I’ve been working as the chair for the SHRM YP (Young Professional) committee since August of 2010. Chuck Salvetti at SHRM put together a great team of people to work on connecting young professionals to chapters and to the SHRM organization as a whole. At this point we are working on a short guide for chapters to use as a tool for attracting and engaging the young professionals in their area.

My mission

When I first started writing this blog, I wanted to help those people who were in my shoes. They were just getting started in the HR field. They knew that school didn’t teach them enough to be successful. They were ready for an adventure. While my audience has shifted somewhat over time, I’m always looking for ways to point back in that direction and offer something of value to someone in that situation. This guide is one of those ways for me to be true to my original vision for upstartHR.

My hopes for this guide

I hope it helps young pros to answer a few of the big, scary questions we all face. I hope it helps more experienced professionals to connect with the people who are looking to them for leadership. I hope it helps chapters see how they can serve young professionals by meeting their needs.

Geeky glee

I was overjoyed to see China Gorman, former COO of SHRM, endorse the guide the other day (see photo above). It really meant a lot to me and I can’t wait to meet her at HRevolution.

Click here to download or print the free young professional guide.

After that title, I bet you’re wondering if I have a game of business buzzword bingo up my sleeves for the day. Well, sorry to mislead you, but there’s something even better on tap.

The 2011 version of the free Do Amazing Things eBook is here!

There are 21 great, short stories and ideas to get your year moving in the right direction. I already made a copy for my manager and put it on her desk.

A suggestion

Instead of trying to scarf it down in one sitting (which is easy to do!), hold off and read one of them per day. Then try to find a way to do something different that day to align with what you’ve read. Whether it’s simplifying the way you work, looking deeper into your motivations, or innovating your way through a new process, try to make real, actual change in the way you do what you do. I’ve personally seen amazing results from that and hope you do as well.

Click here to download Do Amazing Things in 2011 for free.

Thanks to Chris for putting this together. His efforts are definitely appreciated!

So… I finally finished the Rock Your Chapter eBook! It’s been a long time coming, but I hope it’s really useful to the volunteer chapter leaders out there. Know someone who’s in a leadership position with a local chapter or state council? Share this guide with them. I’d appreciate it and so will they. I’m passionate about helping our volunteer leadership with leading and growing their chapters, and this guide is just a small piece of what I’d like to do overall. Thank you to everyone for your support!

Click here to download.

Want to help?

I love giving these things away for free. The best part for me is knowing that it’s helping a person somewhere that I don’t even know, simply because someone like you shared it with them. Here are a few ways you can help me (and other chapters in your area):

• Send an email to your local and/or state board with the link to this page
• Share the link on twitter
• Post it on your local chapter or state council Facebook page or LinkedIn group
• Tell other volunteers you know about how much you enjoyed it (assuming you did!)
• Tell me about how it helped you so I can make the next one better

Testimonials for Rock Your Chapter

Ben hits the nail on the head. “Rock Your Chapter” rocks!!
Posted by Lori Goldsmith, SPHR, GPHR
Thanks for putting your ideas on paper and working to make us all better.
(Cincinnati HR)
Posted by Julie Johnson
Hey Ben – nice work!
Posted by Michael VanDervort
This is great stuff! I will share with the Guam and Saipan chapters and let you know the results. Thank you for taking the time to put this together.
Posted by Katherine Gillespie Dote
Ben,
Nicely done. Finally had a chance to download and read. Will happily pass along to others as well!
Thanks!
Posted by Bradley Galin, SPHR
Great book Ben. I printed it, read it and have sent links to my Chapter Board Members. I also posted a link on both the Georgia SHRM State Council LinkedIn Group and the Georgia SHRMState Council Membership LinkedIn Group!
Posted by Kevin Smith, SPHR
Ben: Thank you. I am sharing with our Board (Charleston West Virginia) and State Council Director.
Posted by James Wells, SPHR, IPMA-CP
Great guide! I’ll be sharing with my board colleagues in the Volusia/Flagler Chapter (Daytona Beach, FL)
Posted by Cheryl Perreault

Your document “Rock Your Chapter” is excellent. Thank you. As the Charleston West Virginia Chapter 2011 – 2013 President I have shared with our Board, and as a West Virginia State Council District Director I have encouraged the State Council Director to share with each Chapter in our State. Thank you.
Jim

Congratulations on your production of a useful tool for chapters.  Many of your ideas will fit any non-profit organization. Thank you for your efforts.
Mike

Good stuff. I’ll be sharing with my local ASTD chapter during our board retreat in December.
Traci Cuthbertson

My friend Steve Browne is known as the facilitator for the HR Round Table Discussions up in Ohio. The neat part about his efforts? He shares the notes with anyone and everyone so we can all benefit from the work of the group! Cincinnati News actually wrote a piece on Steve’s role in the Roundtable a while back. It’s an interesting read.

