Straight From The Source Blog by Higginbotham Insurance

Companies are embracing employee incentive programs as the key to increasing employee engagement, retention and job satisfaction.

Success in business doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of hard work and careful planning. To achieve your business goals, your company needs a strong corporate strategy. It also needs a strategic human resource management plan.

Office cubicles debuted in the 1960s when designer Robert Probst introduced them as a solution to a corporate conundrum: confined offices. Strangely enough, according to history, he intended to make offices breezier, less packed and more efficient. However, some argue that he created a corporate monster, giving rise to the need for office cubicle etiquette.

The human resources department has come a long way since having the role of simply hiring and firing, determining benefits and following regulations. With technology automating many of the day-to-day human resources processes, the HR professional's role has moved from being simply “personnel” to a more integral part of a company’s infrastructure.

Rising health care costs are putting the squeeze on employers. According to SHRM, large employers will pay about $10,850 for each covered employee in 2021, while employees will pay about $4,650 each. This is an increase of about 5.3 percent from 2020, when large employers paid about $10,340 per covered employee and employees paid about $4,430 each.

Hurricanes. Blizzards. Tornados. Hail. Flooding. No matter where you live, there’s probably at least one type of severe weather that threatens to disrupt your business operations. When these bad weather events strike, the situation is often urgent, leaving little time to iron out policies and procedures in the moment. That’s why it’s important to have an inclement weather policy in place before the next storm hits.

Compensation plans, also referred to as total compensation plans or compensation programs, encompass all of the compensatory components of a company's strategy. In addition to salary, compensation can include health benefits, retirement benefits, tuition reimbursement, bonuses or any other non-salary benefit that is considered part of a total compensation package.

Hourly employees can often be overlooked when it comes to managing job satisfaction, encouraging job advancement and increasing employee retention rates. However, hourly employees make up a majority of our workforce today, so it's important to take steps within your company to ensure they are happy and healthy in their jobs – not only for their well-being, but for the success of the company.

In 2020, we had to rethink a lot of things. Now as we head into 2021, it’s time to take some of the lessons we learned and see how we can use them to make our workplaces better for our employees. Here are some of the top HR projects and trends for HR professionals to tackle in 2021.

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