Tag: networking

AHRI, Australian HR, Career, Human Resources, Leadership

5 Key Takeaways From The AHRI Awards

@ReneeRoberz

AHRI get a lot of things right for me as an association – they work incredibly hard (every employee or volunteer I’ve met have confirmed this), they listen to their membership, and they lead with the genuinely good intent that our profession can be better and can create better work environments for others.

Last week I attended the AHRI Awards, a national event that I have never had the opportunity to go to before. It was fabulous. Not just because of the great MC (Peter Berner), performances & food – but for the great conversations and stories that were shared throughout the evening.

The “people profession”, as described by Lyn Goodear, came together to celebrate the hard work of both individuals and workplaces in bettering work for others.

Ok, ok, ok – without further ado, here are my 5 key takeaways from the event:

1. Individual awards are where it’s at

The first two acceptance speeches for the night really set the tone, both giving heartfelt thanks to their teams, mentors and managers who believed in them. It was a timely reminder that no matter how busy you are, how much you’ve got going on, the support you give those in your team will make an impact far bigger than you realise at the time.

There is amazing talent coming through in the field of HR and I’m excited about the impact and change that this will inevitably bring.

2. Diversity & inclusion is where all the cool work is happening

The HR Diversity Champion Award as a really big one for me. The Defense Force isn’t necessary an employer that I would have picked as a front runner in innovative HR practice (which I full well acknowledge may be my own denseness) but I was really impressed with Shane Cox’s work in providing career pathways for indigenous youth.

3. The numbers of people with AHRI certification are growing

I’m really enjoying the growing professionalisation of HR in Australia, largely due to the efforts of AHRI. Certification was a topic of conversation at the awards – which definitely prompted me to reflect on exactly when I will be getting my A into G on that one!

4. AHRI = genuine advocacy

A message I heard loud and clear – not just from AHRI (because what member association isn’t going to advocate this), but from volunteers, staff members, and from what efforts are recognised makes it clear, we are fortunate to have this be our professional association.

I heard multiple times from the winners in their acceptance speeches of the honour of their work being recognised by AHRI. What AHRI is doing is celebrating work that is changing the way others work, interact and experience their own work. Work that is genuinely changing peoples’ lives.

5. Conversations!

The AHRI Awards was a fabulous opportunity to get out and meet (and reconnect with) people who do great HR. Sometimes life can get busy and its easy to forget, or just not prioritise, meeting new people and listening to what makes them tick. I was lucky enough to sit next to someone who had also rejoined the workforce, and changed role, soon after becoming a parent for the first time. I got to hear about the fascinating experiences of someone who has moved into HR after a long career in energy. These conversations, among others, were a good reminder that its easy to get caught up in your own bubble and forget to take the time to learn from others.

I had such a brilliant night. Not just because of the organ (OMG THE ORGAN), the showtunes from Wicked, the Phantom, Les Mis & Jersey Boys, but because of the honour of being around people that are so brilliant at what they do that they inspire me to be better.

Human Resources, SHRM, SHRM18

1 Week Until #SHRM18!

@ReneeRoberz

With less than 1 week until #SHRM18 I realised there was an amazing #NextChat on Twitter that I missed that would make a great share in anticipation of the conference.

(A ‘tweetchat’ for the uninitiated, is basically an hour or so of open, collaborative discussion over Twitter, using a specific hashtag.)

Something you may not be aware of is that alongside the SHRM18 Conference & Expo, SHRM are hosting the WFPMA (World Federation of People Management) World Congress. I’m particularly interested in this, as the current President is the Australian HR Institute’s very own Peter Wilson. 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

So, as well as getting incredibly excited for the #SHRM18 lineup, I’m also keen to hear more from the global track of the conference, which has particular interest for those of us attending internationally.

Right! Let’s get to it. Eight questions to prepare you for #SHRM18:

What are some basic do’s and don’t’s for a SHRM Annual Conference?

Do: bring a charger and talk to as many people as you can.

Don’t: wear new shoes or get hung up on planning out every second of your experience. The best stuff is always spur of the moment.

What is your No. 1 goal for attending #SHRM18, and how are you planning to accomplish it when there?

Talk to as many people as possible about global HR trends. I’m noticing more and more the ‘hot topics’ are international in nature rather than country specific.

Thousands of HR pros will attend #SHRM18. What advice can you share for successful networking in such a large crowd?

Ask people about what brought them to #SHRM18 – often there’s a particular challenge/area of interest where you can find common experience.

What are your picks and recommendations for #SHRM18 “must-see” sessions and speakers, and why?

