Okay, I’m officially one of the biggest HR nerds on the planet because I love talking shop to everyone! (Shout out to Lindsey from GoGo squeeZ who I trapped on my flight here and talked shop for two hours!) I’ve spent the last twelve hours talking shop to the point I’ve almost lost my voice before I need to speak tomorrow!

I spent time today at the SHRM Annual Conference in sessions, on the expo floor, at the SHRM store, in the hallways, etc. Basically, at SHRM Annual, you’re always about an arms reach away from someone in HR, if not closer, so, yeah, I’ve talked to some folks. What is on the minds of HR pros and leaders at SHRM 2022? Two things:

1. We need to hire more people.

2. We need to retain our people.

Number three is so far down the list, I’m not sure anyone even cares!

The cool thing about this, is I love these two concepts. The second cool thing about this is this is core HR at its finest. The business needs us to find talent and keep our talent. HR engaged!

This is what we do! We got the people’s side of our business. You need some more folks, okay. You need to keep the folks we have longer, okay. This is what we got into HR for! To increase the talent in our organizations. By bringing on great talent. Through developing the talent we have. By engaging the talent we have to keep them longer.

Our organizations are in crisis mode and it’s not sales-related or operations related or finance-related. It is simply HR related, and I’m here for it!

Of course, we still need to do all we do around learning, benefits, DEI, payroll, etc. We do what we do, and that doesn’t stop. But right now, our organizations are telling us they specifically have a problem that they need us to solve. That’s very cool!

Johnny Taylor, the CEO of SHRM, spoke about HR causing the effect. This is our time. And he’s right. At no other time in the history of the HR function have our organizations needed us more than today.

I always get energized being around HR pros who are trying to get better. Who are learning. Those who want to bring stuff back to their organizations that they can start doing immediately to have an impact. This is what the SHRM Annual conference is about for me. Like-minded pros, learning from each other, to raise our organizations and our profession.

Now, the hard work begins – finding more talent and keeping more talent! Let’s do this!