Want some fresh ideas about people?

We’ve got the Indiana State SHRM Conference coming in a few weeks – my, how time flies – and I’ll be your intrepid reporter and blogger on site.  I’m learning that with the Crackberry Generation of HR, my posts are getting read real time on site.  Great!  As we know from performance management, fast feedback is good.  Mostly. 

We like to learn in little tidbits.  Adult learning for short attention spans…

Here is a little tidbit about the constant battle to motivate people to make healthier choices – use bar graphs.  Yup, we, the HR community, are not communicating well and research shows that people want their medical data in bar graphs.  This came from an article you can read by clicking here.  Tables of numbers don’t motivate…but our visuals kick in with colors and the relationships of big to little.  Remember this as you communicate your wellness plans…

I found this at GraphJam.com...

Hmm. Some new data on being well-educated that can hurt

In my presentations, I had been saying that unemployment was focused more on the lower education levels.  While that may be true, the length of the job search is skewing the other way.  In the data that I found on Calculated Risk, a finance blog that I follow, the story was kind of surprising.  Read the data here if you wish…

Simply put, the current mantra is ‘more education is good for you’ but this shows that it can, in the long run, hurt you if you are perceived as overeducated.  I think the message is that everyone must stay currrent with their skills, and not rest on an advanced degree.  Mental tenure is over.

Old and retired...a photographic metaphor

Top 10 from the SHRM Conference

Top 10 things I learned in San Diego

10 – “It’s not HR Strategy vs. Organizational Strategy.  It’s all People Strategy”

9 – Remember that your employees are concerned and confused about Heath Insurance Reform.  Communicate with them.

8 – “We Know Next” – the coming SHRM slogan and tag line.  Just letting you know it’s coming.

7 – Steve Forbes was a big hit with Boomers, a big bust with everyone younger.  He was like a boring professor to them.

6 – Have your president give the same business update speech that they give to the board to all of the employees.

5 – Non-monetary benefits are better at building engagement

4 – HR is the key to organizational sustainability, which is defined as not robbing the future to live now.

3 – The attempts to make the SHRM President and Chair of the board likeable were really lame,  The did some contrived dancing together on the stage that were, frankly, a little uncomfortable.  Teleprompter humor seldom works.

2 – a powerful statement from the VP of HR of Deutsche Bank – “If HR stays the same, we will be out of business in 5 years.”  It drew a collective gasp, then applause.

1 – The big news was Al Gore and the Wedding Ring – Everyone strained to see if he was wearing one.  He was.

Another moment of patriotism

We’re here.  A favorite holiday for America.  This is the big one – and I love it.  This is the holiday that has always been with us as a country – Thanksgiving Day came much later, and most of the others have been created by marketing departments in the past.

Happy birthday, America!  Here are some photos I took to get you in the mood…

The oddest things at the conference – a summary

Back at my desk and going through the pile, here are some things that just never fit into other posts… 

There was a line of taxis out front of the convention center at all times, and all of them had individual names on the cars.  Each driver had their own name – “Worldwide”  “Express” “Speedy”.  I thought this one was either really brilliant or really lame… 

He is asking for your business...

 

Then there are the box lunches. Clearly, market research showed that the preferred lunch was a turkey sandwich, and the preferred beverage was Diet Coke.  There were oceans of both – with sandwiches shrink wrapped and generically tasty.  In this phot0, notice how they go on forever into the horizon… 

You can have any lunch you want, as long as it is Turkey...

 

Then there were the escalator habits.  The “lemming” crowd psychology was odd – more than once, I was a part of the pack of people approaching an escalator, and everyone was crowding the closest escalator, and nobody looked over to the adjacent one.  It was going the same way, but was completely empty. 

I think that it is a great metaphor for many of our fellow professionals and my concern for their ability to think “outside of the box”  Nobody else using it?  Not me, either. 

Both escalators were running, and going the same way. Hmmm...

 

When I lived in San Diego, the constant presence of street people was just a part of living in a temperate climate.  It was a little jarring to realize that the closest neighbors to my convention hotel with 24 hour room service and $4 bottles of water in the minibar were the homeless living in the park next to the train tracks. 

