#HRevolution 2012 Preview

The 5th installment of the HRevolution (Un)Conference for Human Resources, Recruiting, and Talent Professionals is set for this coming Sunday, October 7, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois. 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.

Once again, the HRevolution has partnered with the HR Technology Conference, to be held October 8-10, also in Chicago, to offer HRevolution attendees a fantastic discount for the big HR Tech event of the year, for folks attending both events.

If you have not yet purchased your ticket to HRevolution, there is still time to get in, visit the registration page here to get started.

I have had the great pleasure and honor to be a member of the HRevolution organizining team since the beginning, and I can say with great confidence that this year's event is shaping up to be our best yet. 

Have a look at the agenda here - littered with some of the sharpest thinkers and most innovative HR and Talent people in the space, the kinds of smart, interesting, and connected people that you simply have to get to know. Folks like Bret Starr, Gerry Crispin, Alexandra Levit, Laurie Ruettimann, the Talent Anarchy team, and your hero Tim Sackett just to name a few.

But beyond the 'formal but not really formal' sessions, consistently the best aspect of HRevolution is the connections that are made within and across the community of people that while having many different roles and positions in the industry, are united in their common desire to make business, HR, and workplaces, and themselves better.

The HRevolution is an entirely bootstrapped, volunteer event made possible by the incredible commitment and generosity of a few important and fantastic organizations - our sponsors and partners.

We are so thankful for the tremendous support of the following HRevolution 2012 sponsors:

Aquire - The leading solution provider for workforce planning and analytics solutions, and importantly a long time supporter of the HR community via HRevolution and the HR Happy Hour Show

Ceridian - A Human Resources and Payroll solutions provider and a past sponsor of HRevolution that we are honored to have with us again in 2012

Pinstripe - A global RPO provider that has shown amazing support in the past not only for HRevolution, but for the HR and Recruiting industry as a whole - fantastic people that really believe in what they do.

SilkRoad - A leading provider of social, cloud-based talent management solutions for functions like Recruiting and Onboarding. We are really happy to welcome them to the HRevolution family.

We on the HRevolution team are truly grateful for your support!

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour Show, (streaming live starting at 8:00PM ET here), we will spend the hour talking about a revolution, the HRevolution that is. We will be joined by members of the organizing team, session leaders, sponsors, and attendees to preview and collectively begin the countdown to what is for many of us, our favorite event of the year.

If you are planning to attend HRevolution, either as a veteran, or as a first-timer, I encourage you to tune-in to the HR Happy Hour Show tonight, and even better, to call in on 646-378-1086 and share with us why you make time in your busy lives to attend HRevolution.

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

Lastly, I have to thank and recognize the other members of the HRevolution team, a wonderful group that I am proud to be associated with - Trish McFarlane, Ben Eubanks, and Matt 'akaBruno' Stollak. Once again, an amazing team to work with.

Hopefully I will see lots of you in Chicago on Sunday and on the Happy Hour Show tonight!

Innovation as a choice

I'm just back from Taleo World 2012, (ok, I admit to being a little biased, but it was a tremendous event), and wanted to share a short bit of wisdom from one of the concurrent sessions I attended, given by WellPoint, one of the largest health benefits companies in the United States. With over 37,000 employees operating in a highly-regulated industry and with the added complexity of operating via numerous subsidiary companies, WellPoint is a classic example of the kind of large corporate environment many of us work in or have been a part of at some point in our careers.Taleo World 2012

And what are some of the things that come to mind when thinking about working in really large, complex organizations?  

We generally think of these corporate giants as lacking agility, with dense and difficult to traverse organization structures, a lack of drive and urgency, and at times the tendency to get consumed by process, entrenched ways of thinking, and lots of 'Not invented here' syndrome that taken together can slow or even halt innovative ideas of transformational projects even before they begin.

While it is certainly true that as organizations get larger and more complex in structure additional rules, policies, and sometimes bureaucracies have to emerge to simply manage the processes associated with organizing that many people, across that many locations, and operating under numerous and evolving external forces and requirements, the smartest of these large organizations are not letting size, complexity and inertia impede their ability to adapt, improve, and innovate.

