As the year wraps up with a white-hot job market, employers have a lot to contend with next year, according to ADP's Top Workplace Trends for 2019. "In 2019, employers and workers will increase their focus on issues ranging from the personalization of pay, to an increasing mosaic of workers that span full-time to gig, data privacy issues and more," says Don Weinstein, ADP's chief product and technology officer. With workers increasingly expecting personalization in almost every aspect of their lives, employers next year will increasingly need to adopt flexible options around pay schedules and provide financial wellness tools to employees, Weinstein says. In particular, digital accounts will become an increasingly common option for employees that allow access to pay how and when they want, and the bi-weekly or monthly payroll cycle will evolve into schedules that meet the needs of each individual worker. "Today, 86 percent employees are interested in using non-traditional financial tools to manage their pay," he says. "Tools that enable workers to manage and budget take-home pay, while automatically tracking spending and suggesting budgets, will help them meet their financial goals." As organizations become more agile in 2019, they come to rely even more on freelancers and contractors to help bridge the skills gap, Weinstein says. Employers need to assess the right mix of freelancers, temps and traditional full-time workers to best meet their increasingly on-demand business objectives. As a result, employers will need to manage worker classifications in a more dynamic manner. "Today's workforce has more generations working than ever before," he says. "With Gen Z workers entering and baby boomers retiring from full-time work, employers will need to limit 'brain drain' and engage workers in new and creative ways." As employers struggle to recruit and retain employees in 2019, many will change how they approach the annual performance review and embrace performance-based models. Such models offer greater and more frequency communication between employees and their supervisors, a key to increasing engagement, Weinstein says. "As teams organically form to address business needs, companies need to be able to track employee performance in a more matrixed environment," he says. "Systems need to track what team members do well, what they enjoy and foster ways to do more of it. Rather than focusing on developing weaknesses, models will shift to help workers discover their strengths and leverage them more at work." Not surprisingly, employers will be under continued pressure to deliver against diversity and inclusion initiatives. "The business case for diversity had an enormous spotlight placed on it in 2018," Weinstein says. "From the lack of women and minorities in leadership roles, to the challenges workers faced in reporting issues. Despite this attention, organizations still struggle to make progress in this critical area." According to findings from the ADP Research Institute study, Rethinking Gender Pay Inequity in a More Transparent World, women are paid on average 17 percent ($13,640) less in base salary than men. However, when factoring in incentive pay, the total earnings pay gap widens to 19 percent ($18,500). "In 2019, organizations will need to address the gender pay gaps by focusing on key metrics and diversity and inclusion initiatives that demonstrate progress in both pay and bonuses," he says. Also expected over the next year, HR systems will increasingly tap into artificial intelligence and machine learning, allowing them access to insights in real time, Weinstein says. Workers will also have more access to data through financial wellness and professional development tools that support their goals both inside and outside the workplace. Moreover, data privacy will remain a top priority, particularly as the EU General Data Protection Regulation implemented this year sparks other countries and states will continue to look at privacy rights. Another top trend for 2019: employers and employees will continue to demand that the technology they use at work be user friendly, as it is in their personal lives, Weinstein says. "This push will require HR solutions to be fully mobile enabled, cloud-based, open to APIs and designed with the end user in mind," he says. "HR technology and data will need to be accessed, shared and be able to be integrated across functions and bridge internal business silos." Looking back at the state of the labor market according to the monthly ADP National Employment Report and quarterly Workforce Vitality Report, the U.S. workforce experienced historic gains in 2018, Weinstein says. The unemployment rate this year fell to a near 50-year low, more than two million jobs were added and wage increases began to accelerate in 2018, he says. Wages increased nearly an average of $1 per hour from last year, and the average wage increase for job switchers was 5.8 percent, while job holders saw a 4.7 percent increase. "With 2018 employment levels at an all-time high and broad-based wage growth taking root, the U.S. job market is more dynamic than ever," paving the way for the workplace trends in 2019, Weinstein says.