Category Archives: Brilliant Mind

HR Strategy For Dummies

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If there is one thing I hate in HR, it’s when I hear other HR Pros try and make HR seemingly overly complicated.  Look, we aren’t launching the Space Shuttle, we are only trying to get good people to come and stay at our organizations.  It’s not rocket science, it’s people science, and it’s probably less science and more common sense.  We could call your HR strategy, People Sense! That’s sounds like a bad HR tech company name.

The reality is our organizations actually have fairly low expectations when it comes to HR strategy.  It doesn’t seem that way because we tend to get stuck in doing so much busy work, that anything strategic throws us off our tactical game.  In truth our organizations really just want HR to deliver some very simple things, consistently, without fail.  Here they are:

1. Make sure everyone gets paid on time and correctly. This should be done 99.99% of the time with out fail.

2. Make it easy for us to get answers to simple questions.  I need to see a doctor about a bump. This should be one call, one click. Not a process.

3. Hiring manager needs a new person, a back-fill or an upgrade.  Give me a realistic timeline on how long this will take and what my role in the this process will be.  Don’t think you have to do it all, let’s just be clear what each of us is going to do, and deliver those items.

4. I have no idea how to lead my team, please help me be better now, and get better for the future.

5. We don’t care you don’t have a ‘system’ that can do this, or not do this.  That’s a ‘you’ problem, not a ‘me’ problem.  Figure it out, that’s your department.  I don’t tell you we don’t have the proper system to design parts, that’s not your problem.  It’s my job to make sure we get parts designed.  It’s your job to make sure of the all the people stuff.

6. I’m concerned about how to get work done right now, deadlines.  I need you to be concerned about how we’ll get work done in the future, and keep me in the loop on these issues.

7. Help me get my team better.

We tend to believe that our processes and systems will drive our strategy.  They won’t, there just processes and systems.  Side note: stop asking Enterprise Systems to change to your way of thinking.  You paid a lot of money for a great tool, which was designed under specific methodology and processes, that are way more scientific than you. Follow their work flows, you’ll be so much better off in the long run.  Your processes and systems aren’t that special.

HR strategy for small businesses to the largest corporations and organizations in the world aren’t really all that different.  There are a few things we need to deliver almost perfectly, then we need to help our organizations get better.  We add in so much complexity, that these simple truths get lost by so many HR Pros. It’s about delivering pay and benefits flawlessly, finding and retaining talent that works for us, developing and guiding leaders to run effective teams, helping our employees better versions of themselves, and ensuring we are prepared for what comes next.

Sounds simple, right!?

5 Ways HR Pros Can Get Back Up After Being Knocked Down

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Almost weekly I get a message from a HR or Talent Pro from around the world who has gotten their ass handed to them in some way or another.  Maybe they tried making a necessary change in their organization and got shot down by an executive.  They gave some wrong advice to an employee, and now legal is beating them up.  They didn’t move fast enough in making a decision, so the decision was made for them. They did everything they could do to get an candidate to accept and offer, just to have the candidate turn it down, then the hiring manager makes one call and they accept.

The stories are always different, yet, always the same.  They are feeling beaten up, broken down and just flat feeling like they’ve chosen the wrong profession.

I can always relate with their stories.  Every HR Pro has been through these types of issues.  Sometimes in HR it feels like these are ‘always’ the issues and the job will never get better.

I believe there are 5 things HR Pros can do to pull themselves back up and prepare for another day.

1. Shed The Shame: “shame is a toxic form of fear,” says Scott C. Hammond, a clinical professor of management at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. So, often in business we make a bad decision or something we are responsible for fails, and we feel shame and embarrassment.  For some reason HR Pros feel we need to be perfect.  We don’t.  We have to be good, good is not perfect.  We don’t expect any other employee to be perfect.  You shouldn’t expect that from yourself.

