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New research on human capital from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including hiring and training, benefits of recruiting employees with cognitive disabilities, and how to better confront anxieties about outsources and immigration.
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Reversing Brain Drain: Moving Talent to Middle America

Re: Prithwiraj Choudhury

After decades of brain drain in rural America, Tulsa Remote is working to attract a diverse group of remote workers to live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The program offers a $10,000 grant to remote workers and entrepreneurs living outside Oklahoma, who relocate to the state’s second largest city for one year, with the goal that they stay longer and truly engage in the community. Professor Prithwiraj “Raj” Choudhury discusses how the Tulsa Remote model provides workers the flexibility to move out of congested cities and explores the challenges in scaling this model throughout rural America and beyond, in his case, “Tulsa Remote: Moving Talent to Middle America.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Cut Payroll Costs with Transparency, Fairness, and Compassion

by Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott

As cost-cutting continues across the turbulent economy, companies are challenged to be creative when managing their human capital, say Boris Groysberg and Sarah Abbott. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Why a Blended Workforce May Be Key to Lasting Competitive Advantage

by Joseph B. Fuller

Companies are increasingly blending full-time staff with skilled on-demand talent. The problem: Few companies have developed cultures that accommodate gig workers, says Joseph B. Fuller. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Stock Market Value of Human Capital Creation

by Matthias Regier and Ethan Rouen

Measuring human capital creation is complex but increasingly important to managers for understanding the relationship between employee expenditures and firm performance. This paper develops a strategy to examine aspects of the intangible human capital investment embedded in a firm’s personnel expense. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Flight to Safety: How Economic Downturns Affect Talent Flows to Startups

by Shai Benjamin Bernstein, Richard Townsend, and Ting Xu

The COVID-19 crisis makes it more difficult for small, young firms to attract talent as higher-quality candidates turn to more mature firms. Such “flight to safety” leads to a deterioration in the quality of human capital available for startups.

Corporate Resilience and Response During COVID-19

by Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, and Hui (Stacie) Wang

Investors look for evidence during a market crisis that a company is resilient. This study includes findings that challenge the notion that companies need to adopt practices that hurt their employees because investors want them to do so.

How Companies Benefit When Employees Work Remotely

by Kristen Senz

Letting independent workers choose their locations can boost companies, employees, and even the economy, according to research by Prithwiraj Choudhury and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Vodafone’s Innovative Approach to Advanced Technologies

William Kerr discusses how telecom giant Vodafone incorporated big data, automation, and artificial intelligence to improve productivity while ensuring new opportunities were created for the next generation of workers. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Are Free Trade and Free Markets Quaint Ideas From the Past?

by James Heskett

SUMMING UP: Free trade and free markets are great concepts but are often corrupted by politics, globalization, and the relative power of consumers and workers, our readers suggest. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Sponsorship Programs Could Actually Widen the Gender Gap

by Carmen Nobel

Companies increasingly provide sponsors to help women get ahead. But certain aspects of sponsorship programs can hinder women instead, according to experimental research by Nancy R. Baldiga and Katherine B. Coffman. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Experience Markets: An Application to Outsourcing and Hiring

by Christopher T. Stanton and Catherine Thomas

Online labor platforms are like experience markets. Sellers vary in their fit with individual buyers’ needs while buyers new to the market are uncertain about their own value for what sellers offer. This analysis shows that most potential new employers find the market far less valuable to them than wage differences would suggest.

Why Employers Must Stop Requiring College Degrees For Middle-Skill Jobs

by Joseph Fuller

Employers are guilty of "degree inflation," requiring lofty academic bona fides for jobs that don't really need them. Joseph Fuller says the practice is hurting American competitiveness. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Why Don't More People Get Flu Shots at Work?

by Roberta Holland

The frontline battle station in the just-started influenza season is the workplace flu vaccine clinic. The problem: fewer than half of employees take advantage of them. John Beshears discusses why location makes a difference. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Master the One-on-One Meeting

by Julia B. Austin

The one-on-one meeting between supervisor and staff is an invaluable tool for managing, but requires much attention to detail. Julia B. Austin explains best practices for getting the most out of the 1:1. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Who is to Blame for 'The Great Training Robbery'?

by Roberta Holland

Companies spend billions annually training their executives, yet rarely realize all the benefit they could, argue Michael Beer and colleagues. He discusses a new research paper, The Great Training Robbery. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Neurodiversity: The Benefits of Recruiting Employees with Cognitive Disabilities

by Roberta Holland

Employers are increasingly finding fresh ideas and insights by recruiting workers with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other cognitive disabilities. Gary Pisano and Robert Austin discuss their case study, “SAP SE: Autism at Work.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How to Hire a Millennial

by Joseph Fuller

This is not your parents' workplace anymore, Joseph Fuller reminds us. Crucial for attracting millennial workers are flexible work arrangements, meaningful mentorship programs, and sense of mission. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?

by James Heskett

SUMMING UP Does Amazon's "only the strongest survive" employee-retention policy make for a better company or improved customer relationships? Jim Heskett's readers chime in. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Managing the Support Staff Identity Crisis

by Carmen Nobel

Employees not connected directly to profit and loss can suffer from a collective "I-am-not-strategic" identity crisis. Professor Ranjay Gulati suggests that business managers allow so-called support function employees to become catalysts for change. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

It Pays to Hire Women in Countries That Won’t

by Carmen Nobel

South Korean companies don't hire many women, no matter how qualified. So multinationals are moving in to take advantage of this rich hiring opportunity, according to new research by professor Jordan Siegel. Key concepts include: Employing women who are excluded by their own countries' labor markets is a growing trend for international affiliates of global multinational companies. Using data from South Korea, researchers showed that a 10 percent nominal increase in the percentage of female managers (at the level of the then-prevailing glass ceiling) was associated with a 1 percent nominal increase in ROA. Multinational firms that recruit females into management roles at their local affiliates face the possibility of upsetting local male employees, partners, and customers who don't approve of women in executive roles. In many instances, multinational firms hired and promoted female managers in a discriminatory host market at a far higher rate than they employed female managers in their own home markets. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.