HR Lens

Article Type – Regulatory Issue Analysis

  • [2026 HR Trend ⑦] Polywork and the Rise of Side Work: Redesigning Rewards and Engagement Strategy

    [2026 HR Trend ⑦] Polywork and the Rise of Side Work: Redesigning Rewards and Engagement Strategy

    This is the seventh article in the 2026 HR Trend series. If the sixth article examined the limits of full-time-employee-centered HR, this article looks at how individual employees’ ways of working are changing. Polywork, side work, and side projects are no longer exceptions limited to a few occupations.

    The issue cannot be reduced to “whether to allow or prohibit side jobs.” In an era when employees have multiple income streams and multiple roles, organizations must design rewards competitiveness, engagement, conflicts of interest, information security, and performance criteria together.

    Side work is not personal misconduct; it is a rewards signal

    SHRM 2026 HR Trends presents the trend “Employees Work Harder, Smarter… and Collect Two Pay Checks.” The phrase shows that, on the 2026 HR agenda, employees are being asked to achieve higher productivity while also seeking additional income sources. The fact that SHRM addresses both the productivity effects and the costs and risks of AI on the same trends page also suggests that this shift is not only an individual choice but an organizational operating issue.

    Employees take side jobs for many reasons. Cost-of-living pressure, an uncertain employment environment, a lack of growth opportunities, and the desire to test their expertise in the market are all intertwined. When viewed together with SHRM’s 2026 State of the Workplace summary, which covers employee expectations and organizational issues based on data from more than 1,800 HR professionals and more than 2,000 workers and states that 72% of HR professionals recognize rising employee expectations of employers, side jobs should be read as signals about rewards, growth, and employee experience. If HR treats all of this only as problematic behavior, it misses the cause. Conversely, if it leaves the issue unmanaged without any standards, the risks of lower performance, conflicts of interest, and information leakage may grow.

    In the polywork era, the key questions are engagement and conflicts of interest

    The Workforce Fragmentation trend in SHRM 2026 HR Trends shows a shift in which work outside the organization and work inside the organization are becoming more loosely connected. The figure that 72% of CEOs expect increased use of independent contractors, gig workers, and freelancers in 2026 suggests that the external labor market is moving more deeply into organizational operations.

    This trend also affects full-time employees. Inside the company, an employee is a member of the organization; outside the company, the same person may be a freelancer, creator, instructor, adviser, or online seller. HR’s core question is not “Does the employee have a side job?” but “Does that activity conflict with the performance of the primary job, the company’s interests, or customer information?”

    Total Rewards becomes the design of choices, not a salary table

    SHRM’s 2026 State of the Workplace summary addresses employee expectations and organizational issues based on data from more than 1,800 HR professionals and more than 2,000 workers. The 72% of HR professionals in SHRM’s public summary who recognize rising employee expectations shows that rewards cannot be explained by wage levels alone.

    Total Rewards in the polywork era is not limited to a bundle of base pay, incentives, and benefits. Flexible work, growth opportunities, financial well-being, recognition, career mobility, and psychological safety work together. If employees are seeking additional income and opportunities outside the company, HR must examine not only the salary table but the total value employees gain inside the organization.

    As AI lowers the barrier to side jobs, policies must change as well

    SHRM states that 89% of CEOs expect AI to redefine how organizations create and capture value in 2026. AI raises productivity in the primary job while also lowering the barrier to side jobs. Content creation, data analysis, document drafting, training-material development, and online sales operations can be started with less time and cost than before.

    So, existing concurrent-employment policies must be reviewed. External activities during working hours, the use of company devices and accounts, the use of company data, transactions with competitors or clients, and paid activities similar to one’s company role each require different standards. Even if outputs are produced with AI, risks grow when company materials or customer information are mixed in.

    Korean companies should define judgment criteria before prohibition clauses

    The easiest approach for Korean companies dealing with side jobs and polywork is to strengthen prohibition clauses. But as the trends in SHRM 2026 HR Trends show, employees’ external activities and multiple income streams are moving in a broader direction. A simple ban makes actual behavior difficult to understand and may instead increase hidden risks.

