the push to loosen degree requirements, Clinton extolled the benefits of a college education, 

, “I don't think we should make our economy less efficient by lowering workforce participation at a time when there are 10 million open jobs."

image of shoe shine worker shining a conference attendees cowboy boots

Las Vegas Convention Center houses 3.2 million square feet, and the conference was held in two separate buildings. HR pros got their steps in running between sessions.

A shoe-shining team was also in attendance. More than one conference-goer, clad in cowboy boots, took advantage of the service.

image of the Indeed booth at the expo where the vendors made cookies with attendees faces

 In addition to plethora of conference sessions, the expo’s food offerings could rival the menu at a Cheesecake Factory. More than 500 vendors exhibited on the showroom floor, and many got a little campy with the Vegas theme: roulette and a 

style wheel were both available for spinning. (Almost as fast as my head.)

In addition to the usual suspects such as HRIS platforms, payroll companies, and employee engagement vendors, the expo had some out-of-the-box offerings:

Noom reps provided info on the Noom for Work program. The weight-loss app launched a service companies could add to their health and wellness offerings.

The See’s Candies booth had a sweet idea for HR pros when employees need a thank-you for a job well done: Give them candy, obviously.

More than a dozen colleges and universities touted continuing education opportunities for HR professionals to grow their career.

Indeed, known for posting job openings, got into posting selfies at SHRM23, and by posting, we mean printing faces on cookies.

!). Dog food company Cesar wanted to discuss pet-friendly offices with attendees. The PetPartners booth explained how companies are incorporating pet insurance into their benefits.

a fleet of green SUVs outside the Las Vegas convention center

 Outside the convention center, attendees could hop in a green Cadillac SUV to explore the offerings in Sin City. A Paycom spokesperson told HR Brew in an email that the payroll company offered attendees a free ride because it’s always looking to make life simpler.

an image of the las vegas convention center with a statue of the number 75 and SHRM filled with people

 Dispatch from Vegas: HR Brew at SHRM23

Not too much time for sinning in Sin City, as SHRM’s Annual Conference and Expo offered wall-to-wall programming for HR pros.

Dispatch from Vegas: HR Brew at SHRM23

Former President Clinton is set to speak at the Society of Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) annual conference next month, drawing criticism from some HR pros on social media.

SHRM spokesperson Eddie Burke told HR Brew that Clinton’s appearance was aligned with the purpose of the conference.

“President Clinton was invited as a speaker because his experience as a two-term president, global philanthropist, and humanitarian gives him a unique perspective that is highly relevant to our conference attendees,” Burke wrote in an email. “Specifically, the country experienced job growth under his administration and he signed into law the FMLA 30 years ago, an especially significant piece of workplace legislation.”

Some 18.6 million jobs were created during Clinton’s two terms, according to a 

 of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data.

In 1993, Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act 

, allowing workers for companies with more than 50 employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to bond with a new child, address a serious health condition, or care for an ailing relative, without the risk of job loss. Washington earlier this year 

 on social media, where some people are objecting to his appearance at the annual conference because of the scandal involving then-White House intern 

“What he did while he was in office…the imbalance of power, and she was a young intern, and how it was handled. From an HR standpoint…it just makes me cringe,” Jamie Jackson, an HR 

 who runs the popular Humorous Resources and Horrendous HR accounts, told HR Brew.

 that Clinton’s involvement in a relationship with Lewinsky—who worked for him—made him an odd choice to speak at a conference of professionals whose work might be directly related to navigating manager-subordinate romantic relationships in the workplace.

“I know it’s years and years later, but you just can’t forget something like that,” Jackson said. “I think it’s kind of gross, to be honest. I think it’s very tone deaf of SHRM.”

Jackson said there are other HR leaders—women, but also men “who’ve gotten it right”—who would be more appropriate to keynote a conference like this.

“Our invitation for President Clinton to speak at our conference is not an endorsement of all of his past actions or policies while in office, and we recognize that some attendees may not agree with our decision,” Burke told us.

