PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 205 - Health & Benefits Leadership Conference Preview

HR Happy Hour 205 - The Health & Benefits Leadership Conference Preview

Recorded Thursday March 5, 2015

Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese

Guest: Jennifer Benz

Listen to the show HERE

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Trish and Steve were joined by Jennifer Benz, Founder and CEO of Benz Communications, and Program Chair for Human Resource Executive's Health & Benefits Leadership Conference, to be held April 8 - 10, 2015 at the Aria in Las Vegas.

On the show, Jennifer shared some of the most important themes and challenges facing Benefits and HR leaders today - health care plan design and reform, employee wellness, (particularly financial wellness), and the importance of educating and effectively communicating with employees on important benefits, wellness, and welfare issues.

The upcoming Health & Benefits Leadership Conference will help HR and Benefits leaders understand these challenges and trends, as well as provide insight and actionable ideas to take back to their organizations immediately. And in what has become a highlight in the young history of the Health & Benefits Leadership Conference, once again an exciting, 'Ignite' style Ideas and Innovators session will showcase the best, most leading edge, and provocative thinking on health, wellness, and benefits.

'

Benefits and related spending can be as much as 30% of compensation budget for many organizations. Understanding how, where, and for what goals you are investing such a considerable amount of budget is one of the top priorities for HR and Benefits leaders today. On the show, Jen shared a preview of how the Conference can and will help you as a leader in making these critically important organizational decisions - ones that impact employee engagement, reputation, and retention.

We also lamented again (well, mostly Steve), about the terrible winter weather, Steve shared a slightly disturbing tale of a former neighbor and his snowblower, and Trish offered to talk about Benefits plan design with anyone at any time. We also talked about how cool the word 'formulary' is. 

You can listen to the show here, or using the widget player below, (Email and RSS subscribers will need to click through, or go to the show direct link)

Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio

Also, listeners of the show who attend the Health & Benefits Leadership Conference can use the registration discount code BOESE15 (all caps), to receive $75 off the current registration rate.

As always, you can listen to the current and all the past shows from the archive on the show page here, on our HR Happy Hour website, and by subscribing to the show in podcast form on iTunes, or for Android devices using Stitcher Radio (or your favorite podcast app). Just search the iTunes store or your podcast app for 'HR Happy Hour' to add the show to your subscriptions.

This was a great show, and many thanks to Jennifer for being a part of the fun. 

PODCAST - #HRHappyHour 195 - #HRevolution 2014 Recap

HR Happy Hour 195 - HRevolution 2014 Recap

Recorded Thursday, November 13, 2014

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, hosts Steve and Trish reviewed the HRevolution 2014 event, held November 7 and 8 in Grapevine, Texas.

Steve and Trish talked about several of the big themes from the HRevolution event - the Disruption of HR and workplaces, the importance of creativity in HR and in business, and the need for HR professionals and leaders to take more time to actively think about innovation and new ways to do both HR and business.

This was a great event to be a part of, and in the best HRevolution tradition, the discussions, (like the one Trish and Steve have on this week's show), are ongoing, and the community of HRevolution friends, (and HR Happy Hour listeners), are keeping the ideas and conversations alive.

Additionally, Steve forgets what day it is, ('Is today Wednesday?') and Trish tosses out some potential locations for the next HRevolution event to be held in November 2015.

You can listen to the show on the show page here or using the widget player below.

Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Steve Boese Trish McFarlane on BlogTalkRadio

And remember to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes or on your favorite podcast app, (I like Stitcher Radio) - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to find the show and to subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

This was a fun conversation and thanks for checking out the show!

Owning Disruption at #HRevolution

Submitting this dispatch, (yet again) from the Delta Sky Club on my way home from the wonderful HRevolution event held over the weekend in Grapevine, Texas. (Note: See below embedded the song that has been burning my psyche ever since I knew we were holding the event in a place called Grapevine).

One of the highlights of the event for me was a session, really a classic and engaging HRevolution-style discussion, on Disrupting HR that was facilitated by Frank Zupan and Tammy Colson, long-time HRevolution 'family' members'. It was a great discussion that at times traveled to the notion of 'disruption' itself, whether or not it even makes sense to talk about disruption in an HR context, and what might be some examples of people or organizations that have actually 'Disrupted' HR.

In the discussion, I felt compelled to actually participate quite a bit more than I usually do in HRevolution sessions, (normally I am running around herding attendees, making sure the coffee pots are full), and I think it was primarily due to how or what I think is driving just about all of the disruption in organizations today - technology.

For the first 150-odd years of workplace (HR and otherwise) technology, the 'disruptions' that were caused for workers and workplaces were introduced and driven by company owners who were looking to improve efficiency and profitability, and later (much later), by corporate IT departments who became tasked with finding, evaluating, and introducing new technology into the workplace.

Over time, HR departments, (and also sales and procurement and facilities and sales, and just about all other back office functions) never really 'owned' the technologies that they used to do their jobs. These were provided by company ownership, stewdarded by IT, and simply became the de-facto foundation for performing back office and administrative tasks. 

