Morning Keynote:  Bob Kelleher - Louder Than Words - 10 practical Employee Engagement Steps... That Drive Results  Pre-approved for Strategic Credit

This presentation by acclaimed employee engagement author and thought leader, Bob Kelleher reinforces the key steps necessary to build and sustain an engaged culture, and capture the “discretionary effort” of your employees (effort that drives business results!).

Key take-a-way points include:

• 10 Key Engagement Steps To Drive Business Results, including:
  • Communication tools, technologies to maximize engagement
  • How to individualize engagement, and engage Gen X and Gen Y
  • Specific steps to create a culture of accountability and measurement
  • Practices and tools to reinforce and reward the desired behavior
  • How to hire the ideal behaviors and traits to succeed in your culture
  • Tools and approaches to engage first time leaders
  • Steps to create a motivational and innovative culture
• Practical real life applications and tools to accelerate and sustain engagement efforts
• Suggested ideas and tools to measure and sustain engagement
• Leveraging social media to brand yourself as an “Employer of Choice”

Breakout Session 1

1-A Data-Driven Leadership Development: Ensuring Efficiency of Your Efforts, Trevor Nagle
Pre-approved for Strategic Credit

Trends in developing leaders are constantly shifting, with the method du jour appearing in the pages of leading publications, in emails, and as web pop-ups on nearly any site business leaders visit.  How are leaders to know which approaches to leadership development are most effective?  Leadership development is not touchy feely and ambiguous, a necessary, but feel good way to engage employees.  Rather, as many As organizations seek to build bench strength and enhance current leadership competencies, understanding the role of data and measurement in development programs is critical. 

Within this session, participants will learn:

• The importance of statistical evaluation in leadership development programming
• Methods for preliminary screening of leadership development programs and vendor selection
• The necessary steps for ensuring on-going measurement of leadership development beyond the selection of an approach or program, i.e., operationalizing measurement as a driving factor of leadership development.
   

1-B Health Care Reform - Are You Prepared?  Spring 2012 Update, Adam Jensen

The health care reform debate in the United States has been a political issue for many years, focusing upon increasing coverage, decreasing the cost and social burden of healthcare, insurance reform, and the philosophy of its provision, funding, and government involvement.

The U.S. has the highest healthcare costs relative to the size of the economy (GDP) in the world, with an estimated 30 million citizens (approximately 10% of the population) without insurance coverage. Further, an estimated 77 million Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age, which combined with significant annual increases in healthcare costs per person will place enormous budgetary strain on U.S. state and federal governments. The long-term fiscal health of the U.S. federal government is primarily related to whether healthcare costs can be brought under control.

Recent Health care reform has been enacted via two bills: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which became law on March 23, 2010 and was quickly amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (which became law on March 30). No Republicans voted in favor of either bill.
So where does that leave us today? With the threat of an appeal looming, what should HR Leaders focus on now to comply with the law but also prepare their organizations for the future . . . whatever that may hold?

The presentation will detail recent changes and clarifications to health care reform; actions taken by the courts and state governments; political pressures on health care reform; possible scenarios for repeal, modification, or non-funding of health care reform; reactions and attitudes of employers; demographic and economic changes in the U.S. and possible long-term scenarios for health care in the U.S.

Participants will learn:

• What  recent clarifications have been made by government agencies
• What developments have taken place with the numerous federal court cases
• What actions employers are taking nationally in response to reform
• How health care delivery in the U.S. may change in the future
   

1-C Resilience and Renewal: Being Your Best so You can Give Your Best, Lori Gibson

When was the last time you spent time on YOU?  Our days are scheduled from morning 'til night with work, family, volunteer time, household chores...the list goes on and it gets awfully full!  Add to that the fact that we are doing all of this in times of change and challenge around us.  Building our capacity for resilience and self-renewal is a core competency, especially for people who are in professions like OD and Human Resources, where your job involves helping others succeed.  It's tough to help others when we are not caring for ourselves first!

• Understanding the concept of resilience.
• How paying attention to the four dimensions of human nature helps us stay resilient and focused on continuous self-renewal (physical, spiritual, social/emotional, intellectual).
• What's important to each individual is different -  so each participant will leave with a personal action plan for self-renewal focused on helping them be their best.

