Ask any expert about the future of work and you will hear about a world dominated by artificial intelligence, 3D printing, an on-demand economy, and five generations in a virtual workplace where almost any worker can perform almost any work from anywhere they choose.

For employers, this poses at least two significant challenges. The first is shared by our entire society in ensuring an education and workforce development system that provides workers with a constantly evolving set of skills needed to perform the ever-changing demands of work. This requires a significant commitment of resources, and employers do their fair share—spending more than $600 billion of the $1.1 trillion spent annually on education and training, as determined in a recent Georgetown study.

But where should those resources go? Both employers and employees need to make a commitment to continuing education and a constant upgrading of skills to address the rapid changes in work caused by new technology. In addition, we need to recognize that for many, there need to be other alternatives besides a college education, such as apprenticeship programs that can provide technical skills for the jobs of the future, particularly in manufacturing.

So what is item number two? Virtually any employer will tell you one of its foremost competitive challenges is identifying, attracting and retaining talent at a time when workers feel less and less tied to long-term commitments to any single employer.

How do employers compete? Well, compensation obviously has to be competitive but, particularly among Millennials, today’s workforce is also looking for workplace policies and cultures that fit their personal and family needs.

Corporate policies are continuing to evolve in a number of areas, including flexibility, employee engagement, diversity and inclusion, and educational assistance, among others, according to a report by HR Policy Association members, most of whom are HR executives for multinational companies. Today’s companies not only want to do the right thing by their employees but they have to if they want to keep them.

Unfortunately, this evolution is not occurring in government policies, which continue to operate under mid-20th Century assumptions that employers will only give a fair shake to their employees if required to do so by the government. For example, one area gaining considerable public attention these days is paid leave. Large companies generally provide higher pay and more generous benefits than others and many are expanding these programs to appeal to new generations of workers. Meanwhile, there is a move afoot at the state and local levels to require a minimum number of days of paid leave. Not surprisingly, most large employers already provide the minimum amounts of leave or more than each of these laws require.

The problem is that each state or local law has separate rules on how the leave is administered — vesting, annual carryover of unused leave, leave eligibility, etc. This poses significant complications for large companies that seek to provide uniform benefits for their employees in multiple states. To address the growing patchwork quilt of state and local laws, we propose a voluntary federal standard—to be determined by Congress—that would provide a floor of a certain number of days and certain minimum specifications on how the leave is to be administered and to whom it must be provided. If, and only if, a company met or exceeded that floor and provided the benefits consistent with the standard, it would have a “safe harbor” from the numerous state and local strictures.

The retention of a fundamental level of workplace protections will always be necessary. This is but one example from our report on how we can upgrade our existing workplace regulation architecture to reflect changes in how work is performed and how employment relationships are evolving.

Daniel V. Yager is president & CEO of HR Policy Association, a members organization of chief human resource officers representing US multinational firms.

如果你想知道未来的职场何许模样，专家们会给你描绘出一个被人工智能、3D打印和应需型经济统治的世界，上下五代人在同一个虚拟空间里工作，每人都能自由选择工作地点，在任何地方执行几乎任何工作。

这将给雇主带来至少两个重大挑战。第一个挑战是全社会要共同面对的——为了确保教育体系和人才培养系统让劳动力获得不断变化的技能组合，以应对不断变化的工作需求，整个社会需要投入相当程度的资源，而用人单位要承担他们相应的责任——乔治城大学（Georgetown University）最近的一项研究结论表明，在每年1.1万亿美元的教育培训支出中，需要投入超过6000亿美元用于这个目的。

这些资源应该投向哪里呢？雇主和雇员双方面都要具备继续教育的决心，从而不断升级技能，与新技术在工作中带来的快速变化保持同步。此外还要认识到，很多人需要大学之外的其它选择，例如传授未来岗位所需专业能力的师徒项目就是制造业尤其需要的。

那么第二个挑战呢？基本上所有的雇主都会告诉你，在员工和用人单位的关系日益松散的当下，他们面临的最大的挑战之一是如何发现、吸引和保留人才。

雇主之间如何互相PK？薪酬当然必须有竞争力，然而光这一点还不够——特别是对九零后来说——今天的劳动力人群会寻求符合个人需求和家庭需求的人事政策和企业文化。

人力资源政策协会（HR Policy Association）面向成员进行了一项调查——他们大多是跨国企业的首席人力资源官——发现企业的人事政策在多个细分领域仍在不断发展变化，包括灵活性、员工归属感、多样性和包容性、以及教育培训等。今天的企业想用正确的员工来做正确的事，而如果想要留住优秀员工，企业自身也必须“做正确的事”。

政府的公共政策不幸并未体现出这个变化，而是仍然停留在20世纪中期的背景假设之下，也就是只要求雇主给予员工一份尚为公平的薪酬回报。举个例子，带薪休假政策得到了越来越多的公众关注。大公司通常会提供更高的薪水和更优厚的福利，很多大公司甚至还在继续扩大福利范围，以吸引新生代员工。与此同时，一些州政府和地方政府正在出台带薪假期的最低天数。然而我们知道，大多数大公司目前的休假政策已经达到甚至超过了法律规定的最低天数。

问题是，对于休假的管理办法——例如未休年假换取补偿金、未休年假结转至次年、休假资格等，不同的州或县市有不同的法律规定，这使那些在多个州市开展业务、希望制定统一福利标准的大公司的休假管理变得相当复杂。面对各个州和县市层出不穷的各式各样的法规，我们建议由国会制定一个企业自愿遵守的联邦标准，即针对如何进行休假管理、对谁提供休假福利，确定最低天数和最低要求。如果企业提供的福利标准达到或超过了这一下限，该企业就进入一个“安全港”，不再受州或县市不计其数规章的约束。

制定基本的劳动保护法规永远是必要的。以上只是从我们关于升级现有劳动法规基本架构的报告中选取的一个例子，以体现当今工作方式的变化和雇佣双方的关系变化。（财富中文网）

丹尼尔•V•雅各是人力资源政策协会（HR Policy Association）总裁兼首席执行官。该机构是一个由多家美国跨国企业首席人力资源官组成的成员组织。

译者：珠珠