Dive Brief:
- The number of employee relations professionals at U.S. companies grew “significantly” in 2019 to a count of 1.2 such professionals per 1,000 employees, and the industry is increasingly standardizing, according to a report published this month by tech platform HR Acuity.
- Respondents indicated an uptick in the number of requests for employee relations data from leadership, and an increasing number of employee relations professionals are reporting their data to compliance and diversity and inclusion teams as well as managers, HR Acuity said. However, nearly one-fifth of those tracking employee relations data are not actually using it, and many respondents indicated that tracking resources are manual, bulky and time consuming. More than half (59%) said access to more advanced or predictive analytics would be “very helpful” in helping them do their jobs.
- Employee relations teams handled more job performance, accommodation and policy violations cases in 2019, but the biggest decrease in terms of case volume occurred in harassment allegations, HR Acuity said. Respondents were most confident handling policy violations, performance issues and behavioral issues, and were least confident handling retaliation and discrimination cases.