Oh my gosh so many! But definitely Steve Browne & Charles Jennings. I’m also booked in for much of the global HR track (which Charles, Brad Boyson & Eric Owski are all a part of – all of whom I’ve completed Q&As with recently).

Also I want to see all the official SHRM Bloggers who are speaking but realistically I think my ‘must see’ list in the conference app (which is amazing BTW) is getting very, very full… I’ve got so many sessions I want to see I’ll never know where to go!

What are some important etiquette guidelines when visiting the SHRM Annual Conference exposition hall?

Be thoughtful – as good as the swag can be, be considered in where you spend your time. What are your biggest challenges? What vendors may be able to help you look at those challenges in a different way?

What SHRM18 Expo Hall vendors and solutions are you most excited about visiting and learning more about?

Finding the gems I’ve never heard of before. Expo’s are a great opportunity to see new products/services that you may not get to see/hear about/question otherwise.

What are the top three things attendees might forget to take to — or bring back from — a SHRM Annual Conference?

Phone charger. Reusable coffee cup. Phone charger. 📱 ☕️ 📱

What are the best ways to demonstrate the value and return on investment of your #SHRM18 attendance to your organization’s senior leaders?

Come back armed with new ideas and new ways of looking at old problems. Vendors, speakers and the random person you chat to in the lunch line are all your allies here

See you there!

#SHRM17, Career, Human Resources, Working in People & Culture

Heading to #SHRM17 as an International Attendee?

@ReneeRoberz

Last year I attended SHRM for the first time – it was spectacular!

Attending as an international delegate, the scale of the conference was mind-blowing – much bigger than anything I’ve attended in Australia or New Zealand. I was surprised with the number of international participants, but to be honest the biggest takeaway for me was the calibre of attendees and speakers alike.

This year the conference is in New Orleans – somewhere that would be amazing to get to!

SHRM17StreetSignLOGO

It wasn’t just the keynotes either (although they were pretty spectacular all round) – the value I got from the other attendees – in particular, the organisers, volunteers, bloggers and the people I met in the lunch lines was the absolute highlight. Being able to share in their enthusiasm for rethinking how we engage with people in our organisations and witness the evolution of HR was career changing.

As a first time attendee I relied a huge amount on the SHRM Blogger articles and the guides published on the conference website. The scale being much bigger than anything I’d interacted with before was a little (edit: a lot) daunting: multiple streams, concurrent sessions, a large venue, all meant that relying on advice from the experts in planning my time was invaluable.

Things to consider for international attendees?

  1. Check out the international lounge – you will meet a huge variety of people and it’s nice to have a ‘base’ to work from.
  2. Read up on the SHRM Blogger articles. These are the people to take advice from, veteran SHRM attendees and new additions alike, they’ve scoped some of the hottest speakers and expo attendees and will point you towards all the hidden treasures of the conference.
  3. The Smart Stage is absolutely the place to be when you’ve found yourself with a bit of time (and there’s undoubtedly a number of speakers that you want to schedule into your conference time too) – but the ‘aha!’ moments I had when just sitting down for half an hour were some of the highlights of my SHRM16 time.
  4. Plan plan plan! No you don’t have to plan down to every minute (unless that’s your thing – then go nuts!) but make sure you’ve had a good look through the schedule and find your top picks – the venue is big and if you have a must-see you don’t want to miss out because that session was at the other end of the venue or you got lost (see step 5 for getting lost).
  5. Make use of the friendly volunteers. Unless you’re a conference location savant you will be thanking your lucky stars for the hundreds of volunteers who will point you towards the bathrooms with the smallest lines, direct you to your next session and let you know where the lost property stash is for that bag you left behind!
  6. Get on to the message boards – there are the official SHRM ones you get access to with your ticket, but there will also be numerous Facebook groups spring up where people will organise dinners and you’ll hear about events happening over the time of the conference. If you’re not one to normally get out of your shell make this the exception – I’ve never met such a welcoming group of people as at these events, some who have become wonderful friends.

The most important thing to do though? Have fun! Open your mind and listen to a few speakers that have different points of view than you. Make it a mission to speak to as many different people as you can and make the most of what will be one of the best professional learning experiences you can hope for.

 

This blog post was first published at the SHRM blog for the #SHRM17 conference.

#SHRM16, #SoMe, Reflective practice, Social Media & Learning, Working in People & Culture

The HR World is Becoming More Connected

@ReneeRoberz

I have LOVED the #SHRM16 conference and it has really forced me to get out and meet some fantastic people – both ones that I’ve had the opportunity to connect with online and also some completely new friends.

