HR Professionals Face New Everyday Challenges

At a time when many believe business ethics have deteriorated, human resource professionals are increasingly seen as strategic business partners. The folks in HR are frequently expected to uphold values under pressure to cut corners.

The challenge to assume that role was given to members of the Northwest Arkansas Human Resource Association by Don Soderquist, retired Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive, at a meeting in June. Soderquist is founding executive of The Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics in Siloam Springs and business counselor at OnCourse LLC, a consulting firm in Rogers.

HR managers cover many roles – recruiting, compliance, retention, compensation, evaluations, hiring and termination, training and development, mentoring and counseling – but Soderquist said that initiating strategic plans is also needed to help drive a company today.

“HR people often don’t recognize the influence that they can have in their role as a leader … not just to make sure that everyone complies, but to come up with programs that go above and beyond what they’re asked for,” Soderquist said.

As president of NOARK, a state chapter of The Society for Human Resource Management of 300-plus HR professionals, Darrin Coon agrees the nature of human resources has changed. 

“HR leaders are becoming much more attuned to the business practices at work within their organizations than they have been in the past,” Coon said.

Much of that has to do with managing resources, and in the process, recognizing where the lines of ethical standards sometimes become blurred.

“Probably 70 percent or more of all the costs of a typical organization are matters directly related to human resources,” Coon said.

Coon has witnessed many violations of standards, including discriminatory hiring processes and matters of compensation and employee classification.

“Hopefully, the NOARK chapter is helping to curtail and prevent those violations,” Coon said.

Thomas Dunlap, Benton County’s benefits administrator and federal legislative affairs director for Arkansas SHRM, sees the potential for ethical issues to trickle down into employers’ concerns about health care reform. Dunlap said complications of the bill might cause employers to cease offering coverage altogether, and the first few large employers who do so may trigger a domino effect.

Beginning in 2014, employers with more than 50 employees who elect not to offer coverage will incur a penalty of $2,000 for employees who qualify for premium tax credits through the state-based exchange. Employers offering “affordable” coverage, or premiums at less or equal to 9.5 percent of income, must also provide a “free choice voucher,” through the exchange to employees with incomes below 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

“One concern is that employers may get in the business of screening people eligible for penalties out of employment,” Dunlap said.

Dunlap said companies must also decide what their continuing commitment will be to retirees.

“The question remains for HR: Do you help pay for part of the premium, or subsidize part of the expense?” Dunlap said. Employers may start to push their people off into the exchange.”