2. Don’t Lose Hope: Hope gives us this promise that there is something better ahead.  A better day, a better project, maybe just a better cup of coffee.  Whatever it is, you can’t lose hope that better is always a possibility.  I always look at business as one large experiment. A test.  I hope it will be successful, but like any test, it might fail.  The cool thing about running experiments and tests in HR is you give yourself this hope that the next one will be better, because you now know at least one way not to do it!

3. You Have So Many Choices: In HR there are so few things we actually control.  That is why it’s so important not to forget and understand the choices you actually have.  I spoke to a person just yesterday who felt like they had ‘no choices’. After about 15 minutes of conversation he had completely changed his perception because we came up with at least 10 choices! Choice #1, you can always go and work somewhere else. Always. Might be different position, different money, different location, but you can.  In my career I made the choice once to take a position making half of what I was making. HALF!  It worked out just fine. I found out I could live with less house, less car, and still be happy – much more happy. You have choices.

4. Ask For Help: Most proud HR Pros don’t want to ask for help because they don’t want to appear weak or incapable.  The fact is, most people actually like to help and it makes them feel valuable.  Leaders like to be asked for help. They don’t see it as weakness, they see it as their time to earn their money. Yes! Someone finally needs someone my expertise! We try and tell ourselves this isn’t the case, but it’s not.  I’m always amazed at the positive response I get from people when I ask for help.  It might be hard for you to believe in our cynical world, but most people actually like helping others!

5. Be Willing To Reset:  If you get knocked down, having the ability to ‘reset’ and start again is huge.  Many times we feel like all is lost, when it’s really just knocked off the tracks for a moment.  Take a breath.  Put what happened into proper perspective and get back on track.  Resetting is a powerful way to get yourself back to work and back to your positive self.  Alright, that didn’t go well.  Let’s see where we are, what we still have that is usable, and how we can make this thing fly moving forward.

adapted from Fast Companies “How Resilient People Stand Back Up When Life Knocks Them Down”

Naked and Afraid HR

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Have you guys seen the TV show Naked and Afraid?  It’s brilliant!  It’s basically a survivalist show where they take a man and woman and put them in some godforsaken place, with one tool each (knife, fire starter, etc.) and no clothes. That’s right, just like the day they were born, they only get to wear their birthday suit!  21 straight days naked with a person you have just met the first time, in horrible conditions you wouldn’t want to be in clothed, let alone naked.

Initially, you go, there is no way I’m sitting down in the mud and sticks and bugs and letting them crawl up my…well, you get the picture. You actually don’t get the picture, because they blur out the actual naked parts, accept butts, you see a lot of butts in Naked and Afraid.  I’m not completely sure why or who decided butts were fine to look at on normal cable TV but no pencils or vajayjays, but I guess we have to have limits.

Naked and Afraid is a HR dream TV show!

HR and organizations constantly put people together and force them to interact.  Naked and Afraid is almost the same thing, accept we make our people wear clothes per your dress code policy.  What you find in Naked and Afraid is usually very sexiest to begin with.  The guys want to take on this role of protecting the female (and they over act like seeing this woman naked is having no impact on them, I’m sure their blooper real is awesome!).  The females they get are usually bad-ass outdoorsy types, so they can usually take care of themselves.  After about ten days of hardly any food and water, usually one of the parties breaks down mentally.

This is the point my wife likes to point out, that it’s usually the man who loses it mentally.  For what ever reason, under nourished the men tend to break down faster than the females. While the guys do a lot of the heavy lifting of building shelters, rafts, etc.  It’s usually the women who can get them right in the head, and get them to finish line before tapping out and giving up.  Like I said, HR folks will love this show!

What this shows does is strip away everything between male and female and put them a completely level playing field.  They aren’t in competition, in fact, those that do best usually show the best team work, and really dig into each strengths to make it through the 21 days.  Just one man and one woman with only their skills to get them to survive.  I wonder how much better our own organizations would be if we could strip away all the B.S. we deal with and let people stand on their own merits!?

