Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
February President’s Letter
New PerspectivesTammy Cowser, M.B.A., PHR, Chicago SHRM 2016 PresidentCHRO, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP
We have survived our first month of 2016, and I can’t believe it’s already February. As I write this on a very cold but sunny day, I wonder how many of us have kept our new year’s resolutions? There is something about a new year that helps us be more creative and get organized—we want to tidy up our offices, set our schedules to include more time to read, and to make time to get up and move throughout the day. But, as time goes, our energy and excitement can start to fade. So, I wonder how we can keep the fresh perspective alive and well for the entire year?
I believe HR professionals have many opportunities to keep ourselves and our organizations engaged and energetic by taking steps to consider the fresh perspectives that might be right in front of us. How many times do we take new employees through our typical onboarding process without much thought? Have we asked how our recruitment, onboarding and initial training efforts work from the new-hire perspective? Do we seek feedback and input from employees that are being promoted or moving to other companies? There is a wealth of information available to us if we ask and listen. This isn’t to discredit established knowledge and practices within our organization, but to consider things from a new angle to start a trajectory toward a new initiative—such as a new training program.
And, speaking of training programs, Chicago SHRM is poised to help you keep your perspective fresh. In February and March, we offer roundtable discussions on training and development ideas, a Legal Forum to refresh your knowledge of trending legal topics, and the March 9th Full-Day Conference—The Future of Work: Reinventing, Innovating, and Transforming HR. I know you’ll find the content, speakers and attendees a source of inspiring ideas to keep trying new strategies.
The idea of a fresh perspective came to mind when I was looking at all of the Chicago SHRM Board Members. I have friends on the board who have tremendous amounts of organizational knowledge—they have been with us for many years! There are also new board friends with wide-ranging experience and knowledge that will certainly flow into our conversations this year. We hope you will be pleased with the organization’s direction led by this diverse and dedicated mix of people--a reflection Chicago SHRM’s overall membership—a unique collection of professionals.
I encourage you to tap into Chicago SHRM and make new connections, attend educational events, and get to know our strategic partners. By doing so, you will be able to maintain the excitement and energy of the new year well through December, when it’s time to start thinking about our goals for 2017.
--Tammy Cowser
Upload photo
https://wordpress.com/post/chicagoshrm.wordpress.com/1603
HR Shoptalk
The Critical Need for Strategic HRBy Bill MugavinConsultant, FlashPoint
When asked why Indiana isn’t attracting and keeping enough IT top talent, Mike Langellier, CEO of TechPoint, told the audience at a recent public meeting that it’s “because too few organizations have a strategic HR function.” This isn’t a problem unique to Indiana or IT, however; all organizations regardless of geography or industry need to have a strategic HR function. None of us can afford to “burn and churn” our people anymore—there just aren’t enough individuals with needed skills—so we must all hire, develop, and retain the best. That takes an HR department filled with highly skilled professionals who are consciously aligned with the business strategy.
There’s a lot of talk about transforming “human resources” into “talent management,” a strategic function aligned with the organization’s strategic plan. That transformation cannot be merely the hollow window dressing of new titles and a simple plan. After all, a plan alone won’t earn HR a spot at the table with senior management if it’s not coupled with deadlines, metrics, and consistent actions that deliver needed results.
If you’re an HR professional, how can you become more strategic and more valued by the organization?
1. Raise your skills. Understand that business will never slow down—it will only speed up. That means each employee must bring more to the table. All of us need to grow our skills on a continual basis. No matter where you are in the HR hierarchy, get certified in HR. Get your PHR, SPHR, CPLP, or other designation. Finish your degree. If you’re certified and have a degree, consider getting an MBA. With or without tuition assistance, take charge of your own development. There’s no time like the present.
2. No matter your title—whether generalist or specialist—start thinking of yourself as a business-person first. You happen to specialize in talent management, and talent management is the key to meeting larger strategic-growth goals. Your decisions and actions can have an impact on the future of the organization. Reframe your priorities in order to become more valuable to your organization.
3. Build your business acumen and vocabulary. Read business publications and industry journals. Take a class. Learn about business and basic finance (how to develop a budget, read a P&L statement, etc.).
4. Immerse yourself in the business. Learn about your organization specifically. Who and where are your competitors? Where is your industry going and what is your organization’s place in it? Once a week have lunch with a different peer in a different business unit. What are your peers working on? What keeps them up at night? How can talent management assist? Partnering with management at all levels can happen only when management knows that you know the business.
5. Thoroughly understand your organization’s strategic plan and talent management’s role in achieving growth goals. Until you and each of your peers understand your role in taking the organization into the future, talent management will not have the brand it needs to influence individual managers or the executive team.