Living next door...

My gift to you – a fresh start for 2010

Want a do-over?  I’m posting this at noon on the midpoint of the year, July 1. 

I propose a new global holiday, exactly halfway through the year.  A day for reflection, atonement (if necessary) and redirection.  A day, simply put, to decide if you want to continue with the current year or to scrap it all and start fresh.  A clean sheet of paper is very therapeutic.

My new half year’s resolutions are in place.  What are yours?

This is a photo I took of South Pass, Wyoming - the halfway point of the California Trail. Many considered it a point of no return...

Not sure if you saw this – rates back up in California

Remember the  39% Wellpoint proposed premium increase that helped get health insurance reform back in play?  The company said they made some errors in calculating their projected losses and pulled the proposed increase.  We never heard about it again, until now.

I’m out here in CA for the conference, and saw the follow up story in the paper.  Not sure if this got much play anywhere else.  Read the article here.  Interesting that they admit they got the premium calculations wrong…

Sunset on a conference

Some thoughts as we head home.

More wrap up posts later today – I have several sessions I want to summarize.  I want to pass on that this was clearly a more upbeat, more future focused conference than last year.  The economic tide has changed for the better, by any metric.  The topics were more strategic than tactical, the overall attitude of my fellow attendees was improved, and the number of vendors was way up.  And, speaking of vendors, hopefully my phone will ring and let me know the arrival time of my new iPad…

A lonely monster in the sunset

iPad entry update

All it takes to HR people interested is a spinning wheel and a prize.

The count so far:  I have entered in 19 drawings for iPads, 2 for Garmin GPS systems, and 1 multi-user breast pump.  If I win the iPad, I’m keeping it.  If I win 2 iPads, I’ll share.   If I win the pump, we’ll use it here at Gregory & Appel in the “Quiet Room”…

Benefits update

Let’s talk health insurance, shall we?  Lots of interest in the topic - any session that had “Health Insurance” in the title was standing room only, no matter how big the room was.  Lots of frustration with the people in the hall who were left out – many said that they came for that topic alone.  They put speakers and video in the hall, but it wasn’t the same.

Studying Health Insurance reform in the hall

So, what was said?

Gary Kushner carried most of the sessions – Gary has been the “go to” guy on benefits for the last 5 years or so and is well known at SHRM for doing a good job with a complex subject.

A few points -

Grandfathered status – Under the rules, employers will forfeit their grandfathered status if they make substantive changes in their plans or carriers.  Kushner reviewed the new regulations carefully and said that, by the end of 2013, not many grandfathered plans will still exist.  If you wish, the staff at Gregory and Appel have pulled together a summary of the issue, and we are happy to share the knowledge.

Although Kushner sounds ominous, he says it’s not that bad once we work on the process. He said it should not be the ultimate goal of any employer to maintain their grandfathered plan forever.  He said that HR has a big opportunity to think strategically and think for the future.

What should you do?  His advice is not rocket science.  He said the key is to put health insurance into context with the total rewards strategy.   Yup. 

On dropping health care coverage:  The penalty of $2000 per employee for not providing coverage could appeal to top management from a cost saving point of view.  Kushner said that many CFOs would be asking that very question, and that the math would appear to be a no-brainer.  Why pay big bucks when you can drop health coverage?  Not so fast.  Other issues to consider:

If an employer drops coverage, then employees would purchase coverage through state health care exchanges or through the private market.  Once employees started paying for the coverage, they will certainly begin pressuring businesses for pay raises to offset the cost of insurance and the additional income taxes.

If employers are forced to raise wages, then payroll taxes would also increase.  In addition, employers that drop coverage could be hit with higher turnover and more difficulty in attracting top level talent.  In the example he gave, what appeared to be a savings could end up costing an employer more than $5000 per employee per year.

His closing points were to plan ahead.  He believes that the HR role needs to play is to be strategic, and to come up with a plan before 2012 or beyond.  Those who start working now will have a leg up on the competition. 

Let me know if you want a copy of the summary of the legislation.  Happy to help.

One of Kushner's sessions