Trench HR in Illinois

I was recently reminded by a good friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, that many of us in the HR Blogosphere/Twittershere/LinkedInLand or Facebook live in the "echo chamber".  I hadn't heard that for a while but I think to some degree it is true.  But I also think there are a bunch of talented, caring, and insightful folks out here listening, learning, sharing and caring.

Many of those folks are in what Mr. Judy calls Trench HR.  Those are the folks that are fighting the fight everyday, They deal with FMLA, employee performance, workplace safety -et. al.   To stay informed and up to date, they also dabble in the social media, conference, networking realm.  This is a good thing, because we need good people representing the HR trade.

This morning as I had my coffee, I was looking through my Sunday paper and saw this piece in the Springfield State Journal Register.

You may have to double-click on the article above to see it clearly, it but the piece references three local HR pros. They are Nikki Baker, Amy Byers and Donna Rogers.  They are all three from Springfield. They are all three SHRM members. They all three have served on the board of their local SHRM chapter. And two to the three have served on the Illinois State Council of SHRM.  Oh and they all have day jobs too! That is what the matter is about. 

If you can read the piece about Nikki you will see she is breaking the mold. She is moving from HR leader to business leader. That means she is going from HR to Operations, WOW how refreshing is that.  Within their organization Amy Byers is back filling Nikki's job.  Amy too, served her local chapter and has been the treasurer for the Illinois State Council of SHRM for a long time.

The last person I want to mention here is "the boss,"  Donna Rogers.  Donna not only is she the State Director of Illinois, she also teaches  Human Resources full time at UIS, she actively works as an HR Consultant, to stay close to the field and understand it challenges, she is a mother and a wife as well - a busy girl.

So this is just my way of saluting these ladies, thanking them for what they do and congratulating them upon their recent achievements.  Keep it up, we need more Trenchers out here covering all of the bases - every day!

-Dave Ryan Director of Social Media ISC SHRM