So having attended Capitol Hill day several times in Washington DC, I thought that our ILSHRM efforts for this year were a bust. We had more people than ever go to the Illinois Statehouse and the count was 24. But then I thought about that for a moment and thought things need to be proportional. The last time I went to Capitol Hill there were 400+ members who went - impressive! We sent 24 to our statehouse. Wait though let’s do the math. On the last trip to Capitol Hill 400 of the 280,000 members attended or 0.0014 % the membership. Now looking at our Illinois delegation, 24 of the 12,300 members attended or 0.0019% of our state membership; BAM #ILSHMR wins!
While I have not attended all of the Legislative Conferences, I have made a number of them. I still enjoy being around a bunch of like minded #HR pros, it just gets me stoked. Yesterday’s version was no different. We heard from Jonathan Segal, who is an accomplished – often quoted labor lawyer. He shared his brand of HR Law which often brought levity to the whole matter.
This was followed up by ILSHRM Lobbyist Jay Dee Shadduck. Jay brought us three state agency directors, a state senator and one state representative. These folks all had interesting prospective on what was going on in state government and why we should care, and /or feel good about it. Some of them did a better job articulating this point than others. I will leave the final decision as to who was who, to the others that attended.
After lunch we heard from Kelly Hastings, a member of the SHRM Legislative Affairs team. And while Kelly touched on a number of subjects that had already been kicked around, she provided some hard facts and legislative insight that could only come from a true insider. We thank Kelly for an early out in DC and a late night back in. (The new rules on exempt employees will be here very soon!)
Then it was off to the Illinois Statehouse. While the Senate was not in session when we arrived, they were doing committee hearings, the House was in session. The consensus was it is easy to see why we don’t have a budget. What we saw from our brief visit there was organized confusion at best. There was no real debate going on and only a vote or two took place. There were a lot of people in the Capitol but I am not sure what they were all doing. Although from my vantage point I so no one talking or worrying about a budget. Hmm, I guess government just works different that private sector business.
Tomorrow is Day two of the conference; we will see what that holds for us. See you there!
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Dave Ryan – ISC SHRM Director Elect