Tag Archives: Events

#HRSummerSchool: Time for Extra Credit!

Two weeks ago we ran a live, virtual event that has already been seen by tens of thousands of HR professionals, talent leaders, students, and more. One of the sessions gave us technical issues, so we are running what we are lovingly calling an “extra credit” session and I would love to have you attend!

If you didn’t attend HR Summer School, you missed an epic experience. I haven’t published a formal update based on the event, but suffice to say it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. We had thousands of comments, new connections, and interaction beyond any other HR webcast or webinar you have ever experienced.

FYI: many of our attendees were interested in the books written by the speakers. You can get those here on Amazon. If you want your #HRSummerSchool commemorative shirt or other gear, that’s found here.

Just check out the map below to see where attendees participated from around the world. It probably wouldn’t surprise you after seeing this map to hear that over ONE MILLION minutes of HR Summer School have been watched on LinkedIn already since the event. 😮

Screenshot_20200606-100958~2

Before I get to the extra credit session, let me share with you a few of the many comments from those that participated in HR Summer School live, in no particular order. Click through the images below to see some of the amazing feedback.

One participant told me that she was about to get out of HR because it wasn’t exciting anymore. After two days of participating in the event, she said her passion had been rekindled and that she was excited to look for a new employer that actually values the input from HR in the business. If she had been the only participant, I would have called this event worthwhile, but thankfully (as you can see below) we had so many more amazing participants.  Continue reading →

Bringing HR Together: Announcing HR Summer School #hrsummerschool

HR Summer School
In the middle of the strange state we are in right now, one thing is certain: HR conferences are out. Of the 10 speaking events at spring conferences, internal training events, and workshops I was scheduled to attend, four of them were canceled, four of them “postponed,” and the other two were moved to virtual. Our family is definitely feeling this challenging time along with the rest of you.

If you were planning on getting recertification credits or building your professional network at an event this month, you may be out of luck.

To compound that issue, I’ve seen posts from friends (and even a new Slack community sprouting up) that have been furloughed, laid off, or outright terminated because of the current economic standstill.

So I decided to reach out to some friends and colleagues in the industry to do something about it. I’d like to introduce you to HR Summer School. This is a free, virtual HR event designed to bring us closer together while improving our skills as talent leaders.

HR Summer School: The Details

This event is something I’ve been thinking about for some time, but the issues facing our various communities right now have pushed it urgently to the forefront. The goal is to not only drop a bunch of content on you, but recreate the opportunity to connect with and engage with both speakers and other attendees throughout the event.

Tickets are free! Anyone can come, whether it be an HR pro, a small business owner looking for HR help, or even students that need some practical understanding of HR in the real world.

This event will be livestreamed the week of June 1st daily from 10a-2:30p central time. That’s a lot of content, but if you register for the main event you can attend any session you want during the conference at your leisure. Simply come and go for the sessions that matter most to you. More details on sessions and speakers will be shared in the next few days.

We will have over 30 speakers sharing their insights around:

  • recruiting
  • training
  • inclusion and diversity
  • talent management
  • leadership development
  • managing teams
  • coaching and mentoring
  • wellness and wellbeing
  • resilience
  • and more!

In addition, we will be hosting daily trivia competitions to add to the “fun factor,” courtesy of our friends at Water Cooler Trivia.

We have several amazing supporters already lined up for the event, but we are accepting a few more sponsors and partners if anyone is interested in coming alongside our team for this community event.

Giving back: Can you help?

I have a request. We are doing this event for free, but our hope is that it will be the largest online HR summit ever. Now is the time to pull together and support each other.

The event link is HRSummerSchool.org

If you are an educator, share this with your students, but also share it with your peers so they can share with their students as well.

If you are an HR practitioner, share this with 2-3 friends you think could benefit from the latest thinking on the topics listed above. Or share it with all of them, we don’t mind.

If you are a SHRM chapter or association leader, share this with your members as a free resource or benefit.

Heck, even if you’re just married to someone in HR, make sure they register and share as well! :-)

At the time of this writing, we already have over 100 people registered to attend and the event hadn’t even been formally announced yet! There’s clearly a need for quality education and connection right now.

Questions? Please feel free to reach out to me at any time. I’m honored to support HR leaders like you in this time.

#DisruptHR HSV 2.0 is Coming April 2019

TL;DR version: DisruptHR HSV is coming back to Huntsville! See links below for details. Early bird tickets available through March 31st.

