What Do Media CEOs Need to Know from HR Right Now? Part

By Jim Elliott, President James G. Elliott Co., Inc.

December 14, 2021

On Wednesday Dec. 1, Nick Schacht, Chief Global Development Officer at SHRM, talked with members of the SIIA AM&P Network’s CEO Council about HR issues that affect media companies.  Nick was an especially appropriate guest because he has been a CEO several times and understands their areas of concern. It was my pleasure to moderate the discussion.

nick schacht, shrm

Nick talked about a key finding in a recent survey of CEOs; for 70% of CEOs, talent and the availability of talent was top on their list of concerns.  As a result of people leaving their jobs—whether because of the Great Resignation or a desire for changes in their work environment to accommodate greater flexibility—some organizations are resorting to crazy tactics to fill vacancies.  For example, some people leave for salaries well over what they're currently making. He said, “You just can't compete with that—I mean, if somebody's going to throw stupid money at a position or a person. We have to have different strategies and different approaches for it.”

He got into two big issues that are going to shape efforts to restructure the workplace to create opportunities for hybrid models: compliance and taxes.  "We can't just use the same business processes as before. In fact, even maintaining compliance with a different kind of workforce or remote workforce or hybrid workforce—they have different compliance consequences. If you don't operate in California, but all of a sudden, you've got employees in California, you may be subject to a different set of HR laws and HR regulations than in other states. Similarly, if you're used to having an office located in a metro area like New York City metro or DC metro, where you've got regional and in-state and city differentiation, and where you cover a tri-state or tri-region area, moving employees beyond that may have tax consequences that you and your organization need to be aware of."

Nick reminded CEOs to depend on their HR organization to keep up with what is going on and to provide them with advice and guidance as they work to get ahead of this. 

I will cover more highlights from that discussion in coming weeks.  Stay tuned!