And while their are reams of books, articles, seminars, and big thinkers all focused on the subject of innovation, still for large organizations, fostering innovation can be really, really hard - maybe even impossible. But during WellPoint's presentation about their purposeful and aggressive approach to reinventing their Talent Management processes, they offered one of the clearest and simplest ways to get past those legacy or inherent barriers to innovation.

Simply put, they decided to be innovative. 

The specific mantra their Talent Management team adopted was 'We can sit and wait, or we can choose to innovate.'

Sure it's basic. Sure it even sounds a little naive. And yes, no one can really effect significant change by simply making a choice, but the choice itself is the start. 

The choice to innovate becomes a conscious one that can support all the difficult decisions that have to be made in order to effect change at large organizations like WellPoint. The choice allows you, even empowers you to think about the big picture and the real reasons and benefits for the hard work you are doing. 

The choice enables you to start to let go of the organizational baggage that often has to be dragged along with you on every new project.

In another Taleo World presentation, Bertrand Dussert mentioned a fantastic quote from Roger Enrico -

"Beware the tyranny of making small changes to small things."

WellPoint's 'choice' and the Enrico quote both remind us of the importance of thinking big, not allowing the past to be a barrier to progress, and that often a simple change in mindset can be the beginning of a fantastic journey, even in the largest and most seemingly resistant to change environments.

Thanks to everyone at Taleo World for what was a superb and inspiring event.

Have a Great Weekend!

#HRevolution 2012: You know you need to be there

The fifth, and I am sure the best ever, installment of the HRevolution (Un)conference for Human Resources and Recruiting leaders and professionals is set for Sunday, October 7, 2012 in Chicago, Illinois.

We will shortly be releasing the HRevolution 2012 agenda which can be found here, and once you have a peek at the stellar line-up of stars that have graciously agreed to present and facilitate at the event, you can rush over to the registration page and reserve your place here.

I am sure you will agree with me in that with the incredible list of presenters, and the amazing opportunity for interaction and networking that the much-less-formal format of HRevolution provides, and finally the amazing value that the HRevolution event offers compared to the typical HR conference, that you simply must, as a smart and savvy HR professional, make time in your Fall calendar to join us in Chicago.

With A-list session presenters like Gerry Crispin, John Sumser, Kris Dunn, Laurie Ruettimann, Lance Haun, Elaine Orler, Jason Seiden, William Tincup, Tim Sackett and more, the HRevolution 2012 event promises to be truly a can't miss date this year.

I am really honored and proud to be a member for the fifth time of the HRevolution organizing team, and I can say truly and honestly that this year's event will be the best we have ever produced.

Also, and in an incredible value, everyone who registers for HRevolution will be provided a discount code good for $600 off the published conference rate for the 15th Annual HR Technology Conference, which commences immediately after HRevolution ends. So truly, you can come to HRevolution on Sunday, October 7th, then stay for HR Technology from October 8-10, while enjoying the largest discount available for HR Tech.

Look, don't take my word for how fantastic HRevolution will be. If you are not sure, or need more convincing, I challenge you to log on to Twitter today and tweet:

'I'm thinking of going to #HRevolution in October. Is it worth my time?'

I promise you'll be convinced after you see the responses.

I hope to see you in Chicago on October 7th!

#SHRM12 Social Recruiting session wrap: Don't be quick to judge

The last dispatch from me from #SHRM12, aka, the SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition which wrapped up yesterday from Atlanta.

Aside: which major industry event will be the first one to actually adopt as its 'official' name the event hashtag? It would be kind of cool to see SHRM or some other organization to just drop the tired and formal sounding 'Conference and Exposition' part and just go with #SHRM12 as the event name.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, wrapping up the final day at #SHRM12 which for me was highlighted by the panel discussion I was fortunate to be asked to moderate, titled 'Is Social Recruiting Really Working?', and that featured industry leaders and experts Robert Hohman, CEO of Glassdoor.com, industry analyst and legend John Sumser, and Jeremy Langhans, who leads Global Brand and Talent Attraction for Expedia.

