If you cannot feel it radiating through your screen, let me tell you, I’m pretty excited! In a matter of weeks, I’ll be arriving to Washington, D.C. with possibly the best cohort of people you could ever want to conference with. No sarcasm: HR people are the best – we make a difference in people’s lives, we get to work in every industry, and we get to contribute to easily the most interesting part of work – the people! We share, we get energized by improving things, we challenge each other and we’re open to doing things differently.
Whether you hail from the U.S. or not, you need to know that those of us that don’t hear a lot about HR in America. Google any hot topic employment issue, and there’s a company in Silicon Valley dealing with it in a gobsmackingly creative way. Google the ‘death of HR’, and you’ll find a plethora of passionate HR bloggers who, mostly from the USA, are debating how we continue to evolve and shape the world around us. What about Twitter? Where are the best tweetchats happening? Well SHRM are running them! Google paid maternity leave… ok… maybe not a good example?
Obviously the impressive line-up of speakers is a big draw card for the conference. And because of this, one of my most challenging tasks is going to be deciding what I must attend versus what I really, really, really want to attend. If I start sharing my list at this stage, it’s actually just a transcript of the whole line up – proving for once and all that I still need to do some serious reviewing of the seemingly thousands of sessions on offer before my arrival.
This will be my first SHRM Conference this year, and the anticipating is killing me – meeting the other bloggers and SHRM-ers will be excellent! The amount of collaboration and sharing that happens within the HR community on social media is true warm-fuzzy material. A few of the bloggers are even doing a fantastic seminar on social media strategies for HR and business goals (it’s an additional session on the Saturday run by Sharlyn Lauby, Jonathan A. Segal, Craig Fisher, and Aliah D. Wright). I highly recommend this one if you’re thinking about dipping your toe in the water on social media or just want to learn from the best.
The SHRM community and its international impact have been highlighted for me through Steve Browne who has connected many of us internationals with the great minds at SHRM (a big hi to Andrew, Mary, John & team!). The global network this event enables is mind-blowing – the opportunity to interact with other attendees is fantastic. HR is so broad! We work in so many places and industries, have different approaches to strategy and delivery. And yet the common experience means that when you meet anyone in our industry, you instantly have 10 similar issues and opportunities – and the great thing about HR people is they’re willing to share and help each other out.
Along these lines – please do approach me and other bloggers at the conference – we’ll be furiously mashing a keyboard with one hand, having a phone in the other (possibly also pockets full of chocolate), while manically sharing and interacting with others on social media. But if you want to discuss how to engage and better access this wonderful online community, I’m sure every single one of us would love to share our passion with you.
I’m looking forward to meeting you in June – now just to prepare my cork hat, my pet kangaroo and pack the bags! (Just kidding. I’m actually a Kiwi living in Australia, so it will be bringing a rugby ball and hobbit slippers.)
Happy conferencing!
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For more information and to attend SHRM 2016 Annual Conference & Exposition, visit www.annual.shrm.org.
This article was first published at SHRM
Renée Robson 