6. Become a technology wizard. More of the tactical elements of talent management—payroll, performance management, even the initial stages of talent acquisition—are becoming more automated. Simultaneously, your organization is utilizing project management software, advanced Excel, and more. Take a class. Make technology your friend.
Our organizations need more talent management professionals who can connect the dots, divine future needs, and deliver needed results in a timely manner. There will always be a role for the tactical elements of talent management, but as more departments automate certain functions and as individuals are given broader responsibilities, there will be fewer and fewer positions that are purely tactical. You can become a valued strategic thinker and doer.
Bill Mugavin is a consultant at FlashPoint. He focuses his consulting on talent systems and processes, as well as leadership and management development.
Upload photo
https://wordpress.com/post/chicagoshrm.wordpress.com/1609
HR Shoptalk
Employee Engagement
New Year’s Reflections on Job Engagement
By Kevin Sheridan, LLC
This time of year, it’s natural to become reflective; to reflect on the last year and on resolutions you have for the New Year.
One of my central messages in my keynote presentations is to encourage more reflection on job engagement. Roughly 60% of the worldwide workforce is not eEngaged or dDisengaged in their job, otherwise known as the middle category of aAmbivalence. A large reason so many people are stuck in this “blah” middle category is that they have not reflected on whether they are in the right job in the first place, or as Jim Collins said in his Best Seller Good to Great, “in the right seat on the bus.”
The great news is that we, as managers and employees, are already empowered to do something about it and re-cast ourselves into the right job or seat on the busjob. Ask yourself these types of questions and you may indeed find yourself re-calibrating your job description and job duties, or taking a completely different job in a different industry:
Does my job make the best use of my skills and abilities? Am I passionate about my job? Am I prideful about where I work? Do I consistently have fun at work? Am I proud to work with my coworkers?
These are only a few of the most useful questions to reflect upon in order to ensure you are fully engaged in your job. A more comprehensive list of job reflective questions is available on my website.
Are you in the right seat on the right bus? Don’t let another year pass by without being engaged.
Kevin Sheridan is an iInternationally-recognized keynoteKey-Note sSpeaker, a New York Times Best Selling aAuthor, and one of the most sought-after voices in the world on the topic of employee engagement. He spent thirty years as a high-level Human Capital Management consultant, helping some of the world’s largest corporations rebuild a culture that fosters productive engagement, earning him several distinctive awards and honors. Kevin’s premier creation, PEER®, has been consistently recognized as a long- overdue, industry-changing innovation in the field of Employee Engagement. His book, “Building a Magnetic Culture,” made six of the best- seller lists, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He is also the author of The Virtual Manager, which explores how to most effectively manage remote workers.
Links:Web page: www.kevinsheridanllc.comTwitter: @kevinsheridan12LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinsheridan1Email: [email protected]
HR Shoptalk
How To Get Started With Talent Analytics in 5 StepsBy Nicole DessainFounder & Chief Talent Strategist, talent.imperative
We generate 2 trillion gigabytes of data every day, including 80% from social media. The hype around “big data” is hard to avoid and has crept into the world of Human Resources. Business leaders increasingly demand answers to questions such as “Why can’t we predict who will be successful in our company?” and “Why are my high potentials leaving?”
For the first time, talent-related analytics and technology are getting the attention they deserve. We are at the cusp of what I describe in a recent talent.trends report as “talent.datafication” – the ability to quantify talent-driven organizational value creation and fundamentally change the way companies view talent and predict business outcomes.
But getting started with talent analytics can be daunting.
In a recent SHRM Chicago presentation, I debunked key myths about big data in HR and outlined 5 steps to get you started on your talent analytics journey:
1. Design a road map to predictive analytics. Don’t be concerned if you are still in reactive reporting mode. According to Deloitte, only 4% of companies use predictive analytics. Once you’ve determined your maturity level and defined your talent analytics goals, you can create a realistic roadmap that includes leadership and change-management factors.
2. Build an analytics structure. Key considerations: Design guiding principles – What are the ethics and ground rules for how we use
talent analytics in our organization? Establish governance – Monitor success, and ethical use of data Create coalitions – Especially with Finance (clearinghouse for operations data) and
IT (analytics tools) Identify capability – What types of skill sets and analytics tools do you need?
3. Instill a data-guided, self-reflective mindset. We make judgments about people within the first few seconds of meeting them, called unconscious bias. Case in point: The Corporate Executive Board surveyed 500 managers and 74% said their most recent hire had a personality “similar to mine.” Some company cultures as a whole are more intuitive than data-driven.