Naked and afraid shows you that each person, male and female, has their own strengths needed to survive. While one might possess enough of all these strengths to do it on their own, usually they don’t.  Our organizations have gender issues.  These issues are rooted in hundred’s of years of male domination, and the ingrained belief strong leaders are primarily male. This show demonstrates this is truly false when all things are equal.

Having a bias is the new black.  Like saying you know you have biases somehow exalts you of this weakness.  It doesn’t. In HR we allow our leadership to have a gender bias, and we help perpetuate it by not forcing change.  Naked and Afraid points this bias out in a not so subtle way and you get to see butts!

The Search For The Smartest Employee

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

I couldn’t sleep the other night, probably because of the 14 Diet Dews I had throughout the day, but I had an Epiphany while staring at the ceiling in the dark.   I figured out a way for HR Pros to find the Smartest Employee in their Company!  It isn’t a complex algorithm or a set of cognitive assessment tests – it’s a simple matrix – but it’s very effective.  Now, you might be asking yourself:

 “Why do I need to find the smartest employee in our company?”

Which would be legitimate – unfortunately at 2 a.m. I didn’t ask myself that same question – I just thought I came up with some crazy Einstein type shit!  But, like most things I deal with, I can come up with a plausible argument to why it’s important to find the smartest people in your company.  My reasons:

1. Smart people have the potential to do smart things.  In an organization you want to make the right decisions – usually dumb people don’t.

2. Smart people usually know other smart people. In an organization you want to get rid of your dumb people, and hire more smart people.

3. Smart people know the fakers.  Organizations make people selection mistakes, it happens all the time, don’t be embarrassed, just don’t let one decision turn into another by keeping a mistake.  Smart people know your bad hiring mistakes, because they can read through the B.S.

Now for the Matrix!  Like I said it’s simple – which is also why it’s genious, because anyone can do it.  It goes a little something like this (hit it!) –

First Step: down one side of your matrix list your employees by level of responsibility. Most responsible at the top, down to the least responsible at the bottom.  Some of these you’ll just have to do the eyeball test on, and slot people as you see fit – don’t get to worked up over this – just get the most responsible up top, the least down low – the ones in the middle don’t matter anyway.

Second Step: Across the top of the matrix list total compensation of each person to the corresponding column.  For the most part you should end up with a sheet that shows the most responsible person in your organization, making the most money, and slowing but surely working your way down to the least responsible, least amount of money.

Third Step: The Smart Employee Search.  Here’s where the rubber hits the road!  Now, look at your matrix and find the highest paid employee, with the corresponding least amount of experience.  Boom! You just found your smartest employee.

I told you it was easy!  This person has figured out how to, relatively, make the most money by having virtually no responsibility.  Say what you want – but that is one smart person!  You need to pull that person in and find out how to get them more engaged into your daily operations.  Don’t take this as a joke – dumb people don’t figure this out – you just don’t fall into a highly paid, low or no responsibility job – you have to work to get there.  Don’t underestimate this person’s capabilities – because guess what – everyone else has!  That’s why your working your butt off until 6pm, and they’re out the door at 3pm going to their golf league – for about $4000 less than you make. They’re going home with no stress, while you’re on your 4th therapist – this year.   They love coming to work – you have a hard time pulling yourself out of bed.

I love these employees – I try to hang with them, learn from them – I feel like I’m an anthropologist learning about a forgotten species – they intrigue me so.  A word of caution though – don’t try and capture and change these employees – don’t try and be “smarter” than they are – and change their job or their scope or their pay.  Remember, they’re smarter than you – you’ll just frustrate yourself as they find another position – doing even less for more!

5 Steps To HR Success

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

I was reminded last night that success doesn’t just come to you, and it might not necessarily be about hard work and attitude – like your Dad would always say.  To often we (the collective lot of us!) want to believe success is like the lotto – at least to often we hope to get success that way – one day you don’t have success, then the next day success somehow miraculously finds you!

Sorry. Doesn’t usually work that way.

