HR Leader
Search and filter sharp, essential coverage across every HR topic that matters.
September quits rose to 3.4 million, up 375,000 over the year, and October payrolls grew by 165,000 against a forecast of 59,000. Yet the hires rate held at 3.4%, so hiring has not sped up to match the rise in exits.
Gallup finds U.S. employee engagement fell to 29% in the third quarter of 2026, its lowest level since 2011, and only 46% of employees strongly agree they know what is expected of them. Engagement is 48% where managers actively support their team's AI use, versus 30% where they do not.
A final Labor Department rule requires pharmacy benefit managers to disclose rebates, spread payments and other compensation to large self-insured health plans for plan years starting on or after July 1, 2027. KFF finds 85% of covered workers at larger firms are in self-funded plans, and the duty to review those disclosures falls on the employer.
An SHL survey found nearly 1 in 5 U.S. workers laid off or replaced by AI were later asked to return, and almost half would need a significant raise to do it. Orgvue found 32% of organizations that cut jobs expecting AI savings have since had to rehire staff.
Multiplier's analysis of more than 38,000 cross-border hires found director-level and above hiring grew 84% in a year, while sales and nearshore Canada hiring surged. Its own survey shows only 8% of companies believe they fully comply with international tax and labor laws.
Checkr surveyed 3,000 U.S. hiring managers and found 38% believe a fraudulent employee is already working at their company, while 44% have no written post-hire identity verification process. Federal raids on North Korean laptop farms show how a fake identity can clear pre-hire checks and still end up on payroll.
LHH surveyed 600 leaders at U.S. organizations with 500 or more employees and found 69% expect layoffs in the next 12 months, while 38% of organizations made severance less generous, up from 9% in 2024. Announced cuts are down 39% this year, but finance now leads more exit decisions and the most common alternatives lean heavily on older workers.
The Ludwig Institute found spending power fell for middle- and lower-income households in 61% of the 56 largest U.S. metros in 2024, as living costs rose 4.7% against 4.3% wage growth. With 2027 raises projected at 3.5% and more than 4 in 10 workers telling Marsh that leaving and rejoining beats staying for a raise, real pay is now a retention problem.
DDI surveyed 11,395 leaders and found only 17% feel confident anticipating and reacting to change, a figure that has barely moved since 2025. McLean & Company finds organizations juggling too many simultaneous changes are 24% less likely to rate their culture-building highly, and 61% of companies have no formal approach to change communication.
Only four EU member states met the June 7 deadline to transpose the Pay Transparency Directive, and Greece's law takes effect November 1 with pay ranges in job ads. The drafts still moving through other parliaments disagree on thresholds, timelines and penalties, leaving global employers to manage a country-by-country patchwork.
The EEOC has sent the White House a final rule rescinding its 2012 guidance on arrest and conviction records, which would take effect the day it is published. But 15 states and 22 localities still restrict how private employers use criminal history, covering more than 267 million people, and private plaintiffs can still bring disparate impact claims.
A Benedictine University survey of 549 US middle managers found 47% would accept a pay cut to stop managing people, while 59% say stepping back would feel like failure. With a quarter of UK managers thinking about quitting over people pressures and 80% of restructured managers left untrained, the management bench is quietly looking for the exit.
KFF's 2026 Employer Health Benefits Survey finds workers at small firms pay $9,687 a year toward family coverage, 37% of the premium, compared with $6,840 and 25% at large firms. With the average family contribution up 9% and 72% of workers weighing health coverage when deciding whether to stay, the contribution split has become a pay decision.
Oyster's 2026 Global AI Talent Report found two-thirds of companies have added AI skill requirements to non-technical roles, yet 62% of those that changed existing roles left title and pay untouched and 46% never formally told employees. With 29% unsure their cross-border AI contractors are classified correctly, the quiet redesign is also a compliance risk.
Robert Half's 2027 Salary Guide finds 57% of employers offering new hires more than their planned range, with 87% of them citing specialized skills and 72% paying more for AI skills. With 2027 raise budgets holding near 3.5%, posted ranges and incumbent pay are where the gap shows up.
