Thinking outside the inbox at HR Florida

I'm at the HR Florida Conference today down in Orlando, (to all the people who warned me that it is too hot to come to Florida in August, you are pretty much right).

I will be presenting along with my HR Happy Hour co-host Trish McFarlane a modified and updated version of the wildly, (at least in my view), popular session titled 'Thinking Outside the Inbox: What These Big Trends Mean for HR and Recruiting.'

You can check out the slides that Trish and I will be talking from below, (email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), and they can also be viewed and downloaded from Slideshare.

Although the details and data points on things like mobile technology trends, workforce demographics, ubiquitous and wearable technologies are continuously changing, the larger point remains - all our organizations operate in a fast-moving, dynamic, and fascinating world, and making a conscious decision to be better informed about that world will make you a stronger HR and Talent pro.

Trish and I only hit three of the 'big trends' in our talk today - there are probably dozens more we could have chosen from, but hopefully the larger point is the one that will stick.

Thanks to the folks at HR Florida for having us at the event this year and if you were at the session - please drop us a note to tell us what you thought of the talk.

At HR Exec, I'm on the road to find 'Awesome'

Over at the day job one of the things I do is write a monthly column for Human Resource Executive Magazine called 'Inside HR Tech'. The column is meant to try and highlight innovative and interesting HR Technology solutions and help HR leaders, (particularly ones at small and mid-size organizations), learn more about what is happening in the HR tech industry.

The latest column is up over at HRE Online, and is titled "The Road to 'Awesome': The process for selecting HR's most 'Awesome New Technologies' reveals an industry that continues to innovate", and features a number of the more interesting and engaging HR tech solutions I have seen recently as I work to program the 'Awesome New Technologies for HR' session at the upcoming HR Technology Conference.

I figure since this blog is still called 'Steve's HR Tech' there are probably some folks interested in the Inside HR Tech column, and then I realized I have not ever mentioned it here previously. So in a shameless example of self-promotion...

Here is a little excerpt from the latest column:

One of the tasks I have as co-chair of the upcoming HR Technology^® Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas this October is to program and select the participants for the 'Awesome New Technologies for HR' session, a general session meant to showcase a half-dozen of the most innovative and exciting new products and solutions in the HR market. The largest part of this process involves seeing product demonstrations and talking with a wide range, (and high number) of solution providers from across the HR technology industry. And while, at the time of this writing, I am still in the middle of the process, and no 'Awesome New' participants have been selected as yet, I certainly have seen about 40 or so solutions, many of which, whether they become 'awesome' or not, definitely fit the criteria my CHRO friend described.

So rather than wax philosophical once again in the column about some major 'mega-trend' in the industry, or offer some highly subjective interpretation of the 'future of HR technology' in this month's column I'd like to simply recognize a handful of really interesting and innovative technology solutions that I have seen recently, and that are indeed the kind of solutions that are accessible and (more importantly), deployable relatively quickly by organizations of all sizes. And most importantly, meet the CHRO's need to solve a problem she has right now -- and not in some future, robot-dominated, Google Glass covered world.

You can read the rest over at HRE Online, as well as sign up to have the monthly Inside HR Tech column delivered right into your email Inbox.

Regularly scheduled programming here will resume tomorrow.

<self-promotion done for the day>

HR and Improv: An #HRevolution Las Vegas Preview

The HRevolution 'unconference' event is returning to Las Vegas on Sunday, October 6, 2013.

What, exactly is HRevolution?

Simple.

Since 2009, HRevolution has been creating unique opportunities for HR professionals, recruiters, consultants, and vendors to come together to discuss and debate the future of HR in an one-day, highly interactive format. You can see details of the agenda here.

That actually doesn't sound very simple, but if you have attended HRevolution before you'll know exactly what it means.  And you will know that the connections you have made and strengthened at past HRevolution events have been an amazing source of inspiration and learning over the years.

If you have not attended an HRevolution event in the past, then I want to give you a little bit of an idea of just one fun and innovative component of the HRevolution program that we are pretty sure you've never seen at any other event.

It's called 'HR Improv' and the simple idea is this: We solicit 5 volunteers from the audience and they are tasked with doing a 'cold' 10-minute presentation to the entire room from a slide deck that they, (nor anyone else), has ever seen before.  