4. Empower leaders and employees with tools & education. Get to the bottom of what insights your leaders really want to know about their people and coach them on how to act on talent data. Empower your employees with data to drive better job fit and performance – research suggests that happiness at work depends greatly on feeling a sense of agency and mastery.
5. Balance needs for data privacy and transparency. According to the Conference Board, 63% of employees lack confidence that their company is keeping their data private. On the flip side, technology has completely changed the rules when it comes to privacy and security. HR should drive the discussion around ethical use of employee data and define guiding principles.
Most importantly: start small, get some wins under your belt, and don’t get discouraged!
Nicole Dessain was a speaker at Chicago SHRM’s Full-Day Fall 2015 Conference
Committee Leader Talk
Resolved: A Certification for 2016
By Paul Young, SHRM-SCP, SPHRCertification Committee Chair
Starting the New Year off right, I have something for everyone this month. Whether you’re already certified, considering becoming certified, or even brand new to HR, there’s something for you in this month’s column.
Considering CertificationWell, you’ve gone and done it: Decided to sit for your HR Certification.
Congratulations! This is a big step. You’re demonstrating a passion and dedication to the profession, a way to stand out among your peers, and a commitment to advancing your professional development though recertification activities.
It’ll pay to determine and plan your approach to studying early on. Both SHRM & HRCI have partnered with Chicagoland universities and other organizations on certification prep courses. Courses begin as early as March to prepare for exams this summer.
What about financial support? Will your employer assist with the costs of prep and/or the exam? What about a scholarship? The SHRM Foundation is expected to offer 185 $750 scholarships in 2016 for members seeking SHRM certification. You may be eligible even if you’ve already sat for a SHRM certification exam this year.
New to HRMaybe you don’t yet have the required combination of education and experience to sit for your certification of choice. What then? There are HR certification options for you to consider, even if you’re new to HR.
HRCI’s Associate Professional in Human ResourcesLast month, HRCI announced its new certification, the Associate Professional in Human Resources (aPHR). You are eligible to sit for this exam with a High School Diploma and no experience. The aPHR mirrors other HRCI offerings in that it is renewable in three years with enough recertification credits. Pilot program registration is open now.
SHRM’s Assurance of LearningSHRM offers its Assurance of Learning (AOL) certificate to those completing their HR degree. The AOL is non-renewable and demonstrates your level of HR mastery prior to PHR eligibility.
RecertificationFinally, for those of us who are already certified, now is a great time to review our recertification process and progress.
Are you on target to earn enough credits by your recertification date? Have you entered your recertification credits into the proper portal? Are there recertification credits you could have, but are leaving on the table? Review what
activities qualify for recertification credits. You may have earned more than you realize. Have you resolved to read more in 2016? Select a business book approved for
recertification credit.
ResourcesInformation, registration, and resources are available for their respective programs at shrm.org & hrci.org.
Regardless of your status, make this commitment to your professional self. And as always, if not now, when? Now’s the time to get it on the calendar and make it happen.
I’ll be back next month with another SHRM BoCK Competency Profile. See you then!
Comments? Let’s discuss.
[email protected]@hrpaulyoung
Committee Leader TalkCollege Relations Corner
The Loyola University HR Student Association (HRSA) sponsored a LinkedIn Profile workshop in the University’s Schreiber School of Business on November 9, 2015. More than 50 students attended this session. Dennis Nirtaut, HRSA faculty advisor, introduced the speaker, Matt Kerr, a Loyola graduate from the Laramie Group. His workshop provided practical advice and techniques on creating a LinkedIn profile that creates an individual branding statement. His in-depth understanding of the site was evident by his tips. At the end of the session, participants were offered the opportunity to have a headshot photograph taken their LinkedIn profile. Also in attendance was Brian DeFilippo, Chicago SHRM College Relations Committee Liaison for Loyola University and Kate Pierre, the President of the HRSA.
Strategic Partnership Message
Hey Service Providers… how visible are you?
Chicago SHRM is a great place to connect with the HR community, but if you’re not making the most of your involvement you could be getting lost in the fray. Do your potential customers know who you are?
We have a number of different ways, from small to large, to help you build better connections and earn more business. Contact me to learn how to get involved and get noticed in Chicago SHRM’s diverse community. Email me at [email protected] JohnsonChair, Strategic Partnerships
Professional & Career Strategies
3 Signs You’re Not Managing Pressure WellBy Bill Benjamin, Training and Performance ExpertInstitute for Health and Human PotentialAuthor, New York Times best-seller, “Performing Under Pressure”Bill Benjamin will be the Closing Keynote Speaker at Chicago SHRM’s Full-Day Conference on March 9.
