TL;DR: Deb Muller and Rebecca Trosky introduce HR Acuity’s Eighth Annual Employee Relations Benchmark Study — the largest yet, covering eight million employees from many top companies. Key highlights include record-high case volumes driven by mental health issues, trust as a priority but with gaps between intent and action and low adoption of AI in employee relations so far.
Check out the benchmark study here.
Three Key Takeaways from the Video: Eighth Annual Employee Relations Benchmark Overview
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Case volumes in employee relations are at their highest since before the pandemic, with mental health issues leading the way for the second year in a row.
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Building trust with employees remains a priority for 89% of organizations, but there are gaps between stated priorities and actual practices.
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AI is recognized as a transformative force in employee relations, but only 9% of organizations have adopted it so far, indicating significant growth potential.
Video Transcript: Eighth Annual Employee Relations Benchmark Overview
00:00:12.519
Deb Muller:
Hey everybody welcome back to Two Minute Matters. I’m Deb Muller, the CEO and founder of HR Acuity, and I’m joined with my sidekick here Rebecca Trosky, our Chief People Officer at HR Acuity. How you doing?
00:00:22.840
Rebecca Trosky:
Hi, doing great. It’s an exciting day. It’s been a while — we haven’t done a Two Minute Matters in a while. I’ve had a lot of other guests on and I’ve enjoyed the guests.
00:00:32.119
Deb Muller:
It’s okay it’s okay but it’s good to be back.
00:00:33.879
Rebecca Trosky:
It’s great to have you back.
00:00:36.120
Deb Muller:
And so exciting that today we are gonna talk about our annual Benchmark study.
00:00:39.280
Rebecca Trosky:
Yay!
00:00:43.200
Deb Muller:
Which we love — this a big one.
00:00:45.280
Rebecca Trosky:
Yeah it is. Sort of like the holidays for us when this comes out — seeing what’s going on.
00:00:49.719
Deb Muller:
Alright but I’m not playing by the rules — two minutes we’re gonna talk about it for two minutes. There’s so much more to talk about — excuse me, I’m getting over the flu. Alright so I’m going to start and we’ll start talking and this will pass by pretty quickly, okay?
00:01:07.799
Rebecca Trosky:
Yes.
00:01:11.240
Deb Muller:
Alright here we go and start — whoops start. Okay so it is our 8th annual — can you believe it — Benchmark study. It’s going to be released or it’s just been released — do you know that?
00:01:21.439
Rebecca Trosky:
It’s sort of funny.
00:01:23.799
Deb Muller:
8th annual this year is our largest ever. It covers eight million employees — it’s a lot. And I mean such great organizations participated. Of the people who participated, 39% are in the Fortune 500 and 75% are in the Fortune 1000. So it’s a lot of really good organizations and I think it really speaks to — this is data that is real. I mean a lot of organizations covering a lot of people really setting the standards for what’s going on in employee relations.
00:01:50.040
Deb Muller:
So we can’t go through the whole thing today but let’s just talk about maybe three sort of really overlying big headlines that kind of happen. You want to grab one?
00:02:00.039
Rebecca Trosky:
Yeah I don’t think they will surprise anyone when they hear what they are. So we knew from the data and from our experiences that case volume was at its highest levels since before the pandemic.
00:02:14.720
Deb Muller:
Yes, by surged.
00:02:19.400
Rebecca Trosky:
Yeah absolutely. Dominated by mental health issues at the top again for the second year in a row.
00:02:25.040
Deb Muller:
Absolutely. We’re gonna be talking a lot about that for many Two Minute Matters and things to come.
00:02:29.319
Rebecca Trosky:
Yeah the other thing we did a little different this year — we talked a lot about trust. We are always talking about trust and the good news is that 89% of organizations said that building trust with their employees was a priority.
00:02:42.959
Rebecca Trosky:
But what we did find out is that maybe what they’re saying and their actions and their practices show some deficiencies. So there is a gap there that we are going to explore.
00:02:48.040
Deb Muller:
That was interesting and we know we can improve that.
00:02:51.640
Rebecca Trosky:
Yeah absolutely. We also asked about AI — so of course, of course, how could we have a Benchmark study this year without talking about it? So we know how important it is and everybody is recognizing it has the power to really change what we do.
00:03:05.599
Rebecca Trosky:
But only 9% of organizations have embraced it in ER so far.
00:03:10.560
Deb Muller:
Okay that is two minutes. I mean how perfect was that?
00:03:13.239
Rebecca Trosky:
So as you can see we are just — oops let me turn that off — we are just hitting the surface. There’s a lot of great stuff in the study so stay tuned, watch out for more Two Minute Matters. We’ll be on talking about it again I know for sure.
00:03:27.360
Deb Muller:
And hopefully you’ll join us for our webinars and of course you can download it on our site at HRAcuity.com. It’s free, it’s good information and we hope it’s helpful to your organizations.
00:03:36.400
Rebecca Trosky:
Thanks Deb.
00:03:39.360
Deb Muller:
See you soon.