That’s the amazing thing about our HR world becoming more and more connected. Having worked across Australia and New Zealand it was the advent of social media allowing professionals to share and collaborate that really changed the game for me. All of a sudden, it wasn’t just the few having access to information about HR in other organisations and countries through printed journals, conferences and site visits. The many can now collaborate, share and create together, coming together on Twitter, LinkedIn, through blogs and vertical platforms (and many other ways) to work across industries and oceans.

The effect this is having on HR is massive. Our employees were already globalising through migration – but now our HR approach is globalising. We’re being able to access information about state of the art employee attraction schemes happening in the USA, learning and development taking a front seat in the UK and I’m able to talk to the creators of such things through Twitter, Skype and a host of other social platforms. People, and companies, are sharing more: the session from Craig Briscoe and Jenn Saavedra from Dell was a testament to that, an excellent example of a large company inviting others to learn from their journey.

It is through social media that I connected with the good folks at SHRM and had the opportunity to get closer to a whole new world of ways to approach people at work. I had initially used social media professionally as tool to observe – I began to follow some prolific HR and learning experts on Twitter and the more they shared the more engaged in this community I became. I began to share content that was relevant to me and then began to blog myself, I also engaged in tweetchats, LinkedIn groups, discovered more great resources and authors and also began to share this knowledge and my own journey in real life.

Often the ‘social media role’ is, by default, given to a millennial. What is critical to remember is that while these technological changes may be most associated with millennials it does not mean they’re the most expert in the subject, nor that those changes aren’t impacting other generations just as much. In fact, one of the most prolific tweeters I know in Australia is a baby boomer L&D professional who has taught me a huge amount about the value of social media in learning.

My breakthrough HR moment from SHRM16? It, without a doubt, has been that technology has the power to change the world for the positive. Sal Kahn moved every single person present in the closing keynote describing the impact that Kahn Academy has had on people the world over. I was very misty eyed (OK, I was tearing up) when Kahn described the emailed letters of impact from his students from children and their parents around the word. This man has changed the world with his “delusional optimism” and I’m so happy that the world has embraced his message.

Don’t be scared of technology. Don’t think it is something that you can’t learn because you’re of a certain generation or the couple of times you’ve dipped your toe in the water you’ve found it confusing. The power to connect is incredibly powerful and technology is a great way for you to access a world of people who are willing to help you, your organisation and your employees develop.

Just try it.

SHRM connected.png

 

This article was first published at https://blog.shrm.org/blog/the-hr-world-is-becoming-more-connected-shrm16 

Career, Social Media & Learning, Working in People & Culture

From Melbourne Australia to Washington D.C. for #SHRM16

@ReneeRoberz

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!

 

—-

 

For more information and to attend SHRM 2016 Annual Conference & Exposition, visit www.annual.shrm.org.

This article was first published at SHRM

 

#SoMe, Brand, Uncategorized

Accepting (Or Rejecting) LinkedIn Invites

@ReneeRoberz

I love connecting with new people online. I often make connections through Twitter (especially Tweet Chats), conversations in groups on LinkedIn, via comments sections on websites/blogs, I’ve met people via Periscope and Blab and recently discovered HipChat (how cool is that!? Thanks Melissa!).

However one thing I don’t generally do is accept LinkedIn invites from people I don’t know or haven’t had a conversation with previously. There have been a couple of exceptions – when the request has come with a short message about why the person wants to connect I’ve accepted and then had some great conversations, both online and in real life (or IRL for those of you that remember MS Messenger).

My main reason for this is that I like my LinkedIn feed being relevant to me. I get a huge amount of my own professional development from seeing what my connections and groups share and I believe the platform would lose relevance to me if it became a feed of 1001 different irrelevant posts.

When I receive an invite from someone I know I always accept, and if I don’t know them I will go through a couple of steps before declining:

  1. Have they written a message about why they want to connect? If they have and it makes sense to me I’ll accept and send them a message to start a conversation.
  2. If there is no message I check out their LinkedIn profile – have I met them somewhere/worked with them in a past life? It can be easy to dismiss people too quickly, especially if they’ve change their surname or it’s been a few years.
  3. I also do a quick Twitter search – have I interacted with them on that platform?
  4. If something about their profile intrigues me I will send them a message (thanks Helen Blunden for this great LinkedIn email responses article, I’ve adapted the suggested messages and used these myself) asking what they’re looking to achieve out of the connection.
  5. If none of these things are true I will decline the invite.

