SHRMLead from Student's Perspective

Guest Post  by McKenzie Cunningham, UIS HR Student

Last weekend was SHRM’s Leadership Regional Summit in Dallas, Texas.  My professor, Donna Rogers, whom is ILSHRM Director attended.  This conference is primarily attended by state council directors and director elects.  This year there were 48 out of the 50 states represented. 

The experience of following a live twitter stream was not an easy task because sometimes I did not know what was going on. 

The purpose is to attend and get advice from one another and SHRM staff on how to lead a group of volunteers such as a state council or chapter.  They also learned about Social Media’s impact on volunteer management, event planning, and general communications.   Scott Ferrin and Linda Besse are just a couple who shared some interesting tweets during the conference.  

For Example:

“Social media branding:  it’s like growing your own flowers organically (Scott ferrin (@i_am_swc_SHRM) on Twitter)”.  My takeaway from this tweet is when it comes to HR and social media you can pick and choose every aspect of the company you work for by picking the right people to work with you or even how the company is perceived by your customers.   

“Policy vs. Parameters” Parameters give you room to move (Linda Besse (@linda44342) on Twitter) I found this comment by Linda Besse very interesting and true.  When it comes to HR policies they have to be followed very carefully and there is no wiggle room.  When you are a Human Resource professional you are in charge of a lot of people besides yourself.  There are many laws and regulations that are passed from state to state and SHRM is a great support system and a great way to learn from others in your field. 

I am new to twitter, so this has been a real experience for me to follow the #shrmlead stream.  If you are interested in following the tweets for this event click here:  #shrmlead.  This will be the same hashtag used for the upcoming annual SHRM Leadership Conference in DC this November.  One interest sting tweet from Curtis Midkiff @SHRMSocMedGuy was this video you might want to check out titled: Our #SHRM volunteer leaders let us know how they really Feel About HR at #SHRMLead

I am currently a student member of SHRM and think it is an amazing organization that really helps people in the Human Resource field by explaining policies and talking about new bills that are trying to be passed that will affect their jobs.  Also,  one of the biggest ways I think that SHRM helps the Human Resource professionals is that it gives tremendous support to everyone involved.  If you would like to learn more about local state SHRM initiatives click here: Illinois State Council of SHRM.  One of the things that SHRM also does that I found very interesting was they all pass out Meet Meme cards.  I find this a very interesting way to network and break the ice.  At this particular meeting they used the cards pictured here to encourage networking and win prizes.