    HR must define at least four judgment criteria. First, does the activity infringe on primary-job performance and working time? Second, is it connected to the company’s trade secrets, personal information, or customer information? Third, is there a conflict of interest with competitors, clients, or partners? Fourth, does it affect the company’s reputation and job ethics? These criteria should be operated together with work rules, security policies, performance management, and manager training.

    Ultimately, the spread of polywork and side jobs is not a simple story about weaker employee loyalty. It means an era has arrived in which the rewards and growth opportunities an organization provides to employees are compared with other choices in the market. HR should not see side jobs only as a hidden problem; it should read them as a signal to revisit rewards strategy and engagement strategy.

    Read the HR Trend series together

    This article is part of the 2026 HR Trend series. Reading AI adoption, accountability lines, performance management, hiring, upskilling, hybrid workforces, polywork, and employee experience together provides a more three-dimensional view of changes in the HR operating model.

    What HR should look at next

    The point is not to add one more policy. The work ahead is to turn this issue into a clear operating standard for the organization.

    A practical starting question is enough: which decision will this change actually alter — hiring, performance management, learning, or rewards? The clearer that answer becomes, the closer HR work moves from reports to real standards used in the field.

    References

    This article was written based on SHRM’s public materials for 2026 HR Trends and the 2026 State of the Workplace. The body connects SHRM 2026 HR Trends’ “Employees Work Harder, Smarter… and Collect Two Pay Checks,” Workforce Fragmentation, and AI-related trends, and uses the survey scope of more than 1,800 HR professionals and more than 2,000 workers in SHRM’s 2026 State of the Workplace summary as the basis for interpreting employee expectations and Total Rewards. Judgments about side jobs, concurrent employment, discipline, and conflicts of interest may vary by national law and each company’s work rules, so this article should be read not as legal advice but as operating criteria from an HR perspective.

  • [2026 HR Trend ②] More Important Than AI Adoption: Designing HR’s Lines of Accountability for AI

    [2026 HR Trend ②] More Important Than AI Adoption: Designing HR’s Lines of Accountability for AI

    This is the second article in the 2026 HR Trend series. If the first article read the overall flow as a “redesign of the HR operating model,” this article focuses on AI within that flow. The key issue is not AI adoption rate. It is how far HR will use AI, who will review it, and how it will explain decisions to employees.

    SHRM expects AI to remain a central HR agenda item in 2026. At the same time, it explains that organizations must revisit whether AI has delivered the expected results and where costs and risks are hidden. It also presents the figure that 89% of CEOs expect AI to redefine how organizations create and capture value. As expectations grow, responsibility grows as well.

    As AI becomes a central HR agenda, lines of accountability must come first

    AI is rapidly entering recruiting, performance management, learning, workforce planning, and employee-experience analysis. But saying that HR uses AI is not a single action. AI that summarizes candidate documents, AI that recommends interview questions, AI that drafts performance feedback, and People Analytics tools that predict turnover risk each create different risks.

    The problem is that as tools multiply, the source of judgment becomes blurred. If there is no record of whether HR simply followed the AI output, whether a manager modified it, or what criteria justified an exception, employees will find it difficult to accept the result. So, the first task for HR AI in 2026 is not “what should we adopt?” but “who is the final decision-maker?”

    HR AI accountability starts with three questions

    The first question is purpose of use. SHRM’s 2026 HR Trends explains that organizations should strip away excessive expectations around AI and use it where it truly matters. HR must therefore distinguish whether AI is being used for cost reduction, productivity improvement, or as a supporting tool for better workforce decisions. If the purpose is vague, performance is hard to measure.

    The second question is review responsibility. Who checks the recommendations made by AI? In recruiting, the roles of recruiters and business leaders differ; in performance management, the responsibilities of managers and HRBPs differ. The third question is documentation standards. Organizations must leave a record of what data was entered, by what criteria results were revised, and who approved exceptions.

    If these three questions are not settled, AI may make HR faster, but it will not make HR more trusted.

