Tag Archives: NASHRM

SHRM Chapter Mentoring Program

SHRM chapter mentoring programToday is going to be exciting. I get to join the rest of my peers and kick off my SHRM chapter mentoring program (known as NASHRM Mentor University). Why is it exciting? Well, I get to spend some close, personal time with a wide range of HR professionals in all stages of their careers, and I get to do it for $50. While I debated the value of other high cost HR conferences, this thing sounds like it’s value-packed and dirt cheap. Check out the post below that I wrote forRocketHR after I found out about making the short list.

Want to get mentored? Well, you\’ll have to wait until next year. This year\’s participants in the NASHRM mentor project were announced last week, and I am thrilled to be on that exclusive list. The mastermind of this project, Rusty Brand, passed along this comment: Continue reading →

SHRM Chapter Planning and Marketing

shrm chapter planning and marketing

This post on SHRM chapter planning and marketing is a piece of the SHRM Chapter Leadership Guide.

Today I had the opportunity to meet with the NASHRM Webmaster (anyone else think “webmaster” is the coolest title ever?) to go over some ideas for the upcoming year. In just a few short weeks, we’ll be starting 2010, and I will officially become the “Assistant Webmaster” for NASHRM. We both have some great ideas for making this chapter the best. How many other SHRM chapters are thinking about…

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Rebuilding the site with the user in mind
  • Blogging
  • Email newsletters

Continue reading →

Students, Federal HR, and Strategic Planning

shrm student chapterA few weeks back, I dropped by another NASHRM student chapter meeting. I was blown away by the amazing speaker. Tim Grey from AMCOM stopped by to give a short lecture on federal HR and its differences from the private sector. I must say that I was amazed. I probably looked like I was ignoring him, because I had my phone out typing on it most of the time. I was making notes as fast as I possibly could. It’s interesting, because that snuck up on me. I was sitting there listening and suddenly realized that he was passing out some golden truths that I shouldn’t be missing! Enough warm fuzzies, here are a few sound bytes from the session:

  • Policies are easy for private sector. Hate it? Change it!
  • Public sector is built on laws and any change is going to take a lot of work.
  • All federal employees have to take the oath of office. I had no idea.
  • We can hire someone off the street tomorrow if we need them to fill a position. The federal sector can’t.
  • “Right to work” doesn’t apply to federal employees.
  • In a weird twist, sometimes Tim gets calls from attorneys for legal advice pertaining to federal employment laws. (Can he bill them at $150 an hour?) :-D

Strategic planning? You better believe it. Make it happen or you’ll always be a clerk.

  • One of HR’s many roles: help managers know the rules so they can be effective (and legal).
  • If you want to have an impact on the future of your organization, you must know the mission and vision first.
  • The aging workforce is a big problem for the federal sector. 25% of employees could retire today, and 40% could by 2012.
  • If managers don’t know statistics like the one above, they could cripple the company by making choices that disregard the upcoming disaster.
  • Effective HR strategies can help to solve problems like the aging workforce.
  • Years ago, HR strategy looked up to 18 months into the future. Today that could be up to 10 years, depending on the size of your organization.
  • I know you may be technology-averse, but you have to see and understand technology changes, because you have to train employees to be ready to meet those challenges head on.
  • You need to be forecasting and planning ahead. Use the data you have. Even a 25 person company with 2-3 years of history can do something useful with the data.

HR is usually an afterthought. It’s actually one of the most important parts of the business. Demonstrate your value.

As you can plainly see, there was some good stuff going on at that lecture. I am thrilled that I had the opportunity to be a part of it. There was also a great little story that Tim shared about a recruiting problem they were having at one location. I hope to be able to expand on it in a future post.

If you’re on Twitter, I usually use the #NASHRM tag when I’m tweeting from one of these SHRM student chapter events. Feel free to follow along.

SHRM Chapter Leadership Guide

NASHRM Mentor Program

Want to get mentored? Well, you’ll have to wait until next year. This year’s participants in the NASHRM mentor project were announced last week, and I am thrilled to be on that exclusive list. The mastermind of this project, Rusty Brand, passed along this comment:

We believe that the mentor program has the potential to bring tremendous value to the career development of our members.  NASHRM has been considering the idea for a few years and we are excited to get it off the ground in 2010 under the title of Mentor University.  The plan is to utilize a variety of approaches including group, peer, and flash mentoring as well as the more traditional approach.  HR Pros will have a chance to network and engage in a smaller forum and focus their time on areas/topics that are of interest to them, helping them to take the next step within their respective careers.  Its going to be a lot of fun!

Someone asked me the other day why I would use my own limited time and money for this project. My reply: why not?!? You probably know how hard it is to break into the HR field and advance through the ranks. This experience is going to put some of that hard-to-reach information at the fingertips of the next generation of HR leaders. If the others are as excited as I am about this, then it’s going to rock.

One thing that really excites me about NASHRM Mentor University is that the leaders have purposefully kept the group small enough to encourage discussion and interaction. That’s one thing I learned at HRevolution earlier this month. The smaller sessions encouraged a lot of ideas and chatting, but the larger groups were more subdued. The smaller the group is, the more people can absorb and interact. Look for some great posts to come from the interactions facilitated by Mentor University.

RocketHR is Born

Social media is growing, and there’s no end in sight. Recently, Kris Dunn came and spoke to my local SHRM chapter about social media and its uses for HR professionals.  It’s interesting that he was slated to come in August, because I had proposed a chapter blog shortly before then. I envisioned something like the work that Stephen has done with HR Gumbo, but probably not as awesome. Anyway, a few weeks of frenzied work behind the scenes led to the current site.

One potential issue was that we weren’t sure how the blog would play out in the long run. What if I moved away? What if I suddenly hated blogging? To smooth that wrinkle, I promised updates every week on Monday, since most of the people reading wouldn’t be able to keep up with more than that. After a year, we will reassess and see if we can draw in more writers, because I would like to do more with the chapter in a hands-on capacity whenever possible.

And RocketHR was born.

I’m hoping that it can be used as social media “training wheels” for the members of the chapter (and anyone else out there who’s delving into SM for the first time). The first posts are directed toward those fresh faces, so make sure and point people in that direction if you think they can learn something useful!

  • Have someone you’re trying to convert to social media? The post on the social web might be helpful as a primer.
  • Need to explain Google Reader to someone? Keep the Google Reader tutorial close at hand.
  • Know something that might be useful to someone new to the social media space? Leave a comment!
  • Are you new to this stuff? If so, then please let me know what you’d like to learn!

And as always, any assistance in promoting this new blog would help greatly in proving its worth as a tool for my local chapter. Thanks!

And the snazzy logo was created by my good friend Allen Robinson (@logicwriter).