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It all started with an event. A real, no-kidding live event. Back in 2009 I had just started blogging, and a friend and I set up a mini conference as a way to get people together, expand relationships, and learn together. Little did I know how far my career and life would come in ten short years. The point is that live events create special bonds and connections. They offer chances to learn and grow, sure, but they also create a space where likeminded people can connect with each other, support each other, and learn from each other. Every time one of those connections happens, I like to think that the profession that I know and love gets just a little bit better and brighter.

Fast forward to August 2018. Kristina Minyard, a different friend of 10+ years, cohosted an event with me in Huntsville, Alabama, called DisruptHR HSV. DisruptHR events happen all around the globe, and we wanted to bring the innovation to our own local community. We've done this in many ways—we both speak locally, we both volunteer with our local HR chapter, and we are both avid advocates for better HR practices. But we wanted to take it a step further with a dedicated event.

To be honest I didn't know what to expect. I hoped that we would sell 75 tickets and have a fun night to remember, but I didn't know if we would do it again. It's expensive. It's a lot of work.

Then it happened. And I was totally blown away.

We sold out of tickets several times, were moved to the biggest space in the event facility, and eventually topped out at around 150 people in attendance.

The speakers for this event really made it, though. Some of them were experts, some of them were newbies, but all of them got up there and delivered five minutes of thought-provoking content to help the audience think differently about themselves, their work, and their lives.

We had a handful of amazing sponsors to help us cover the costs, and we are forever thankful for their support.
disrupthr shirts
Why the reminiscing? Well, because the event was such a success, Kristina and I have decided to host DisruptHR HSV 2.0 on Thursday, April 18th, 2019. Tickets are on sale here, and because our shirts were so popular we are selling shirts at cost with your ticket purchase to help spread the message. Speaker submissions are open for a little while longer. Sponsors should reach out to me about our new packages to reach this influential audience–we have increased the branding and reach from last year to help our sponsor partners have even more value.

We even had attendees come from Atlanta and Birmingham last year, because this event is one that you can't find just anywhere else.

I hope to see you in April. Early bird tickets are available for a little while longer. Get them while you can!

 

#DisruptHR HSV 1.0 is in the books!

Last week I did something here on the blog that I haven’t done in a LOOONG time. I didn’t post anything. But it wasn’t because I had nothing to say–it’s because I was neck deep in final preparations for DisruptHRHSV, which happened last Thursday night.

This event was a long time coming and we had participants from as far away as Houston and Atlanta come to join us for the event. With about 150 participants, including 14 speakers and a handful of amazing sponsors, there were plenty of balls to juggle leading up to the session!

Bottom line: it was pretty darn amazing. If you were there, I appreciate your support and your participation. If you weren’t, I hope you can join us next time (more to come on this)! We’ll be posting the videos of the event on the DisruptHR website after they come back from the videographer so you can see how it turned out, but for me it was like getting family together (the kind of family you like!) to talk about something that we’re all passionate about: HR, people, and business.

A quick shout out to our speakers that had the courage to stand up and share their stories/passions–well done!

Additionally, our sponsor partners were amazing and we are so thankful they worked with us to make this event special. I like ’em so much I put their names on the special DisruptHR shirts I had made last week. :-) Thanks again PeopleStrategy, ADP, PassionHR, and Paycor! DisruptHR Shirt

This week I have a lot of great things in store for you. I’m doing some writing around compliance, investigations, and HR metrics that I am looking forward to sharing with you. Additionally, I did an interview with Collette Williamson from Southwest Airlines to uncover some of their expertise around building a great culture that I should be posting this week as well. Stay tuned for good stuff!

What Kind of Content Can You Find at a #DisruptHR Event?

We officially sold out of our first block of 100 tickets late last week for the DisruptHR HSV event coming up on August 16th. However, thanks to a stroke of luck/providence our original space was leased out to someone else so we were bumped to a bigger room, allowing us to sell more tickets. If you’re within driving distance of Huntsville I would LOVE to see you there. We have people coming from Atlanta, Birmingham, etc. so it’s definitely worth the drive!

One of the questions I’ve received about the event is what kind of content they can expect. Well, we’re not going to give you a short list of the laws and regulations surrounding HR. We expect you to know those, and the format really isn’t conducive to that kind of approach. After all, speakers have just five minutes to make their point and get off the stage!

