Morning Keynote

In this dynamic, provocative and groundbreaking presentation, you will learn to see the science of employee engagement in a completely new way. You will understand why the way we have historically measured employee engagement is fundamentally flawed. You will discover that many of the ways we have been working to drive employee engagement may be actually hurting the company’s performance. And, most importantly, you’ll learn what to do about it. You will be introduced to the concept of Reality-Based Engagement, where accountability and engagement intersect to produce awesome results. This will include some practical guidance for how to cultivate the power of personal accountability within your organization.  

Participants will learn:

1. Learn how personal accountability can turn your employee engagement efforts into business results.
2. Uncover three key flaws in how the traditional employee engagement survey process is designed and implemented. Learn how these flaws are the reason that many company’s engagement efforts are not producing the desired results.
3. Discover that personal accountability is the true driver of both employee engagement and company results. Gain a deep understanding of the four factors that make up a personally accountable mindset.
4. Take away specific action steps for how to fix your employee engagement process by introducing a focus on the cultivation of accountability within your organization.

Breakout Session 1

Fraudulent workplace claims involving FMLA and workers compensation have effects beyond HR and management. Allowed to go un-checked, this type of abuse sours co-workers and impacts moral. It also can breed a culture that encourages similar behavior. Martin will present options and strategies to help detect and detour these production robbing claims.
Learning Outcomes:
 

• How do lies help your FMLA investigation?
• Knowledge is power and surveillance video is first-hand knowledge that is undisputable.
• Problem employees; nature or nurture?
• When the ability to take action is frozen by good intentions.    

According to Deloitte, employee engagement and culture are now the top business concerns globally, and the same is probably true in your organization.   
 
Subject matter expert, Paul Herr, will explain what “employee engagement” means and how to build an engaging workplace that attracts and retains talent like a magnet. 
 
Paul’s presentation is based on the 4-drive model of employee motivation developed by Nitin Nohria, the dean of the Harvard Business School and Paul Lawrence, an organizational-behavior pioneer.

Attendees will learn:

1. What “employee engagement” means.
2. Why most organizations fail to engage their employees.
3. The four motivational “hot buttons” that drive employee engagement and how to press them.  

1-C Grief in the Workplace: How to Compassionately Support Coworkers or Clients Through Loss,  Sheri Milton, LFMT, CT, Agrace HospiceCare Inc.

When a client or a coworker is grieving the death of a loved one (or a divorce or other significant loss), it can be hard to know what to say and how to be helpful. Your business relationship with them may depend on your ability to be supportive and compassionate. 

Participants will learn:

1. Attendees will learn about grief and the basics of the grieving process
2. Attendees will learn words and phrases that are helpful—and some that are hurtful—to grieving people;
3. Attendees will learn practical ways to support your employees, co-workers or clients who are grieving; and
4. Attendees will learn how workplaces can assist their staff to encourage healthy survivorship after a loss. 

Afternoon Keynote

Cy Wakeman - Reality-Based Accountability – Hardwiring Accountability into Your Workforce and Coaching for Great Performance 

 
Everyone is talking about accountability but few organizations are actually successful in ensuring that personal accountability is hardwired into their talent and everyday business operations. Accountability has been illusive for many organizations, as they have not yet come to understand how to calculate
the true value of an employee, how to drive it through great leadership, and how to measure the results.
 
The true value of an employee is no longer determined just by their technical skills, expertise or current performance. The value proposition in our organizations today is far more complex in our new realities and must take into account one’s accountability level, one’s willingness to change and to
align with the organization. Total value is determined by one’s current performance PLUS their future relevance MINUS their emotional expensiveness to the institution! In this session, participants will learn key strategies for getting the most out of this new value equation.
 
In order to ensure that all talent will remain relevant and accountable far into the future and that plenty of bench strength exists in the organization, leaders must renew their focus on the coaching and development of their people. True development is the result of an individual being called to greatness, given challenging experiences and provided with coaching, support and feedback
throughout. In this session, participants will learn the key elements of development and coaching along with many strategies for fast-tracking the development of future leaders.
 
Join the Reality-Based Revolution as we break down the core competency of personal accountability and give you no nonsense, workable strategies to hire for, coach for, and develop for accountability in
your workforce!