Afternoon Keynote:  Paul Wesselmann- Leveraging Social Capital: Fresh Approaches to Workplace Relationships

HR Professionals already appreciate the value of the people around us, but we are sometimes guilty of squandering the potential of these connections.
We will explore a dynamic perspective on building and maintain professional relationships, strengthening communication, and facing conflict with style and grace. If you have ever wanted to strangle a whiner, scream at someone who sent you an angry email, or go in a corner and cry after a difficult phone call, you'll enjoy our luncheon keynote.
 

Breakout Session 2

2-A-Fearless Reviews: Transforming Performance Reviews into Coaching Conversations, Jeff Russell
Pre-approved for Strategic Credit
 

The traditional performance review is one of the most feared activities in organizations today. Managers feel ill-prepared for conducting them effectively and employees seem to dread them with a passion. It doesn’t have to be this way. Conducting a fearless performance review involves a transformational approach that focuses more on the quality of the conversation and less on the evaluation and judgment that causes so much needless suffering. Developing the core performance coaching conversation skills in your managers is a key step in this transformation. The skills behind performance coaching enable insight to replace anxiety, learning to replace fear, and discovery to replace dread. In this session you will learn the values and behaviors of the Mutual Learning Mindset at the core of the coaching conversation, the competencies that are crucial to the quality of this conversation, and practical steps for developing these competencies in both managers and employees. If you are looking for an innovative approach for helping your managers conduct fearless performance reviews, this session is for you. You will leave the session with practical ideas for enabling effective performance coaching conversations.

As a result of participating in this session, you will be able to:

• Identify the barriers to learning, growth, and development embedded in the traditional performance review.
• Develop a framework within your organization for guiding performance management called the Mutual Learning Mindset.
• Analyze and apply an innovative model for fearless performance reviews that is grounded in the Mutual Learning Mindset and enacted through performance coaching conversations.
• Create an action plan for developing the competencies that support performance coaching conversations.

John Conway

Tony Mcgrath

Elizabeth Erickson

2-B Equal Rights Division: Who, How and Why do I need to know all this stuff?, Tony McGrath, Elizabeth Erickson & John Conway
 

• how to work with their attorneys on claim prevention and conducting internal investigations
• key strategic steps to take should you need to deal with a claim
• best kept secrets of the ERD program.

2-C Employment Law Update, Jennifer Mirus
Pre-approved for Strategic Credit

The world of employment law continues to evolve and create potential pitfalls for employers.  We have seen record numbers of discrimination filings and government audits, and HR professionals must stay up with current developments to protect their organizations.

• Key changes to the ADA and the impact on reasonable accommodation
• National Labor Relations Board requirements that all employers must understand
• Key cases under federal and state law
• Key legislative developments

• What language should be removed from your offer letters, agreements and policies
• How the EEOC's upcoming initiatives may impact your workplace
• Key HR information managers must know to protect your organization

Breakout Session 3

3-A Encouraging Inclusion: Leadership and the Art of Nurturing Diversity, Paul Wesselmann

Ongoing conversations around helping all individuals feel included and engaged are essential even after we already “get it.” This dynamic session will lead us through a series of useful, engaging and fun
activities/discussions that will allow us to explore more deeply the challenges and opportunities of working in a diverse environment.  We will also examine how to be more effective at jumpstarting some of the difficult discussions around these issues.  In addition to an overview of broader diversity issues, there will be a specific LBGT focus during some activities.

• initiate diversity-related activities/modules with decreased participant(and presenter!) anxiety
• adapt 4 interactive activities for immediate use in meetings/presentations
• identify and utilize several resources to periodically freshen content

3-B Social Media Policy and the Workplace, Jane Clark

This presentation reviews the necessary components of an effective social media policy and what employers need to know, fear and consider in implementing and enforcing a policy. Special attention is given to recent and pending cases and how the fact patterns should inform employers’ actions.

• The necessary components of an effective social media policy
• How to implement and enforce a social media policy
• A review of recent and pending cases to inform employer's actions in drafting, implementing and enforcing their social media policy

3-C Employment Law Update, Jennifer Mirus
Pre-approved for Strategic Credit
 
The world of employment law continues to evolve and create potential pitfalls for employers.  We have seen record numbers of discrimination filings and government audits, and HR professionals must stay up with current developments to protect their organizations.

Issues to be addressed will include:
•Key changes to the ADA and the impact on reasonable accommodation
•National Labor Relations Board requirements that all employers must understand
•Key cases under federal and state law
•Key legislative developments