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Lucy Phillips

Lucy Phillips

1 Jul 2009 | 12:29

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Everything in the States really is mega-sized. I’d started to get used to the pint-sized cups of coffee and colossal conference centre, but I was almost dumbfounded by a session I attended called “Hot topics and new developments in HR: a public policy update”. Perhaps this was rather naive, given the current economic environment and the recent changes in the White House, but there are masses of legislative bills being considered right now that will have a direct effect on the work of HR professionals in the US. I have also acquired a new respect for any UK HR people who take on roles across the Atlantic. This is major legislative territory.

I had gone to the session with the intention of seeing the progress the new president had made with the various employment pledges he made during his campaign trail. While I soon realised it’s too early to properly assess this, there was a definite sense that much of what is being proposed on Capitol Hill is very unpopular among the American HR community.

The biggest employment issues right now for the federal government relate to healthcare, workplace flexibility, leave and industrial relations. Healthcare is the one dominating the US headlines currently, driven by major concerns, not only about the failure to cover vast numbers of poor people, but also over soaring costs. While both sides of the Senate House, business and the public agree on the need for reform and a new focus on wellness and prevention, the extent to which employers are going to have to pay for the changes, including erasing tax benefits for employer-provided schemes, is very contentious. While the NHS may not be perfect, it definitely takes the pressure off many employers in this area and I don’t envy those American HR managers who will have to navigate their way through whatever changes are eventually passed.

The proposals around workplace flexibility and leave benefits, which both Obama and McCain made much of during their campaign trails, are complex but the view from SHRM is that any new paid leave (for parental reasons or sickness, for example) should be through employer incentives rather than mandatory.

Perhaps the biggest changes for HR are contained in the industrial relations proposals, which, according to one of the SHRM experts presenting the session, would “change the way unions are organised in America forever”. I sensed this bill, which aims to boost rapidly declining union membership and would strengthen the workplace rights of unions, caused the greatest alarm among delegates.

Whatever the outcomes of these proposals, which are yet to be finalised, one thing is for sure: the Obama administration is not standing still and major changes to the US employment landscape are imminent.
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