SHRMStrat Day 2

The second day of the SHRM Strategy Conference was packed with incredible takeaways from two awesome keynotes David Novak and Aaron Dignan.  Both of these gentleman had very unique and interesting ideas for engaging, motivating, and driving performance in the organization.  Not only that they were excellent speakers and I would personally highly recommend either one of them for any conference.

David Novak who is honored as the worlds 30 Best CEO's according to Barron's sported props during his presentation such as a rubber chicken, cheese hat, and standing teeth.  His point with these crazy looking props was that regardless of what it is you use in your organization you should reward employees for doing a good job at work.  Positive reinforcement is key in driving performance and he used the 3 R's to emphasize this point (RECOGNIZE, RECOGNIZE, RECOGNIZE).

Aaron Dignan will be a leader my son's generation will support in a heartbeat because he totally supported the positive side of what our younger generations are getting out of gaming.  I have always recognized what he has been learning while gaming even at his early ages.  He is only 11 now and has a very strong understanding of geography, history, and random facts that I am constantly learning from him.  Aaron suggests that we think about how gaming affects our brain activity, drive, and desire to compete and design jobs in the same way games are designed that are not boring or don't become boring to the employee.  He used examples of cashiers at Target who are scored on the level of speed that they can check someone out.  I personally appreciate this because I have been through check outs before and been frustrated that the employee didn't have any respect for my time and just took their sweet time checking me out.  I wanted to give them a grade as a frustrated customer.

All in all both of these keynotes both inspired me and taught me ideas to take back and incorporate in my teaching, consulting, and inspiration of other aspiring HR professionals.  The concurrent sessions reinforced information I already knew as I attended a session on Metrics and Engagement.  Finally, I had the opportunity to see what was new with both SHRM HR research where Mark Schmit talked about the results of the 2010 Job Satisfaction Survey.

 

On a lighter side we ended the day with a closing party outside by the pool which was spectacular with music and lighted palm trees.  It was a fabulous way to network with other HR professionals but the most  interesting outcome was that a SHRM staff member met a conference attendee earlier in the day in a session and later connected at this evening event.  Both are from the east coast and having randomly met in the west coast they discovered they both graduated from the same high school within a couple years of each other and knew several of the same people having grown up in the same town.  So for them the closing party turned into a high school reunion conversation for at least a couple of hours.  How awesome is that!  It truly is a small world!

Finally, I also had an opportunity to hear Jon Pon, SHRM CHRO, who is also the conference emcee talk about the future of HR.  Enjoy!

by Donna Rogers, SPHR, ILSHRM Director