Strategic Alert: How does the New View of Marriage Change HR?

A study by the Pew Research Center, in association with Time magazine, showed that about 39 percent of Americans said marriage was becoming obsolete. And that sentiment follows U.S. census data released in September that showed marriages hit an all-time low of 52 percent for adults 18 and over. This versus to the number in 1978, of just 28 percent, who believed marriage was becoming obsolete.

  

This is causing a shift in what is being viewed as a family. According to an Associated Press article “When asked what constitutes a family, the vast majority of Americans agree that a married couple, with or without children, fits that description. But four of five surveyed pointed also to an unmarried, opposite-sex couple with children or a single parent. Three of 5 people said a same-sex couple with children was a family.”

  

Beyond the Thanksgiving table this new finding and increasing trend has an impact on companies. Andrew Cherlin, of Johns Hopkins University, told the AP “"People are rethinking what family means, given the growth, I think we need to accept cohabitation relationships as a basis for some of the fringe benefits offered to families, such as health insurance." But the impact is more than just insurance packages. What else in HR might be impacted? Here is a first take:

 

• Re-definition of “next of kin”

• Changes in FMLA

• Attendance policies to allow for activities of “children”

• COBRA changes

• A changing view of relationships, inside and outside of work, thus impacting any company loyalty

 

  

The AP article said “The changing views of family are being driven largely by young adults 18-29, who are more likely than older generations to have an unmarried or divorced parent or have friends who do. Young adults also tend to have more liberal attitudes when it comes to spousal roles and living together before marriage, the survey found.”

  

These are the future drivers of the workforce, so how else do you think this changing family view may change your company?

  

Better start thinking about it!

 

Strategic HR: Demographics Alert

For many of you this may have gone unnoticed. For some of you your thought may have been "that is interesting" or "I am not surprised." If you are a strategic HR person your thought should have been "What impact will this have on our employee base? How will this impact our HR system as a whole?"

"What is he talking about?" you ask. What I am talking about is the article that appeared in the WSJ on the September 29 Online edition. The article was entitled New Vow: I Don't Take Thee - Young Single Adults Surpass Married Peers Amid High Divorce, Cohabitation Rates. Author Connor Dougherty starts off with " For the first time since the U.S. began tallying marriages, more Americans of prime marrying age have stayed single rather than tied the knot, the culmination of a tectonic shift in the role of marriage and relationships that began in the 1960s."  The author continues with "... data released Tuesday by the Census Bureau show that for the first time the proportion of people between the ages of 25 and 34 who have never been married exceeded those who were married in 2009—46.3% versus 44.9%, according to an analysis by Mark Mather, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a non-profit research organization in Washington." If you combine this with adults who have been divorced the married population has dropped to 52%, the lowest share in history. Compare this to 72.2% in 1960.

The article talks about a lot of the "whys" of this, but to get that information you need to read the article. What I was most interested in, and want you to think about, are the implication for your particular workforce in the coming 5 or more years. I want you to think strategically. What will this impact possible be for you and how will you be prepared to handle it.

Here are some of my general thoughts:

• Recruitment- Might this have the effect of opening up a market of candidates that might be more willing to relocate in the future? What effect might this have on your pool of candidates? Will it make it easier to find people?
• Compensation- Because there are more women getting college degrees and more women in the workforce who are now forestalling having children will this raise the overall compensation of women in the workforce. Will this have any impact on your pay policies (it shouldn't if  you have been doing it right before this, but you never know?)
• Benefits- How will a workforce composed of a large group of single people impact your benefit structure? Of course, many of these single people have "partners" (both hetero- and homosexual). Does this mean you will have to alter plans to cover more domestic partner situations?

Those are just three areas that quickly come to mind. What else might be included? That will depend on your company's circumstances. But you need to be thinking about it now, proactively, and producing a contingency plan that will allow you to say to upper management "Here is a trend, here is how it will impact us near-term and long-term, and here is what we need to do about it." Talk about earning your stripes.

Of course this may have been unnecessary for me to say. You already recoginize this stuff and do this strategic environmental scanning all the time? RIGHT!

