I guess ‘biggest’ really depends on where your organization is with your HR and TA practices. My biggest might not be your biggest! I taking a run at this from the 30,000-foot view, not ground level.

2017 will for sure be a challenging year for both HR and TA leaders. With a new administration that is eager, to say the least, to make policy changes, both functions will be looked to for answers on how to deal with all of this, plus you have your normal day job to handle as well!

Here some of the biggest questions HR and TA will have to answer in 2017:

1. What will a repeal of Obamacare, in its current form, do to your benefit plan? If we’ve learned anything from Trump, it’s he doesn’t like Obamacare. So, you can pretty much guarantee that we’ll see changes to the Affordable Care Act. Which changes we’ll all have to wait and see!

2. How do we keep our talent from leaving us? It used to be, how do we keep our ‘best’ talent from leaving us? But, let’s face it, you have so many employees leaving now this isn’t about putting your finger in the dyke, this is about building a new damn! Retention will be one of the hottest topics in 2017, and probably 2018, 2019,…

3. What policies do you need to add, change or get rid of to make your organization better?  We always think about improvement in terms of adding, but in 2017 your greatest accomplishment might be to delete a policy or two that no longer have a positive impact in your organization. We added so many things during the recession that no longer make sense, but in HR and TA we hate deleting policies!

4. How do we fix Millennials? He didn’t say what I just think he said, did he? You need to watch this video by Simon Sinek. He thinks corporations need to fix millennials. His reasoning is solid. Corporations have the most to lose by broken millennials, they also have the most to gain. So, get ready to ramp up your development programs like never before, but these won’t be the same types of soft skill development programs from two decades ago! Millennials are broken. We can blame their crappy parents, at least that’s what Simon does.

5. How do we attract talent to our organizations? You don’t have to ping pong tables and free beer to attract great talent, but you do have to market to prospective candidates that you want them! This means that the post and pray strategy that 90% of organizations use, no longer will work (not that it ever worked). If I’m you, I have a serious conversation with my executive team about bringing marketing into help talent acquisition do some things differently. Yeah, you still need to sell whatever it is you sell, but if you don’t have talent to run the company, you won’t need marketing.

What are your biggest HR and TA questions for 2017?