Can’t Attend #SHRMStrat Follow ILSHRM Rep

The annual SHRM Strategy conference is just around the corner October 3-5 in Palm Springs, CA.  Last year was a first experience for this conference as I had previously attended all the others at one point or another over my career except the new one on workfit.  As with all SHRM conferences you had your usual suspects like SHRM Store, Meet to Eat and other popular attractions but what I was most impressed with was the topics discussed as well as the caliber of people who were attending.  This year’s conference promises to be just as rewarding with the following keynotes.

ILSHRM will be represented again on the press team and I invite you to follow along via twitter and this blog site.  If you have questions for me to ask the speakers, feel free to tweet those to me at any time.  I look forward to doing what I can for those who can’t attend so you too can share in the experience and learning during the event.

You can still register for the event right here.

--Donna Rogers ISC SHRM Chair

ILSHRM Represented at SHRM Strategy Conference

As the State Director of the Illinois State Council of The Society for Human Resources Management (ILSHRM), I am honored to be writing for the SHRM Press/Social Media. My first time but not so for some of my peers here such as Charlie Judy @HRFishbowl, Susan Avello @SusanAvello, John Jorgensen @jkjhr and of course our fearless leaders Curtis Midkiff @SHRMsocialmediaguy and Kate Kennedy @SHRMPress.  Honored to be on the same team!  So what do I have to write about at the end of this first day. A hellofalot!

The speakers have been fabulous so far and after only one day I would recommend this conference to all SHRM members, chapter members and non members in this great state which if you look at IL BLS data that's about 66k. There are actually about 400 here from around the world.

Let me give you a few examples of why I would recommend this conference so early in the game. First, I started out with a concurrent session lead by the VP of HR for Linked In @SteveCadigan. I chose this session primarily because I have asked my HR students to open a profile to search how Recruiters are using the platform to source candidates (in connection with the two chapters in the text covering recruiting and selection). I also work with several clients who are either looking for talent or looking for a job. My initial objectives were complemented by three words in the session description "employer of choice". My students do a presentation on a chosen organization who have won an award for above. They have not chosen Linked In yet but have chosen employment competitor & neighbor of LI, Google.

The session covered the companies growing pains related to talent acquisition, policy development, competition as an employer of choice and more. So while they are a company who helps other companies with talent acquisition, they have the same problem because of growth. For example 60% of their employee have less than one year of tenure. They have almost 1800 employees now who all help others with services like Linked In Recruiter, Jobs Network, Talent Direct, Recruitment Ads, Career Pages. All of which I have never personally used because my trench HR experience is prior to the birth of this company.  I am looking forward to reading the case studies (Allstate, US Cellular, Kimball International, Kaiser Permanente, & Logitech) they provided in the handout.

The day ended with a 40 year HR veteran (and follow-up reception) who had a very straightforward message that all CHROs, CEOs, & CFOs should hear and incorporate in everything they do. Treat people like humans not numbers (aka remember the "Human" in Human Resources). The veteran was Bill Conaty, former GE HR Executive who worked closely with Jack Welch. He was promoting his book Talent Masters but he really got me interested, as you can see from my tweet stream, towards the end when he shared some of his observations of top HR pitfalls. That information is valuable to those who are working on strategic planning in their organizations.  Some of us were talking at dinner that this is the kind of keynote we need at SHRM national instead of former movie stars or other big names who have really not made a difference in the HR profession. #JustSayin

Looking forward to Day 2 starting with one of our ILSHRM keynotes @JasonLarquist whom I did not hear at our conference since I was "taking care of conference business" 99% of time in Oakbrook.


- Donna Rogers State Director ISC SHRM

Strategy Equals Improved Bottom Line

Yes indeed!  In my professional opinion, strategic decision making, when it comes to company profit and how good or bad the bottom line is go hand in hand.  Having a military background I can appreciate the Wikipedia definition for strategy:

Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked. How a battle is fought is a matter of tactics: the terms and conditions that it is fought on and whether it should be fought at all is a matter of strategy, which is part of the four levels of warfare: political goals or grand strategy, strategy, operations, and tactics. Building on the work of many thinkers on the subject, one can define strategy as "a comprehensive way to try to pursue political ends, including the threat or actual use of force, in a dialectic of wills – there have to be at least two sides to a conflict. These sides interact, and thus a Strategy will rarely be successful if it shows no adaptability."^[1] Strategy has been extended beyond its traditional fields, military and grand strategy, to business, economics, game theory and other fields. Reference Wikipedia.

So looking back at the definition above, I would consider words like: plan, goal, achievement, action, engagement, adaptability, and success.  Strategic success, from an business & HR perspective, if the majority of your overall operating expenses is payroll and benefits (which is typically more than half), would be more than advantageous to maintain a strategic staffing plan at the very minimum.  However, don’t take my word for it!  In a few short weeks you will be able to hear from Bill Conaty, Former Sr. VP of HR at GE, Jeffery Garten, Juan Trippe Professor in Practice of International Trade, Bridget van Kralingen, GM at IBM, and Don Tapscott, Thought Leader on the Strategic Value & Impact of IT.

To top it off one of ILSHRM11’s keynote speakers, Jason Lauritsen, of Talent Anarchy is one of the concurrent speakers.  Personally I’d go just to see him!  He was awesome at our conference!  That’s not the best part!  We at ILSHRM have partnered with SHRM to bring you an improved bottom line as well when you register for this conference today.  How, you ask?  By using the following promo code:  SHRMIL2011.  This code will save you several hundred dollars on your registration.  So register today to move your company toward improved bottom line results!

The SHRM Strategy Conference is a signature event for top-level HR professionals and other business leaders who want senior-level sessions that focus on developing and executing creative, effective and scalable strategies.

Donna Rogers, SPHR @DonnaRogersHR - Chair ISC SHRM