$1000 GMA SHRM Professional Grant

Application opens February 1, 2018

Application Deadline Friday, April 13, 2018

The Greater Madison Area Society for Human Resource Management (GMA SHRM) has established a professional awards program encouraging continuing education in the human resources field.

The annual $1,000 award will be given to a GMA SHRM member to support his or her professional development.

Examples of covered eligible programs include:

• Attendance at a National/State SHRM conference
• Post-secondary degree in business or human resources related discipline
• Support of certification or re-certification (PHR, SPHR, GPHR, SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, CCP, CEBS, etc.)
• Certificate programs in business or human resources related discipline

Click here for information.

March Professional Development Summit - Focus: Engagement

March 20, 2018 - Alliant Energy Center

Session 1:  Connecting Core Values to Workplace Culture for Engagement and Retention
Presented by:   Jacy Imilkowski, Building Balance, LLC

Gold Partner Sponsor:

Session 2:  Creating an Engaged Workforce in Times of Constant Disruption
Presented by: Don MacPherson

Gold Partner Sponsor:

More information and registration.

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The Keys to Success in a Disruptive Business Climate

Submitted by: Don MacPherson, Founder, 12 Geniuses and the 12 Geniuses Foundation.
Don is a guest speaker for the upcoming March GMA SHRM PDS 

Never in human history have people been able to provide as much value to their organizations as they do today. Never have people had the level of mobility between organizations as they do now. And never have multi-billion dollar business been so easily disrupted.
 
Near limitless value creation from employees, their mobility, and business disruption are three reasons why companies around the world are focused on realizing their ideal cultures and engaging employees at all levels. However, these factors also make the degree of difficulty for attaining a highly engaged workforce much greater.

The reality is most companies are failing to provide the work experience employees crave. According to Aon’s Trends in Global Employee Engagement, less than two-thirds of employees around the world are engaged at work. That means more than a third are passive or actively disengaged.
 
There is a threat that, if unaddressed, this will make high engagement impossible to achieve. Rapid technology advancement is disrupting established businesses every day and there is no sign of it slowing. Artificial Intelligence is changing the way doctors diagnose diseases, accountants file taxes, and lawyers draw up contracts. Advanced robotics threatens jobs in construction and farming, and will completely transform the transportation industry with driverless vehicles and drones.
 
The companies that fail to anticipate and evolve as these threats loom will perish. Their cultures will crumble and employees will lose any interest in being engaged. In contrast, companies that proactively prepare themselves and take advantages of these changes will thrive.
 
In order to position your company to thrive, a two-pronged approach is necessary. First, your talent strategy has to be designed with the future in mind. Second, your leaders need to prepare your current employees for the changes years--not months--in advance.
 
Talent Strategy
One area your talent strategy needs to focus is on the people you are hiring. It is no longer enough to select for fit and skills to do the job for which you are currently hiring. It is imperative to build organizational adaptability by hiring people who have agility to move from the role you need filled now to the roles your organization will need in the future. Ensuring your selection process is identifying candidates who are agile and will evolve with future needs is the starting point for building a future-proof workforce.

It is natural to expect culture and engagement strains during periods of disruption. A healthy culture helps ensure employees will engage in the right behaviors. Lose focus on your ideal culture and you can expect people or teams will engage in efforts that suit an agenda that may not be in the best interest of the company. Senior leadership needs to help people understand the importance of culture and why your culture may need to change in order to remain relevant. Frequent measurement of culture and engagement is critical too. An annual survey of employee opinions no longer works for most organizations. The needs of businesses and employees change too quickly.
 
Leaders Navigate Through the Change
In times of turmoil, leaders need to acutely navigate their people through the chaos. It’s important that your leaders have the ability to:

• Stabilize the situation
• Have career path discussions
• Help identify skill gaps and suggest ways to remedy those gaps
• Connect with others

Stability – When the future is unclear, rational thought can vanish. Leaders need to be a calming influence and communicate that there is a way forward. People can much more easily endure challenging situations when they know there is hope ahead.
 
Career Discussions – One of the most productive ways of stabilizing an individual or team is to have one-on-one conversations about viable career opportunities. The time to do this is many months in advance of a skillset becoming irrelevant. This gives the employee time to put a plan in place and begin to execute on it. It also buys a great deal of loyalty from the employee and manifests itself into great engagement and performance.
 
Skill Gaps – Productive conversations about careers are effectively augmented by a candid assessment around skill strengths and deficiencies. Brutal candor is necessary here and many leaders will have to overcome the desire to spare feelings.
 
Connection – When times are difficult people seek out other people for support. They want understanding. They want to know they aren’t alone. Great leaders know this and work to build connection between individuals on their teams and within the organization.

The next five years will see as much change in technology and business disruption as we saw in the last ten. Organizations that future-proof themselves by selecting agile candidates, focusing on culture and engagement, and building leadership capabilities to manage through the change will be the ones that flourish and profit from these changes.
 