But today, (and what has been building really for the last half-dozen years or so), both back-office functions like HR and marketing have claimed much more significant influence and control over the kinds of technologies that they use in the workplace, and that can in turn, significantly impact, drive, and enable this notion of 'disruption'. This is driven by the cloud, SaaS, mobile, declining cost of computing, and the amazingly powerful smart phones just about every employee carries.

It doesn't really matter if you care for the term 'disruption' or not, there is not any doubt that for all except the most backward looking companies that new workplace technologies have changed the very nature of work. I suppose the question then becomes, with all this new(ish) ability to set the technology, (and consequently) the disruption agenda, is what will HR do with it?

In the past two decades the most disruptive new technology introduced to workplaces has to be Email.

And email was, is , and probably always will be 'owned' by a corporate IT department. HR's involvement with Email as a disruptive technology was/is merely to set and occasionally enforce standards for conduct, content, etc. 

Just what will be the next workplace technology that proves to be as disruptive as email remains to be seen.

A better question for HR leaders, and folks that want to become one such, is whether or not HR will be the driving force behind whatever this/these technologies end up being, or whether they, like in the Email example, end up being simply passengers (and sometime police) who are along for the ride.

Workplace 'disruption' will be owned by who is driving the technology agenda. It might be IT, it might be leadership, it might even be rank and file employees.

But if you're in HR and you want a say in the future of your organization, (and your career), you want to be a part of that conversation. You probably want to lead that conversation, actually.

Thanks to all the HRevolution attendees, speakers, sponsors, fellow organizers, and friends for a fantastic event! 

Oh yeah - here is the song I wanted to share, 'Grapevine Fires' by Death Cab for Cutie (email and RSS subscribers will have to click through to see the video).

Notes from the Road #13 - #HRevolution Edition

Filing yet another dispatch for the ever-popular, often imitated, and usually exceeded 'Notes from the Road' series from the Delta Sky Club, this time in lovely LaGuardia Airport.

I am heading this fine morning to Dallas, or more specifically, Grapevine, Texas for the the 6th (or possibly 7th, I have lost count), HRevolution 'Un'Conference and HR family reunion of sorts.

This time the HRevolution event, which began when a small group of HR professionals (Trish McFarlane, Ben Eubanks, yours truly, and later joined by the mighty Matt Stollak), combined forces to form a different kind of HR conference, returns to its original roots. The event is one that has always emphasized new and challenging topics, personal and professional networking, and one that was not 'owned' or overly dependant on external organizations, associations, or sponsors.

I have written tons of posts about HRevolution over the years, it doesn't really make too much sense for me to once again run down the list of all the reasons why I am proud and honored to be a part of the HRevolution organizing team and community. The event, in many ways, is the high point of the professional year for me.

Many, many thanks must go out to this year's HRevolution sponsors - Symbolist, (who have been gracious enough to open their doors, literally, for us), Mercer, and Small Improvements.

It is going to be a fantastic event this weekend in Grapevine - hope to see many of you there!

Have a great weekend!

Some final thoughts and thanks from #HRTechConf 2014

Last Friday we wrapped up the 17th Annual HR Technology Conference, what I believe was an extremely successful event and for attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, press, analysts, bloggers, and everyone else in the large HR Technology community, a professionally and personally valuable experience.

For me, who spent the bulk of my time in 2014 planning, preparing, organizing, promoting, and then for lack of a better term, hosting the Conference, it will still probably take a few more days/weeks for everything to settle in and to take the feedback and observations from the last week and incorporate that into next year's planning process. But I did take the weekend to kind of decompress, tried to stay (mostly) offline and catch up on my sleep, and to think about my initial thoughts about the Conference that I would like to share, and more importantly, to publicly thank at least a few people that played an important part in the event this year.

First - three quick general thoughts about the event 

1. I thought there was great energy and enthusiasm at the event - in the Expo, at the General Sessions and Awesome New Tech demonstrations, during the parts of concurrent sessions that I was able to see, and of course at the receptions and dinners that I attended.  Even by last Friday, Day 4 of the event, we had a lively and engaged audience for the Awesome New Startups demo that started EARLY at 8AM, and then for Ray Wang's closing keynote. Excitement or engagement is a really hard thing to measure, but so many folks stopped me to tell me that they just felt a better vibe around the show this year, that I wanted to mention that. I want HR Tech to be energizing and fun, and I hope we succeeded in that.

2. After a certain point, size becomes a real challenge. This year the Conference had a record number of speakers, sessions, and even keynotes that made for the 'biggest' HR Tech Conference to date. And while we are really proud of that, we also have to acknowledge that with the increase in size and scope, that it has become just about impossible to see everything and meet everyone that you would like to at the event. I did think that the physical layout of the show was such that the long, long walks of prior years were lessened, but there were still times where I know that I personally could not make it to where I wanted to be in time. I will try to find ways to manage this going forward, but if I was not able to talk or meet with you at the event, I do want to apologize for that.