Strategic Knowledge: Hidden Unemployment and Its Impact

I taught a SHRM prepartion class on Saturday to a new group of students. The first module discussed in the prep course is on Strategic Managment. Part of this discussion centers around environment scanning and one of the areas that all good HR pros should pay attention to is what is currently happening with the current workforce. As part of that discussion I mentioned that unemployment was officially about 9.5% on a national basis and about 10% in Georgia. However, I said that unofficially it was more like 16% because "official" numbers did not count those who had dropped off the rolls and were no longer collecting unemployment benefits nor did it count those who were "underemployed". These folks include people working part-time jobs. For numbers purposes they are counted as employed, but if you ask them they are not working enough or in their field of expertise. They consider themselves unemployed and are holding a part-time job to help pay bills while looking for "real" work.

Well after having made that statement in class I went home and was reading some news where I discovered an article The Jobless Effect: Is The Real Unemployment rate 16.5%, 22% or ...? Author Pallavi Gogoi reports on surveys that have shown that the real unemployment rate may be 22% or even higher. This has led the researcher to question the accuracy of the Department of Labor Statistics numbers and, as the writer reports, this is not the first time. A number of researchers, writers, academics and others have long thought that the government "cooks the books" when it comes to unemployment figures. However, at this time it has potentially devasting consequences. One of these is that lawmakers base their legislative actions on a picture that is less grim than it actually is. Additionally, businesses may ramp up based on such figures only to be disappointed because consumer demand is not there due to the fact that more people are unemployed than was reported.  One writer suggest that one of the reasons that unemployment benefits have not been extended is the much "rosier" 9.5% reported than the actual, near depression level, of 22%.

The research shows that 50% of workers in the US report they have lost a job or suffered some financial impact due to the recession. We all know someone who is out of work and probably know someone who is part of this "hidden unemployement". As part of the response to this another impact on the laborforce is that many seniors have returned to work, often taking positions that would normally go to teens. As a result unemployment among teens is running two or three times the level of the rest of the workforce. The impact of this has been a reduction in teen spending, a large part of the consumer market. However, another impact is that teens are not learning workplace skills, like showing up on time, that will be necessary for them to be successful in the future.

I am not sure of the appropriate solution or solutions to this problem. When you have politics, social influences, education and money all wrapped up into a problem there will be no easy solution. However...

The lesson for HR professionals is to be aware of what is going on and how it will influence what you and your company do in the coming 6 months to 2 years. How does hidden unemployment, teen unemployment, lack of trust in government reporting, lack of consumer spending and the political arena impact your organization? Being aware of these issues and guiding your company through the minefield will improve your worth and help you avoid joining the ranks of the unemployed.

A Strategic Planning Alert: The Changing Face of America

One of the tasks all strategic HR pros are assigned is paying attention to demographics. This is a major part of the "environmental scanning" that needs to be done if you wish to be proactive in your HR. Well here is a major tool that everyone should download The Brookings Institution Report. The report on the population figures from 2000-2008 and the changing demographics. Some of their findings include:

• About 83 percent of the U.S. population growth since 2000 was minority, part of a trend that will see minorities become the majority by midcentury. Across all large metro areas, the majority of the child population is now nonwhite.  
• The suburban poor grew by 25 percent between 1999 and 2008 — five times the growth rate of the poor in cities. City residents are more likely to live in "deep" poverty, while a higher share of suburban residents have incomes just below the poverty line.  
• For the first time in several decades, the population is growing at a faster rate than households, due to delays in marriage, divorce and births as well as longer life spans. People living alone and nonmarried couple families are among the fastest-growing in suburbs.
• What used to be white flight to the suburbs is turning into 'bright flight' to cities that have become magnets for aspiring young adults who see access to knowledge-based jobs, public transportation and a new city ambiance as an attraction.
• Ten states, led by Arizona, surpass the nation in a "cultural generation gap" in which the senior populations are disproportionately white and children are mostly minority.

Depending on where your company is will determine how you react to this data. But react you should. Pay attention to this data and think about the following;

1. How will this affect our future recruitment?
2. Does our employee population reflect the general population from which we draw our applicants? If the answer is NO, can we at some time be accuesed of discrimination?
3. What will the dynamics of our employee group be when the "majority" becomes a minority?

Those are just some starting questions. I will be discussing my views on some of their findings in the coming weeks. So stay tuned.