But one thing we over look is how important success is to finding success.  Here’s what I mean:

Directions for Being Successful –

Step 1: Find a little success

Step 2: Find another little success

Step 3: Find another little success

Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 each day

Step 5: You are successful

I know, directions are hard to follow for some people, so let me give you an example.  You feel like a failure at everything – job is going well (or you don’t have one), relationships suck, you’re a little soft around the middle (i.e., fat) – basically you feel like a failure, nothing is going in the right direction.  Guess what? When you wake up tomorrow you won’t magically be successful – no matter how hard you wish it, pray it, want it.  You have to find some sort of success, no matter how small.  Maybe that success is eating one less Twinkie than you did the day before – yesterday I ate 8 Twinkies – today I only ate 7!  Don’t let someone tell you that’s not a success, because tomorrow I’m only going to eat 6 and before you know it I’m going to kick this Twinkie habit!

I works with everything.  Not recruiting enough candidates for your organization, can’t get anyone to pick up the phone and talk to you – today make one more call than you did yesterday – only 1 – that is a success, because tomorrow you’re going to do that again, 1 more than the day before – small success steps until you’re just one big giant bag full of success!

People who are successful and throw it in your face suck!  They suck because they act like they’ve always been successful, but they haven’t.  It came to them a little at a time, until they could no longer feel what failure felt like.  You see success is like a drug – you need a little to want another hit, it’s addictive.  That’s why you need to feed your mind a little everyday – we can all find those little successes each day – the key is to find them every single day – don’t miss.

Sackett’s 2015 SHRM Presentation Proposal

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Okay, gang, I want to crowd source my title for my 2015 SHRM National Presentation Proposal.  I’m going to give you a list of titles and ideas, and you let me know what you think you would like to see.  Or, even better yet, let me know what you’re not seeing at SHRM, and let’s make that happen!

Here are my ideas:

#1 – 7 Ways Diet Failures and HR Failures are the Same: How we can ensure success for both – First let me say, I don’t have some magic diet plan to ensure you’re going to lose weight!  If I had that, I wouldn’t be speaking at SHRM, but I think I could have fun with this topic. Let’s face it, most of us struggle with dieting and keeping in shape. Those failures, speak to failures in other parts of our life!

#2 – My Mom Fired Me: It Made Me a Better HR Pro – She did fire me, it did make me a better HR pro. This is my story, with more tips and tricks on what you can do to make yourself a better HR pro without having to have your Mom fire you.

#3 – Shake Your Money Maker: 6 Ways HR Can Make it Rain on the Bottom Line – First, I’m guessing this title would never make it at SHRM, but it sure is fun!  Plus, I know I can deliver a hell of lot more than six ways for HR to give money back to the organizations.

#4 – Why CEOs Believe Weird Things – Every SHRM conference has a ‘what your senior executives want presentation’ (this is the one I gave this year). It’s fun, it’s widely attended.  I like doing it.  But, I would have to freshen it up and come at it from another direction.

#5 – I Got 99 Problems, But Hiring Managers Ain’t One of Them – How to get your hiring managers to absolutely love you and your team.  That’s enough, right?!

#6 – A Black Guy, A dude in a Wheelchair and a woman walk into a Bar: Inclusions Biggest Lies – Another title I’ll have to change, but let’s have a real conversation about why Inclusion isn’t the right answer for your organization to be most effective.

#7 – Teaching Fish To Climb – Why most development we espouse in HR is worthless, and what we should be doing instead.  Teaching HR folks to think and act like business professionals.

#8 – It’s time for “The Talk” with your Hiring Managers – 8 Real Life Conversations Every HR Pro Needs to Master – More workshop than presentation, watch me bring up 8 real life HR pros on stage and we teach you how to have the conversations you’ve been struggling to have in your organization.

#9 – If I Ran HR: Tim Sackett’s Guide To Having HR Run The World – If I could develop an HR organization from the ground up, what would it look like, who would I have on my team, what changes would I make immediately.  Some of these things you can probably do in your shop when you get back from the conference!

Okay peeps – hit me in the comments!