An OnTheClock survey of 525 small and midsize business decision-makers found 63% have made payroll errors, most often paying someone the wrong amount, and teams taught by a predecessor erred most at 76%. Only 11% of owners would let AI run payroll today, so the real fix is a documented, reviewed process and trained people.
HR decision-makers estimate 6% of men take leave to care for a loved one, but 71% of men surveyed by The Standard say they have, and HR's estimates for women's mental health and parental leave run just as far off. Leave policy, benefits messaging, and manager training built on those assumptions are aimed at the wrong people.
Walmart is adding a $0 tier of more than 250 prescriptions and paid NICU leave for 2027, while Marsh projects the steepest employer health cost increase since 2003 and 93% of employers expect to shift costs to workers. The difference is not generosity but targeting: Walmart spent where employees feel the plan most.
isolved's 2026 HR Leaders Report found 99% of HR leaders say their team is seen as strategic, yet 47% spend four or more hours a day answering repetitive employee questions and 65% reported a payroll error in the past year. With 77% saying outsourcing could help but only 45% planning to act, HR's reputation has outrun its operating model.
A randomized field experiment in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that removing a noncompete raised earnings by 12% to 17% without increasing leakage of confidential information beyond an NDA. With the FTC reading court dockets and Washington's retroactive ban arriving in June 2027, blanket noncompetes are now a liability.
Highwire's October 2026 research found 78% of managers used AI to prepare feedback or a performance review in the past year, but only 16% of employees were told AI played a role in theirs. With 82.5% of organizations tying ratings to merit, undisclosed AI drafts are about to shape 2027 pay.
DHS has proposed a $70,000 fee before a school can recommend an international graduate for Optional Practical Training, plus $30,000 for each later OPT period. About 294,000 students used OPT in 2024-25, and the employers who recruit them will feel the gap first.
The Conference Board's Q3 2026 survey found 82% of CHROs say AI has changed workforce planning, yet only 19% have built its effects into enterprise-wide plans and just 4% feel very prepared. With skills data thin and managers short on time, the plan is lagging the conversation.
Average hourly earnings rose 3.0% in the year to September while consumer prices rose 3.4% in the year to August, so the typical raise no longer keeps pace with the cost of living. With quits at 1.9% and 57% of employers paying above range for new hires, the real pay cut is landing hardest on the people who stay.
Workday's October 2026 Global Workforce Report found internal moves fell at 57% of employers while promotion rates stayed flat, and only 66% of workers say their employer helps them build the skills 79% know they need. With stayers' base pay rising 3.0% against 4.8% for job changers, low turnover is hiding a workforce that has stopped moving.
From January 1, 2027, UK employees qualify for unfair dismissal protection after six months instead of two years, and the cap on compensatory awards, previously £118,223, disappears. With the tribunal claim window already doubled on October 1, employers with UK staff have weeks to shorten probation and train the managers who run it.
A September 18 proclamation extends the $100,000 H-1B entry payment through September 2027, yet a federal court judgment still blocks USCIS from collecting it. With a separate $103,265 cap petition fee also pending, HR teams now have to budget for four possible cost scenarios at once.
WorldatWork, Marsh, and HR Brew all point to roughly 3.5% for 2027, the fourth straight year without a higher projection. With 64% of employers making off-cycle adjustments, the real decisions are now about who gets the money and how well managers explain it.
Connecticut's H.B. 5003 takes effect October 1, 2026, requiring a good-faith wage range and a benefits description in every posting. It reaches remote roles that report to Connecticut supervisors and gives applicants a two-year window to sue.
ManpowerGroup's Q4 2026 survey of 39,878 employers found only 28% hiring faster than in 2025, while 30% are slower. With Indeed reporting more than half of Gen Z and millennial applicants quit mid-application, AI is multiplying volume without fixing the process behind it.