Former President George W. Bush was the conference's keynote speaker last year. And in 2021, former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson made an appearance, 

The 2023 SHRM Annual Conference is set for June 11–14 in Las Vegas.

Representatives for President Clinton did not reply to our requests for comment.

Former President Bill Clinton to headline SHRM conference

Clinton was tapped for his work on the FMLA and job growth during his administration, SHRM says.

Recent earnings reports have brought into focus the financial costs companies are incurring from laying off workers.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, recently reported it 

 on severance and other related charges during the quarter ending in March, 

 affecting around 12,000 workers. Susan Li, CFO for Meta, said in an April 26 

 that the company expects to spend $3 billion–$5 billion this year on a restructuring that includes 

 so far. And Amazon, which has laid off about 

Executives typically argue layoffs will benefit their firms’ bottom lines in the long run. Rideshare company Lyft, for example, is spending tens of millions of dollars on a restructuring, but has estimated it will deliver 

 in annual savings for the company once it’s completed.

, though, that the costs of layoffs don’t always outweigh the benefits. Management experts say HR is uniquely attuned to the costs—both direct and indirect—of letting workers go. In communicating with other executives about these costs, they say, HR departments may help them better understand what’s lost when employees leave.

What research says about restructuring returns. 

Wayne Cascio, a professor emeritus of management at the University of Colorado Denver, said firms incur both immediate and downstream costs when they lay off workers.

Direct costs can arise from paying out severance, accrued vacation or sick leave, as well as continuing health benefits for affected employees. Firms who bring in outside counsel to help implement layoffs have to account for legal fees as well. The indirect costs are harder to measure, he said, but can include decreased morale and productivity among remaining employees, recruitment and employment costs for new hires, and higher unemployment taxes.

Cutting jobs doesn’t necessarily boost companies’ financial performance in the years after, said Cascio. He looked at 37 years’ worth of stock return data for companies in the S&P 500 to analyze how they performed in the years after laying off workers. The research, which was published in the 

 in 2021, found firms that simply cut workers without implementing other changes, such as selling off assets, didn’t see better returns in the long run.

“Companies that just let go of people without changing anything else never outperform their competitors in the same industry,” Cascio told HR Brew. “If you’re just trying to cut people as a way of cutting costs, it doesn’t pay off,” he added.

Given HR’s insight into the direct and indirect costs of downsizing, Cascio sees an opportunity “for HR people to have greater impact and influence” by communicating with senior executives about these costs.

“That stimulates the senior people to think about, are there alternatives?” Cascio said. “Are there other ways of cutting costs that don’t involve letting go of people we worked hard to recruit in the first place?”

In the weeks after layoffs, HR is likely to see firsthand how these decisions affect remaining talent, said Tiffany Keesey, co-founder and principal consultant at Conscious Culture Co., which provides fractional people operations services to companies. Employees who remain might experience an element of “survivor’s guilt,” Keesey said, and 

What’s more, “it can be really overwhelming for the people who stay because they’re often having to do more than a full-time job without a lot of compensation,” she added. “So, that can lead to burnout. That can lead to, over the long term, people deciding to leave as well.”

HR leaders can advocate for companies to invest in professional development for the employees who remain, Keesey said, even as they’re undergoing a restructuring. This can help ensure those employees see a future for themselves at the firm, she told HR Brew.

On some teams, there also may also be room for HR to ask that executives consider avenues beyond layoffs, as Cascio suggested.

“A lot of it comes down to how much leadership values the role of HR,” Keesey said. “Do they see HR as more of the traditional compliance…or do they see them as a strategic business partner and thought partner?”

Collage of a knocked off over set up made of dollar bills.

HR insights on Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta layoff spending

Layoffs can cost companies billions of dollars, as recent earnings reports revealed, and HR sees firsthand how they affect remaining talent.

How HR can help companies think through the true costs of layoffs

Here’s this week’s edition of our Coworking series, where we chat 1:1 with HR Brew readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? 