    For recruiting AI, explainability matters more than screening speed

    In 2026 Talent Trends, SHRM addresses hiring difficulties and skill shortages based on data from more than 2,000 HR professionals. According to the public summary, about 70% of HR professionals still face difficulty hiring full-time employees, and 42% experienced difficulty retaining full-time employees in the past 12 months.

    In this situation, recruiting AI looks like an attractive solution because it can quickly summarize applications, classify candidates, and generate interview questions. Yet, as SHRM points out, automation and algorithms alone cannot solve hiring problems. If job requirements are outdated and evaluation criteria are unclear, AI will only repeat that ambiguity faster.

    So, the core of recruiting AI is not speed but explainability. HR must be able to explain why a candidate was excluded, what capabilities were judged insufficient, and how humans reviewed the AI recommendation.

    Performance-management AI should make managerial judgment more transparent

    AI coaching and People Analytics are also changing performance management. SHRM’s 2026 HR Trends explains that AI can go beyond cost reduction and productivity improvement and lead to better workforce decisions. SHRM’s 2026 trend commentary also addresses the idea that AI coaches may accelerate the end of annual performance reviews. This does not mean evaluation disappears. Rather, feedback must become more frequent, more specific, and more data-based.

    Here again, accountability lines matter. AI can draft an employee development plan. But managers must decide what feedback to actually deliver, what goals to adjust, and what performance issues to leave as formal records. HR should not let AI replace managerial judgment; it should use AI as a mechanism that makes the judgment process more consistent and transparent.

    Korean companies should keep records of AI use and exception criteria

    The first task for Korean companies is not a grand AI ethics declaration but the maintenance of operating documents. Translating SHRM’s framing of the 2026 AI agenda as a matter of cost, risk, productivity, and workforce decisions into Korean HR operations means separating AI-use standards first in areas that affect employees, such as recruiting, performance management, learning recommendations, and turnover-risk analysis.

    For example, recruiting must distinguish whether AI only summarizes applications or also ranks candidates. Performance management must separate whether AI feedback wording is reference material or formal evaluation evidence. HR data analytics needs standards for whether individual-level predictions are provided to managers or used only as organization-level indicators.

    The competitiveness of HR AI in 2026 does not lie in using more tools. It lies in creating a structure in which people can review and explain the judgments made by AI. That is the starting point for HR to turn AI into an asset of organizational trust.

    Read the HR Trend series together

    This article is part of the 2026 HR Trend series. Reading AI adoption, accountability lines, performance management, recruiting, upskilling, mixed workforces, Polywork, and employee experience together provides a more three-dimensional view of changes in the HR operating model.

    What HR should look at next

    The point is not to add one more policy. The work ahead is to turn this issue into a clear operating standard for the organization.

    A practical starting question is enough: which decision will this change actually alter — hiring, performance management, learning, or rewards? The clearer that answer becomes, the closer HR work moves from reports to real standards used in the field.

    References

    This article was written based on SHRM’s 2026 HR Trends, 2026 Talent Trends, and 2026 HR trend commentary. In particular, the HR professional respondent sample and public figures from 2026 Talent Trends were used as article-level evidence. Only figures and wording verifiable in public materials were used as evidence in the body, and nonpublic content from member-only detailed reports was not cited.

  • AI HR adoption makes compliance infrastructure a core variable in HR Tech investment

    AI HR adoption makes compliance infrastructure a core variable in HR Tech investment

    The figure of 97 HR Tech deals and $2.8 billion in Q1 2026 may look like just another investment headline. Yet the more important point in HR Executive’s June 15 report is not the deal value, but the shifting center of gravity in investment judgment. As AI agents enter recruiting, performance management, and workforce planning, HR systems become more than tools that process work quickly. They become systems that must leave evidence of “who approved an action, whether communication was appropriate, and which workflow created regulatory exposure.”

    The key issue for HR leaders is not the name of a particular vendor or report. It is the compliance infrastructure that can easily be missed when AIHR investment meetings compare only automation features: approval logs, bias audits, data flows, and accountability are moving into the center of the HR operating model.