Visier's September 2026 survey of 1,000 U.S. employees found 48% have exaggerated their AI use or expertise, and 45% feel pressure to use AI they aren't confident with. With only 28% believing leaders understand how they actually use it, the adoption numbers HR reports upward may be partly theater.
Payscale's September 2026 AI Workforce Impact preview found 58% of employers pay or plan to pay premiums for AI skills, but 49% say their salary structures haven't kept pace. With Marsh finding only 31% of employees expect to be paid for upskilling, the people HR just trained are the likeliest to walk.
Indeed's Job Postings Index turned positive year over year in September for the first time in nearly four years, but the US labor force has shrunk by around 700,000 workers in 2026. With quits at 1.9% and 2027 merit budgets holding at 3.1%, HR is competing for a smaller pool with the same money.
Anonymous notes and deodorant left on a desk don't fix body odor, and air freshener can start a second complaint. The Job Accommodation Network's playbook is simpler: meet privately, be specific, and check whether the cause is medical before anything else.
A lawsuit filed this month alleges Activision Blizzard's HR department promoted a co-worker the plaintiff reported for assault and destroyed or withheld investigative documents.
A September 2026 survey of 400 CFOs found 97% of CEOs are pushing into cross-border hiring while every single CFO admits their company has already eaten a compliance loss, 22% of them at least $1 million.
Twenty-six Meta employees allege its AI layoff system penalized medical and parental leave, and a federal judge has twice let the case move toward arbitration. A new survey found 59% of managers already use AI to help decide layoffs.
Aon's 2026 Pay Transparency Pulse Survey found 87% of employers say they can defend their pay decisions, but only 20% have ever tested that claim, and 84% name manager readiness their single biggest transparency risk.
Governor Hochul signed S3460 on September 9, 2026, giving New York employees the right to see and dispute their personnel file. The same standard is already reaching pay records and international contractor files.
A 2026 Equifax survey found 73% of HR professionals now face fabricated candidate information, and Gartner projects one in four candidate profiles worldwide will be fake by 2028.
Lattice's 2027 State of People Strategy Report finds 52% of HR leaders expect their teams to grow and 54% expect bigger budgets. It also finds 55% have considered leaving the profession entirely in the past year.
30% of job seekers are now teaching themselves AI skills, up from 22% a year ago, while employer-provided training has held flat. With hiring cooling and 14% willing to take a pay cut for training, the gap is becoming a recruiting risk.
The EEOC voted to rescind EEO-1 demographic reporting on July 21, 2026. California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Colorado, and New York City didn't wait, leaving HR with a five-state patchwork instead of one federal form.
ManpowerGroup's Q4 2026 survey of 39,878 employers across 42 countries found hiring intentions climbing again, but 62% of employers adding staff say it's because the roles and skills they need are changing, not simple growth.
Harvard and the Burning Glass Institute found 45% of employers who dropped degree requirements changed nothing about who they actually hired. New pay data shows why most still aren't rewarding the skills they claim to want.
NFIB's August data shows 47% of small business owners still can't find qualified applicants at home. Small companies are now the fastest-growing segment of the market built to help them hire beyond their own borders.
57% of organizations now post salary ranges in job ads while only 51.4% have a formal job architecture underneath them. Disclosure has outrun the structure required to explain it, and 21% still set pay largely by manager discretion.
Starting October 1, legal guidance is explicit that a PEO or EOR relationship doesn't transfer right-to-work liability away.
A Harris Poll survey of small-business owners and Payscale's 2026 comp report describe the same employer: eager to modernize total rewards, still running both halves on instinct.
The transposition deadline carried no extension. Only four of 27 member states met it, but the reporting clock is already running for everyone else.
Starting October 1, New Jersey presumes every worker is an employee unless the business proves all three prongs of the ABC test. A $2.775 million trucking settlement shows what enforcement already looks like.
Employees trust managers to hear a harassment complaint second only to HR. New data says manager skill gaps are one of 2026's defining workplace risks.
