Yet, employees are also impacted by the current uncertain environment and massive amounts of change. In order to ensure their workforce remains satisfied and productive, here are three talent-focused questions employers should be considering in 2017:

Are you prepared to start setting social policy?

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One of the outcomes of the recent presidential election is a new level of uncertainty over a variety of rules and regulations that impact companies and employees. Parental leave, minimum wage, and the overtime rule are a few of the areas where the outcome is undecided. Progressive companies are not waiting for politicians to take action; instead, they are setting out higher levels of pay, support, and benefits for their employees. In fact, leading employers are setting de facto standards that are above government-required regulations. This not only improves the productivity of employees, but also enables employers to attract better-quality people.

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However, as one company sets a new higher level of compensation or benefits, other companies often have to follow suit and meet that new bar in order to attract and retain talent. Leading employers need to pay greater attention in 2017 to what their talent competitors are offering in order to deliver for their workforce. In the absence of offering the same level of money or benefits, employers need to develop more effective internal communication strategies to convince their employees to stay when the total rewards package is less valuable.

What is your plan to address advances in technology?

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It’s widely speculated that automation could spell “the end” for many blue-collar jobs, but further advances could actually eliminate many other fields and jobs that you might not have considered. For instance, machine-learning algorithms can scour the Internet to collect data on past court cases and predict what sort of argument would be most effective in court, effectively taking the place of paralegals. Wearable technologies like heads-up displays may take the place of operating room nurses as they become more commonplace and advanced enough to guide surgeons through a procedure.

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That said, new technologies will also create new opportunities. Not only will jobs emerge that build new technologies, the bigger opportunity will be for people who can work alongside the new technologies to create different-in-kind products.

The challenge lies in addressing the people that are negatively impacted. Most employees in this category lack the skills to quickly shift to new opportunities that are created. Progressive companies will proactively increase their investments in training and reskilling their workforce in anticipation of these changes. This will benefit employees by increasing their employability, and will provide employers with an internal labor market from which to source talent.

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Companies need to be thinking about this today. While there’s a general belief that these sorts of changes to work and jobs will be playing out some time in the future, in say five-to-seven years, the reality is this type of technology is being implemented now.

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How will your viewpoint evolve on diversity and inclusion?

A greater willingness in society to talk about those with intellectual disabilities will lead more companies to include this group of people in their diversity initiatives. While most diversity and inclusion programs have historically focused on women and underrepresented ethnic and religious groups, leaders are starting to realize that this segment has largely been ignored.

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Partnering with non-profits and other agencies will enable leading companies to gain access to this well-qualified segment of employees. These partnerships will also benefit an employer’s existing workforce as they have consistently been shown to increase the level of employee engagement, resulting in improved performance and lower turnover.