Jennifer Bingaman approaches HR at Washington-based healthcare start-up MCG Health from a “humanistic perspective.” She has a counseling background, and when people interact with her, she aims to make sure “they feel seen and heard.” At MCG Health, Bingaman is trying to build a culture that allows colleagues to do meaningful work that also moves the business forward. “The goal is not to exhaust [employees]. The goal is to not squeeze them until they’re dry,” she said.

She’s most interested in using her role in HR leadership to advance social justice causes and support people in her workplace and in her community, and believes the last several years have shown the “impact of doing things for people for the sake of them being humans, not for the sake of them being just workers.”

Bingaman believes that if she trains her coworkers to make others feel seen and heard, “then my team becomes a force for good, my team becomes a force for justice in the organization,” and, ideally, more and more colleagues will want to replicate that philosophy.

What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked?

Liberating people from policy. Very rarely does a policy actually solve a problem…People have to understand how their work matters and how they are responsible to each other. If that awareness is cultivated, your culture doesn’t need to hide behind policy; it becomes self-governing. I am passionate about building feedback cultures. This is what I try to bring and sustain in my teams and organizations.

How do you implement a HR philosophy that “liberates people from policy”?

I firmly believe that policies don’t change human behavior. People are going to behave how they’re going to behave. The things that change people’s behavior are the systems in which they exist. So, I could create a bunch of policies, but if I don’t have the culture to support the things I’m trying to get after, then there’s no point in having a policy. So, instead what I try to do is create cultural norms and expectations around how we engage with each other, so I don’t have to worry about having policies now. Of course, there are some that you have to have, like for compliance purposes…My whole thing is: How do I build boundaries that are big enough that people can operate inside of them and feel freedom, but they know what the edges look like, and those edges are clear to everybody? So, when someone is not supporting the culture, everybody around them says, “This is not okay.” And that’s how community happens inside of the organization, and people end up leaving because it should be a push and a pull. Culture should attract as much as it repels.

What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?

It’s administrative. Like any function, there are administrative aspects. Now, more than ever, HR is a strategic asset to an organization and can make or break a culture based on who leads it. If you like your job and your management is good, that’s a strong correlation with a talented HR team.

What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?

I take care of people. My background is in mental health and communication, so at my core, I am always trying to connect people to each other, to resources, to information—all in service to an enriched human experience. I think work can be transformative if we can all unite with each other to make it better and advocate for the future we want. As someone in a leadership position, I now have the privilege and the power to effect change inside of old or outdated systems—a big one is how and why we work. I get to make a difference in the world.

What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why?

I am grateful that I get to lead HR during a time when we can effect change and champion social justice. We are truly in positions now where we are encouraged to build systems that support humanity, in and out of work. It’s an honor to be here, during this time, leading in HR.

What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why?

I want us to give up on the idea that we will ever “return” to the office as we knew it; I am still seeing and hearing people cling to this idea. MCG Health has been strategic about our use of office space. We’ve taken the approach to create monthly weeks where people come for culture and collaboration—not necessarily productivity, although that is certainly a potential side effect. We fly new hires out quarterly and invite managers to come visit those new hires while we orient them to our culture. We also have an annual all-staff where people come to connect, have fun, and learn about the business, the strategy, and each other. If we’re asking employees to come together, then we need to make it meaningful and based on connection.

Tell us one new or old HR tech product or platform that’s made your life easier, and why.

Lattice. We continue to invest in Lattice and I love the resources they are building out for career pathing and compensation transparency and administration. I love the 1:1 and development templates. My team is super lean, so knowing we don’t have to develop all those resources and content has been a gift.

HR

Hiring hurdles…and how to clear them

HR jobs are on the decline, and technology might be partly to blame

One in 7 employers will let AI make the call on job candidates, ResumeBuilder survey finds

Dispatch from Vegas: HR Brew at SHRM23

Former President Bill Clinton to headline SHRM conference

How HR can help companies think through the true costs of layoffs

‘Culture should attract as much as it repels.’ How HR pro Jennifer Bingaman creates community at a healthcare startup

Quick-to-read HR news & insights