Hi! I’m a Society of Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional…

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I have some HR friends who are telling me that SHRM’s recent decision to develop their own certification is a non-issue to real trench HR pros around the world.

What do you think?  Is it a non-issue?

I think it is, but we won’t see the real effects of the change for a year or more down the road.  I recertified with HRCI this past year, so basically I’ve got three years before this becomes a real issue for me.  At that point, I have a decision to make.  Here’s my three decisions:

1. Recert with HRCI.  It’s easy, I know it, I get to keep my SPHR letters that I’ve become so comfortable with and that most people in the industry view as something that means I know at least something about HR.

2. Certify with SHRM’s new certification.  Get comfortable with a new set of letters – SHRM-SCP which seems overly long, but I think people in industry will recognize the SHRM letters and say, yeah he probably also knows something about HR.

3. Just skip it all together.  I’ve reached that 20 years of experience career mark.  Do I really need some letters to tell people I know my stuff?  Probably not.  Look, any job I’m going to have moving forward in my HR career, probably could care less if I have letters behind my name.

You might say, “wait, Tim! there are other choices!” Like, I could certify with both HRCI and SHRM! No, I don’t consider that a choice.  Why would I do that.  Let’s face it, neither organization really has put the best foot forward in this whole mess, and I don’t need a business card that says:

“Tim Sackett, SPHR, SHRM-SCP”

That’s just ridiculous, no one wants to see that, or have to explain that!

I’m wondering if SHRM believes we should just go with “Tim Sackett, SCP”, at which point someone will ask “What’s SCP?” and I’ll go “It’s Senior Certified Professional”, to which they’ll go, “of what?”, to which I’ll go, “of Human Resources”, to which they’ll go, “what is the S and the M stand for than?”  You see where this is going…

All this being said, I do have to agree with my HR friends.  In the large scheme of things this will be a non-issue.  SHRM has launched their new certification program.  Most people will go down that path.  A few will hold out and keep their HRCI certification.  I don’t know if it will be enough to save that company, I’m doubting it.

Like I said above, this is a non-issue for me for the next three years.  My reality is I’ll keep developing myself like I have for the last 20 years.  I’ll go to SHRM events. I’ll go to user events. I’ll attend webinars on topics that interest me.  Regardless of the letters, I believe in development.  That’s why in the long run this becomes a non-issue to trench HR folks.  You either believe in making yourself better, or you don’t really care much about that.  That’s what really separates professionals, not letters.

The Top 8 Things Employees Don’t Want For A Recognition Award!

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I run a small business.  When I need to know something, I usually reach out to my employees and find out what they think.  It’s not some big fancy ‘research’ survey with thousands of responses, but it’s real.  Recently, I wanted to know what people might want in terms of a recognition award.  Ironically, what I found goes against some big fancy research done by recognition companies who are in the business of selling the crap on the list below – crazy how that works in the research game! Any who, what I found wasn’t surprising to me.

Here’s the list of the Top 8 things my employees don’t want when it comes to Recognition Awards:

1. Anniversary Pins! If you give me one of these I will stick it back in your eye! “Hey, Tim, Thanks for 10 years! Buddy, here’s a pin!” A What!?!? I’ve given you ten great years and you’re giving me a pin. Is this 1955?

2. A Plaque. Or any other kind of trophy thing. If I wanted a trophy to show me that I’m sales person of the year, you hired the wrong person. JayZ said it best “we can talk, but money talks, so talk more bucks”.

3. Corporate logo wear. Giving out corporate logo wear as a form of recognition screams you have executives that haven’t actually spoken to an employee in the last twenty years!

4. A watch. Wait, if it’s a Rolex, I’ll take a watch. If it’s a Timex you better ‘watch’ out, I’m throwing it at someone! Nothing says we don’t really care about you like a $50 watch with it engraved on the back ‘You Matter! 2014!’

