June Edition: The Future of HR, Gender Equality in Financial Wellbeing and Investing through Uncertainty

Mercer News & Notes returns to bring you more insights, research and bold ideas for June.

Who will care for the human at work? 

AI has become a fixture of everyday life, but its transformative potential is just being unlocked in the workplace. As business leaders race to harness its potential, a new responsibility falls on human resources to ground their organizations and lead the charge in creating fulfilling workplaces and helping people thrive in an era of transformative technological change.

With the integration of AI, organizations will likely find growing skills and a recurring need to align talent with shifting business goals and an ever-changing business landscape. This creates a pressing need for HR to move beyond steward of employment to become stewards of work and humanity. 

In our latest perspective from Ravin Jesuthasan and Alex Zea, we explore three core steps on how HR can take on this mission:

• Ethical use of AI: Cross silos to work with other functions to effectively and ethically manage the relationships between humans and machines.
• Safeguarding ESG: Ensure the organization is keeping faith with growing societal trust and use AI in a way that doesn’t negatively impact humans.
• Preserving human well-being: Shepherd the movement to AI and automation and ensure that the benefits of AI enhance the employee experience.

Discover how HR can help both organizations and their people thrive in an age of AI.

Employers that want gender equality must tackle women’s financial wellbeing

The cost-of-living crisis is a global concern. Soaring inflation, geopolitical instability and stagnating wages have left employees seriously concerned about their financial wellbeing, and the impact for employers is staggering: eight out of 10 employees are at risk of burnout in 2024, and an average of six work hours per person per month are lost to money worries.

If employers are interested in addressing this concern, they’d be wise to start by investing in gender equity and women’s financial wellbeing. Our research shows that women are 8% more likely to find their current financial situations challenging (with less confidence they can afford healthcare costs), and also report lower levels of employer-sponsored benefits than men, which is likely to compound financial troubles.

Even as employers invest in valuable benefits for their people, women and men report different stressors at home and in the workplace, creating a gap between male and female when it comes to perception of care. That’s why if employers want to cultivate an engaged, productive and thriving workplace that prioritizes wellbeing, women’s financial security is a good place to start. Learn how.

Investing through uncertainty

"This year, markets have had to contend with an election super cycle, where over 41% of the world's population is going to the polls. But history has taught us that periods of market volatility can also present some of the best potential opportunities for making outsized returns." - @Marc Cordover

Amid market volatility, we believe agility is the key attribute for driving and enhancing performance when building portfolios.

In our latest episode of the Critical Thinking podcast, recorded live from the Mercer Global Investment Forum in Nashville this month, Olaolu Aganga and Jay Love join Marc Cordover discuss why not all volatility warrants the same responsiveness, how to invest through a time of uncertainty and how to pick the signal from all the noise.

Alexandra Zea is the Global Digital HR Transformation Practice lead for Mercer. In her role, she is responsible for driving innovation and growth in our Digital HR practices to support clients rapidly changing world. Alex has dedicated her career to helping organizations make the most of HR Technology investments to improve HR and create compelling employee experiences.

She joined Mercer through the acquisition of Leapgen, where she led efforts to develop and operationalize the Digital Transformation practice and led transformations at several multinational enterprises across a variety of industries. Prior to her time in consulting, Alex led digital transformation and optimization efforts at Morgan Stanley and Time Inc., including successful Core HCM, workforce analytics and data governance technologies. Alex has her bachelor's in Organizational Leadership from Temple University and her master's in Organizational Behavior from New York University.

When Alex isn’t chasing around her toddler-aged daughter or taking her to soccer, she is an avid reader who enjoys every kind of book from romance to dystopian science-fiction.  She lives in Richmond, VA with her husband, daughter and two cats. 

Are you already connected with Alex? If not, check out her profile, follow and connect with her to keep up with the latest news, work and thought leadership from Alex.

And that’s all we have for this edition of Mercer News & Notes newsletter! We hope you’ll join us again next month as we continue to bring the latest insights directly to you, and please share any thoughts or recommendations on topics you’d like to see in our next issue in the comments below.  👇

Don’t forget to follow Mercer on LinkedIn for the latest insights and points of views on all things future of work, and feel free to reach out if you’d like to hear more about any of the topics discussed today!

The information contained in this document is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It should not be relied upon as investment advice or an offer or solicitation. The information represents the views and opinions of the author(s) regarding the economic conditions or financial instruments referenced herein. The opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. 

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