3. Some folks come a long, long way to attend HR Tech. I noticed this the most on Friday morning, before and after Ray's closing keynote. Since the event was just about complete, and I was almost out of things to worry about and do, I had a fair bit of time to just chat with attendees. And that morning in the space about about 15 minutes I met (and took photos with), attendees from China, India, Pakistan, Abu Dhabi, Brazil, Belgium, Australia, and New Zealand. That was really fun, and kind of cool. And also serves to me as a great reminder that attendees make a huge investment of time and resources to attend HR Tech, and we need to continue to work hard to deliver a great and valuable Conference and experience.

Second - Keep, drop, and make new

The big challenge with taking over a long-standing and successful event is figuring out how much to change, what to leave as-is, and what/where/how to try and move the event into a new direction. And that process of evaluation for an event like HR Tech is an ongoing, and sometimes inexact one at that. As for some of the new elements we introduced to the show this year, (expanded opening day/night, a more 'Technical' track, and an overall increase in sessions/speakers), I think for the most part they went over well. So I would expect all of that to continue on into future events. We also tried to stay true to what has been traditionally been a strength of the event - detailed case study type presentations from HR leaders at many of the world's leading organizations.

Finally, early reports seem to suggest that an increased focus on HR Tech startup technologies, in the Expo Hall as part of our first-ever startup pavilion, and with our inaugural 'Awesome New Startups for HR' session, were both well-received. Of course, I welcome your comments and feedback going forward on what to more of, what to do less of, and what new things we should bring to the show.

Third - Some folks I have to thank, (and I apologize in advance to not be able to list or mention everyone that I should, just like the Conference has grown to make it almost impossible to talk with everyone that I would like, I can't possibly name everyone here that I should thank), for their incredible contribution to the Conference this year. But I am going to try anyway... (these are presented in no particular order, just streaming them out as they come to me)

Kris Dunn - KD stepped in at the 11th hour to take on a pretty big spot in the Agenda that came open due to a very late speaker cancellation. There are not many people who would have been willing and able to step in like that especially considering he already was leading a session later in the day. Huge thanks to the Capitalist for taking that on.

Laurie Zaucha, Sara Hill, Coretha Rushing, and Ashley Goldsmith - These four HR leaders were the participants in the 'Modern CHRO' panel that I co-hosted along with Trish McFarlane. This was a great group of HR executives, were easy to work with, and reminded us all what true leadership looks and sounds like. I want HR Tech to be a place where we see and hear from the absolute best of the best in HR, and these panelists exemplify that completely.

Trish McFarlane - In addition to Co-hosting the Modern CHRO Panel mentioned above, Trish also led an Expert Discussion session on HR Technology implementations about which I heard fantastic reports. But beyond that, she was a great sounding board and source of excellent advice throughout the event planning process. And she co-hosts my favorite podcast the HR Happy Hour Show!

Jason Seiden - Jason launched his new startup BrandAmper at the Conference, as one of the participants in the first-ever 'Awesome New Startups for HR' session. This was not without risk, pressure, and probably some lost sleep. But Jason and Lisa Cervenka did an amazing job (like all of our startups), and I hope to see them back next year on the Big Stage!

John Sumser - John led one of our sessions in the new Ideas and Innovations track, his on Computational HR, and while I was not able to sit in on the session, it probably was the one that I feel the worst about missing. He is also a remarkably nice and generous person that has contributed much to the event and to me as well.

Michael Krupa - Mike did a tremendous job not only personally serving on a two-hour long panel in our 'Tech' track, but also serving to help create and coordinate several other elements at the show. Plus, he is one of the very few people I will allow to hug me in public.

Naomi Bloom - Naomi did a tremendous amount of work in the run-up to the show, coordinating and helping to program what was a very successful Tech track at the event. Sadly, she was unable to actually participate live at the event due to a medical issue. But she had prepped her panel so well that they were able to carry on, and she stayed engaged with the event on Twitter throughout. Get well soon, Naomi!

Mike Psenka - Mike runs the Workforce Analytics team at Equifax Workforce Solutions and not only did he present a great session with Whole Foods, he also allowed Trish and myself to crash his team dinner once again. Mike and the Equifax team are a super nice bunch of people that I enjoy spending time with at HR Tech each year.

Ed Chase, Dave Shadovitz, Vicky Dennehy and the rest of the LRP team - It goes without saying that probably 95% of what happens to deliver an excellent experience to the HR Tech community goes on behind the scenes, and out of sight of most. But the LRP team does such a fantastic and professional job getting the thousands of elements aligned to present a great show for everyone. Trust me, you don't have any idea what goes on out of view, and you probably don't want to know, but the LRP team takes it all in stride. Many thanks to all of my colleagues for everything you do.

All of our attendees, speakers, exhibitors, analysts, sponsors, and friends - We have such an engaged, vibrant, and enthusiastic community around HR Tech that in many ways that makes my job easy. So thanks to everyone who was at the event last week. There are literally thousands of you who contribute to the event, each in your own way, and that adds up to a remarkable and valuable community of people that make what I get to do really fun and amazing.

Thanks again and please do mark your calendars now for the 18th Annual HR Technology Conference - October 18 -21, 2015 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

Have a great week!