5. Luggage. The ‘experts’ would like you to believe that your employees would really ‘appreciate’ luggage because it’s an item they don’t normally like to spend their money on. The reason why people don’t like to spend their money on luggage is because it gets destroyed after one trip through O’Hare! That’s just what you want to see coming around the luggage carousel – “Hey, look honey, it’s your employee of the year award all ripped up and stained”. Sign and symbols.

6. Fruit Baskets. First, most people don’t want to be healthy or we wouldn’t have the obesity problem we have in our society. Second, people like chocolate, candy, salty snacks and diet soda. If you want to send food, send food they’ll actually eat!

7. A Parking Spot with Their Name On It. This goes bad two ways: 1. I drive a $100K Mercedes and you don’t, now you know I drive a better car than you and it’s awkward; 2. I drive a beater and I’m embarrassed to let everyone know I make so little I can even afford a Chevy Colbalt.

8. A Hug! Wait! I totally want a hug! Just not a creepy hug. You know what a creepy hug feels like when you’re about 13 seconds into it and the other person won’t let go! But nothing says “we recognize you” in the totally wrong way, like inappropriate hugs at work!

What do employees want? Well, that’s an entire other post, but my 20 years of HR ‘research’/experience shows people want for their peers and leaders to appreciate their efforts. Nothing says ‘we truly care about you’ like having one of your peers tell you in some sort of way. When teams can do that, they become special! It might be a quick hand written note, a face to face meeting in the hall, etc. It really doesn’t matter the avenue of how it comes, it just matters that you have the culture that it does come and it’s encouraged to keep coming.

Come Have Breakfast with Me at SHRM!

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Okay, it’s not really breakfast, but it sure is breakfast time!

I’m speaking at SHRM National at 7am on Monday June 23rd in Orlando.  The title of my session is “What Your CEO Wishes HR Would Do!“.  It’s a fun session, will kick off your day at SHRM with a lot of energy and some laughs.  Plus, I’ll also give you 6 things you can start doing the next day to increase your influence in your organization, and get your CEO to fall in love with you – not marriage love, work love!

I promised SHRM I wouldn’t swear, so I’m going to try and make this a PG 13 version of what I would normally do.  They gave me a Mega-Session, which means I’ll have a big giant room, and a 7am time slot, which means I’ll have 50 people show up.  It’s a nice way to keep my Ego in check.  “Hey, you’re really popular, we’re going to give you a big giant room, but just to screw with you, we put you on during a time when normal people will be sleeping!”

Please, please, if you come out at that way too early time to see someone give a business presentation, stop by afterwards and introduce yourself.  To me, that is the real reason I love speaking at events, I get to meet other great HR Pros from around the country!  I’ll even give out hugs, even if you don’t want one! Because I’ll be all hyped up on Mt. Dew!

I promise I’ll be on my 3rd Diet Dew by the time 7am rolls around on Monday, which means I’ll be talking fast, probably saying things I shouldn’t and having fun!

See you all in Orlando!  At 7 freaking AM!  Ugh, it hurts me to even think about it!

Sackett’s 2014 Guide To Whom To See At SHRM!

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The big annual SHRM National Conference happens in a week or so in Orlando.  I’ll be there.  SHRM is letting me speak again this year, which is cool, I’m as subversive as SHRM gets which makes it fun for me.  I always get a lot of SHRM dignitaries that show up to make sure I don’t say anything inappropriate, which makes me get very creative with my words, and if you read my blog you know that list of words is roughly around 350.

To combat the possibility I might slip up they put me at times they hope no one will show up.  This year I’m on at 7am on Monday!  Yeah, 7 freaking am!   Good thing for me I’m a morning person and I drink giant amounts of Diet Mt. Dew – I will have one on stage with me! If you bring me one, I’ll line them up and try to knock them all down in my hour and fifteen minutes!

Bobbi Wilson from Huntsville, AL SHRM (she’s good people, connect with her!) asked me who I would like to see speak at SHRM, besides myself, and I thought it would make a good post, so here’s my Top 10 don’t miss presentations at SHRM!  First we have to lay down some rules of why and who I will choose:

A. I’ll always choose entertaining speakers over non-entertaining speakers.  It’s an HR conference, we’ll have our share of boring ones!