(He made me promise to remind you that it’s the group that does the heavy lifting and he just adds his own thoughts, but we all know he’s doing a great service to the HR community with this stuff.)

This morning, he let me know that it was okay to share the notes with everyone, so if you’d like to see the archives of the discussions from the past few years, click the link below to check them out. A few topics they’ve covered over the years:

• Coaching
• Social networking
• The perfect interview
• Networking
• Sustainable change
• And more!

Click here to see the HR Roundtable notes (and get your learning on!)

Follow Steve on Twitter if you don’t already! @sbrownehr

It seems like 2010 is the year of free eBooks, but it’s really a lot of fun to come together with some other brilliant minds and put together a resource like the What We Teach and How We Learn eBook. Big thanks to Benjamin McCall of ReThinkHR for pulling this together!

The neat part about the book is the open space for you to add notes, ideas, and ways you can implement what you’re reading. Love that it’s interactive like that.

Here’s a snippet of my piece called “Train for the minimum, fail half the time.”

How do you recognize when someone has been trained to do something? For instance, if Bob is training for a marathon, you can plainly observe the results of that preparation when he finishes the race, right?

What would have occurred if Bob trained not for the marathon, but for a half marathon? He wouldn’t have been successful! Then why do companies train supervisors to recognize the minimum acceptable standards but not much more?

A Painful realization

I had to sit in on a supervisor training session recently,and it was painful to watch. All of the material was geared toward teaching them how to reach just above the minimum acceptable level (how not to get sued),but the training never went farther by teaching how to give positive feedback or how to have a difficult conversation with their staff.

If we train people only to recognize the minimum acceptable standards, but we don’t give them anything more, then they won’t know how to do–and be–better.

Click here to download the free eBook

My companions in this venture

• Erin Schreyer, President of Sagestone Partners, Founder of Authentic Leadership Cincinnati, Twitter: @eschreyer
• Jennifer V. Miller, People-Equation.com, Managing Partner at SkillSource, Twitter: @jennifervmiller
• Steve Boese, HR Technology Blogger, HR Technology Instructor, Rochester Institute of Technology, Twitter: @steveboese
• Sharlyn Lauby, SPHR, CPLP, She is the HRBartender.com, President of Internal Talent Management (ITM) Group, Twitter: @sharlyn_lauby
• Matthew J. Stollak, Ph.D., True Faith HR, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, St Norbert Collage, Twitter: @akaBruno
• Ben Eubanks , UpStartHR.com, Runs his SHRM chapter’s RocketHR blog, HR pro at Volunteers of America, Twitter: @beneubanks
• Chris Ferdinandi, RenegadeHR.net, Author of CultureConvo, Employee Development & Social Media Specialist at EMC, Twitter: @chrisferdinandi
• Lance Haun, ReHaul.com, Community Director for ERE Media, Twitter: @thelance
• Steve Browne, Executive Director of HR for Larosa’s Pizza, Facilitator, HR Net, Twitter: @sbrownehr
• Benjamin McCall, Leadership Performance Consultant, Editor, ReThinkHR.org, Twitter: @BenjaminMcCall

If you’re anything like me, I bet you’ve said the following statement dozens of times in your life.

If I knew then what I know now… I’d be a killer chess player in Canada.

Okay, so maybe the last half of your sentence might be a little different, but you get the point. The idea is that you’d have extra knowledge to do more than you would otherwise have done. Today I have a free eBook titled “If I Would Have Known Just One Thing” to share with you on that very topic. Shane Mac asked me to give him a hand, and he’s just too awesome to turn down. Continue Reading »

A few months ago I had the opportunity to participate in a group eBook project run by my good friend Chris Ferdinandi. It was a really great experience and I love sharing the eBook with others. Anyway, I was asked by my buddy Rich from Corn on the Job to participate in another guide with a career focus, and I leaped at the opportunity. I did it not only because Rich asked, but because I also love talking about career concepts. My first writing gig was with a career site, after all!

Click here to get the free eBook.

Contributors Continue Reading »