    HR Tech buying criteria are moving from automation speed to accountability tracking

    According to the Norwest Venture Partners analysis introduced by HR Executive, Q1 2026 HR Tech activity reached 97 deals worth $2.8 billion. ADP’s acquisition of WorkForce Software was cited at $1.2 billion, and Workday’s acquisition of Sana at $1.1 billion. On the surface, these are major M&A headlines. From an HR perspective, the more important signal is that governance and compliance layers are becoming more important than automation features alone.

    As AI agents spread across HR workflows, the compliance surface expands with them. For HR leaders, the point to watch is not the number of automation features, but whether accountability can be traced. Once job posting drafts, candidate screening, performance feedback drafts, and workforce planning scenarios pass through AI, keeping only the final output is not enough. Who approved the tool and under what standard, where exceptions are recorded, and how far model output replaced human judgment become purchasing requirements.

    The risk of AI recruiting and performance tools does not end with the vendor contract

    The legal and regulatory risks around AI HR tools are also becoming more concrete. Companies using AI in recruiting, performance management, and workforce planning need to explain accountability across a patchwork of regional requirements and existing anti-discrimination principles. Colorado’s impact-assessment requirements for high-risk AI systems, Illinois restrictions on AI video interviews, and New York City’s bias audit requirement for automated employment decision tools all point in the same direction.

    Because these are U.S. rules, Korean companies should not read them as directly applicable obligations. Still, they leave a clear common question for HR operations. The fact that a company used a third-party AI tool does not automatically reduce the employer’s responsibility. The comment by Littler’s Britney Torres, reported by HR Executive, points in the same direction: courts may look at both AI-specific authority and general anti-discrimination law when judging responsibility for biased employment decisions.

    Korean HR teams should ask first about approval logs and data flows, not feature lists

    Compliance and HR service management are connected to work that is difficult to stop, such as employee relations case management, compliance training, and background screening. The discussion is limited to the U.S. HR Tech market, but it is still meaningful that these operational items appeared alongside the Q1 2026 flow of 97 deals and $2.8 billion. In an environment where AI agents affect HR decisions at volume, one missing log can later become an impossible-to-explain decision.

    When Korean companies apply this discussion, it is more practical to map internal data flows first than to memorize U.S. regulatory names. They need to identify which systems handle sensitive HR data such as candidate information, evaluation comments, manager feedback, training completion records, and performance ratings, and where AI recommends, summarizes, classifies, or executes actions. The Colorado impact-assessment example, Illinois AI video interview restrictions, and New York City bias audit requirement should be read less as domestic legal obligations and more as signals to turn approvers, change histories, exception handlers, retention periods, vendor access rights, and bias-check cycles into standard review items.

    The next HR Tech review meeting is already late if it starts with “what can we automate?”

    The questions HR Tech review meetings need to ask are direct: who authorized the action, whether the communication was appropriate, and whether the workflow created regulatory exposure. Those three questions change the order of the agenda in HR Tech adoption meetings. If the first question is “what work can we automate?”, the demo screen can look impressive. If the first question is “what judgment will we later have to explain, and where will the evidence remain?”, the vendor comparison table changes.

    In practice, four points deserve early review. First, does the system preserve evidence when a person modifies AI-recommended candidates, evaluations, or workforce placements? Second, can managers and HRBPs briefly record why they accepted or rejected an AI suggestion? Third, are there indicators and review cycles for detecting repeated disadvantage to a specific group? Fourth, does the vendor contract cover not only functional SLAs but also data retention, audit log provision, model-change notice, and incident response time? Ultimately, an expanding compliance surface means more points where approval, communication, and regulatory risk can arise.

    What HR should look at next

    The point is not to add one more policy. The work ahead is to turn this issue into a clear operating standard for the organization.

    A practical starting question is enough: which decision will this change actually alter — hiring, performance management, learning, or rewards? The clearer that answer becomes, the closer HR work moves from reports to real standards used in the field.

    Public sources referenced
    – HR Executive, “Compliance tech is becoming a strategic priority, as AI expands in HR”, 2026-06-15. Read the referenced report
    – Google News RSS field collection, AIHR·HR Tech / labor and employment field. This material was used only as a supplementary collection signal for topic selection.