Human Resources
Talent, pay, policy and culture, chosen for the HR leader who has to answer for them on Monday.
Human Resources at The First Click is written for the people who own the workforce question: talent and hiring, compensation and benefits, workplace policy, and culture and engagement. Three stories a weekday at 11, each summarised in our own words and linked to the publisher. We favour the story that changes a decision over the story that confirms one: a survey with a number a compensation head will be asked about, a policy experiment that will be copied badly, a departure that says something about retention at the top. Artificial intelligence runs through most of them now, as a tool the workforce already uses whether or not the policy has caught up. The editor’s note under the day’s lead says why we chose it, and the Friday Funny lane keeps the stories that prove the point by making you laugh.
Every story we have kept in Human Resources, newest first. Headlines link to the publisher; the tags below narrow the list.
Taiwan’s minimum wage to cross NT$30,000 as AI boom lifts growth
Taiwan's government approved an 11th consecutive annual minimum wage increase, raising monthly pay to NT$30,900 from January 2027, a 4.7% rise affecting 2.6 million workers. Officials cited GDP growth exceeding 11% this year, driven partly by AI-related technology exports.
Editor's noteA minimum wage increase driven by AI exports is a hedge against job displacement, not a solution. The 11% GDP growth rate hides the trade-off: a narrow boom that may not create sustainable jobs for the 2.6 million workers affected. Watch the job market, not the GDP figures, to see if this boom translates to employment security.
Nearly 3 in 4 HR job seekers are looking for roles below their career level
JobLeads analysis found 74.4% of HR job seekers pursue roles below their career level, the highest of any tracked industry, with potential salary losses near $51,000 annually.
How to: Build an HR function that drives enterprise performance
Author Sonia Mooney outlines a four-stage method for HR functions to drive enterprise performance: clarifying business strategy, creating conducive conditions, distributing responsibility and measuring impact.
Editor's noteFrameworks are cheap and this one earns the slot on its fourth stage. Clarifying strategy and distributing responsibility are familiar; committing to measure the impact is the step most HR operating models leave out, and the one that makes the other three checkable.
TJ Newsflash 2 September – Compliance, managers, cyber risk and AI performance
Training Journal's roundup covers a Go1 study finding only 38% of HR leaders test compliance-training comprehension, plus reports on shifting manager duties, cyber risks for new hires and AI skills gaps.
TJ podcast: L&D needs to stop talking about learning, with Cathy Hoy – episode 332
Training Journal's podcast features Cathy Hoy, founder of CLO100, urging learning leaders to build commercial fluency and replace ROI metrics with cost-of-inaction framing to earn a seat in decisions.
The future of work isn’t a younger workforce. It’s more flexibility
Sara Daw, CEO of The CFO Centre, argues organizations should prioritize flexible, fractional, and multigenerational work models over youth-focused hiring as workers stay employed into their eighties.
The AI fire hydrant: L&D’s new job is to redesign the pipework
Quantum Rise co-founder Erica Farmer argues AI-driven individual productivity gains stall without redesigned workflows, urging leaders to map processes, set team AI norms, and measure decision speed.
Editor's noteThe productivity gain is real and it evaporates at the team boundary. That is the argument worth leading on: individual speed means nothing if the process downstream still runs at its old pace, which makes this a workflow design problem rather than a training one.
When does quiet firing after CFRA leave become retaliation in California?
California employment law analysis explains when reduced duties after CFRA leave constitute retaliation, emphasising that courts compare actual job substance, pay and authority rather than titles.
The Global Benefits Consistency Trap for International HR Teams
An HR analysis argues international teams should benchmark comparable employee value rather than identical benefit names across countries, since local statutory protections shape how benefits land.
Tying bonuses to badge swipes is how you teach people to game you
Linking compensation to office badge swipes is a classic management mistake: employees optimize for the measured activity rather than the desired outcome. When attendance becomes the target, people learn to game attendance.
Editor's noteTie bonuses to badge swipes and you get exactly what you measured: swipes. Coffee badging is the workforce doing the maths it was asked to do. It led Human Resources because attendance is this year’s most visible case of a metric becoming a target and ceasing to measure anything. Before rewarding a number, ask what behaviour that number cannot see.
