HR Agenda 2019: Priorities for the Year Ahead
Today's workforce is changing at an incredibly rapid rate as transformations in society, government, culture, technology, communications and the legal landscape impact employers and the workplace. In 2019, HR professionals expect that the workplace will continue to transform at a quick pace and that employers are in for more changes as new and different challenges emerge.
This summary report covers key findings from the 2019 survey on HR trends and challenges, focusing specifically on the key priorities for HR over the coming year. Over 800 responses were collected from small, medium and large employers across a wide variety of industries in all geographic areas of the US.
Federal Issues
On the federal level, survey respondents listed the following as their top challenges in 2019:
- 39% of respondents viewed preparing for the future of health care and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as very or extremely challenging;
- 34% were very or extremely challenged when it came to understanding the federal policy towards marijuana in light of rapidly changing state laws;
- Hiring workers on visas was very or extremely challenging to 31% of the respondents;
- 29% were very or extremely challenged when it came to preparing for proposed rules with respect to overtime regulations; and
- Understanding how the conservative makeup of the Supreme Court will impact employment law was very or extremely challenging to 28% of respondents.
Additional challenges included "the tax reform change and how that impacts our mileage and reimbursement policy" as well as "communicating to employees on updates to the Form W-4 in light of new tax legislation, etc." As far as immigration goes, notable challenges include "tracking changes with J-1 Visas" and "immigration restrictions for employees versus contractors."
