Conference News: Thu., June 23

HR Strategy Under Uncertainty
SHRM Annual If you were Christopher Columbus preparing to set sail into an unknown, uncharted ocean, what would you pack? That question readily captures the situation facing HR executives as they prepare for a future rife with economic, legal and political uncertainties. Given such challenges, it is perhaps unsurprising that many HR executives flocked to the final Masters Series of this year’s SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition to hear Roch Parayre’s insights on preparing for the future.

HR Outsourcing: All the Way?
Companies have successfully outsourced one or a few components of the HR function for decades. But coordinating the effort to include all aspects of your HR department is more challenging, said Scott Golas, principal and co-founder of South Bend, Ind.-based consultancy HRexcelerator, during the session “Total HR Outsourcing—Is It a Positive Fit for My Organization?” at the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition.

Employer accommodation key to avoiding religious bias lawsuits
Employee claims of religion-based discrimination have risen sharply over the last decade and companies that fail to recognize potentially discriminatory behavior are increasingly likely to find themselves at the wrong end of a costly legal battle, said J. Edward Enoch of the Atlanta firm Rhodes & Enoch during SHRM’s Annual Conference and Exposition.

Conference News: Wed., June 22

Ulrich: What Makes HR Valuable
Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is value, general session speaker Dave Ulrich reminded attendees June 21 at the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition. In his first appearance at an SHRM event since completing a three-year mission for his church, Ulrich appeared to be bursting with new ideas and recommendations for HR professionals. Invoking a favorite slogan, the business administration professor at the University of Michigan urged HR to become “more than yesterday, less than tomorrow.”

Rubinstein: Great Results Require New Approaches
SHRM Annual Conference attendees looking to relax in a quiet spot where they could maintain the status quo blissfully probably ran screaming in shock from the June 20 Masters Series presentation “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results.”

State of HR Profession: Uncertainty
HR professionals think that they and their organizations are ready for change. When a group of HR leaders from the best large employers to work for gathered here to assess “The State of the Profession” in conjunction with the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition, most were surprised to learn just how much more change will be coming than they have envisioned.

Protect Your Organization Against Negligent Hiring Suits
There’s little doubt we live in a more dangerous world than we did just five years ago. And headline news reminds us that the dangers we face can all too easily permeate the workplace. Such incidents have led to negligent hiring and negligent retention liability lawsuits, most of which could be avoided if companies just adopt a few common sense practices, according to Barry Nadell, who is president of the Calif.-based background checking company InfoLink Screening Services Inc.

SOX's Dark Cloud May Have Silver Lining for HR
There’s probably no way to make the topic of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance funny, and—much to his credit—attorney Stacy D. Shartin didn’t even try. What Shartin did do in a late afternoon session at the SHRM Annual Conference June 20 was to parse the requirements of the 2002 financial reporting law in a way that clarified for HR professionals which aspects of the law are relevant to them and which ones are not. And that’s no mean feat.

Moment of Silence Says a Lot
Luby Ismail didn’t say anything for the first five minutes of her concurrent session about the challenges faced by Muslims and Arabs in American workplaces. And, that silence spoke volumes.

Clever Rhyme Leads to Performance Evaluations on Time
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. And a bit of humor can encourage busy managers to submit timely performance evaluations, as was demonstrated by Bob Pruitt, the director of Human Resources at Parkview Noble Hospital in Kendallville, Ind., Tuesday morning in an entertaining “Rise & Shine” session called “The Timely Performance Evaluation: Exceeding It with Humor.”

Conference News: Tue., June 21

Gladwell: Be wary of biases, assumptions in HR
Twenty-five years ago, a young female musician living in Italy applied for a seat as trombonist with the Munich Philharmonic, one of the most conservative orchestras in Europe, ruled by a crusty maestro with definite ideas about who should and could play classical music. Those ideas did not include women, Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker staff writer and best-selling author told attendees at the SHRM Annual Conference general session on June 20. An amazing thing happened, Gladwell noted. The woman’s playing so captivated the maestro that he had no need to hear anyone else. The story, he said, is a lesson in how complex and difficult it is to make a judgment about someone else’s character and ability, and the critical importance of changing the environment and structure in which decisions are made.

Satisfy Your Customers First and Foremost
Satisfying employees is overrated. Even satisfying senior management might not always be the best thing to do, HR experts said June 20 in a daylong, subscribers-only event for more than 100 human resource leaders held in conjunction with the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition.

Acronyms and Metaphors Keep You Out of Court
Attorney Jathan Janove wins the prize for the smallest conference handout ever -- a laminated wallet card with eight deadly sins of management listed on one side and eight corresponding virtues on the other.

More than Money Motivates Employees
Lack of recognition and praise is the No. 1 reason employees leave an organization, noted MeChelle Callen, SPHR, director of human resource development at Wishard Health Services in Indianapolis, during a Monday session at the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition on why “Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness—or Employee Loyalty.”

Time to Take Benefits Off Autopilot
When it comes to employee benefits, employers will be increasingly challenged as cost pressures run headlong into a changing workforce. To make sense of where things stand and what HR professionals should do, Gary B. Kushner, SPHR, CBP, president of Kushner & Co. in Portage, Mich., provided a look at “Current and Future Trends in Employee Benefits” at the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition.

Conference News: Mon., June 20

Cosby: ‘God Wasn’t Prepared for Human Beings’
And Cosby said, “This is going to be funny.” And it was. And it was good. Riffing on the Genesis story—God as the CEO of a small business, Adam and Eve as the workers—comedian Bill Cosby on Sunday addressed the opening general session of the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition. “God decided to create human beings,” Cosby said. “This is where God is having trouble—still.”

Examine Your Courage, Taylor Exhorts HR
Invoking the spirit of Americans who have demonstrated unusual courage, Johnny C. Taylor Jr., J.D., SPHR, SHRM Board Chair, urged HR professionals to emulate these heroes in their own jobs during the opening general session of SHRM’s Annual Conference and Exposition on June 19.