In today's high-pressure world, you feel like you’re always on the line. You have to produce, perform, and get results or else. Every decision, meeting, and presentation feels like it has a major impact on your career. Many factors are contributing to the pressure: the recent economic meltdown, fierce competition for jobs, erosion of job stability, etc.
Pressure anxiety often becomes generalized to other aspects of your life. The perpetual feeling that you have to perform – and the underlying doubts about whether you can continue producing – leads to stressed conversations and relationships. Under pressure, you may unleash your distress on others – making more demands, expressed with a shorter temper. Often, the feelings become so unmanageable, emotional conflict is experienced regularly.
Here are three signs that you’re being derailed by pressure:
You imagine only negative outcomes. When facing your pressure moments - that big presentation, difficult client or crucial conversation - your default cognitive appraisal (how you perceive the impending event) is to imagine only potentially negative outcomes. This is known as cognitive distortions, which can be likened to a computer virus that causes your thinking component to “crash” and deliver errant data to your other performance components.
Cognitive distortions are so powerful they often create feelings of anxiety, helplessness, depression and/or anger. People who are frequently overwhelmed by stress and anxiety typically succumb to distorted thinking styles, needlessly intensifying the experience of pressure. These distortions can surface either before or during a pressure moment. Either way, this brand of thinking derails you.
You magnify the significance of your pressure moments. Magnification is an extreme exaggeration of a situation (making a mountain out of a molehill) – e.g., a sales call becomes “the most important” call of your career.
Because importance increases pressure, magnification in a pressure moment intensifies thoughts of fear and anxiety and worries about failure vs. success. These worry cognitions ironically become the ones that do stimulate real fear and anxiety, causing you to shrink your working memory. Magnification often happens when we become too attached to the outcome. While emphasizing the importance of a task might increase your effort, the extra pressure typically downgrades your performance.
Bill Benjamin will be the Closing Keynote Speaker at Chicago SHRM’s Full-Day Conference on March 9.
You treat every stressful moment as a pressure moment. The New York Times best-selling book Performing Under Pressure defines pressure moments as “stressful moments that matter”. Pressure moments have three characteristics:
The outcome is important The outcome is uncertain You are being judged on the outcome
When all three are in place, it's a pressure moment. The inability to distinguish pressure from stress can have dire consequences. Every stressful situation — a long meeting, a traffic jam — can start to feel like a pressure situation when, in fact, it’s a mild inconvenience that has no impact on your success.
When everything feels like its super- important, it intensifies distressful feelings. Confusing stressful situations for pressure moments, makes you react physically, mentally, and behaviorally in ways that are out of proportion to the circumstances.
How to perform under pressure
As the closing keynote speaker at the Chicago SHRM March 9 Full Day Conference, I’ll be sharing proven, actionable Pressure Solutions to help you be your best when it matters most. I’ll explain how you can become more aware of pressure moments, and how to avoid letting these pressure moments derail your best abilities.
Bill Benjamin is a training and performance expert at the Institute for Health and Human Potential (IHHP), which just launched the New York Times best-selling book Performing Under Pressure. Bill is a highly sought-after presenter on the topics of emotional intelligence and performing under pressure. He works with leading corporations including the U.S. Marines, Intel, NASA and Marriott, helping people maximize their success in pressure situations.
Professional & Career Strategies
“R” is for ResilienceBy Jerilyn WillinPrincipal, JWillin Consulting
The world of work is filled with obstacles and situations that cause stress. How is it that some people are felled by criticism, failure, or fear of change and others seem to take a deep breath, dust themselves off and keep right on going?
Resilience is the ability to rebound from a crisis. While fear and resistance to change may hold some back, resilience can help you rebound. Though often called “inner strength”, the good news is that it is not necessarily innate. Resilience can be learned.
How? Let’s take a look at what researchers have charted as the characteristics of resilient people. Here are four strategies research supports for becoming more resilient:
Get connected. Resilient people use social support to help them through the rough times. They open up to family or friends and allow others to help them get through the crisis.
Practice optimism. Resilient people challenge themselves to reframe situations in more positive terms. One could say they look for the silver lining. They’re not “Pollyanna”. They don’t deny the gravity. They make this acknowledgement, and seek a new way to look at the situation.
Numerous studies show that negative thinking can be a habit. Observe the spin you put on your experiences. When your thoughts turn negative, challenge yourself to reframe your thinking.
Stay healthy. Often when things get tough we are tempted to turn to “too much”. Too much food, too much alcohol, too much sleep. People with higher levels of resilience turn to exercise, healthy foods, plenty of water, and 7-8 hours of sleep.
