Unlike the titular character in That’s So Raven, talent strategists can’t see into the future. But they can make informed guesses.

If current conflicting economic conditions are a sign, the year ahead is likely to be a difficult one for HR teams. Forrester’s Predictions 2023: Future of Work report predicts “a perplexing, talent-constrained recession” in 2023.

“We are navigating uncharted waters,” Forrester VP and principal analyst Katy Tynan said. “Some of the things that organizations would expect to do and get good results out of will actually have the opposite effect.”

HR leaders may have a tall task ahead of them. But the keys to survival—avoiding reactionary strategies, gauging employee sentiment, and supporting internal mobility—are well within their reach, Tynan said.

Look inside. Conventional wisdom suggests that, in anticipation of an economic downturn, companies should consider layoffs, hiring freezes, and other ways to reduce headcount or labor spend. But that’s not necessarily been the case this time around.

“Executives in different industries barely understand each other’s description of the talent situation,” Forrester’s report said, advising leaders to “steer a steady course and avoid reactive moves in response to the headline of the moment.”

Tynan said one of Forrester’s messages to clients has been “Don’t spend as much time asking what other companies are doing, but rather rely on primary research with your own employees, with your own customers, and and determine what your solution needs to be, as opposed to hoping to adopt someone else’s solution.”

Support your squad. According to the report, the looming threat of recession and the resulting talent constraints will lead some companies to focus more on what they can accomplish with their current talent, making internal mobility, automation, and reskilling potentially important elements of talent strategies.

In addition to prioritizing internal mobility, Tynan said boosting manager training can also help maximize talent. Keep reading here.—AK

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @AmanfromCT on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Aman for his number on Signal.

When Gallup sounded the alarm that unhappiness was rising globally in 2020, its CEO, Jon Clifton, said the news was met without much fanfare. People’s attitudes, he told HR Brew, were basically: Duh, look around—we’re in a pandemic, don’t ya know? Of course we’re unhappy.

“It felt like no one’s listening, because they kept blaming [unhappiness] on the pandemic,” Clifton said.

But unhappiness, Clifton said, has been rising for a decade as the world has collectively become more disenchanted with work, finances, physical health, relationships, and communities.

In his new book, The Blind Spot: The Global Rise of Unhappiness and How Leaders Missed It, Clifton aims to move beyond the strawman explanation for rising unhappiness by digging into how factors including work have driven misery to record highs, creating what he calls “well-being inequality.”

In an interview with HR Brew, he shared how workplace dynamics can either contribute to global misery or help individuals thrive. HR policies, Clifton said, can be the differentiator.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Why should an HR professional read your book out of all the new releases?

One of the biggest problems that’s existed since time immemorial is pain at work, and every single person can help address this. Fixing that would not only fix this global rise of misery, it could also change human productivity. I wish all the CHROs would have gotten together and locked arms and said, “Let’s create thriving workplaces.” Because if we do, honest to God, that will change humanity.

When writing your book, you report Googling “My job is…” and the results were “stressful, making me miserable, boring, and killing me.” What does that tell you about the state of employee engagement? Keep reading here.

What book should HR pros read next? Click here to let us know.

Last week, we wrote about how some employers are looking at skills and certifications, rather than degrees, in order to hire talent from underrepresented groups, including Black and Hispanic communities, veterans, and those from rural areas.

PeduL is a company that helps employers identify key talent and fulfill their DE&I pledges. It works with other companies to create college scholarships for students who fit specific profiles and have (or are learning) the skills needed for open positions. This way, companies can build “pipelines of competitive, diverse talent,” Kayla Michèle, PeduL’s founder and CEO, told HR Brew.

“We are a bridge between the corporate world and the communities that they struggled to reach the most, and the way we’re doing that right now is through a diversity recruiting marketplace,” Michèle said.

PeduL helps source students for the scholarships who, eventually, are then able to apply to internships or entry-level positions at the companies who sponsored them.

Too often, attaining higher education and other credentials relies on systems that have historically excluded people of color and working-class Americans, among others. Michèle sees PeduL as bridging the gap of access.

“No one should be focusing on…GPAs or the prestige of the college that you go to, or any specific degree,” she said. “We know that those kinds of metrics are rooted in very outdated, discriminatory bias that was meant to shield the many from opportunity.”

Michèle said that the companies PeduL partners with understand what qualifies an individual for a position goes beyond their degree credentials, as well as acknowledging the relationship between diversity and positive business outcomes.

“We are all so much more than the logos that we represent. We’re also much more than where we live, where we went to school, who we know,” said Michèle.—AD

Do you work in HR or have information about your HR department we should know? Email [email protected] or DM @adamderose on Twitter. For completely confidential conversations, ask Adam for his number on Signal.

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: More than 60% of US voters said they believe the economy is already in a recession, despite rising wages, lower gas prices, and other economic gains. (Politico)

Quote: “We’re in a new era of work, and we’re allowing people to do that work where they’re most productive.”—Iesha Berry, DocuSign’s chief diversity and engagement officer, on the company’s workplace flexibility policy (CNBC)

Read: Performance reviews are unpopular with employees and managers, and are largely seen as a poor performance management tool. Some experts say it’s time to reimagine them. (Fortune)

Retirement revamp: Congress is considering a bill that could improve retirement security for thousands of Americans. Betterment at Work explains how the proposed legislation could affect you and your employees in this report.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}