The panel discussion was, I think, pretty lively from the start, it took about three minutes before the panelists were (respectfully) disagreeing with each other, which I've always felt is one sign of an interesting panel discussion. As the panelists stepped through and discussed some of the common perceptions and assumptions surrounding social media for recruiting several common themes and best practices did start to emerge - the need for organizations to be more open and committed to engaging with candidates on social platforms, that trusting your employees to fairly portray the brand message is paramount, and that HR and Recruiting can and should work closely with their internal social media experts in Marketing and PR to help define, tune, and communicate the brand message.

It was, I thought, a really good discussion overall, with some insights, shared experiences, and even a few laughs - particularly when Jeremy was getting talking points texted to him during the session!

But for me, the biggest personal take-away happened after the session, and in the conversations with the folks that came up to the stage to chat with the panelists. During the session, an audience member asked about the value of Pinterest as a recruiting tool.  As I recall, Jeremy indicated that he had not personally seen much usefulness there, and I made a (lame) joke about needing to delete my Pinterest account. But essentially our panel did not have much positive to say about Pinterest in the recruiting context.

But after the session an audience member, someone in Talent Acquisition from a major retail brand that you have absolutely heard of, told us that for them, Pinterest was, in her words, 'gold'. The kinds of people that the brand would want to find and connect with were all over Pinterest, were really engaged, and definitely wanted more interaction and communication with the brand. So while for us guys on the panel, laughing off Pinterest might have made sense from our limited world view, but for this major organization, the platform is starting to represent an increasingly important source for recruiting.

The bigger point? 

Every organization's experience, approach, and results in social recruiting is going to be unique. While there are some general guiding principles and leading practices that are emerging, (and we talked about many of them on the panel), there are no true and repeatable recipes for success that will be successful in all situations. One size does not fit all. In fact, it hardly fits anyone.

It was a good lesson to learn, and I am thankful for the attendee who shared her view with us after the session.

Thanks again to the panel members, and to the team at Glassdoor.com for making the panel possible, and for including me in the event.

And I promise, no more on #SHRM12 from me!

What was interesting at #SHRM12? How about vending machines?

In a sea of SHRM National Conference and Exposition vendors providing employee assessments, background checking, and outsourced benefits administration services, it can be a little hard for any individual vendor, (assuming they don't have a custom 18-wheeler to roll in to the Expo Hall), to stand out from the pack.

One vendor that did stand out, at least in my mind, not only with the neat and innovative service that they provide, and in the clever way they engaged with some of the members of the massive SHRM blogging brigade in the pre-conference hype, was Avanti Markets, a Washington-based company that provides organizations with a new and fresh take on the typical break-room vending machine array. Avanti installs and helps maintain 'markets', a convenience store-style set-up with a variety of packaged and fresh food items, and a pay-as-you-go style kiosk that allows employees to purchase and pay for items using debit, credit, a stored-value Avanti account, and soon, company payroll deduction.

Companies can stock the markets with the mix of food items that they and their employees prefer, one idea being that organizations concerned with employee health and wellness can focus more heavily on fresh and healthy foods, and can even set a food pricing strategy, (and use subsidies), to encourage more consumption of good food options. Make a fresh salad cost $2.00 and a Snickers bar set you back $3.25, and you just might see the guys on the night shift start eating a little better.

Avanti's inventory management capability also allows company administrators to see real-time stock levels, consumption trends, and allows companies to make rapid adjustments to ordering and pricing strategies.

The last point about Avanti I'd like to mention, and maybe the main reason I wanted to take a few minutes to recognize them here? They seemed like a group of really nice people, from CEO Jim Brinton down to all the folks I met at the booth and corresponded with prior to the event. They have a neat idea, a cool service offering, and were really genuine and excited to share their story without trying to force me or the other folks here to notice them.

If you are interested in a better and potentially more healthy set of options for your organization's break areas, I would encourage you to check out what is happening at Avanti.

Now I better run to grab a Snickers before the price goes up.