From the January 2012 issue of CeridianVoice.

By Charles Daye, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Ceridian U.S

As an HR professional, you might have welcomed the new year with the best of intentions, resolving to make meaningful changes at work. But, like most of us, you may find you're already struggling to keep up.

Instead of making the same old resolutions this year, I'd like to invite you to focus on five critical business goals you can aim for year-round, along with some suggestions on how to achieve them.

Imperative No. 1: Curb rising costs, starting with health care

Health care has been a significant business issue for decades. The HR challenge for 2012 will be managing health care cost increases to offset a challenging business climate with new health care reform mandates.

There are a number of strategies employers can adopt to cut program costs, including making changes to plan design, financing, purchasing, vendors, pharmacy benefits and more. Consumer-directed health care or CDHC is leading the way as a proven, viable strategy to lower costs by empowering employees to become more responsible for their own health and health care decisions.

CDHC plan designs generally include one or more reimbursement or savings accounts, such as a Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA), Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or Health Savings Account (HSA), alongside low-cost medical insurance options such as a qualified high-deductible health plan (HDHP). However, the best CDHC programs take employee demographics and business goals into account.

For example, a large company with a diverse and multigenerational employee population should offer plan options ranging from an HSA paired with an HDHP, to a more traditional low-deductible plan paired with an FSA. Strategic plan stacking, such as an employer-funded HRA stacked under an employee-funded HSA, can be used to provide financial safety nets that further promote healthy behavior and smart spending habits.

To ensure sustainable savings, however, you must begin to limit traditional health care options and strategically move employees toward lower-cost plans over time. Create a multiyear phased plan, or continuum, for engaging employees in your CDHC program and wellness initiatives. As you move through the continuum, your employees begin incorporating prevention and healthy choices into their lives, reducing health care costs in the long run.

Imperative No. 2: Keep up with compliance

In the past few years, the pendulum has swung toward more government regulations and stricter enforcement, increasing the compliance demands on employers.

The key compliance issues for HR professionals include health care reform implementation, tax policy and, with the recent stepped-up Department of Labor (DOL) initiatives, Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) wage-and-hour compliance. Last year alone, the DOL's Wage and Hour Division received 40,000 complaints, a 15-percent increase from the previous year.

While annual changes in tax and payroll legislation are commonplace, the implementation timelines are becoming shorter and shorter, forcing employers to scramble to stay compliant. Monitoring legislative battles and preparing in advance will help you meet these deadlines.

In addition, review your compensation practices thoroughly to make sure they're compliant with new FLSA regulation changes, and train your staff on compliance issues.

Finally, consider implementing an automated workforce management solution. If your organization is still relying on a manual or outdated timekeeping system, you now face increased exposure to wage-and-hour audits and lawsuits. Many Ceridian clients have implemented such a solution as a way to alert managers to potential violations before they occur and to accommodate complex labor rules.

Imperative No. 3: Earn a seat at the executive table

Economic challenges and new labor and health care compliance requirements are forcing HR professionals, like everyone else, to do more with less. Because of this, we're seeing new opportunities for HR leaders to strengthen their relationships with C-level executives, such as finance executives. With so much change quickly approaching, there is great potential for HR to show its strategic value by helping to position the company for greater growth.

To do that, you first need to do whatever you can to get more involved in the organization's short- and long-range planning processes. Only then can HR move from a basic function to one that is critical to the success of the business. Since your workforce is often your company's biggest investment, start by getting more deeply involved in labor planning — from the budgeting and hiring to the daily scheduling and timekeeping.

Once you're involved in the planning phases of your business, use today's analytics technology to measure, analyze and manage your organization's workforce, ensuring the right people are in the right places at the right time, contributing maximum value to the company. This approach, called evidence-based human capital management, is an important concept for today's HR professionals as they're asked to contribute to the business at a higher level.

Start with your own department. Consider streamlining or outsourcing more repetitive HR processes to free up time to tackle strategic initiatives. Then, earn your seat at the table by using data mining, statistical analysis and forecasting to help the C-suite understand the financial impact of its decisions.

Imperative No. 4: Help employees become more productive and more engaged

HR is responsible for one of the greatest strategic challenges in any business: engaging employees.

It's estimated that only about one in three employees is fully engaged at work, and studies show we are experiencing the greatest decline in employee engagement in 15 years. As employers struggle to contain costs by reducing head count or the number of new hires, employees are showing the accumulated effects of fatigue and uncertainty.

Given that there is a clear link between employee engagement and profits, HR needs to take action. The first step is to use technology to empower people. Focus this year on automating manager processes, such as scheduling and timekeeping, and giving employees the ability to be more self-sufficient.

But make no mistake, this is about more than scheduling; it's about changing your culture, starting with your frontline managers. Workforce management tools can free managers from the burden of administrative tasks and help them better track and recognize employee performance. This will give managers more time to lead people, build trust and foster engagement.

Imperative No. 5: Embrace change

Finally, in today's business environment, change is not only inevitable; it's imperative.

Part of your role in HR is to create trust around change. When communicating change to employees, be specific and show them how it's going to have a positive effect on the organization. Be clear about your intentions, plan actionable steps, stay focused and measure your results. You may have to be nimble and communicate different messages to different parts of the organization.

Also, you don't have to sit back and wait for change. You can take a proactive approach. Have solutions ready for problems before the C-suite comes to you, and HR will be a shining star in 2012.

What are your top HR goals for the coming year? Let us know in the comments below.

For more information:

• View this issue's infographic about HR resolutions
• Learn about automated workforce management technology
• Read about health care consumerism
• Review the Q&A from our professional development webinar on change management

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