Explore the spiritual. Spiritual doesn’t necessarily mean religious. It can mean a sense of “we are all in this together.” It can mean opening yourself to the wonders of nature, the calm of meditation, or the peace of silence.
Resilience does not eliminate stress or erase life's difficulties. At a certain age we realize that life isn’t fair, bad things happen to good people, and each of us will eventually have to dance with adversity. Resilience gives you a hand getting up when life knocks you down.
Don’t wait until the next time life deals you bad cards. Get started beefing up your resilience now. Start by answering the following questions:
How can you better connect with someone at work? Who can you turn to for support when things get dark? How can you re-frame a bad situation? Look back at an old crisis. From the safety of time,
can you find another way to see things? What is one healthy habit you can commit to?
Jerilyn Willin is a career strategies coach, workshop facilitator, and professional speaker. She works with individuals in transition in their careers and from their careers to the next stage of life. www.jerilynwillin.com
Career& Professional Development
Promotion Ready?By Harriet Di Cerbo, CPCPresident, Mosaic Path
It can be very frustrating when you're waiting to move up in your organization, but during that time, at least make sure you're doing all you can to demonstrate you're ready for promotion.
What does it take to get promoted? It starts with some obvious qualifiers, such as sufficient experience, demonstrated proficiency in your current job, a history of meeting your goals, etc. But, when it comes to looking at who to move up to the next rung of the ladder, management often looks at additional factors that aren't as easy to quantify. Here are some ideas to consider.
Get out of your comfort zone and practice diversity. And, I define that in a broad way to extend beyond basic factors such as age, sex, religion, etc., which should be a given. Senior management wants to know that the person who they will entrust with more responsibility and leadership will be someone who can be flexible, get along with a wide variety of people and situations, and demonstrate innovation. The guy who never talks to anyone besides his comfortable group of chums in the office will not be seen that way. The gal who’s known for taking basically the same approach for every situation will also not engender that confidence.
Be good at failing. Everyone makes mistakes, but the person who shows how well they can bounce back and learn from their blunders is seen as having the maturity and emotional intelligence to take on new situations and risks--a skill that's critical as you take on more and more responsibility.
Focus on helping others. Higher-level positions tend to be more about how you can inspire and enable others to do their best, and less about how well you perform basic functions of your job. Volunteer to help someone, even if it's not your direct responsibility. Or, show that you understand the challenges in other "silos" rather than always guarding your own territory.
And one last thing to remember about the ideas above: don't be afraid to toot your own horn. It would be ideal if your boss naturally noticed all the efforts you were making, but face it, he or she may be drowning in other priorities. Have a conversation or send a note just letting that person know that you tried something new, or that you're committed to focusing on a new practice. Sometimes we have to promote ourselves in order to get promoted!
Harriet Di Cerbo heads Mosaic Path (www.mosaicpath.com), a company devoted to talent development in leadership and communications. Her experience includes roles as a corporate HR leader, executive coach, consultant, trainer, and speaker. She helps clients using her keen understanding of the intricacies of human behavior and the subtleties of business.
Chapter Announcements
Call for Internship Partners
Looking for a summer intern? The Business Psychology department at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP) is inviting local businesses to post summer intern needs on its internship site.
About TCSPP’s Intern Program & Students: TSCPP partners with a variety of organizations and consulting firms in the Chicago area to provide talented 2nd year Organizational Psychology students to assist with and develop human capital, organizational, research-related projects, and more. Students are “engaged practitioners” and have a foundation in organizational development, human resources, research/statistical skills, employee selection, training, and employee surveys.
While serving their internship, students are enrolled in an online class where they discuss their experiences with their profess and peers to share lessons learned, reflect on their learning experience, and write reflective field notes.
Logistics: TSCPP will post your job description on their internship database. Eligible students submit their cover letter and resume, and you respond if interested. Some, but not all, internships are paid.
Schedule & Contact: The summer internship period runs May 9 - July 3. Students will begin their internship search in mid-March. If you are interested in becoming an internship partner, please contact Sharon Pappas, Ph.D. at [email protected].
Chicago SHRM In the News
Chicago SHRM Legislative Committee chair and labor and employment law attorney Phillip Schreiber was quoted in several SHRM articles: http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/laborrelations/articles/pages/wal-mart-surveillance.aspx http://www.shrm.org/legalsues/federalresources/pages/chicago-police-officers-overtime.aspx
Chicago SHRM Event Photos
January 2016 Roundtable discussion, “New Year, New You: Creating & Communicating Your Professional Brand” was produced by the Transition Ambassadors Committee and was held at law firm, Laner Muchin, Ltd.