Participants will learn:

1. Gain a true understanding of the four elements of the competency of accountability
2. Adopt interviewing and hiring techniques through understand the relationship between accountability and engagement and become fluent in a new employee value metric that measures accountability
3. Understand the importance of coaching and mentoring in the development process and learn to practice a simple model for feedback including an introduction to a new developmental tool “Feedforward”
4. Gain familiarity with a variety of performance management techniques such as one on one sessions and hosting tough conversations.

Breakout Session 2

2-A Unleash Your Super Powers & Create Unstoppable Teams – Why Strengths Can’t Be Ignored Anymore, Megan Watt

Are individuals in your organization struggling and not engaged? This is an unfortunately common problem with over 70% of individuals not engaged at work. When leaders focus on weaknesses of their team, engagement is ONLY 9%, whereas when individuals and leaders identify and harness natural talents and abilities, engagement, productivity, and performance drastically increase!
 
In this interactive session participants identify and learn to leverage their super powers… the talents we are born with. Using her Gallup training Megan delivers an interactive strengths program to harness your team’s natural talents and abilities. Learn proven strategies for building a better and more effective team by pairing your own strengths with those of others. Participants will walk away with tools and resources they can implement immediately and start to see positive results. Strengths based teams are 43% more productive and 33-50% more profitable, take a step toward seeing these results in your team today!

Participants will leave energized and inspired to take action, specifically they will have …

• Easy to implement long and short term strategies to create a strengths based teams
• Understanding of why playing to strengths  is essential for increased employee engagement, especially for diverse workforces
• Clarity of their own strengths and how they can maximize their contribution to teams they lead or participate on

2-B  Driving Business Value for HR, Tracy McEachern

2-C Employment Law Update, Jennifer Mirus

Breakout Session 3

3-A   Business Readiness – Ensuring Our Teams Are Ready for What’s Next, - Cy Wakeman

Managing change and pursuing innovation is not a new topic, many in the leadership ranks have had numerous development opportunities on these topics and yet our teams are at times battle fatigued, remaining unaligned with overall strategic objectives and ill-prepared to deliver on organization goals of the near
future. So, what’s next? How can leaders go beyond just ensuring that change is least disruptive to their people and instead deliver up ready, willing and able teams who can ensure that change is least disruptive to the business? How can leaders move their teams beyond surviving change and instead make the call to greatness so that their teams are thriving in changing times, fueling innovation and fully aligned with the re-inventive of their organizations?
 
In this high energy session, Cy Wakeman will help leaders understand their heightened responsibilities in delivering teams and talent that are ready for what’s next along with strategies to ensure that teams able to quickly adapt and change and deliver on the needs of the organization to provide relevant, high-value, services in even mature markets. After all, change is only hard for the unready.

Participants will learn:

1. Modernize the leadership philosophy to focus on business readiness rather than outdated, traditional theories of change management
2. Provide strategies to ensure that leadership focus is on ensuring change is least disruptive to the business rather than attempting to make change least disruptive to the people
3. Highlight the typical and common leadership behaviors that sabotage vital change efforts and innovative strategies
4. Facilitate understanding of the causes and anecdotes to “change fatigue” and provide ways in which leaders can conserve team energy for highest possible ROI
5. Provide techniques and tools for leaders to incorporate in their daily practices to align their teams with organizational direction

3-B Fearless Coaching Conversations: Building Supervisory Coaching Skills that Reduce Fear while Building Commitment to Performance, Jeffrey Russell, Russell Consulting, Inc. 

Today’s managers and supervisors are often too busy to slow down and hold performance coaching conversations. And when you factor in the anxiety and stress of having these conversations, it’s understandable that too many of them are reluctant to put on their coaching hat.
In this session we’ll introduce an extraordinarily simple framework holding frequent and fearless performance coaching conversation. The magic lies in its simplicity and in a high degree of employee ownership over the process. In our approach, the coaching conversation is a collaborative dialogue for which both the supervisor and employee take responsibility.

You’ll leave the session with insights into such topics as:

• Methods to reduce the fear and anxiety from coaching conversations
• Strategies for building employee ownership over the process.
• The five magical questions to explore in every coaching conversation.
• The ideal frequency of performance coaching conversations.

As a result of participating in this session, GMA SHRM members will be able to:

• Focus on the right set of managerial skills to develop to facilitate fearless coaching conversations.
• Reduce fear and anxiety in both supervisors and employees when preparing for and conducting performance coaching conversations.
• Build employee ownership and shared responsibility for each performance coaching conversation.

3-C Employment Law Update, Jennifer Mirus