LinkedIn is a professional network, not a popularity contest. LinkedIn groups (which have gone through a great facelift recently) provide an opportunity for open networking – my personal connections do not need to be that open network.

How do you judge who you accept connection requests from? I don’t believe there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to use this platform – just the way that works best for you.

 

First published on LinkedIn

Leadership, Personal brand, PKM, Uncategorized

2016: Year of the Rocket

@ReneeRoberz

Well, I’ve been slack – at least when it comes to posting regularly here. But now it’s officially 2016 I guess it’s time to make a whole lot of resolutions I’ve got no intention of keeping and kick off on an unsustainable eating/excercise regime?
In all seriousness though, I am going to take the bull by the horns (or should that be red monkey?) when it comes to 2016. Oh yeah, 2015 was pretty great – in fact the reason I was so slack on the blogging front was because I started a new job (with the same awesome people). But 2016 is going to be even better!
Last year I was inundated with opportunity – so much so that I really had to take stock of what I value and want my life to be full with. I decided that a new job with the same organisation was where it was at, the #PeoplePeopleCU was a great way to connect with likeminded people in Melbourne, I was more active and sought out more professional development both in person and online and I also was lucky enough to meet some really great people along the way.
So how do I improve on 2015?
I’m going to take Dr Jason Fox’s advice and pick a word for the year, last year I picked ‘Build’ and didn’t really tell anyone about it. This year I’m going to go with ‘Rocket’.
Rocket (for me at least) = the year of launching some amazing things and seeing them fly. (Side note: if you don’t know of Dr Jason Fox and his writing/speaking you need to google him. Now.)
I’m really exciting about 2016 and what it holds. This year I’m off to the SHRM Conference in Washington D.C., there are some massive projects at work that are going to require a lot of time and energy and I’m looking forward to more People People Catch Ups and learning from some cool people.
Just before I sign out on my first (hopefully of many) blogs for the year I’d like to say a big thanks to all the amazing people that made my world better last year – there are just too many to mention but I’m so grateful for all of your sharing, caring and general excellence.

Personal brand, Thinking differently, Uncategorized

Ugh: Networking!

@ReneeRoberz

Ok – so this is how I thought about networking most of my career: “Yuk! Guess I better go… wonder how quickly I’m going to be able to escape out of the door!”

Seriously – I hated it. The forced nature of everything. Meeting people who pressed you for meetings (or worse, work) incessantly. Engaging in awkward getting-to-know-you games after a dull speaker. The fakeness of it all.

But then I discovered I didn’t actually have to hate it. I realised it wasn’t networking I hated – because networking is, at its essence, just meeting people and getting to know them – it was that the events that I was attending were all wrong for me.

Just over 2 years ago I moved to Melbourne Australia from New Zealand. For anyone that has emigrated there is definitely a shift, no matter your industry: job titles don’t exactly translate, organisations you’ve worked with aren’t well known, the ‘nature of work’ can be different. Despite NZ and Australia having many similarities, I was definitely on the back foot when entering the Melbourne job market.

I thought I should just suck it up and get networking, I (luckily) found a role, but all of a sudden my wide network of connections in NZ didn’t count for much. I didn’t have many contacts in Australia who I could drop an email, asking how they were dealing with this law change, or that industry issue. I attending some great events, but I attended many more terrible ones.

I discovered that I have preferences when it comes to industry events and networking just like everyone, the key for me was figuring out what I wanted and who could provide me with that.

Some of my learnings have been:

  • I don’t need one event to do it all
    I love having the opportunity to hear someone speak I would never get the opportunity to otherwise, Commissioners, Head Economists, Politicians. A good breakfast event (because, coincidently, I also love food) with a great speaker is tops! What I don’t like is for an event to shoe-horn in a speaker with games and awkward conversation.
  • I like having unstructured talking time.
    I’m actually ok at striking up a conversation here and there. Often the best contacts I’ve made through various forums has been engaging in a great conversation and continuing it over dinner or drinks after the event has finished. If I’m not tied to a table or group I’ll mingle until I find interesting people who I can learn from.
  • I don’t like feeling like I’m being lined up as a client.
    The big divider between events where I feel engaged and those where I don’t is the authenticity of the conversation. You know what – if your company stumped up a lump of cash to make this event happen then that’s awesome! Good on you for investing in relationships. But I don’t want to sit through an hour of your MD telling us about how great their product is if they’re doing an ‘introduction’ for the speaker that got me in the door who then only speaks for 15 minutes.
    Likewise if you’re a consultant that is fantastic, I get that you need clients to make your business work. But I’m not going to become a client by you pressing me into a meeting. I’d like to actually connect with you as a person, and in exchange I won’t pretend like I might have some work if really I know there is no chance.

