This place is huge. Really.

It is one mile from one end to the other.  The session I’m in is at the farthest corner.  I’m bailing early so I can get to dinner and then to the Sheryl Crow concery at a reasonable hour.  If you want the full SHRM experience, it seems to focus on sore feet.

A session too far

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A few thoughts on Employee Engagement

From a session –

Why do dissatisfied employees stay and make us crazy?

1. Fear of the unknown

2. Some people are underacheivers and have found a place to hide

3. Golden handcuffs – medical or personal issues

4. Demographics – a child in school or close to retirement

5. Love the work.  They just aren’t good at it.

6. Work is a social club and they’re a member.

7. They have a personal bond with their boss, and they’re boss isn’t holding them accountable

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Foundation gets some $$$

Just had a chat with Lyle Hannah, Chair of the SHRM Foundation and resident of Kentucky…also a midwesterner.  He was jazzed about the $110,000 from the Keller foundation to underwrite the scholarship program.  They are also having an online auction at http://www.shrm.org/foundation with some spiffy donated stuff that will help with their funding.

Lyle Hannah, big cheeze and Chair of the foundation

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Feeding frenzy at the Monster booth

Oh. My. God.

I just walked by the Monster booth.  If you want to know what motivates a crowd of HR people, the answer is green plush animals.  The carnival barker was waving toy monsters over his head, and the crowd reminded me of a wedding reception at flower tossing time.  Check out the photos.

Waiting for the monster toss - stuffed animals in foreground, HR animals in background

Frenzy!

The crowd reaches for the bait

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General session – Earl Graves

The second General Session was Earl Graves, founder of many businesses and publisher of Black Enterprise magazine.  I went to the session with high hopes of both entrepreneurial content and a good, structured keynote that I could learn from.  It didn’t happen.

He spent the time methodically telling his personal story.  I kept waiting for the parts of the message that applied to my work or life or something.  He kept going with each chapter, and wound up with some general platitudes for HR and a call for action to create the next generation of leaders.

A decent session, but my notepad was blank at the end, except for a few quotes –

“HR is more about hiring and firing, it’s what defines a company, it’s reason for being and what it hopes to achieve.”

“The future of your profession lies in the promise of continuing to expand opportunities.  You played an enormous role.  You hold the key, and possess the expertise that informs decisions at the highest level.”

“The best things to do to hasten the nation’s recovery is to not wait for that recovery.  Now is the time for leadership, for shaping your environment, not waiting for that environment to shape you.”

I’d rate it a medium…

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A clever idea about performance management

Just had a chat with a very frustrated head of HR from a social service agency.  She was on the trade show floor shopping for performance management software.

I challenged her that when she installed the online system, that the managers would hate it at the same as they hate the paper based one, only at a faster rate.  They would be ignoring her at the speed of light, not the speed of paper.

The answer?  Use the guise of the economic crisis to redesign the system using a “clean sheet of paper” approach, both eliminating waste and respecting her people.  Simply put, make it better and stop the madness.

She is going to call a meeting with her managers, and redraft the system using social networking tools as the engine of communication, and get away from annual reviews.  Faster, simpler, better.  I’ll keep you posted.

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Photos from the front lines

A few Blackberry shots from this morning…

A very quiet bus ride to the convention at 6:45 am. Zombies.

The HR crowd is dedicated – most sessions were well attended at 7 am…

Dave Swider from Bose Law had a good crowd – nice to see a familiar face on a national stage.  A hoosier on the big screen.

Good platform skills are needed at this hour - Dave had no problem

Out front where I ate breakfast. Will blog for food.

Waiting for the bus, I was posting.  Sometimes being too connected is a sickness…

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Things I noticed as I spoke.

1. People are tired of being told of good ideas that are impractical to implement.  If you have a good idea, offer a simple way to actually do it.

2. Anything must show a way to be revenue neutral within 90 days.  Cash is king.

3. OFCCP rules seem to contradict both the Department of Labor and common sense.  Be afraid.

4. Not that many people are using assessment tools as a part of their HR processes.  Many of those that use them are not using feedback loops to make them fully effective.

5. Everyone who has a paper based performance managment system wishes that they had an automated system.  The ones with automated systems wish that managers would actually use them.  Managers wish that they would all go away.  The answer is probably to use social media as an operational media channel, and move to a fast feedback model.

6. Everyone is suspicious of LEAN theory, because the name is wrong.  We need to rename it.

And finally, if you’re the last session of the day and the French Quarter is a short walk away, you’d better finish talking early.  I did.

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The presentation

I had a determined group in my session.  They had started the day early, and I was the last session, starting at 4.  Several freindly Hoosier faces were in the front rows – special thanks to Betty Lonis and Paula Rabb.  Indiana State SHRM is truly special.

I was pleased – you can tell if a session is going well by several metrics.  First, there were several spontaneous questions that popped up about 20 minutes in – a sign that people were engaged.  Also, we only lost about 3 or 4 people out of 400.  I like to think they had a plane to catch or something.

Lots of requests for my slides – which are updated from what is on the website.  email me if you want them, too…happy to provide.

Overall, there seemed to be a frustration with other presentations that had lots of strategy and little tactics, so we went to the “real life” leel pretty quickly, and that seemed to be what resonated.  Gotta go, but will fill in details in a minute.

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Good morning!

First, my presentation went well.  More details later.  Gotta go to Dave Swider’s 7 am presentation after a late night…

Room with a view of Canal Street

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