BambooHR and TalentLMS surveyed 1,156 employees hired in the past year: 73% rated their onboarding satisfactory, while 39% were simultaneously questioning whether they'd made the right move.
Two-thirds of M&A deals fail to deliver value. Research consistently points to the same culprit: people. When the deal crosses a border, the compliance exposure arrives with them.
Remote work has turned multi-state payroll compliance from an enterprise headache into a small-business one. With 13 states plus D.C. running mandatory paid leave programs and nexus triggered by a single remote employee, most small HR teams are managing complexity they were never built for.
77% of employees intend to stay, but only 18% because they want to. The metric that looks best on your dashboard is the one telling you least.
Salary budgets are settling at 3.4–3.5% for a third straight year, and employers are walking away from across-the-board raises as new transparency rules raise the stakes.
Harvard says entry-level hiring collapsed at AI-adopting firms. A 21,000-employer study says the opposite. Both are right, and the difference is a talent strategy choice.
Wage growth has slowed and quits are at a decade low, but new Payscale data shows pay compression is still real, and counteroffers aren't fixing it.
The EU's Platform Work Directive, escalating IR35 enforcement, and steep per-worker penalties abroad are closing the contractor loophole, and EOR adoption is surging in response.
Companies are cutting management layers and handing the survivors more direct reports. Gallup's 2026 research says team size is the wrong variable to watch.
62% of HR teams use AI regularly, but only 39% have a formal process to review what it produces. The data foundation is the part nobody counted.
Europe pushed high-risk AI duties to December 2027 and Colorado gutted its AI Act. The rules that actually bind employers took effect on schedule.
Forward-thinking companies are retiring the subjective "culture fit" standard, replacing it with data-driven assessments that measure what candidates bring.
As generative AI reshapes every function of the enterprise, CHROs face a defining moment: transform the talent model or risk irrelevance.
Employer-sponsored benefits are evolving fast. New survey data reveals the top five benefits employees say would make them more loyal to their employer.
Three independent projections put 2027 gross medical trend between 9.0% and 10%. With benefits budgets flat, employers have to decide who absorbs the difference.
The Department of Labor's updated salary threshold takes effect in 60 days. Here's exactly what HR needs to audit, update, and communicate before the deadline.
As salary range disclosure laws spread to 18 states, new research reveals a counterintuitive outcome: employees with access to pay data report lower satisfaction.
Workday, SAP, and a dozen well-funded startups are all pitching the same vision: an AI assistant that handles everything from policy queries to workforce planning.
Two years of RTO mandates, and the research is in. The productivity gains executives expected haven't materialised, but something else has, and it's complicated.
New research from Lightcast shows early adopters outperforming peers on quality of hire and retention, if they avoid these common pitfalls.
Organisations investing in targeted reskilling programmes are seeing stronger internal mobility and lower attrition. New benchmarking data reveals what works.
Employment attorneys break down the five key passages every HR team should flag before deploying new AI tools in hiring or performance management.
Federal enforcement activity around I-9 documentation is surging. Immigration attorneys share the three most common violations they're seeing and how to avoid them.
A comprehensive new study breaks down exactly where bad hire costs accumulate and which screening practices best predict long-term performance.
The annual leadership retreat and 360 feedback cycle aren't cutting it anymore. A new model built around real-time coaching and cohort learning is gaining ground fast.
Amid political headwinds and programme rollbacks, a cohort of CHROs is finding new ways to advance belonging and equity without triggering legal or reputational risk.
Companies that have moved beyond EAP checkboxes to deeply integrated mental health support are seeing measurable gains in retention and engagement scores.
The gap between the analytics capabilities companies have and the ones they actually use is widening. Here's how leading teams are closing it.
What separates organisations where employees genuinely feel they belong from those where belonging is just a slide in the onboarding deck? We studied six.
CHROs are being asked to lead AI literacy initiatives across their organisations, while simultaneously upskilling their own teams. Here's how the best are doing it.
Try a different search term or topic filter.