The challenge?

To tie the content of the deck somehow back to an HR or workplace topic, to think quickly and on the fly, and to not let a situation that can rapidly get out of control throw you off of your game.

The kinds of skills that any successful pro, HR or otherwise, needs to have in order to be seen as a player.

Think you could handle HR Improv? Then make your plans to attend HRevolution in Las Vegas on October 6, 2013 - ticket information here. 

And this year, HRevolution would not be possible without the support of the event's exclusive sponsor - SumTotal Systems - an HR provider of a complete portfolio which includes; talent, learning, workforce, payroll, analytics, mobile and social delivered via SaaS, on-premise or hosted.

The folks at SumTotal have been fantastic to work with on the event and we can't thanks them enough for their support of the HR community.

Once again, HRevolution is co-locating with the HR Technology Conference to offer attendees of both events a great opportunity to connect, learn, share, and have fun. When you register for HRevolution you will receive a promotional code good for $600 off the published rate for HR Tech - the best (and non-expiring) discount code out there.

So please make plans to attend HRevolution Las Vegas this October - you won't regret it!

If you still have questions just shoot me an email - steveboese at gmail dot com.

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 167 - 'HR Tech 2013 Preview'

The latest HR Happy Hour Show, 'The HR Tech Conference 2013 Preview'  is up over at the HR Happy Hour show page.

On this show, HR Happy Hour Show co-host Trish McFarlane took over hosting duties solo to interview both myself and Bill Kutik, two of the HR Tech Conference's Co-Chairs, about the upcoming event to be held October 7-9, 2013 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Bill and I shared some of the highlights and new features on the program this year, why the event, (and HR technology in general), have become so essential for HR leaders and practitioners today, and finally talked about some of the important developments and emerging trends impacting HR tech today.

You can listen to the show on the show page here, by using the embedded player below, and as always, the HR Happy Hour Show is available as a free download in Apple iTunes, (just search for 'HR Happy Hour' in the podcast section), and for Android users, you can find the show using another free app called Stitcher Radio.

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on BlogTalkRadio

 

To learn more about what I've been up to on the real job, check out the HR Technology Conference website here, the 2013 agenda page here, and for more details and access to a great event discount code, sign up for the HR Tech Conference LinkedIn Group here. Note - If you are new to the LinkedIn Group, just be sure to join, and then hit me up and I will hook you up with the code you need to get the discount.

Thanks to Trish for driving the show this week, and thanks to Bill for joining us as well.

PREVIEW: My spot today at #SHRM13 on Systems of Engagement

Shameless self-promotion alert...

Today I will be presenting at the SHRM Annual Conference a new talk called From Transactions to Engagement: Harnessing Social Tools to Transform HR at 4:00PM CT in Room N228 (for folks who are reading this and might be at the Conference.

And for both the people that might be at the event and come to the session, as well as anyone else interested in this kind of thing, I have posted the slides I will be using today here:

From Transactions to Engagement - Steve Boese, SHRM 2013 Annual Conference from steveboese

Also the references, notes, and links for the slides are summarized in a document and posted here.

SHRM 2013 - Steve Boese Session - Resources and Links from steveboese

The shift from HR technologies that are primarily developed to support process automation, accurate record-keeping, and to assist organizations remain in compliance to one where the majority of HR and workplace tools are centered around people, their connection to each other, and to the organization, and to create and innovate while in process, is certainly in its early stages. But it is a process and journey than many progressive organizations are taking and that is supported by a wide and growing range of amazing technologies.

But I think this presentation is less about the specific technologies themselves, (although I will talk about quite a few of them and share some examples), and more about the changing expectations, challenges, and opportunities that social, collaborative, and mobile technologies are presenting to HR leaders today. Changing the focus and mindset of what workplace, HR, and talent management technologies have been traditionally used for, and unlocking the promise of what the new social and engagement-focuses tools are offering is what I want to emphasize today.

So hopefully if you are at SHRM today, you will consider dropping in to the session. 

And as a bonus - I have a bunch of HR Happy Hour T-shirts to give away to folks in the audience.

See you at the session (hopefully some of you!)