On Friday, January 25, 2019, Helios hosted the Human Capital Impact Forum (HCIF), a program where C-level and HR leaders come to learn, collaborate and adapt human capital programs to support business growth. The topic for this session was “Reducing Healthcare Costs, Strategies to Know for 2019 & Beyond.”

As our societal norms and technology have evolved, there has been a recent shift to work being completed outside of the traditional office space and office hours. This shift in flexible working has tasked leaders with the responsibility of managing the productivity and expectations for their teams. Particularly, employees that work in exempt roles. Leaders now have to decide if their employee time management strategy will focus on an employee’s hours in the office or their overall productivity.

Are leaders born or made? This is an interesting question that comes up often in client discussions around developing future leaders. For decades in our society, this has been a lifelong debate of nature versus nurture. It’s as if we think that once we can answer this question, we can unlock the mystery/challenge of identifying and leveraging effective leadership. If you look hard enough, you can find examples of leaders that support both perspectives. There are clearly people who inherit qualities and traits that make them better suited to be a leader. While on the other hand, there are people who can emerge into leadership roles or become leaders through learning, teaching, experiences, and observation.

Technology is always innovating, and employees rely on business leaders to keep-up with the changes in today's modern workplace. One trend that is continuously gaining popularity is wearables, specifically smartwatches like the Apple Watch or Wear OS, which allows users to stay connected to their smartphones from afar.