B. I like practitioners, but don’t get too caught up in that.  Most of the best speakers used to be practitioners who found out they’re pretty damn good speakers, so they went the consultant route and doing very well.  Many practitioners are knowledgeable but can’t speak a lick!

C. Titles mean a lot.  If you can’t come up with a creative title, my guess is you can’t come up with a creative presentation.

So, here’s who I will see if I have time in between networking with all the great HR Pros who come to SHRM (I usually get more out of the networking than the presentations!):

1. Tim Sackett, SPHR – Monday 7am – “What Your CEO Wishes HR Would Do!”  – I hear he gives out hugs after his presentation! Plus, he’ll be all jacked up on Mt. Dew!

2. Jonah Berger – Tuesday 2:15pm – “Crafting Contagious Ideas“ – this might be the only session I will actually attend. This dude is brilliant and a great speaker. He’s my #2 behind Malcolm Gladwell.  You should not miss this.  #Fanboy

3. Jennifer McClure – Wednesday 10am – (friend alert! At some point Jen and I will share a Sprinkles Cupcake during SHRM – you’re not invited!) – “The Business Case for Building Effective Business Leaders“ This is actually the worst title in the history of SHRM that doesn’t include “FMLA” or “EEOC”, but Jen is a pro’s, pro who understands how to get a session accepted at SHRM.  The title has to be vanilla!  Don’t hold that against her.  She’s really good and has a cult following of HR ladies who love her!

4. Gregg Tate, GPHR – Tuesday 10:45am – “Adidas: How They Created Their nWow (New Way of Working) Company Culture” – I’ve seen the Adidas guys speak before and they’re usually good with a good story.  Insider tip – see how they pronounce “Adidas” – many insiders from Germany do it differently than we say in the states – you can’t get it out of your head!

5.  Mike Reardon – Monday 10:45am – “Sustaining the Disney Culture Through Selection, Training, and Engagement”

6. Brad Karsh – Monday 2:00pm – “Once Upon a Time…Four steps to Using Storytelling to Deliver Unforgettable Presentations” – This is the most underutilized skill in HR, period. You’ll be a better HR Pro if you have this skill. Not just for presentations but increasing your influence throughout your organization.

7. Chester Elton – Monday 4:00pm – “All In: How Great Leaders Develop a Culture of Belief and Deliver Big Results” – Chester is a good speaker. Doesn’t matter what he’s presenting, he’s probably better than most at that time slot. He’s polished and will deliver a good show.

8.  Cy Wakeman – Tuesday 7am – (Cy has the session of death – no one wants to get up after partying Monday night for a 7am session!) “Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace: New HR Foundation to Boost Employee Value and Drive Results” – Cy knows her stuff!  I like going to presentations where I’m going to hear from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, and she does!

9.  Michelle Smith – Tuesday 4pm – “Next Practices Leadership: Driving Growth & Innovation in a People-Led Economy” Michelle is from O.C. Tanner and they’ve got some great research on engagement, what works, what doesn’t – well worth the time to see her speak to get that data!

10. Vendor Show – Every day, all day – Pick out three kinds of technology you might bring into your HR shop in the next 3 years (digital interviewing, automated reference checking, assessments, recruiting tools, metrics, etc.) and good spend some real time demoing those products.  It will be some of the most valuable time you spend at SHRM!  Part of our job in HR is to know what we’ll be using in the future, this is where you’ll find that stuff!  Scout out the small booths in the back aisles.  There will be companies there that you haven’t heard about, that in three years everyone will be using – that’s really, really cool!

Connect with me.  One of my favorite things to do at SHRM National is to meet HR pros around the world who read my blog.  I get in Sunday, leave Wednesday.  Tweet me, email me, call my cell, stalk my session – but let’s connect in a real way (okay I mean hugging!).