So, with that in mind, what kind of intriguing and thought-provoking content are we planning for this first edition of DisruptHR HSV? Here’s a taste…

  • Recruiters often look just at someone’s qualifications and skills, but they often miss the critical culture fit aspect. Humans are bad at judging this in some cases, but a ton of research shows that culture is critical in hiring. This session will show you why and how to do it better.
  • Innovation is a sought after buzzword in the business space. We need to create opportunities to help people generate new ideas in new environments. Coworking is a powerful way to do this, but some employers aren’t sure of the value or how to make it work. This session will show you how.
  • We’re so used to relying on experience as a measure of employee value, but in an era of absurdly low unemployment rates (more open jobs than unemployed individuals!), many employers are considering dropping experience requirements for some roles. This session will give you insights into how to quantify other important elements like enthusiasm and passion.
  • Have you ever thought about why people come to your city (or not)? We recruit for our companies, but cities also recruit talent and businesses with incentives, tax benefits, and local amenities. We can learn some valuable lessons from economic development professionals on how to better position our companies and regions when we’re pitching candidates to come to the local area.
  • Performance management practices are great and all, but employees and managers hate them. HR often does, too. The approach companies take literally sucks the life from them like some sort of energy vampire. But there is a better, smarter way to do it, and we want to help you get on the right path.

See? Some of this is more “traditional” HR, but with a twist. Other parts are taking a step further and encouraging us to think differently and more holistically than we would otherwise. With a total of 14 speakers, you know we’re going to get into some really interesting territory.

If you’re curious about the event, it’s just $15 to attend. We have phenomenal sponsors lined up to help with the event and they are keeping costs manageable for you to come and enjoy some good food and networking.

A special thank you to PeopleStrategy for being our first top-level sponsor! Also we appreciate our friends at Paycor and PassionHR for supporting the event as well as sponsor partners. We have room for one or two more sponsors, in case anyone else is looking to connect with 100+ HR leaders at the event. For the full list of speakers and topics check out the list below. I hope to see you there!

DisruptHRHSV Speaker Image

 

Your Invite to #DisruptHR HSV: Let’s Do This

If you live within driving distance of of Huntsville, Alabama, I’d love to personally invite you to the first ever DisruptHR HSV on August 16th at 5:30pm. If you’re not familiar, DisruptHR is a global movement made up of local grassroots-level events giving HR and business leaders an opportunity to network and discuss how we can change HR for the better.

disrupthr hsv

We just closed the speaker applications and are sorting through submissions (announcing soon!) If you want to sponsor (limited opportunities up for grabs), contact me here. If you want to attend, tickets are very inexpensive. We purposely priced them at such a low rate to make sure we can make attendance attainable for anyone that is interested in HR, training, talent, and/or recruiting.

Kristina Minyard and I are the co-organizers (co-disruptors?) for this event, and we’re honored to have the opportunity to bring this event to Huntsville and help our local HR audience learn and grow through innovative content. There will be food. There will be drinks. There will be content. What more could you ask for?

We have a ton of amazing speakers lined up, including one of Huntsville’s finest and a nationally recognized HR blogging and social media expert, Jazmine Wilkes. Additionally, our fine city will be represented by Erin Koshut, one of the key influencers and leaders at the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce. Look for more speaker info coming out soon on the event page.

If you have questions, feel free to reach out to me. Tickets just opened last week and are already nearly 30% sold out. We fully expect to sell out in advance!

How to Attend an HR Conference (and make it worth your while) [Podcast]

One of the greatest compliments I get from you, the listener, is when I have the opportunity to share something highly practical with you that you can use to improve your results in a powerful way. Today’s discussion is one of those.

Think about the last conference you attended. What did you learn?

No, specifically, what did you learn?

Research tells us that within a few days we forget most of what we hear in a single training session, much less a whole conference with a wide range of topics. That’s why today’s episode is focused on how to get the most out of the HR conferences you attend. Over the course of my ten-year career I have attended dozens of conferences, seminars, and events, and I would imagine you also attend a good number of events as well. Let’s get the most out of those, shall we?

I attend a lot of conferences. I meet people. I hear sessions. I meet vendors. It's part of my world. But what about yours? Chances are you attend a limited number of conferences, seminars, and events as part of your ongoing professional development. How do you make sure you approach these learning opportunities strategically, enabling you to not only solve today's problems in your business but also to build a network of people that can help you solve tomorrow's problems as well?

In today's podcast, I interview a friend (and fellow parent of twins) about how she prepares for events. Donna Quinney is the HR Manager at Ignite in Huntsville, Alabama. In the episode Donna explains how she connects with her manager prior to attending an event to make sure that they get the most out of their investment, what content and topics to prioritize, and more. Whether Donna's method works for you or not, it's a great reminder to be thinking about how to get the most from the events you attend to make the best use of these amazing professional development opportunities.

If you'd like to check out an HR conference I'll be at this year, definitely consider signing up for the SilkRoad Connections User Conference. I will be leading a series of workshops on innovation in HR and helping attendees to solve some of their most pressing challenges across the spectrum from engagement and retention to diversity and talent.

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