Recently I was flirting with the idea of reconnecting with a great group of people who I coincidently met at one of the great networking groups I joined when I first moved to Melbourne. I had a chat about it with a friend and thought ; well if I like the super unstructured drinks & a loose theme kind of networking event then maybe others would too’?

As a result of this, and subsequent conversations, with the original group I’ve set up a ‘People People Catch Up’ – for people whose business is people – People & Culture, L&D, OD, Projects, Change and everything in between. If this sounds like you and you’re based in Melbourne (or just happen to be here on August 13th 2015) I’d love to see you there!

For more details head to book into the #PeoplePeopleCU here or contact me via @ReneeRoberz

 

Facilitator

To Ensure Your Facilitator Isn’t *@#^ Try Thinking About This

@ReneeRoberz

bad-speakerWe’ve all done it.

Attended a training session, a workshop or a conference and the person running the show is *@#^. You try to be nice and think that maybe they’re using a style that doesn’t sit well with you, or there’s some point to all this that you’re not yet seeing, but as time goes on you realise they they’re just a bit lame.

A facilitator who is too ‘ME ME ME!’, too reticent to take the reigns or is trying to be too quirky… these are all traits that have blown otherwise well-planned sessions out of the water, leaving the organisers (and participants) crying into their bamboo coffee cups at the conference. “Why didn’t we just go with Sarah, she’s so reliable” they moan, regretting the decision to employ the zany Jarred, who promised an exciting and engaging session – later realising that the dodgy Marvin the Martian tie should have given him away.

So how do you walk the line between engaging and nail-biting?

If you’re considering using a new facilitator – reference check them as you would any new hire. Make sure you ask probing questions of the referees; “In retrospect, was there anything about X’s style that may have made participants uncomfortable/unengaged?”. Think about what you’re employing them to do – a motivating talk to senior managers requires a very different person than a facilitated session for a specialist team discussing poor engagement survey responses. Talk to people who have used the facilitator for a purpose similar to yours.

My best piece of advice? When you’re at conferences and networking events take the cards of people who you find engaging, you never know when knowing a person with a particular passion for a topic of choice will come in handy.

 

 

Social Media & Learning

Rethinking Your Assumptions about Social Media & Learning

@ReneeRoberz

Does your organisation have a Social Media Policy? A Technology Policy? A BYOD (bring your own device) Policy? A Policy for Creating Policies Policy?

While (as someone who has worked in People & Culture for quite a while and is a bit of a Type A) I appreciate the value of a good policy which helps manage a business need, I think we have a tendency to sometimes get carried away with policies and use them in a reactive, rather than a productive manner.

An excellent example of this is having a Social Media Policy – so many organisations implement these in fear of social media and what employees may say about them online, they forget that anything that an employee says about them in a public forum (like in a town meeting, or on an open Facebook page) can be covered by the Code of Conduct. Why do we insist of having a separate rule book to outlaw/overly police social media?

More often than not it is because the decision makers are scared of what they don’t understand.

Unfortunately this has a negative impact on productive learning within organisations when one of the best tools is treated like it ran over the sheriff’s dog intentionally. Social media isn’t the enemy! It can be a wonderful way to (freely) encourage people to champion their own learning, to build networks, to find resources, to stay up to date in their field. Yes you have to manage its use; you don’t want everyone playing Farmville during work-time. But if you do it right, self-directed learning is such a great way to motivate your staff (and don’t think this is just a Millennial thing, everyone can get involved).

Just a few examples of where I’ve seen this work spectacularly;

– organisations running Facebook ‘Private Closed Groups’ as a way to give a positive ‘shout out’ to fellow staff members and engage in a professional forum – incidental learning and connections can be made within the organisation to promote self-development and informal coaching

– organisations encouraging employees to use professional networking tools such as LinkedIn (or the soon to be released Facebook equivalent) to generate leads, engage with stakeholders and join professional LinkedIn Groups to stay up to date on specific sector knowledge

– professionals using Twitter as both a networking tool and as a way to find out about the latest developments in their field.

Don’t be scared!

Encouraging your employees to network, widen their horizons and stay up to date with professional advances isn’t nearly as scary as losing them and their skills to a competitor who trusts them in managing their own learning. If you put a good framework in place, encourage sensible usage and get your organisation’s leaders on board with making the most of these tools then the returns you receive will far outweigh the effort  put in.