Assessments:  A significant (but small) investment in the development of your company

Submitted by: Cory Erickson, President & CEO, Career Momemtum

Why do companies use assessments when hiring new employees or when making internal promotion decisions?  Because they want to add objectivity to the hiring or promotion decision process.  Quite often, human resources professionals and line managers can learn more about their candidate or employee by using assessments in their placement decision processes.
 
One of the newest assessments on the market is the PXT Select™.  PXT Select helps make the very human decisions about hiring and promotion simpler and smarter.  It measures a candidate’s cognitive abilities, behaviors, and interests, three areas that impact an individual’s approach to situations in the workplace.  Assessment results equip organizations and decision makers with easy to understand information about the candidate, and provide intuitive questions to strengthen the interview process.  Companies find they interview better and hire smarter.
 
PXT Select’s suite of twelve reports (all for the cost of one administration) help organizations to select, onboard, coach, and develop employees.  Three of the reports are written specifically for sales-oriented roles.
 
Assessments are frequently used to reduce turnover in high-turnover positions.  Often, turnover is significantly reduced after investing in an assessment process.
 
The cost of assessments is often a question when employers are considering their use.  It is important to consider this cost against the cost of turnover of the position.  Commonly accepted guidelines for cost of turnover for a position is in the 1.5 times annual salary range for non-exempt positions and can be as high as 2 times annual salary (and higher) for exempt and executive level positions.  When one considers the cost of an assessment and the high value received by the organization of the assessment results in comparison to the cost of turnover, it is a wonder more assessments are not used in selection and promotion situations.  In the end, enlightened employers realize assessments are not a cost but an investment in the future success of the individual and the company.
 
As an example, consider an $80K annual salary project manager position.  ABC Company interviews five candidates on-site for the position.  All five take the assessment, costing the company approximately $1000.  This investment is quite small in comparison to making a bad hire and having the position turn over in 6 months after hire, resulting in a cost of turnover of $120 to 160K!  It becomes even less of a concern when you consider the project manager may work in the role for 5 years or longer!  For these reasons many employers view the cost of assessments as a necessary investment in company success.
 
If you are looking to address hard-to-fill roles or high turnover roles, many experts recommend you should consider using assessments to invest in improving the quality of your hires or promotions.

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Recruitment with a Comprehensive Mobility Program

Submitted by: Nadya Nahirniak-Hansen, Director of Relocation Services, Restaino & Associates, Realtors

The past several years has seen a spike in employee relocation and growth is projected to continue at a similar rate if not increase. The US unemployment rate continues to decrease and Companies are struggling to find the workers they need which will bring us tougher recruiting in 2018.  
 https://www.forbes.com/sites/marissaperetz/2018/01/10/hiring-predictions-for-2018-what-the-job-market-wages-and-ai-will-look-like-this-year/#126ed51b614c  
 
If you are relocating current employees or new hires, having a formal mobility program is significant for attracting, involving and retaining top talent in your company.  And a Comprehensive Relocation Plan must encompass all aspects of the move.  With a mobility program and formalized policies in place, it will give you the edge and is critical in this competitive talent market. 
 
Employees new to your company have enough stress moving locally let alone relocating from another city or state.  As you offer varying degrees of relocation assistance, studies show that your new hire will be more engaged and more valuable to the Organization and your retention of that employee will be greater.  Candidates appreciate talent mobility programs and the employee experience is the true measure. 
 
Corporations devote considerable attention on employee relocation as it's critical to having the right person in the right place at the right time, whether hiring new or transferring an existing employee.  Relocating an employee needs to be done in an efficient, cost-effect and concerned way.  A program should include everything an employee might need to make a smooth transition.   Examples may include departure/destination relocation counseling, community introduction trip, community tours, home-finding trips which could include a home purchase program with incentives, mortgage assistance, relocation allowance, dual career assistance, Household Goods Transportation, Renter's Assistance/Lease breaking, school tours, settling in services, tax protection, temporary living, language/culture training, miscellaneous allowances, expense reimbursement .  
​
Flexible Benefits Programs for Relocating Employees and things to consider may include Lump Sum (inclusive/managed), Tiered, Managed, Cafeteria-style, Direct Reimbursement and more.  ​
 
Turning to specialized providers of relocation assistance can help safeguard the entire process, whether a small geographically specialized company to a Conglomerate handling hundreds of relocation's each year and responsible for orchestrating the entire transition.  Building a partnership with a trusted partner will help ease the transition for you and your employees.  ​The GMA SHRM offers Members who can assist with your Mobility Program and Relocation needs.
 
Resources
 
www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/companies-offer-flexible-benefits-relocating-employees.aspx
​
Worldwide ERC – Facts & Statistics involving Research to include Costs of US Domestic Transfer Household Goods, sign on bonus and more; Reports & Surveys; Resources for Expatriates; Mobility Magazine Archived Articles; Globility Bi-monthly eNewsletter covering global mobility issues, Tax & Legal Fundamentals and Information;  and much more.  Some great information is available to you even if you are not a Worldwide ERC member. 
​
www.Worldwideerc.org/Resources 
​
Relocation Directors Council – Real Estate Market Data Reports
​ - www.relocationdirectors.org


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